The end of another year of the Gillard government has meant time for reflection on what this country has become and the terrible damage a year of savagery and personal attacks has caused to the national psyche, and how an all-out campaign to divide the community and turn people against each other has almost destroyed this once-proud country and trashed the values we hold so dear.
The year began with Labor unleashing the Abbott Abbott Abbott monster. Anything that went wrong, any bad news that happened to the governmentwas blamed on Tony Abbott and his so-called "negativity". It was extraordinary. It was almost as if the Gillard government was trying to give the impression it was the opposition and Tony Abbott was the prime minister.
These tactics were totally alien to Australia. It was a highly personal, playing the man, not the ball type of politics foreign to this country. And yes, it was foreign - introduced to the political scene by the Scottish spin doctor John MacTernan who was brought in by Gillard to try and turn her fortunes around. It was relentless. Day after day a new low in political discourse was reached. Gillard's ministers jumped onto a caravan of thuggery. Bovver boy politics personified. Mindless attacks on Tony Abbott, highly personal and damaging. Abbott's family has been deeply traumatised by this campaign and Abbott has warned them it will only get worse.
Yet despite all this, members of Gillard's cabinet are trying to deny responsibility and blame Tony Abbott for the personal attacks and the fact that public opinion of politicians has never been lower. The main person trying this on is Treasurer Wayne Swan just a few weeks after calling Abbott a thug.
When all this began, the public were horrified. The LNP won the Qld election with an all-time record majority in April and this should have been the cue to drop the attacks on Abbott. But they intensified and it became much worse. The public were browbeaten by these attacks day after day. It began affecting Abbott's popularity and the left wing Press Gallery jumped onto it with glee recommending the Libs dump Abbott and go back to the failed left wing experiment with Malcolm Turnbull as leader.
Normally US elections don't have much of an effect on Australia, but the recent November election was effectively a dry run for our own election later this year. Labor figures ingratiated themselves with the Democratic Party. They embedded themselves into the party in the leadup to the November election and used the highly personal and divisive tactics MacTernan had brought to this country in the US. Thus, Republican candidates who opposed abortion were "sexist" or "anti-woman". Other Republicans were smeared as racists and their party labelled "a refuge for old white men". "Anti-Hispanic", "WASPISH", Republicans were even called nazis or Hitler-philes.
The Republicans were completely blindsided. In the past, issues such as abortion had worked in their favour as evangelicals and other Christians would vote in vast numbers for anti-abortion candidates. But the Labor imports ruthlessly targeted black and Hispanic women who swamped the polling booths and re-elected Obama. Emboldened by their success in the US, those Labor officials have since returned to Australia and are preparing to unleash the same onslaught here.
The opinion polls have recently become varied after showing the Libs in front by up to 20 points in late 2011. Two Newspolls have shown Labor and Liberal neck and neck and one poll - the Morgan Gallup Poll - has even said that the Gillard government is five points in front and would easily win the election this year. So we can't be complacent, it is no longer a lay-down misiere.
An election won't be held until after July 1st. If it is held earlier than that it will disengage the Senate and House and a separate Senate election will have to be held during the term of the next government, making it a by-election. In the Senate election of 1967 there was a swing against the Liberal government of Harold Holt and two DLP members were elected. Something similar happened in the 1970 Senate election held during John Gorton's government. In 1973, 1974 and 1977, referendums were held to mandate Senate and House elections being both held on the same day. All three referendums were defeated. Since then, Prime Ministers have been careful to select election dates which keep the nexus in place so there will not be separate Senate elections.
A new year brings new hope and this year there is a sense of optimism that the dysfunctional agony of the hung parliament and the plague years of Labor will finally be put behind us. There is a light at the end of the tunnel. Hopefully the electorate will not muff it this time and we can start the long, hard task of getting the country back on its feet and bringing back the good, old traditional Australia we loved so much in days gone by.
