Coal, snow and the desert of the real #auspol

Scott Morrison, Australian Treasurer, brought a lump of coal to the show-and-tell at school today.  Sorry, I mean, to the House of Representatives.  It was a big lump of coal, metaphorically if not literally in the shape of a wedge.  Because this was about trying to make the Labor Party look weak/green/out-of-touch.  Meanwhile, in the real world, there is a heatwave of the real that is sending those rich enough to have them and afford them to their air-conditioners.  (Can the desert be far behind?).

Journalists are bewildered. Katherine Murphy began her piece thus

There is no way you can write the sentence, “The treasurer of Australia, Scott Morrison, came to question time with a lump of coal on Thursday,” and have that sentence seem anything other than the ravings of a psychedelic trip, so let’s just say it and be done with it.

Scott Morrison brought coal into the House of Representatives. A nice big hunk of black coal, kindly supplied by the Minerals Council of Australia.

The obvious link, which I’ve not seen made, is with another buffoon in another country, almost two years ago.

These seem like desperate claims by desperate men, who are the epitome of the political class (“out of touch”) using props to try to build to their constituents, earnestly proclaim themselves to be “real”(1) and ‘authentically working class’ (In July 2014 Senator Ian MacDonald came to parliament in a fluorojacket, provided to him by the same people who gave Morrison his lump of coal).

What does it all mean? These are bids for a foundational ‘common-sense’, for ‘authenticity’ by a dinosaur breed that can’t accept that the meteor has struck.   There is going to be a mass extinction event.  The only question is what – if anything – is on the other side. Bye Brasil.

Update- a further thought – The Liberals and Nationals have clearly “decided” – as far as you can say there is a central organising intelligence- that they cannot win on price or emissions reductions. Instead they are remorselessly focusing on only one of the three legs of the energy trilemma – namely security of supply.  It may “work” politically. It will not on any other metric – economics, environment…

Footnote

(1) Gramsci, Baudrillard, Derrida and that crowd would have a field day.