“Born to Rule”

13/03/2019

As if the number of leadership changes in the last decade hasn’t been enough, Barnaby Joyce has made some not so subtle threats that he sees himself as the elected Deputy Prime Minister of Australia. Not only is that technically incorrect, it highlights that the Nationals can also do this cool division stuff like the LNP, and reeks of entitlement. As if one could harbor any more resentment towards that buffoon.

Joyce stepped down from his position of leader of the National Party, and therefore his role as Deputy PM, after he was caught out in his affair with one of his staff. This is a man whose party prides itself on ‘family’ and ‘religious’ values, both of which its members seem to have no trouble defying unless it has anything to do with same sex marriage. After running a brutal campaign trying to dictate what was and was not acceptable within another’s home, he pleaded pathetically for privacy as he was hounded by the media. Even more pathetic was, after those pleas, he ran with the story on TV and with a book, essentially a huge money-making publicity stunt.

Now, he’s come back swinging. He has ruled out calling a leadership spill (although Dutton also said this, and now we have Morrison), but his comments elicited a lot of public backlash. This is due, in part, to his backing of a coal fired power station that the Liberals do not want to put forward, and which most of the Nationals have conceded to putting aside as well. The infighting caused the Nationals NSW State leader, John Barilaro, to step up and lambast his Federal counterparts for being focused on their own personal ambitions. In response, I’d turn his words around and say “shut up” you hypocrite, you have a State election to lose.

While not intending on initiating a spill, Joyce has stated (with outcry from his party) that he would certainly jump for the position should it become vacant. He referred to himself as Australia’s ‘elected Deputy PM’, a phrase with no real meaning. He was elected by those in his electorate to represent them, and it is the Party that chooses its leader, so he was not elected to any particular role at all. Same as when people talk about ‘electing a Prime Minister’; no, you don’t, unless you belong to their electorate you do not vote for them, you vote for your representative and the Party they belong to.

But while all of this makes for fun banter, watching the Nationals now scramble to assert themselves before the election, it truly is galling just how entitled the bastards think they are. No one is born to rule – that style of hereditary monarchic government is thankfully a relic of the past. But some do not appear to have received the memo. These days, the idea is one needs to earn the respect of their constituents, a respect earned by proving themselves worthy through their deeds, not how many scandals you can slip through without losing your job. It genuinely baffles me how so many people can look to the Coalition parties and consider them a viable government.

The same goes for some Labor types too; some of them can strut around just as much and feel entitled to their position. When such personal ambitions are ahead of the public good, our democracy is corrupted. Our politicians are beholden to us, the people. It would do them well to remember that or suffer for it in the election.

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