CLANCY OVERELL | Editor | CONTACT
Last election was an easy decision for local post-war voter Dickie Smythe (68).
It was either vote for a stronger economy and stability, or vote for a pedophile cabal that wants to bleed him of his hard earned cash with higher taxes and death duties.
However, this time around, not even the hysterical NewsCorp front pages and grainy Facebook memes are able to convince him that Scott Morrison is the best man for the job.
As the semi-retired medical equipment sales rep points out, the best thing that ScoMo had going for him last election is that blokes like Dickie knew fuck all about him.
But then ScoMo became Scotty From Marketing.
“If we’d had an election the day after the bushfires, he woulda lost every seat” says Dickie.
“The Hawaii holiday was the most disgraceful thing I’ve ever seen in Australian politics. And to lie about being there was the icing on the cake”
Then there was the jab roll-out binfire, where the older Australians were forced to get a vaccine that the Prime Minister had undermined public trust in with rumours of blood clots, in an effort to slow down the programme because he hadn’t ordered enough.
Throw in the treatment of women, the unbridled corruption, the icky Hillsong shit, the submarines, the aged care torture camps… Dickie says even Murdoch is struggling to hide this man’s incompetencies from the Quiet Australians.
But as a Quiet Australian, Dickie is also horrified of the mere concept of change.
“The disasters, the pandemic, the lockdowns” he says.
“We’ve had enough change. How bout a bit of status quo… I’m still trying to figure out if the world’s upside down because of Morrison, or if it will stabilise under Morrison.”
“He’s not exactly filling me with confidence either way”
As a swing voter that openly admits to giving Kevin Rudd the nod in 2007, and backing Hawkey through the 1980s, Dickie isn’t one of those boomers that thinks jumping back to Labor will turn him into a homosexual Muslim.
“It’s not like I’m not a Nationals voter.” he says.
“I know it would’t be the end of the world under Labor. I’m not that worried about my masculinity”
But after nearly two decades of Alan Jones and Andrew Bolt dominating 90% of the Australian media landscape, Dickie does have his reservations. To the point where he’s now questioning his own definition of absolute incompetence.
“Maybe Scotty just got a raw prawn” he says outloud, desperately trying to convince himself that it’s the circumstances shaping our leader, not our leader shaping the circumstances.
“I mean… Everyone deserves a holiday…”
“And JobKeeper worked out pretty well… I mean, except for the hundreds of millions that were given to corporations that were actually turning a profit”
“But… Ya know. Maybe Scott just needs another chance to prove to us that he only goes missing with times are tough… What if times get better?”
“I dunno”
“I honestly don’t know. “
When asked how his swing-voter wife planned on voting, Dickie laughed in our faces.
“What do you fucken reckon?”
