It’s difficult to know if politics is getting weirder or just sillier. Or is it a terrible combination of the two?
Bronwyn Bishop’s travel allowance claims have dominated the media over the last few days. Which must have been incredibly frustrating for the government, who just spent millions on the Royal Commission into Past and Present Labor Leaders and would be hoping for much better traction on Bill Shorten’s appearance before the commission last week.
Alas, it seems that even when he’s (sort of) caught doing something a bit whiffy, Shorten just can’t hold the nation’s attention.
The issues raised by Bishop’s dodgy expenses claims, however, are about more than just MPs rorting their travel entitlements. There’s also the wider implication for the government in how it’s perceived by voters. I mean, if Joe Hockey is wrinkling his nose and worrying about how out of touch something makes the government look, you really know they have a problem.
Then you take a second look, and have a bit of a think about the disarray a government must be in when the Federal Treasurer and the wildly partisan Speaker of the House are taking swipes at each other through the media. Then, before you know it, you’re wrinkling your own nose and feeling a bit funny in the tummy.
In many ways of course, this is a mess of Tony Abbott’s own making. His relentless pursuit of Peter Slipper and the blatantly political nature of Slipper’s prosecution makes Abbott’s staunch defence of Bishop now look both hypocritical and a bit silly. Not that this is a particularly new look for the PM, but it should be a label he would want to shake, not reinforce.
Even more than the jokes and memes and thinkpieces though, is the point that Katherine Murphy at The Guardian made – this and other recent activities by the government prove, more than anything else, that we will not get efficiency or integrity in government un someone acts to take personal and party financial gain out of politics.
In the meantime, the scandal broth keeps bubbling, the government’s agenda is once again swept aside by an own goal and the rest of us grow more and more disgusted by the entire process.