It kind of reminded me of those ’50s ads for refrigerators and toasters.
Proud shiny white teeth, bright red lipstick smile and the housewife who had everything at her fingertips to make her feel better about being a slave.
How plastic was the new wonder material and anything with plastic components had to be good.
Now of course, plastic bags and small toddlers are a bad combination. Plastic bags vs dolphins — bags win.
What am I talking about?
Well, mainly to make the point that just because something has won, it doesn’t mean that it is therefore, by definition, good.
After all, Adolf Hitler won elections too.
OK, perhaps that was an unfair comparison, but I didn’t make it. You joined the dots together in your head, not I.
But there was a definite feel to that, down there in the tally room that Saturday night in March. The winner had a moment of glory, of course, why wouldn’t his supporters be happy, why can’t they celebrate? Of course.
A rosy moment of plastic delight, a thin barely covering the dirt (unit) veneer of gloss and polish over a filthy carcass. Magnanimous in victory and why not? Who indeed would start off foul and spiteful, post triumph?
For me that moment had the bitter taste of ash, the putrid smell of decay.
Not, I hasten to add, due to any foolish or naiive expectations of my own. Not even due to any belief of my friends’ success that had been sadly and unexpectedly lacking.
Used car salesman
But because I know, having seen beyond the thin veneer of spit and polish, that fresh cling-wrap.
Any used-car salesman you care to ask will soon tell you that if you shine an old bomb up enough some sucker is bound to come along eventually and take it off your hands for five times more than its worth.
And what shine we had!
Building a better Tasmania! Tasmanians for a better future! Concerned Tasmanians! Other people who were getting it right for all Tasmanians!
… Well I guess there has to be a first time for everything.
Please forgive my inherent sarcasm. I inherited it from my father, but despite years of therapy it just won’t go away.
You know, I actually had a chap come up to me at Glenorchy market the other week and accuse me, as if it were all my fault, of turning farms into plantations. He didn’t believe my protestations that I was not in fact the government, or the company responsible. The Greens are in opposition, not government. Nor did he give me much chance to explain myself before charging off in a state, complaining that he’d never heard anything from the Greens in support of retaining farms and halting further plantation expansion.
It’s all about the message
Which gets me, finally, to my point (I know I’ve been rambling on, but I have this habit that I just can’t break).
It’s all about the message.
It doesn’t matter what you say, how you say it or even what you mean.
As long as you deliver it enough times the message hits home.
Apparently, according to Messrs Aird, Scott & Barns, there is some mysterious uncovered crime within the Greens about their supposedly huge amounts of donations received over the last three years. They totally ignored the fact that these were receipts, not profits. They include all expenses that the party has to pay for. Administration staff, printing costs, hosting events, conferences, you name it.
This amount reveals the truth behind the Greens’ weakness.
It’s all about the message.
You could have the best message in the world. You could have the eleventh commandment: — it probably starts something like this; “— oops, hang on …”
It just doesn’t matter if you haven’t got the money to spread the word
You could have the press release for the second coming; you could be announcing the real breakthrough in cold fusion.
It just doesn’t matter if you haven’t got the money to spread the word.
(And before I go any further, my apologies to those who took offence at my religious remark. If you don’t have a sense of humour, go bother someone else.)
Advertising works. Money talks. People don’t buy things because they need them; they buy them because advertising and our culture convince them that they need to buy them. Kids don’t want candy for no reason. If they didn’t see the ads or walk down the supermarket aisles they wouldn’t even know they could get candy until someone slyly let slip, in which case the shady nature of the discovery would make them think twice.
Don’t try to tell me that every voter is informed, can think for themselves and knows what is going on. Don’t even try to tell me that I’m arrogantly presuming they’re stupid.
I’m not.
It’s all about the message.
If you can’t get the message out there, you won’t get there. That’s why Labor with all of its incompetence, its totally bizarre priorities of spending such as the Meander Dam, Elwick Racecourse and the utterly disastrous but still largely unrevealed Basslink fiasco, was able to get away with losing just 2.3% of its primary vote on Saturday.
Their message? Don’t trust anyone else. We promise to be good.
It was a bizarre election.
Now you can see just how thin that veneer of dolphin killing plastic is can’t you?
It was a bizarre election. Because, after all, Rene was campaigning on the principle of; “Don’t trust us, because we can’t form a majority government, so you probably ought to vote Labor.” He did most of Labor’s work for them. Mighty fine of him.
Then, we have who? Michael Kent. And some others.
Whose front company according to the newspaper may have broken its own code of conduct! Just whose better future were they really campaigning for I wonder?
Voters didn’t seem to notice that all 52 ‘L’ candidates had signed a pledge to support a mill even though the process wasn’t completed. Surely the presumption and the obvious destruction of any real difference between those two parties would have caused a backlash?
Surely the possibility that the mill may well release dioxins and furans to all and sundry would have caused a backlash?
Voters are informed if you inform them.
Voters are able to think for themselves, but if they try to add 2 to X and don’t know what value X has then they won’t necessarily come up with 4.
But it doesn’t matter, remember? It’s all about the message!
Oh yes, I almost forgot.
There was a group that is concerned. About what? A set of tax policies relating to Commonwealth laws, that are not going to be nor can they be changed by a State government.
End of the world is nigh
A set of drugs policies that conveniently left out some crucial words of context. Check the website www.greens.org.au if you like, but most people will have missed the point — if you tried www.tas.greens.org.au you could catch up with the state policies.
And yet the members of the Exclusive Brethren today claim they were not being deceptive? When you take something out of context are you not being misleading?
If it is deliberate then is that not being deceptive?
Especially when you are members of a religious sect that reportedly imposes extremely harsh discipline upon its members and does not let them vote, access technologies such as TV, mobile phones and the internet!
I must also add that they apparently believe that the end of the world is nigh, they will all be claimed by God, disappear from the face of the Earth and leave it to the devil and his minions. Well, far be it for me to deny them their beliefs. You’ll excuse me if I leave off comment on that one.
What’s the truth of the matter? I suspect they’re just homophobic. It certainly looks as if they have a high level of intolerance.
Where do we go from there?
As far as I’m concerned, those who preach intolerance, preach hate. Those who preach hate, preach violence. Those who preach violence are not being true to Jesus Christ’s vision, as I am led to understand it.
Am I wrong?
OR that of the Prophet, or Bhudda, or any almost other religious figure you could care to name, I imagine.
Am I wrong? Please let me know. I’m happy to consider an alternative view on its merits.
But don’t try to tell me the Exclusive Brethren would do the same for me.
Don’t try to tell me the Tasmanians for a Better Future are interested in anything other than their own future.
Don’t try to tell me that the Premier didn’t upgrade Elwick because he loves his horseracing, or brought in Betfair because he loves his horseracing (maybe he did it because he was having trouble picking the winners … ?).
Don’t try to tell me that the Liberals are interested in getting it right for all Tasmanians when they wanted to abolish land tax that would have benefited only those who own more than one property. A move that could never have guaranteed lower rental prices. I’ve never heard of a landlord that lowered the rent in my life.
That’s as bad as military intelligence for goodness sakes.
And if you want to tell me I’m a sore loser, well actually the Greens didn’t lose as much as Labor.
No, I’m sore because I can see now how stacked the deck is, and how unfair the system plays out. But don’t make the mistake of thinking I won’t keep fighting against it.
Yours sincerely,
Toby Rowallan
(Recent Green candidate)
