This is perhaps the first time a piece of Liberal negative political advertising actually worked on me. I had an immediate visceral reaction to it, a surge of anger at Rudd. But then also anger at Labor, at Abbott, at the whole situation that brought us here.
It’s a Rorschach test on a corflute. A fascinating piece of campaign material, and every day I say good morning to Juliar as I walk past the one I have hanging proudly on my wall at home.
I’m sure we will all remember the anger and resentment. The anger at a too-clever stitch up that saw a PM replaced overnight, and no genuine attempt to honestly explain why to the electorate. Anger at the destabilisation that followed and the willingness of the losing side to destroy the party if they couldn’t lead it. A government that did great Labor things but did a poor job of communicating and connecting with voters. A caucus that gleefully trashed itself publicly and then asked voters to believe they’d changed. And lastly, an opposition that trashed truth itself to convince the electorate that the last three relatively stable years were in fact utter chaos and incompetence, to inflict the killing blow.
But I hope we also remember that we need to do better next time. Remember that there’s no such thing as one final backgrounder to the gallery, one final attempt to hurt the party you claim to support. Remember that the kiss portrayed in this image is a celebration of putting a price on carbon, and that it is worth fighting for. Positively and passionately, not cynically in an attempt to wedge, but in a display of genuine belief that we must take collective, serious action against climate change.
Game on, Tories.
