The Malinauskas pile on has been ridiculous | Caleb Bond
The Labor leader’s “sportswashing” and “rape humour” controversies reek of feigned outrage, writes Caleb Bond.
Opinion
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Longtime readers of this column would be aware that I am not the greatest defender of Labor in the land.
But, if nothing else, I believe in fairness. And the pile on towards Premier Peter Malinauskas this week has been ridiculous.
First, he was under attack for attracting a major international sporting event to South Australia.
Opposition sports spokesman Vincent Tarzia wasn’t happy that Mr Malinauskas had struck a four-year deal to host a leg of the breakaway LIV Golf competition, headed by Greg Norman.
He said the Premier had “his priorities all wrong” for daring to sign the event, given there were issues with ramping and myriad other things.
Mr Tarzia continued the feigned outrage online, tweeting that while “thousands across the state still without power (the ALP) says let them eat cake and calls presser with famous golfer”.
“Priorities?!,” he wrote.
Please. SA can’t have one of the biggest golfing tournaments in the world because there was a storm?
Surely we can walk and chew gum at the same time? I get that the job of the opposition is to, well, oppose.– But advocating for SA to not have big events, and trying to turn it into some sort of gotcha moment, is a little pathetic.
Having said that, the SA Liberals don’t seem all that keen on big sporting events, given they canned the Adelaide 500 (now revived by the Malinauskas government).
As for the arguments about it being Saudi-backed, perhaps start with the fact the DFAT website lists Saudi Arabia as an “important trading partner in the Middle East region” with which we have a “friendly relationship” and a “well-established co-operation” in counter terrorism.
Australia has done trade with Saudi Arabia for years with little outrage.
Then the opposition maintained the outrage the next day – with the help of the Greens – because Mr Malinauskas used the crude phrase “sloppy seconds” in a press conference.
The Libs put out a press release calling it a “sexist controversy” and Tammy Franks from the Greens suggested it was “rape humour” – a serious case of clutching at straws.
Crude and maybe inappropriate? Yes. Worthy of an all-guns-blazing attack as though they discovered that Mr Malinauskas eats small children for breakfast? No.
The fact that four days went past without anyone batting an eyelid, before the opposition and the Greens decided to bring it up, should indicate how innocuous it was.
The Premier pleaded ignorance and apologised. End of.
Politicians are human like the rest of us. They make mistakes. They say silly things.
The idea that they must be superhuman and never misstep in their lives is not only unrealistic – it’s also half the reason we end up with such boring, mediocre pollies. Everyone but squares are too afraid to step into the lion’s cage.
The Liberals took a fair battering in March. If they want to stop another four-term Labor reign, they need to act like an alternative government – not playground narks.
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