Elites blissfully out of touch with ordinary voters

Like Democrats claiming the American college system was rigged against them, the moral legitimacy of the just-elected Morrison government is already being questioned.

ABC presenter Fran Kelly was the first to ask: “Who really won this election — Scott Morrison or Clive Palmer?”

Perhaps she was channelling Labor Party national president Wayne Swan, who complained that a “$60 million spend by a conservativ­e-aligned billionaire in a preference recycling scheme for the Liberal and National Party cannot be allowed to stand”. Is Mr Swan calling for a fresh election?

It’s understandable if journalists who support the Labor/Greens coalition are feeling, to quote TV host Lisa Wilkinson, a “little broken right now — broken­-hearted in fact”. In a despairing open letter to the PM, Wilkinson implores: “If you’re ever in doubt when those big decis­ion-making moments arise, when all the nation turns its lonely eyes to you, if despite all your best efforts you find that wisdom is failing you, can you do us a favour? Just call Jacinda.”

Wilkinson may not accept Morrison as “the Messiah from the Shire” and ABC favourite Jane Caro may wish she was a New Zealander. But both may be shocked to know that the 568,000 New Zealanders who call Australia home have decided the warm glow of a young, compassionate, socialist prime minister pales when compared with the tangible benefits of higher living standards.

The Coalition’s unexpected political victory has revealed, more graphically than ever, the partisanship and shallowness of what is presented as independent and credible commentary. It is, as US social theorist Thomas Sowell describes, the medium through which many people “vent their emotions, question other people’s motives, make bold assertions, repeat­ slogans and resort to anything, except reason”.

What better exemplar is there than Clementine Ford, another ABC favourite.

She tweeted: “The planet is dying and intolerance is being enthusiast­ically embraced by ­bigots the nation over, but thank god the self-funded retirees got to keep their rich people welfare.”

Meshel Laurie, a panellist on the Ten Network’s The Project, doesn’t mince words. She argues: “Australians are dumb … mean-spirited, greedy. Accept it.”

Nine media cartoonist Cathy Wilcox tweeted: “It seems unfair that the morons outnumber the thinking people at election time.” What do they really think?

Former ABC broadcaster, Yassmin Abdel-Magied, perhaps unwittingly, puts her finger on the disconnect between the intellect­ually superior, left-wing media class and the masses. She tweeted: “Woof. It’s gona be a long three years in Aus. Election results like Australia, Brexit, the US, make it difficult to parse the world we live in.” Well, yes. If you continue to live in a shrinking echo chamber, you’ll still be no closer to understanding the world around you after three long years.

Even The Economist, once impeccable, can no longer be trusted. A page devoted to our election made a shameless pitch for the Labor/Greens alliance. The clear impression was we faced a “clim­ate change election”. A mayor from an affluent Melbourne suburb was quoted asking for “someone to stand up and do something about the environment”.

The Economist ignored­ the real­ity that, per capita, Australia is deploying renewables four to five times faster than the EU, the US, Japan and China. Rather, the journ­alist intoned: “The summer seemed particularly apocalyptic …. Even farmers are increasingly inclined to attribute these horrors to man-made clim­ate change.”

If still unconvinced, readers were told that “since the last federal­ vote, warming waters have killed much of the Great Barrier Reef”. Really? Who would have thought that, after 23 million years, coral could not survive a few years of warming water?

Through The Economist’s masthead, the journalist projected a personal dread that “the Liberals’ reactionary stance on climate change (might survive) the elect­ion”. Uninformed readers would take this analysis as a dependable election guide. James Wilson, the founder of the magazine, would turn in his grave.

Well may the media class wonder­ why it failed to pick the Trump victory in the US, the Brexit vote, the Indian election outcome and a Coalition majority government. Like pre-Revolution Russian aristocrats, the “intellectual” elite remains blissfully out of touch with and contemptuous of the lives of ordinary voters.

Little wonder that those voters trust only the ballot box with their political secrets. In a poll or a vox-pop, who wants to appear as a dumb, bigoted, greedy, mean-spirited­, coal-loving, climate-change denier? No doubt, the media left will console itself that blame for the Coalition victory lies with Palmer’s campaign, the Murdoch­ press, Sky after dark, ­insufficient time to explain comple­x policies, ignorant voters, and a Coalition scare campaign.

There will be no introspection. No thought given to groupthink, bias by omission, lack of integrity or fake news. Certainly not their unconvincing propaganda pushed as consensus opinion.

Now Greenpeace is hitting back. The “climate-change elect­ion” verdict is unacceptable. It ­incites civil disobedience “to take the power back”.

Greens leader Richard Di Natal­e says he wants to regulate the media. Oliver Yates, the failed green “independent” candidate for the seat of Kooyong, tweeted: “I would seek to have the Murdoch­ press’s licence to operate in Australia removed if they continue to threaten our democracy and our safety.”

As a matter of urgency, the Morrison government must pursue­ the enshrining of free speech and freedom of opinion in the Australian Constitution.