Wentworth by-election could decide the fate of Scott Morrison’s government
THE fate of Scott Morrison’s government may be decided at this Saturday’s by-election and it may be fought over the ultimate First World problem: climate change, writes Tim Blair.
Opinion
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AUSTRALIA has finally returned to a government that is relatively normal, but the Morrison government’s fate may be decided this Saturday by Australia’s least-normal electorate.
Wentworth, comprising areas throughout Sydney’s eastern suburbs, is not your standard slice of Australia. Far from it. Consider:
● It features the highest proportion of wealthy families of any seat in the land. The ABC’s Media Watch host Paul Barry is a Wentworth resident, and he’s pulling down about $200,000 per year for just 15 minutes of television each week. Which probably puts him at the low end of Wentworth’s income scale.
● It has a heroin injection room, in the otherwise now-sanitised Kings Cross. Where, entirely coincidentally, Labor scored its only Wentworth booth win in the 2016 federal election.
● It is the last place in Australia where ex-prime minister (and former member for Wentworth) Malcolm Turnbull is still popular.
● One in 10 Wentworth residents are members of leftist agitation movement GetUp!, according to GetUp! (note: the phrase “according to GetUp!” should indicate the need for a certain level of scepticism).
So the joint is loaded with folk who have no urgent financial or employment concerns.
If things go wrong they can always recuperate, Turnbull-style, in Manhattan.
Wentworth’s wealth explains in part why the seat has been in Liberal hands for six decades.
The rich in Wentworth, however, suffer from a peculiar malady that has in recent decades swept through much of the First World’s wealthier zones.
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They fancy themselves as socially aware and committed to solving the planet’s most urgent issues.
As a result, this by-election may be fought over the ultimate First World problem: climate change.
Malcolm Turnbull’s son Alex, who seems even less likeable than his dad, is leading the charge.
“I’ve been following Australian politics recently and I’ve been disappointed,” Turnbull junior announced last week from Singapore, where he is hauling in some serious coin as a fund manager.
His recent awareness of Australian politics led Alex to urge a vote against his father’s party.
“The IPPC report frankly was terrifying if you read the whole thing,” he declared, referring to that organisation’s latest load of climate idiocy.
“If you want to send a signal as to which way the Liberal Party is going and your displeasure with where it is going, then this is your opportunity,” Turnbull continued, in the same warm, relatable manner so characteristic of Turnbull senior.
“Don’t vote for the Liberal Party in the Wentworth by-election if you want to pull the Liberal party back from the brink. It’s the one clear signal you can send. Consider it an intervention for Australia, for the party and for Wentworth.”
Invited by The Daily Telegraph’s Sharri Markson to expand on these views in a Sky News interview, Turnbull publicly declined, leading to this Twitter exchange with forever-bitter former Labor-supporting independent MP Tony Windsor:
Windsor: “I like your style, don’t waste your time on people like Jones, Markson and co. Your father was right to treat them as detritus.”
Turnbull: “Good advice well taken. No chance you can be convinced to pick up the lightsaber one more time?”
Windsor: “Never rule anything out. Cheers.”
When Tony “Detritus” Windsor is in your corner, well, it might be time to reconsider some of your major life decisions.
“I’d rather be rich than stupid,” US comedy writer Jack Handey once quipped, but Alex Turnbull easily manages to combine the two.
Other out-of-towners have also barged in to proclaim Saturday’s by-election a referendum on climate change.
“I hope very much that the voters of Wentworth send a signal that we as the population would really like the government to do something about this before we all drown or melt,” Melbourne’s Dr Avril Hannah-Jones told the ABC last week.
Hannah-Jones is a minister in the Uniting Church, one of the few Christian organisations worldwide that places IPCC reports higher on the holiness scale than the Bible.
It’s all very well for Wentworth voters to “send a signal” on climate change.
Those people are economically insulated from whatever impacts that signal may subsequently involve.
A carbon tax or similar is easily absorbed by eastern suburbs millionaires, but would significantly hurt any carbon-intensive manufacturing operation in Australia’s regions.
Perhaps our concerned Wentworth worriers need some skin in this game. Seeing as transport is a major carbon dioxide generator, I propose that a 100 per cent tax be placed on international air travel and vehicles costing more than $60,000.
This tax should apply to all Wentworth property owners earning more than $150,000 per year.
Such a tax would not only directly address Australia’s terrible climate crisis, but it would also be fun to observe the financial frenzy throughout Sydney’s eastern suburbs as accountants sought ways to prove their clients fell below the $150,000 wage threshold.
Wentworth would become within days Australia’s $149,999.99 salary capital.
As well, Sydney’s housing shortage would instantly be solved as thousands of Wentworth properties suddenly hit the market at bargain prices.
If we’re going to use climate change as a political device, we may as well use it for good.