Gough’s Going Great!

Any of you BUGgers out there old enough to remember that federal-election campaign slogan?

In what probably seemed like a good idea at the time, Labor federally in the double dissolution election of 1974 used that for the poll that kept the Whitlam government in power – for a little bit longer at least until that drunk John Kerr intervened the following year.

Apparently the great man himself – Gough, not that disgusting drunk John Kerr – insisted on that slogan being used, and the campaign geniuses in Labor back then clearly never cottoned onto the grim reality that with just one extra punctuation mark, the slogan on public signs became Gough’s Going? Great!

Now I’m not saying that the federal LNP’s new slogan that includes getting Australia “ back on track” is at that level of fuckknucklery but I still ask the valid question: what the fuck does it mean and while a new punctuation mark isn’t going to make it a laughing stock, surely Labor is going to have a lot of fun with it?

Back on track to what? Back to rising inflation with a 6 in front of it? Back to close to a zillion dollars in national debt? Back to deficits each and every year? Back to sports and other rorts? Secret ministries? Something even worse, more illegal and more deadly, than Robodebt?

It must surely be a slogan that leads to jibes about backtracking? Australia needing a 21st Century super highway, not a track?

But here’s the sobering thought? While there may be a lot of fun to be had with “back on track”, – and you’ve probably guessed by now I think it’s fucking pathetic – will it work? There’s a good chance it can, if current opinion polls are correct and despite the plethora of train-crash memes currently on social mediocre.

And anything is now possible in the entire world of politics seeing the people of the United States have returned to power the truly abominable Donald Trump.

That people are hurting worldwide through cost of living pressures – and Trump worked that angle to some extent with promises of cheaper supermarket eggs – his overriding pitch was to his nation’s racists – illegal aliens are raping us and eating our cats and dogs – and misogynists – Kamala Harris had to put out to get ahead.

Now Dutton here is unlikely to gather as many votes on the misogyny front and he even seems a little uncomfortable at the moment about putting cost of living pressures front and centre in his current sales pitch (something Labor should be noticing with interest), but he’s working the racism angle well.

And why wouldn’t he, given his wholehearted support to the No campaign in the Voice referendum, the most racist and divisive campaign I’ve ever had the misfortune to watch in more than a half-century’s keen interest in this country’s politics.

And watching Peter Dutton currently engaged in his racist dogwhistling on so many fronts, at the very least we’ve all got to concede that he knows Australians pretty well.

Don Gordon-Brown

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