Sorry Brett …

FINALLY. Finally a Liberal Party MP has clearly identified the pre-requisites for being a Liberal Party “battler”. We’ve heard the phrase again and again from the Federal and Tasmanian Liberals in recent months and years – “the battlers are doing it tough, this one’s for the battlers, the battlers need XYZ to get by”, etc etc.

So, who are these battlers?

According to Tasmanian Liberal Shadow Treasurer Brett Whiteley [7ZR, 11/5/05], they are people who “own shacks and one or two investment properties.” That’s right, a battler is someone who can afford a minimum of
two large investments outside their family home and/or car.And when interviewer Tim Cox pulled him up over his definition, Whiteley chose to misrepresent his own comments.

Brett Whiteley: Paul Lennon … needs to give back to Tasmanians, which includes business and ordinary battlers who own shacks and one or two investment properties, he needs to give a huge cut in land tax. He’s increased land tax take by 77 per cent over the last 2 years …

Tim Cox: Sorry, did you just say ‘battlers who might have a shack and a couple of investment properties’?

BW: No, I said a battler who might have a shack, who’s inherited a shack through the family, its been in a shack [sic], we’ve got them up here on the North West Coast for example, I know they’re in other parts of the state, where people have inherited shacks, they go there for Christmas and recreation, they are battlers, they’re people that have been, you know, blue collar workers in this town where I live in Burnie for many, many years and now they’re getting land tax bills of two and a half to three thousand dollars, they are battlers …

Coxie: Not battlers, not battlers though with one or two investment properties.

BW: Well no, now, then I moved on and said there are also people that have been prudent in buying an investment property for their children who travel to Hobart to University, they’ve now been whacked with land tax, I mean, you’d hardly call these people rich …

Sorry Brett, but you DID say “ordinary battlers who own shack and one or two investment properties.” It seems the Rene disease is catching; attempts to rewrite history 3 minutes later have become a Tasmanian Liberal Party habit of late.

Oh to be a Liberal Party “battler”.

Yours,
Jason Lovell

PS I guess someone slightly less fortunate than these “battlers” was responsible for attacking the Lib’s Party HQ sign with a crowbar following this week’s budget. Said sign is currently bent, buckled and hanging by a thread, somewhat like Rene Hidding’s credibility. Now that’s what I call “well-received”.