‘Miserable Ghost Mk 2: Shorten now wears Turnbull’s shoes’

Haunted: I was happy in the haze of a drunken hour but heaven knows I’m miserable now.

Welcome to the column where you provide the content. It was the blame game for Bill Shorten, who according to Chris Kenny had a chance but failed to make an exit with dignity. Too bad, said Brad:

“Miserable Ghost Mk II — Bill Shorten is now wearing Malcolm Turnbull’s shoes.”

Too right, said John:

“Yes, add him to the list of miserable ghosts. It does demonstrate the difference in temperament between Shorten, Turnbull, Rudd, Gillard and Howard. I can’t remember Howard every appearing bitter.”

Kate chipped in:

“Which just proves that Shorten is, and always has been, about Shorten. Not his Party, not the country. It explains why he is taking the loss so badly. Though it does not excuse his bad loser behaviour.”

Another Kate:

“He chose bitterness. It was an undignified end and he will be remembered for that. Shorten lacks sincerity, integrity and self-reflection and his legacy will not be one he can be proud of.

Beasley similarly lost, but went on to represent us as ambassador to the US. But Beasley had the respect of not only Labor voters but also Liberal ones because unlike Shorten he had integrity. And a convivial personality. I cannot see Shorten as anything but a highly unpopular politician.”

Move along, said Ray:

“This focus on the ALP is irrelevance personified. Let it go for at least another two years. I’m over the politics and would rather hear about things that matter like reduced energy prices, incentives for small business to stop the rapidly increasing demise of stores.”

Fair go, said Geoff:

“I think Shorten deserves the opportunity to say his piece as he leaves the senior role. I think the media needs to go back to reporting facts and not giving their all too often biased and unwanted opinion.”

Kevin J revved up:

“The Bob Brown convoy of electoral doom in Queensland didn’t rate a mention of blame it seems.”

Nicholas noted:

“Shorten is so arrogant and so cocksure of his own abilities that he has no concept of how to act with dignity, honesty and integrity. The electorate rejected him and his idiotic and dangerous policies.

“He is a typical poor sore loser, blame everyone else and everything for the loss and refuse to face up to and accept that the chief engineer of his ability to lose the unloseable election was solely of his own making.”

Gavin was savage:

“Shorten’s a hypocrite. He was more than happy to indulge in scare tactics himself — read Mediscare, but then has the gall to attack the Coalition as being scaremongers. The guy just doesn’t get it — smart Aussies abandoned him and Labor because they were fearful of their futures under his leadership.

“The gift that just keeps on giving to the government will be Shorten as an opposition frontbencher reminding everyone, everyday about what a loser he is.”

Ian’s interpretation:

“Those of us who rejected Bill’s vision splendid two weeks ago can choose to be classified as corporate leviathans, vested interests or truculent turds.”

Hasta la vista, said hand2mouth, whose pithiness earns comment of the week:

“Dear Mr Shorten, to paraphrase Mr Morrison: ‘You got a go, you had a go … now please just go”

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Simply red: Julie Bishop agreed to accept payment for speaking in Jimmy Choos.

Julie Bishop revealed she had turned down a state governor’s glorious reign to schlep her story around the speaking circuit at $50 large a pop. Yelsel thought her act needed polish:

“She lost all credibility with me after that foolish stunt on TV with the red shoe.”

No tears from Tony:

“The most overrated politician of our time. A competent foreign minister supported by a highly professional department. When on occasion she stumbled into matters requiring a passing understanding of economics she was disastrous and was quickly gagged by her minders.

“I for one would prefer a visit to the dentist than listen to her ego-driven account of her life and career sprinkled with cheap shots at those misogynists who stood in the way of her ‘brilliant career’ and her deserved prize of leading the nation.”

John joined in:

“ didn’t think anyone would ever challenge Wayne Swann for the most overrated politician of our time, but there you go, we found one (very closely followed by her ex-boss — MT).”

Game over, said Graeme:

“Jumped off when she thought the ship was sinking. Didn’t have resolve (like ScoMo and others) to take up the fight (indeed, didn’t know what the fight was). Now surfing on ScoMo’s wave and taking the $ on the way to shore.”

