Another splendid piece from Paddy-O. A considered take on the coalition’s election mantra, ‘Profit and Slavery’…. read on…..(quietly now)

Malcolm and Wendy Turnbull on the election hustings. A very nice couple, and modestly dressed in spite of their incredible wealth. Photographed whilst inspecting the “trickle down effect” at the newly opened ‘Cultured Colostomy Bag’ retirement facility in Palm Springs. FL. More evidence of the ‘Ideas Boom’ at work.

Week one of the longest election campaign of living memory is done, and the dis-honours are pretty evenly divided. Malcolm Turnbull dodged a walkabout and leapt to the defence of banks and real estate agents in the debate; while Bill Shorten kept to education as a theme, while discarding a potential embarrassment in the candidate for Fremantle and playing the straight bat to calls for reform of asylum seeker policies.

Apology. We must apologise for the previous image as it has come to our attention that the above couple were not Mr and Mrs Turnbull. An inadvertent error and plausible due to the uncanny resemblance shared by each. We promise not to make the same mistake again. The editor has been terminated, and we now have a new manager of the graphics department working for us at four dollars and hour. As a consequence we will have more revenue to spend on coffee machines for our senior executive staff, to enjoy at their new establishment, the ‘Cultured Colostomy Bag’ at Palm Springs.FL.

Duncan Storrar. A seriously poor bastard. Now a seriously vilified poor bastard. Dont we HATE the poor. And why? Because they’re Poor! Stupid!!

It would seem that the trenches are being dug for a long war of attrition. And it is a war. While the commentators praised the debate for being based in policy, the reality of the difference was brought starkly home by the questions of one Duncan Storrar on Q&A. The awful responses from Assistant Treasurer Kelly O”Dwyer and Innes Willox from the Australian Industry Group combined with the mudslinging muckraking character assassination led by the Murdoch press, made this clear. This is a class war. Not because Labor is seeking reform of negative gearing, or a Royal Commission to hold the Banks to account, but because the coalition and their cheerleaders want to silence the people left worse off by their policies.

I missed the debate. I was in the emergency department of St Vincent”s in Melbourne with my daughter as she waited to have intravenous antibiotics for pneumonia and pleurisy. Her illness was brought about by continuing to work while sick, because like so many young people she can”t secure a full time job with paid leave, despite a degree in Business, and now 5 years experience in various administrative roles. She is part of the underemployed under-class, carrying a HECS debt that if she gets that elusive full-time job will drag her down for years. Nothing in the Liberal-National mantra for her – jobs and growth are total illusions.

Public hospital emergency departments are an amazing reality check on the arrogance of current politics. Here the most vulnerable are at their weakest, and yet the coalition would have them pay more, with an insidious, creeping policy of co-payment. Perhaps the next debate should be at St V”s on a Friday night with the injured, sick and crazed asking the questions. Trench warfare moves slowly. Unless the other side makes a mistake, gains are hard won. Some historians credit John Monash with breaking the cycle of slaughter late in the First World War by properly concentrating his forces in a coordinated attack – there is little sign of this from either side as yet, and for good reason. There are seven long weeks to go, and neither can afford to get it wrong.

Meanwhile reports suggest Duncan Storrar having had the temerity to ask a question motivated by a desire to help his daughters, is now on suicide watch after the vultures of the media attacked him so relentlessly. He didn”t deserve this, nothing in his past justifies it. He is now so vulnerable and if this is a class war, fought from the trenches, it will only get uglier.