CLANCY OVERELL | Editor | CONTACT
In a very weird press conference earlier today, five people that absolutely loathe each other have posed for a photo in a bushfire-ravaged community that also hates all five of them.
NSW transport minister Andrew Constance, Federal Agriculture Minister David Littleproud, Prime Minister Scott Morrison, Liberal party candidate for Eden-Monaro Fiona Kotvojs, and National party candidate Trevor Hicks all pretended for five minutes that they were the best of friends, as they attempted to woo voters from the Eden-Monaro electorate into forgetting about the bushfires that were handled so appallingly and voting for either one of the two people currently hoping to join the ranks of the government that handled said bushfires so appallingly.
The Federal seat of Eden-Monaro is up for grabs early at a by-election next month, following the announcement that current Labor MP Mike Kelly would be resigning for health reasons.
As one of the most volatile swing seats in the nation, Eden-Monaro extends from the far South Coast of NSW, right through to the cross-border outskirts of Canberra – making it one of the worst bushfire affected electorates in Australia.
The looming by-election earlier this month sparked tension between NSW frontbenchers Deputy Premier John Barilaro and Andrew Constance, after both the coalition MPs pulled out of the race within days of announcing their Federal ambitions – leaving many voters to ask themselves what the fuck is going on there.
Locals assume it might have a bit to do with the fact that Barilaro’s slightly charismatic personality is a direct threat to the current Deputy Premier, Michale McCormack – and that Andrew Constance is also a direct threat to the leadership of Scott Morrison, who he berated on breakfast TV for going to Hawaii in the peak of the summer bushfires and then returning to their destroyed towns and attempting to force the residents to shake his hands.
The Coalition have since attempted to wash out these factional nightmares by announcing the return of Liberal Dr Fiona Kotvojs, who lost to Kelly in 2019, as their pick to contest the seat against whoever Labor has put forward. Who is apparently is a woman named Kristy McBain, but most Australians wouldn’t know that because none of the Australian media have any interests in reporting anything about her, including the Murdoch newspapers, Channel 9 who now have Peter Costello as their Chairman, and the ABC who are terrified of receiving any more of those budget cuts that come their way every time they slightly inconvenience the Liberal Party.
Very little is known about the Nationals rival Trevor Hicks, other than the fact he is going to drastically split the vote for Kotvojs, whose own husband is one of those big ‘Greenies caused the bushfires’ type guys on Facebook, and will probably vote for One Nation.
The noticeable absence of a 6th person that could also join this Mexican stand-off of factional rivalries and stunted ambition, NSW Deputy Premier John Barilaro, was also noted – with people now asking why the fuck Andrew Constance MP would show up if Barra wasn’t going to, especially seeing they both had dreams of jumping up from state politics and running for the Federal seat, which either of them probably could have won, if not for the fact that both the Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister did whatever they could to blackmail them out of running after they had already announced they would both run because the Federal Liberal and Nationals leaders hate their NSW state rivals more than they hate losing in a by-election to Labor.
While Federal Ag minister David Littleproud is the closest thing to Switzerland in this shit storm of a campaign, one can only assume he loathes Morrison for dragging him back to this electorate after the last time he got chased out of there in the Prime Minister’s BMW X5.
