Monday, February 7, 2011

South Australian Labor: same old same old

Memo to Premier Mike Rann and the Labor Party of South Australia:

1) If you want things to change, you have to change things.

2) Slightly more than half the voters of South Australia are women. Only slightly, but in the two-party preferred system, 'slightly' might as well be the whole enchilada.

In today's news that the SA Treasurer and Deputy Premier Kevin Foley has resigned after a series of unfortunate incidents, here in alphabetical order are the names of those affected by these changes: those who have been promoted, or reshuffled, or are struggling to hang on to their current portfolios and positions.

Bernie
Jack
Jay
John
Kevin
Michael
Mike
Paul
Tom

This situation didn't happen overnight. Much of it is the behind-the-scenes doing of a second Tom, whose attitude to women is well known. And while the recruiting of one token high-profile woman (as part of a wider strategy of nobbling charismatic Adelaide outliers so they'll be inside the tent) and then keeping her in cotton wool may not have worked out so well, that's no reason not to have another go.

I could understand it if, in the wake of the scandal last year over the Premier's long-ago fling with a pneumatic blonde waitress whose husband subsequently, at a public dinner, beat him about the head and shoulders with a rolled-up wine magazine (and oh my, that's a pure Adelaide detail I'll never get sick of), Rann had decided to simply cut his losses with women voters, knowing that's ground he will never make up. But hey, if ever there were an occasion for whipping up a bumper sticker saying I HAVE A VAGINA, AND I VOTE, now would be the time. Except that I'm sure it's been done.

Lots of luck in 2014, dudes.

6 comments:

tc said...

More people called Michael than there are women. Well, not falling off my chair in shock.

I hate to get drawn into the 'ALP driven by factions' trope which tries to pretend that the Libs aren't, but srsly, until enough people say enough is enough to all the right wing bovver boys I just don't see how it's going to change.

wv is, no joke, gonstale...even blogger gets it, dudes!

furious balancing said...

fed up. yes.


My wv is adefosse.

Mindy said...

Deborah is having the same but different problem too at Bee of a Certain Age.

wv is promoting violence 'gasheam'

KJ401 said...

Unfortunately I suspect the 'I have a vagina, and I vote' bumper sticker would see a rash of responses most unsavoury but in keeping with the general lack of women about the place.

But at the moment, I'm enjoying the media transition from pompous pronouncements on Gillard's disaster speech to oh look, Tony Abbott, oh oh shaking with rage. Best.Uncomfortable.Silence.Ever.

Kerryn Goldsworthy said...

Ooh, I am so off to check that out. Haven't caught up today yet. So, what are they saying about Julia now? That she's a crap actor and cold and unloving and crying crocodile tears, all at the same time? Do not get me started.

Can't wait to check out this Abbott development though!

Pip said...

Nothing to disagree with here other than the casual acceptance of the AdelaideNow version of the Chantelois "affair".
If the dots were connected in a slightly different configuration, the result might go something like this, from various sentences not previously connected.
The Philips/Chantelois household had financial problems with their business.
They had marital problems.
Who's to say that Ms Chantelois, in a fragile mental condition, didn't mistake sympathy from the Premier as a grand love, and an escape from her troubled life.
Mike Rann has never been accused of any wrong doing in relation to women in a decades long career. Yet Channel 7, remember the Mark Riley interview [all tears and sympathy with a large dose of sexy salacious descriptions from Ms C.,] and the MSM nation-wide, thanks to the echo chamber that is journalism in Australia, spent hundreds of hours and pages on the saga. 99.9% of which was weighted in favour of Ms Chantelois. The other .01% was Mike Rann denying her claims.
Just saying.