My crossing with Tony Abbott rankled, but the Libs need his special talents

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Seeing two people approaching a pedestrian crossing, I slowed my car. They were still about five metres from the kerb but I stopped anyway. As they crossed in front of me, I waited for an acknowledgement – just a nod or a raised hand – but nope, nothing. They were men of late middle age. One was absorbed in talking, the other in listening.

It’s a bugbear of mine when pedestrians do this, and I was in a bad mood and almost opened my window to offer some righteous words about manners. Then I noticed that the talker was Tony Abbott, and I realised how futile it would be to shout, because here was a man used to being shouted at by random members of the public. If he heard me at all, he would think I was only abusing him for his politics, not his lack of common courtesy.

That micro-episode has been in my mind this week, as the Farrer by-election looms, almost certainly to shrink the residual Liberal Party in Canberra by another number. The favoured candidates, One Nation’s David Farley and the independent Michelle Milthorpe, will share from the same dominant Australian well of exasperated anger with the major parties, leaving the incumbent Liberals hoping forlornly for some luck in the lottery of preferences, a last refuge for parties who have lost the ability to project coherence or clarity. Labor won’t even be there, watching from a distance, eating popcorn as the tories eat each other.

“Authenticity” is gold in today’s politics. Being in permanent opposition, as Pauline Hanson has found during 30 years of repeating the same handful of blunt words, is fuel for authenticity. Even for voters who don’t like where she stands, she holds an appeal........

© WA Today