Federal election 2019: Tim Blair rates Greens candidates on their sanctimony and virtue
COMMENT: Which lower house Greens candidate is the most sanctimonious, bubble-headed and virtue-motivated and, therefore, the most entertaining if accidentally elected? TIM BLAIR dissects their biographies and give a rating out of 10.
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Sadly, infantile Labor and Liberal antics and the intrusion of Alex Turnbull’s “They Done Ma Pappy Wrong” GetUp! Vengeance Party have distracted the electorate from more pressing issues.
And the most pressing of those issues is this. Which one of all the Greens’ lower house candidates is the most sanctimonious, bubble-headed and virtue-motivated, and therefore most likely to provide the best entertainment if accidentally elected?
Following is a list of the finest Greens running for office in 2019.
All information on these candidates is taken from their official campaign biographies.
To ensure accuracy, each candidate has been rated according to the internationally recognised Socialist Moralism Under Greens index, or SMUG.
JIM CASEY, GRAYNDLER (NSW)
Most of Jim’s friends and family are in Sydney’s inner west, where this firefighter, union activist and environmentalist wishes to celebrate his progressive and caring community by kicking out Labor’s Anthony Albanese. The first mention of climate change comes a middling 132 words into his biography, but Jim restores some SMUG points by talking rubbish about refugees.
Quote: “We are a generous society, but our government still illegally detains asylum seekers in concentration camps.”
Score: 5.2
JULIAN BURNSIDE, KOOYONG (VIC)
Nobody can accuse lawyer, human rights activist and $20 million property baron Burnside of low self-regard, with the first-time candidate running not just for his area but for “our planet”.
Quote: “In my career, the cases I am proudest of are those where I have worked to protect people or remedy the injustice they’ve faced by attacks from big corporate interests or from cruel and craven government actions.”
Burnside also represented tragic corporate and government victim Alan Bond. For so many reasons, including the fantastic vanity he displayed by including “AO” and “QC” on his election billboard, Burnside is the only Green to obtain 100 per cent SMUG approval.
Score: 10.0
EMERALD MOON, BOWMAN (QLD)
If growing up around Byron Bay with a name like Emerald Moon wasn’t enough to send this kid Green, her time in the Australian Youth Climate Coalition sealed the deal. Impressively, Emerald doesn’t mention ever being employed at all, although she is passionate about gender equality. Injustices to our First Peoples make her sad.
Quote: “I was raised with recycled everything, composting toilets and koalas in the backyard.”
Her fascinating koala-composting hobby obviously boosts Emerald’s overall SMUG rating.
Score: 7.6
CAROLINE PERKS, PERTH (WA)
Quote: “Once I left school, I studied musical theatre.”
Naturally, that eventually led to a climate change gig with the federal government, where Caroline encountered terrible sexism.
“As a female expert in the field of climate change policy, I have experienced first-hand gender inequality in the workplace,” Caroline claims. “I have had to fight against the systemic misogyny in the workplace, pushing back on not being taken seriously and being referred to as ‘sweetheart’.”
Yet for some reason she wants to return to Canberra, our scandalous sweetheart-referring capital.
Score: 6.3
JAMES CRUZ, KINGSFORD SMITH (NSW)
He’s a 28-year-old librarian who wants “radical action on climate change by closing coal plants”. And there’s something else James would like you to know.
Quote: “An avowed socialist, I believe the state should respect grassroots community decisions.”
That’s not how socialism works, sunshine. You’d think after nine years in the rabid industrial hotbed that is the Sydney library system he might have read a book or two about it.
Score: 4.1
ANNE BOURNE, MAYO (SA)
Psychologist Anne boasts of her “capacity for complex systemic thinking”, but her entire biography barely even mentions climate change. Perhaps, to her credit, she doesn’t think much about it.
Quote: “My values and commitment closely reflect the core values of The Greens.”
Except for climate stuff. Anne’s lack of effort sends her SMUG total to the floor.
Score: 1.8
CONNOR PARISSIS, BARTON (NSW)
Young Connor is frustrated by “years of inability to reach humane decisions about virtually anything and everything”, which covers a fair range of political territory.
Quote: “I am a twenty-one-year-old left-wing activist, student and writer who believes in a better world.”
He also believes Australia runs “refugee concentration camps” and that “it is our differences that make us beautiful”.
This does not apply, however, if those differences involve voting for the “empty liberal populism of the ALP” or the “conservative, backward LNP”.
