In 2018, Scott Morrison described his squabbling band of tired, gaffe-prone grifters as a "Muppet Show". On taking the Prime Ministership, he assured breakfast television that "the curtain's come down on that Muppet Show - and an absolute new curtain has lifted up!"
The unintentional implication that the nation was about to witness the launch of Scotty's All-New Muppet Show was reinforced by his next miscalculated response:
Presenter:
"How do you unite a bunch of Muppets?"
Morrison:
"Well, I'm doing exactly that in terms of my colleagues."
In the two
and a half years since, the volume of corruption and ineptitude has become so
great as to make the compilation of a complete list near impossible.
But just to
refresh, here's some of the show's notable lowlights:
Robodebt
theft, deaths & $1.2 billion settlement, $100 million Sports Rorts plus
Gaetjen's whitewash, slashing funding to the scandal-exposing National Audit
Office, Angus Taylor's document forgery, the IR Omnibus Bill setting up Worse
Off Overall workplace deals, Murray-Darling maladministration, water theft
& mass fish-kills, Barnaby Joyce's Drought Envoy text-message “report”,
Christian Porter's proposed corruption-concealing “anti-corruption” body, $220
million Regional Job Investment rorts, “There Was No Slavery In Australia”,
$150 million Female Facilities & Water Safety Stream pork-barrelling,
Mathias Cormann's $4300 per-hour jet-propelled OECD sabotage, $500 million War
Memorial expansion including all-new weapons-company promotions, the CovidSafe
App fail, “The Best Protection Against The Virus Is To Live With The Virus And
Open Up Your Economy”, dumping COAG so the new National Cabinet can operate
under Fed Cab secrecy rules, excluding universities from Covid assistance &
maliciously hiking arts degree fees, the fossil-stacked Covid Commission's
climate-trashing gaslit recovery, Morrison's protocol-breaching appearance as a
speaker at a Trump rally, the Trump-pleasing China trade-war losing barley,
beef, cotton, & wine exports, NBN fibre backflip, the Indue “cashless
welfare” card's padded-private-profit shonkery & social toll, $783 million
of Cuts-Ain't-Cuts at the ABC, Joyce & Taylor's $80 million water buyback
racket, Taylor's Caymen company, Taylor's “Grassgate” illegal land-clearing
& attack on the EPBC, fake AEC-style election signage, the $30 million
“bargain” for airport land worth $3 million, Peter Dutton's visas for mate's au
pairs, the $432 million no-tender Manus contract for the Paladin beach-shack
company, George “Member For Manila” Christensen, Matt "Black Coal
Matters" Canavan, the party-connected Helloworld company donations &
gifts for gov contracts, Gladys Liu's dodgy fundraising, Dutton's African gang
fantasy, Craig Kelly's conspiracy-fest & climate denial, loosened
political-donation rules, tax-cuts directing 58% of benefit to the rich &
totalling $189 billion by 2031, ongoing asylum-seeker abuse breaching
international law, Morrison's declared intent to ignore “stupid” legislation
ensuring medical care for detainees, refusal of a Senate order to release
detention camp costings, raids on journalists plus secret trials of
whistle-blowers, JobActive network fraud, Morrison's attempt to have his mentor
Hillsong-founder Brian Houston invited to the White House despite a Royal
Commission having found Houston covered-up his father's child sex-abuse,
Morrison's QAnon friend Tim Stewart's wife scoring an $85 000 job as companion
to Jenny Morrison, the Media Bargaining Code designed to funnel max dollars to
Murdoch & the Costello Nine company, Minister Fletcher's $10 million
no-strings gift to Foxtel, prohibition of public servants liking social-media
posts that disagree with gov policy, refusal to allow any environment reporters
into the budget lock-up, 233 parliamentary divisions to gag speakers since July
2019, attempting privatisation of the ASIC database to make corporate
structures & corruption harder to trace, Liberal Party Mormon &
Catholic right-faction branch-stacking, paying TV handyman Scott Cam $347 000
to be “Trades Ambassador” delivering just 4 social-media posts & 3 videos,
the bushfire fail including Hawaiian holiday, forced handshakes & “I Don't
Hold A Hose” policy response, $190 000 “empathy consultant”, the aged care
privatisation oversight disaster leading to neglect, abuse and Covid deaths,
ongoing anti-union attacks on superannuation, independent bodies stacked with
party mates leaving the AAT missing 92% of FOI deadlines, billions blown on
dubious military contracts for submarines and aircraft, dumping the disliked
findings of the Banking Royal Commission & pushing for unsafe lending,
demonization of the unemployed paired with endorsement of JobKeeper rorts by
big business, abolition of the family court... and parliamentary rape cover-up.
So it came
to pass, as promised, that unity of purpose - among truly dedicated dirtbags -
provided parliamentary muppeting on a scale previously undreamt of.
Scotty From
Muppeting, take a long, low bow.
