Federal election 2019: Today’s campaign in 90 seconds
The humble yet iconic Queensland cane toad is once again being dragged into a war it didn’t want — this time for political purposes.
Analysis
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THE Queensland cane toad is a much-maligned species, but someone must speak up for the amphibian, which has been dragged into the election campaign and gravely misrepresented by inappropriate use of metaphor.
First, shadow treasurer Chris Bowen likened cane toads to franking credits.
“They are the cane toad of Australian tax policy,” he said of the benefit Labor is looking to axe.
“If the payments didn’t exist today, no party would be promising to introduce them.’’
Treasurer Josh Frydenberg then compounded the insult by failing to speak out against the slur, merely calling the comparison “dismissive and arrogant’’.
The cane toad — forcibly transported into this state from Hawaii in 1935 and set to work in our canefields eating the grey-backed cane beetle — has its faults, including a determined reluctance to eat the grey-backed cane beetle.
It has been redeemed by its use as a mascot for Queensland’s hallowed State of Origin team.
And it is quite definitely not a financial instrument used to supplement retirement incomes, and should never be confused with such.
When in Rome....
There are campaign shots and there are campaign shots, but being photographed jogging with Johnathan Thurston while visiting Townsville is a coup only comparable (and here we employ only the mildest measure of hyperbole) to being photographed sharing a pew in St Peter’s Basilica with his Holiness Pope Francis while visiting Rome.
Opposition Leader Bill Shorten this morning secured the photo destined to become his smartphone wallpaper, the imagery only slightly marred by Thurston’s more firm physique throwing into sharp relief Shorten’s slightly less match-fit form.
But full respect to Shorten, who has made a habit of bounding through Townsville streets by the side of Thurston, perhaps the most popular human being north of the Tropic of Capricorn, who not only dominated the rugby league paddock for many years, but used his influence to help secure $250 million for the Cowboys’ stadium in Townsville.
The two performed a similar jogging duet along Townsville’s Strand last February.
Abbott endures cheap shot
THE GetUp! people delivered a below-the-belt blow to former prime minister Tony Abbott when they depicted him dressed as a lifesaver, munching an onion and ignoring a cry from help from a swimmer.
GetUp! rightly pulled the add after the Royal Life Saving Society deemed it a inappropriate, especially following the deaths of father-and-son lifeguards who drowned trying to rescue a swimmer at Port Campbell.
Whatever anyone thinks of Abbott — now engaged in the political fight of his life against Independent candidate Zali Steggall in the Sydney seat of Warringah — he has always admirably managed to combine his parliamentary duties with volunteer work, whether lifesaving or helping out Aboriginal kids in far northern communities.
Originally published as Federal election 2019: Today’s campaign in 90 seconds
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