Score: 5.9
EMILY GREEN, DUNKLEY (VIC)
Cafe worker Emily is Green by name, Greens by nature and extremely green in terms of life experience.
Quote: “This year, I finished my VCE Year 12 studies at Frankston Chisholm. This achievement was very important to me.”
She is now qualified to demand that power generation be nationalised.
Score: 5.4
MATTHEW THOMPSON, SYDNEY (NSW)
According to proud queer activist and TAFE graduate Matthew, “entire communities have been forced out” of Sydney.
He doesn’t elaborate, so we are left to guess who these communities might be and where they’ve ended up.
Haven’t seen too many Eskimos hanging around George St lately. Just a theory.
Quote: “It was always clear to me that politics was never meant for people like my family.”
Yet here Matthew is, asking for your vote so he can “eradicate poverty”.
His self-pity and utopian notions generate a correspondingly high SMUG count.
Score: 8.2
ANNE JACKSON, HINKLER (QLD)
From her vantage point as a “casual roadside attendant” up Bundaberg way, Anne seems unusually prone to directly observing local and international fatalities.
Quote: “What drives me is witnessing climate disasters, first hand and all around the world, which kill people.”
First hand? Seriously? This would drive me to stay well clear of Anne, who appears to be some kind of global mass-casualty magnet.
Then again, she could be just what we need in Canberra, so her SMUG total is elevated accordingly.
Score: 8.5
KRYSTEN GLANVILLE, WARRINGAH (NSW)
Besides being an environment and planning lawyer, Krysten has an interesting legal sideline.
Quote: “I have also acted pro bono for people experiencing homelessness and asylum seekers.”
I once experienced asylum seekers. It didn’t end well for any of us, to be honest. Where was Krysten when I needed her?
I’m marking her SMUG assessment down out of sheer spite.
Score: 2.0
ANDREW BRADDOCK, FENNER (ACT)
Andrew isn’t the gloating type, but he cannot resist rubbing our faces in what he believes is his spectacular good fortune.
Quote: “You could say that I live the Canberra dream. I’m a public servant.”
One could also say that “dream” is not the term most Australians would call to mind in this circumstance.
Still, at least Andrew is determined to give something back to the community that has given him so much flexitime.
Score: 6.2
LABOR HITS THE DUTTON
Peter Dutton will be the centrepiece of Labor’s negative campaign in Victoria, with the party to roll out a series of advertisements attacking the Home Affairs Minister from Monday.
The negative ads come off the back of Labor’s latest internal tracking research showing the Queenslander is toxic to the Liberal brand in Victoria over his role in knifing Malcolm Turnbull.
It is understood Liberal Party polling has shown similar results in Victoria, putting Mr Dutton on a negative favourability rating of around minus 50.
Labor believes the strategy can help it steal votes from traditional Liberal supporters in Health Minister Greg Hunt’s seat of Flinders.
BACHELOR IN PARADISE CONTESTANT HELPS LABOR
Bachelor In Paradise contestant Alisha Aitken-Radburn was front and centre at Sunday’s Labor campaign rally for Bill Shorten.
Ms Aitken-Radburn, who worked as an adviser for Mr Shorten’s office until going on the Channel 10 show The Bachelor in early 2018, is currently featuring on The Bachelor In Paradise show in Fiji, which gives rejected contestants a second chance to find love.
Last year she was branded the resident “mean girl” on Nick “Honey Badger” Cummins’ season of The Bachelor.
The Labor diehard was seen at the Sydney rally managing the event attended by hundreds in the marginal seat of Reid and instructing participants on when to be seated.
INDIAN COMMUNITY’S ADANI OUTRAGE
Indian Australians are pleading with anti-Adani activists and Bill Shorten to let millions of dirt poor “little girls and boys” have electricity or risk a voter backlash in marginal seats across the country.
In one of the biggest signals that Adani will become a defining issue of the federal election, Indian leaders are alerting the 750,000-strong Australian India community to the “stupid comments” made by deputy Labor leader Tanya Plibersek.
Ms Plibersek told Melbourne Radio last week that, “we can’t rely on an Indian mining company to bring jobs to central and north Queensland”.
Griffith University’s Ashutosh Misra — a former Indian Government adviser — yesterday said the comments “could take (the Australia-Indian) relationship back 10 years” and were “stupid”.
“Millions of little children have never seen light (from electricity). This is the 21st Century,’’ Dr Misra said. “They use an oil lamp to study which is so dangerous. (Adani) will change the lives of millions.”
– Renee Viellaris
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