I’m not sure I’m a good enough writer to convey the full sense of disgust and outrage and sheer dumbfoundedness that Abbott’s granting of a knighthood to Prince Phillip evoked here.
Bear in mind that probably about 50% of Australians are Republican and didn’t want to see the system of knighthoods revived at all. Then in my experience amongst Australia’s monarchists, the Queen herself is revered, her children (and particularly Charles) are tolerated, her grandsons are popular and her great-grandsons cooed over. Prince Philip however is seen as a bigoted, snobbish, out of touch buffoon who is nothing better than a leech on society. And that’s even amongst most Australian monarchists. I think you would struggle to find any substantial number of Australians who actually have any good opinion of Prince Phillip with the possible exception of conservative British-to–the-bootstraps septuagenarians; and of course Tony Abbott.
With that by way of background you can see that Tony Abbott’s decision to knight Prince Philip was never going to be popular to say the least. In fact, I would go so far as to say that doing so would have been felt by many people to go beyond being merely a poor decision and almost reach the level of being a contemptuous slap in the face for the average Australian’s sensibilities. Not to mention the extent to which Abbott’s decision showed how thoroughly out of touch he is or was compared to his constituents.
To go further, there is a view, perhaps justified, that Abbott is a royal toadying bootlicking suck who would do anything to ingratiate himself to the English royalty. Perhaps with a view to achieving what he would see as the highest possible honour, namely being knighted by our Pommy “betters” himself.
Not only that but after Abbot came out with his sudden decision and realised he had fucked up big time, he had his minions attempt to justify the decision by reference to Prince Phillip’s charitable service. Just think about that for a moment: what his decision said was that there was no one in Australia (you know, that country that Abbott is the Prime Minister of?) more worthy of an honour than some pampered twat from the other side of the world who’s charitable efforts probably mostly consist of lending his name to the work of others and cutting some ribbons.
I don’t know if I’ve got the full flavour of it but hopefully you begin to get the idea.
Step 1: (re)Introduce anachronistic honour system, effectively demote every holder of Australia’s highest honour to second place, declare it will only be awarded to “Australians of extraordinary and pre-eminent achievement and merit”.
Step 2: Make the Queen of the United Kingdom’s spouse one of the first four people awarded the honour.
One Nation’s still in existence. And intending to field candidates for 2016, according to the wikipedia page. But wiki also labels them “centre-right” so perhaps they’re a little too moderate for the good senator?
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Senator Bernardi could form his own right-wing party modelled on the British anti-immigration party UKIP, defect to Family First or even sit as an independent.
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Oh, if wishes were fishes.
Malcolm, if Bernardi wants to go let him go. Just let him go quietly, feign remorse at the departure and lock the door just as soon as he’s out. Whatever votes he takes off you you’ll get 2 from the Labor heartland.
Not that he’d take many. He’s from Adelaide for gawdsake. They love their quirky independents there. This was the ancestoral home of “The Democrats” long after the rest of the country tired of their tanties. Senator Nick Nick Xenophon has the earnest, loveable village liberal vote all locked up, he draws 25% of the vote operating out of a shoebox. The Libs machine only polled 27% of the Senate vote in the state. Run as a Family First candidate? They got 3.8%.
It’d be like letting Bob Katter run amuck in the Rundle Mall without an Akubra.
I’m not buying it. That Sinodinos quote sounds much like the Tony government when they talked about not letting environmental policies damage the economy.
I suspect Turnbull has decided he’s not going to make the same mistake twice by upsetting the skeptics in the coalition. He made a ridiculous about-face on his opinion of Direct Action from “bullshit,” and “fiscal recklessness” to a “resounding success” starting right about the time he got a sniff of chance of toppling Abbott.
