Images from Last Week Tonight, 730, and RN Breakfast
By Situation Theatre 21/4/2020
It’s time… to forget all the terrible things Malcolm Turnbull did as Prime Minister.
Last night on 730, Australia sat through this interaction between the country’s most prominent interviewer and its third most bitter former Prime Minister:
LEIGH SALES: When you spoke in Parliament after the death of Gough Whitlam, you asked, "What is the thread that emerges from history out of the humdrum of the daily grind of politics" and of Whitlam you said, "That what people remember is a bigness, generosity, an enormous optimism and ambition for Australia".
What thread do you hope emerges from the history of Malcolm Turnbull?
MALCOLM TURNBULL: Well, you know, I was, there's always a bit of transference when you give speeches like that.
And really, for me, it is optimism, a vision of a better Australia, a fairer Australia, an Australia that can achieve even more than it has done to date.
An Australia where Australians can realise their dreams, and it's that, you know, whether it was the innovation agenda, you know, or Snowy Hydro, or the reforms we made to tax or the cities agenda, all of the reforms and so many others were enlarging ones, were designed to enlarge and broaden our opportunities.
And there can be no fairer comparison than between Turnbull and Whitlam, rather than say, Turnbull and Abbott.
I mean sure, he continued all the cruellest aspects of Abbott’s immigration policy, backed the Border Force Act legislating up to two years’ jail for speaking out about human rights abuses on Nauru and Manus, deported the traumatised Abyan, an act condemned as “grotesque”, “inhumane” and showing a “complete disregard for… the rule of law”, advocated discriminating against Muslim refugees in Syria in preference for Christians, and supported the return 267 of refugees, including 37 babies, to concentration camps on Nauru and Manus.
And sure, he continued Abbott’s foreign policy, finishing off his predecessor’s white paper which effectively started an arms race with China.
And sure, he introduced mandatory data retention, supported ASIO laws which include up to 10 years jail for ever reporting on special intelligence operations, advocated for the Australian Building and Construction Commission, a severe restriction on basic democratic rights, and appointed arch-conservative Andrew Nikolic as chair of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security.
And sure, he backed Abbott’s $160 million plebiscite, pandered to the extreme right and their calls for a review into the Safe Schools LGBTQI program, and failed to condemn the homophobia of Senators Bernardi and Christensen.
And sure, he pulled out of the last two years of Gonski school funding and undermined the TAFE system.
And sure, he announced $650 million in cuts to Medicare over four years.
And sure, he stalled momentum on the Republic by saying “The best time to do that will be after the end of the Queen’s reign”.
And sure, he endorsed Abbott’s paltry emissions targets and woeful direct action policy, aped some of Abbott’s worst comments about coal, argued global emissions would increase if Australia stopped exporting coal, slashed funding to the CSIRO, continued his party’s attacks on the renewable energy industry and refused a pledge to phase out fossil fuel subsidies, ripped $1 billion from the foreign aid budget for a climate fund to help clean up the mess created by the industry he propped up with billions in subsidies each year, described Labor’s proposal of a 50 per cent renewable energy target by 2050 as “reckless”, approved creation of one of world’s largest coal ports, near the Great Barrier Reef, appointed Australia’s first wind farm commissioner, and ruled out a shift to emissions trading.
And sure, he supported cuts to the ABC and SBS, spearheaded the Q&A witch-hunt surrounding Zaky Mallah, pressured the ABC over its coverage of the Coalition’s NBN broadband policy, intervened to get Scott McIntyre sacked following some Anzac Day tweets, and campaigned for increased concentration of ownership in the hands of the biggest media companies.
And sure, he ruined Australia’s most important 21st century infrastructure project, the NBN.
And sure, he dismissed an Indigenous voice to Parliament as outlined in the Uluru Statement as a “third chamber”.
And sure, he did nothing about the 38 per cent of large Australian and foreign companies which paid no tax in 2013-2014, but did lead us through a protracted debate about increasing the GST and reducing company taxes yet again, increased attacks on the poor by proposing fines for unemployed and underemployed Australians, supported a wave of free trade deals, including the devastating Trans-Pacific Partnership, and in response to Labor’s attempts to reform negative gearing, launched an Abbott-style scare campaign, even deploying Abbott’s exact phrase that Labor’s reforms would send a “wrecking ball” through the economy.
But boy, did he talk in sentences which at least sounded smart.
2015-2018 really was 1972-1975 all over again.