Desperation, thy name is...

April 23, 2025

An excellent article. Hits the nail on the head. Too timid and too worried about shadows rather than being bold. The events of the last few days, with Peter Dutton now practically mounting a scare that China is going to blockade us with its military, are getting so extreme it put me in mind of a bolder Labor leader heading into the 1983 election.

When Malcolm Fraser stated, “If Labor wins this election, your money will be safer under the bed”, Hawke, to great laughter, responded: “Under the bed? But there’s no room, isn’t that where all the communists are hiding? I mean, the man is getting desperate isn’t he?”

Somehow, I can’t imagine Albo being that sharp. Nice, decent man and I have supported him against all the bullying calls of “weakness”, but he is not bold.

Dutton, on the other hand, is getting so desperate, to paraphrase Paul Keating (if he was prime minister now, this election would have been over weeks ago BTW), “Next he’ll be offering you a free set of steak knives.”