James Paterson: Teal poster steal shows only standards Monique Ryan has is double standards
Teals lecture the nation about integrity but their latest dirty trick — Monique Ryan’s husband tearing down a rival candidate’s poster — shows if they didn’t have double standards they wouldn’t have any at all.
Opinion
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It seems that Monique Ryan and her campaign are very sensitive about signs.
Recent footage of Monique Ryan’s husband removing Liberal opponent Amelia Hamer’s posters provides the latest example of Teal “independents’’ pretending to be one thing – such as campaigning for “integrity” – but doing something else entirely.
While the couple apologised, it is clear from the footage, including threats to repeat this brazen theft, that their real regret was in being caught.
Last week, Ryan seemed triggered by another sign – this time a billboard highlighting the factual point that she votes most often with the Greens.
On the same day the billboard went up, she gathered with dozens of Teal supporters underneath it to protest against this completely factual point being made.
The Teal MPs and candidates are sensitive about this because most people in their communities do not support the Greens.
In Ryan’s Kooyong electorate, the Greens received just 6.3 per cent of the vote at the last election.
And that was before the Greens disgraced themselves over the past 16 months with anti-Israel extremism and anti-Semitism.
Since the election, Ryan has voted most often with the Greens – 77 per cent of the time – then Labor (44 per cent), then the Liberals (31 per cent). Another Teal MP, Zoe Daniel (Goldstein), has an almost identical record, voting with the Greens 76 per cent of the time, Labor (44 per cent), then the Liberals (30 per cent).
That’s the raw data of every vote in the House of Representatives since the last election, recorded by parliamentary Hansard – no tricks or manipulation.
If you instead tally votes taken just on legislation, Ryan and Daniel once again vote most often with the Greens, followed by Labor, then the Liberals.
In a desperate attempt to mislead their constituents, the Teals have tortured the data to try to make it look like they don’t sit in the chamber next to Greens leader Adam Bandt as often as they do.
In expensive brochures mailed to their electorates – possibly funded by their Climate 200 big money donors – Monique Ryan and Zoe Daniel have invented a new measure of their voting records.
Instead of recording who they sit with on every vote, as the raw data clearly shows, Ryan and Daniel prefer to cite how they vote, based on which party moved the motion.
But guess what?
Even by their own measure, the political party Ryan and Daniel most often support with their votes is the Greens, followed by Labor, with the Liberal Party last.
Along with the Greens, Teal MPs have been consistently weak on national security.
For example, Ryan and Daniel voted with the Greens against legislation making it harder for people with criminal convictions to get visas.
After a High Court decision resulted in the mass release of violent criminals from immigration detention, including rapists and murderers, Ryan and Daniel voted with the Greens against legislation to introduce electronic monitoring and to criminalise breaches of visa conditions.
Ryan and Daniel voted with the Greens against legislation enabling the Minister for Immigration to ask a court to cease the citizenship of a dual citizen if they had been convicted of serious offences, including terrorism.
Recently, Ryan and Daniel also voted with the Greens against minimum mandatory sentences for terrorism offences and the display of prohibited terrorist and Nazi symbols – right in the middle of the worst anti-Semitism crisis in Australia’s history.
Despite the warnings, the two Teals even voted with the Greens and Labor to abolish the building watchdog, the Australian Building and Construction Commission.
Recent reports of extortion and violence by the bikie and organised crime-infiltrated CFMEU on taxpayer-funded building sites demonstrate why this was a huge mistake.
The CFMEU wanted the building watchdog gone.
It’s no surprise a weak Labor government, dependent on their donations, obliged.
But why did Ryan and Daniel vote to unleash criminality and violence on the building sites of Victoria’s biggest infrastructure projects?
Teal MPs are also at odds with many in their community in their support for higher taxes.
Amid a cost-of-living crisis, they have argued for a higher GST and higher taxes on companies, investments, resources, superannuation, housing and road users.
The next election will be close. Many commentators predict a minority government.
If that happens, Teal MPs would decide who forms the government.
Despite campaigning on transparency, they refuse to say who they would put into government.
However, both Ryan and Daniel’s voting record reveals their hand.
In an uncertain world, we can’t afford Teals and Greens holding the balance of power after the next election.
James Paterson is a Victorian Liberal senator
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