Bondi has been so badly handled by both sides that neither got a boost |
When asked what he feared most politically, Conservative British prime minister (1957-63) Harold Macmillan is reputed to have said, "Events, dear boy, events."
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Well, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has a lot to fear over the political ramifications of Bondi.
Another Conservative British prime minister, Winston Churchill, is reputed to have said, "Never let a good crisis go to waste."
One Nation leader Pauline Hanson and fellow traveller Barnaby Joyce certainly did not let the crisis go to waste.
Perhaps uniquely in the history of post-war two-party politics in the English-speaking world, a shattering event or crisis the size of Bondi has been so badly handled by both sides that neither got a boost.
Usually, a floundering head of government rises to the occasion and leads on the victory at the polls: Margaret Thatcher and the Falklands; and George W. Bush and 9/11. Or they make a mess of it and the opposition thunders home: Spanish train bombing 2004.
Here, Opposition Leader Sussan Ley has performed only marginally less worse than Albanese (pardon the grammar).
Perhaps the capitacide (removal of the leader) that has dominated Australian politics in the past 20 years has resulted in no one left with the leadership skills to read events and voters' reaction to them.
It has certainly left a culture in both major parties that the leader must constantly be looking over their shoulder at threats from their own tribe rather than looking at how the nation, as a whole, will judge their actions.
Albanese clearly has had to placate a significant pro-Palestine element within his caucus as well as members with large Muslim minorities in their electorates. It prevented him from not letting the crisis go to waste. He could have immediately used the moment to deal with hate speech more generally - against racial attributes and sexual orientation.
The same forces probably made him suggest that citing religious texts should be........