Ardern/Abbott

Still a bit perplexed about Jacinda Ardern’s resignation as PM of NZ. Caused shockwaves here and there when that news came out the other day, and a lot of people are speculating as to why… I suspect this piece nails the matter. In any case, the reaction seems to have been largely regretful, lots of people wishing she wouldn’t go, except obviously for Rupert Murdoch’s tools. Some headlines I grabbed via Google:

Stinging! That’ll teach HER to run a country where Rupert has a minimal presence, unlike the monopoly on the Coalition that he has here…

I hope she’s not making a terrible mistake, not for herself cos I’m sure she’ll be fine, but there’s going to be an election later this year and that doesn’t leave whoever’s going to replace her a lot of time to establish themselves in the role. But if Winston Peters is the best the opposition can do, maybe there’ll be no problem after all.

In any case, Jacinda will be missed by many, whereas the late Jim Molan probably shouldn’t be missed by anyone. Via the Graun:

The opposition leader, Peter Dutton, said the nation had lost “a patriot, a decent [and] honourable man and above all and most importantly an incredible family man”.
“Whether you knew Jim or met him for the first time, he drew you in immediately with his warm and captivating quality,” Dutton said. “In turn, you always had Jim’s undivided attention. He always displayed generosity to the views of others, even those with whom he disagreed.”
The prime minister, Anthony Albanese, described Molan as “a man of principle and a politician of conviction”.
“Jim Molan lived his life in service of our country,” Albanese wrote on Twitter.

Molan’s principles and convictions were shit, though; I don’t know if he actually was the war criminal some accuse him of having been in Iraq, but his part in Operation Sovereign Borders and his apparent fondness for Britain First kind of show that his principles and convictions didn’t exactly encompass compassion and basic human decency. He ended his life in service of hate.

Anyway, he died a few days ago, nothing of value was particularly lost, but there is now a vacancy in the NSW senate, and, well, former Victorian Liberal Party president Michael Kroger reckons that hole is Tony Abbott-shaped. I don’t know if the NSW Libs are inclined to listen to the former head of the Victorian Libs, especially when the latter quit after overseeing a terrible loss to the Victorian ALP in 2018, and there’s no real indication that Abbott’s even interested… but in any case there’s been a lot of mocking of the very idea.

I can’t join in that mocking, cos as funny as the idea is, I’ve been mistaken in the past. I still remember—mostly because it comes up in my Facebook memories every year so I can never forget—when he overthrew Malcolm Turnbull to become Liberal leader, and I thought this was brilliant, they’d just handed the next election to the ALP on a platter cos Abbott was already an obviously horrendous person and surely no one would vote for such a potential catastrophe to lead the country. I was, of course, terribly terribly wrong about this, cos then Labor shat the bed when Julia Gillard took over from Kevin Rudd then called an election for just a few weeks later… and THEN look where the country ended up next time round. So yeah, even though Tone Abet’s own electorate finally got fed up with him and bounced him in the 2019 election after holding Warringah for 25 years, I’m hesitant to say no one would vote for him at the Senate level here. People voted for Mark Latham, after all…