Today’s guest poster is Bernice, who is crabby one day, furious the next, and has been a Friend of HaT for many years. Crossposted from Bernice Balconey’s Baloney

Or how to defer to the new numbers men.

Not only is Swan’s curtsy most affectingly achieved, but Katter’s demure tilt of his head as well as his clasping of his attache case is beautifully choreographed. What could this possibly mean about who will form government?

Sarcasm aside, the concerns and criticisms about the performance of both the mainstream media and the major political parties during this campaign (though I think we’re being much too nice not applying that retrospectively) are being played out in glorious techicolour as all players scramble to gain maximum advantage.

I’m particularly intrigued by the growing hysteria echoing out of Murdoch’s media outlets. Dealing with independents who aren’t pavlovian in their response to the media’s narratives must come as something of a shock.

So far we’ve seen yesterday:

• their erstwhile presentation of ‘real’ public opinion in each electorate as Poll says Independents should back Tony Abbott
• a rambling incoherent piece that seems to be about how only the Liberals have any connect with Real Australia
• Three men hold nation to ransom
• An attempt (I think) to induce worry about the stability of any minority government
• A shoring up of resolve in WA for an anti-Labor stance by Tony Crook
• We have a recipe for do-nothing foreign policy
• Someone’s been reading On our Selection then? A little more Lawson and a little less Picture Post might be more useful.
• The Tony as Strong leader under Attack trope
• Open your books or else…
• Vaile warns Oakeshoot not to go with Labor
• Guess who’s giving Tony Abbott legal advice?
• Forget three amigos, let’s go back to polls
• The delightful witty mocking of Katter and some sheila…
• Rudd dudded regional areas
• A lovely little attempt to discredit the Greens Senate success in NSW and it uses the word Communist in the headline! Beautiful work
• GG even more unfit to pick the next government
• a little piece on where all those killer insulation batts are now

Oh I could go on, I know they will, but it’s what is missing that is interesting. Nothing directly alludes to Abbott’s dummy spit re the request for costings, other than it proving he is a Strong Leader. Nothing at all about Wilkie, which if I were him would make me a little nervous. I suspect they’re doing some serious digging and Wilkie has provided quite enough copy in the past to keep the News Dislimited hacks in diatribes for months to come. Nor is there much mention of Adam Brandt, not even a suggestion that he is really the lovechild of a dolphin called Keith.

But the current thrust seems to be to call into question the legitimacy of the Independents either as the servants of their electorate or via ridicule at their country cousins antics. Perhaps all major parties and the mainstream media should remember the soliloquy of Dad from the 1932 film of On Our Selection. Shame the family name is Rudd though.

Categories: media, parties and factions

Tags: australia, elections, hung parliament