AKA Peter checked his privilege:

“You mean left when she got shafted by a bunch of old white men. The Liberal party do not want strong women, they will accept women so long as they do not want to get to the top, that’s mens work in the LP and I am a Liberal voter of 40 years standing.”

Chris countered:

“Well AKA Peter, you don’t know much about the party you vote for. When Bishop first became deputy, she traditionally took the shadow treasurer position. Within days, she shifted to foreign affairs when it became obvious to the parliament and media that she could not answer a simple monetary question. Hence no votes for leadership.”

Last word to Rob:

“$50,000 per event! Who does she think she is, a brain surgeon?”

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Burnt offering: Fourth wave feminism is so hot right now.

Janet Albrechtsen bemoaned the banality of modern feminism as exemplified by the public broadcaster and in particular, Patricia Karvelas. David didn’t disagree:

“What occurs to me is that when Janet Albrechtsen says something it makes sense. Whenever I read of something that Patricia Karvelas has said it is doesn’t. Karvelas is heavy on emotions and light on facts.

“This is why gender quotas will only ever appeal to employers who themselves, personally, are not footing the bill for such irrational policies.”

Heavy-handed, said Janis:

“Never found Karvelas heavy on the emotions, more like a sledge hammer, driving a point home. Usually she sticks to facts, but has let this gender issue get the better of her. She just reflects current pop culture obsession with gender.”

Michael F mansplained:

“Only you or another female journalist could have written this. Had any man ventured into this he would have been crucified on the next episode of Insiders. From my perspective (male) I appreciate all you do to keep the balance, the sanity and the logic of the left in perspective.”

Katrina got technical:

“The fact is, there are jobs women don’t really want. Politics is one field where it is almost impossible to reconcile work and family life. Read ‘Women in IT in the New Social Era: A Critical Evidence-Based Review of Gender Inequality and the Potential for Change:’ by Sonja Bernhardt.

“I must declare an interest, in that I was a researcher for this book. But Sonja’s conclusions make interesting reading. The reason so few women go into IT is because they don’t want to. Same with politics, and I suspect, the merchant navy, aviation, heavy engineering, truck driving, garbage collecting. They - just - don’t - want - to.”

Not so, said Jeannette:

“Some women don’t want to go into those jobs, but some do. Clearly a lot of women aspire to politics, stand for office and get elected. And not just politics. You might be surprised at how many women are in the other fields you mentioned.

“About 20 years ago I worked on a project that involved a contracted heavy truck and machinery company which worked on many mining sites.

“There were a couple of female drivers, and the boss said he wished he could find more, they treated the rigs much better than men. The number of women truck drivers, pilots, engineers etc has increased since then. (Not sure about garbage collecting, though it’s pretty easy these days with those automated trucks.)

“But leaving aside those heavy jobs, why should it be so hard to reconcile work and family life in politics? If we are to have a representative parliament, it must allow for all people to be represented, including women with young children. Otherwise how will male politicians learn about the challenges they face? Parliament should take the lead in this explicitly because it needs to govern for all people, based on knowledge rather than stereotypes of ‘what women want’.”

Beware the hive, said Higgins:

“The stubborn flaw at the heart of these unhappy feminists [women who presume to speak on behalf of other women] is when things don’t go their way 100 per cent, they find nothing to celebrate [and aren’t] prepared to be marked down for failing women when they stuff up.

It’s such a relief to see many more women publicly calling out the self elected feminists who claim to speak on behalf of other women, but have failed to ever listen or consult outside their own ilk.

“Apart from the ABC, an aggressive collective also resides on a Vic Govt sponsored academic website. Dare even mildly challenge their arrogant belief that they are representative of all women, that their facts are selective or incorrect, or imply that they’ve perverted the meaning of the ‘equality’ the original movement sought and are therefore doing the ‘cause’ more harm than good, and you will see how an angry hive suddenly emerges to attack any woman who doesn’t agree with their dogmatism. Equality! Yeah, right! Not whilst they see themselves as superior to other women, and also seem to take great joy in berating men.”

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