The Outsider: Cats, subs and difficult cows
Today, we desperately try to avoid the obvious metaphor about the future of South Australia – and one particular Liberal MP – if the submarines project goes north.
When the cats are away
Liberal leader Steven Marshall and his deputy Vickie Chapman must have thought that the grown-ups at home would behave themselves while both of them were overseas.
Marshall has been in Italy, and Chapman in New Zealand. The overlap was only a few days – what could go wrong?
Enter Mitch Williams, a former deputy leader, who decided what the state Liberals really needed this week was to support the next generation of submarines being built in Japan, rather than South Australia.
It could free up billions of dollars to be spent on other things, he opined, rather optimistically.
Fortunately for Williams, his ABC interview wasn’t picked up by other media. Apart from InDaily.
You might like
Why is that, do you think?
Sub-optimal
While we’re on the submarines, the most nervous Liberal in South Australia this week is Matt Williams, who holds the most marginal federal seat in South Australia – the western suburbs swing seat of Hindmarsh.
Williams must be pondering the bleak concept of becoming a one-term member after reports this week that the Abbott Government is likely to contract Japan to build the next generation of Australian submarines.
He’s said plenty on the topic in the past, as has his close buddy, SA Liberal Senator Simon Birmingham.
Here’s what Williams said in his maiden speech:
"The many employees in the defence sector in Hindmarsh look forward to the Coalition’s commitment to increase defence spending to two per cent of GDP. Although the phrase is thrown around a lot, there are truly few ‘nation-building projects’. The air warfare destroyers and the next generation of submarines are two such examples where Australian workers, South Australian workers, will be part of something special."
Way back in 2010, Birmingham accused then SA Labor Premier Mike Rann of fearmongering over the future of the subs.
Stay informed, daily
He told FIVEaa’s Leon Byner that “the Coalition remains absolutely committed to building submarines in Adelaide. We remain absolutely committed to Adelaide being the centre in Australia for building naval infrastructure”.
It’s a theme that Birmingham warmed to before last year’s federal election: “we’ve made it very, very clear we would expect submarines to be constructed in Adelaide, so it’s just another Labor lie from Kelvin (Thompson) and the rest of the Labor Party to be claiming otherwise”.
Beware of politicians bearing “commitments”.
Taking careful aim at our own feet
The many profitable South Australian businesses that do heavy trade with Japan probably didn’t love Labor leader Bill Shorten’s impression of Ted Bullpitt this week down at the Australian Submarine Corporation.
Fair enough to stand up for Aussie workers, but his performance veered into what we will kindly refer to as jingoism.
“This is a government with a short memory,” Shorten said. “In the Second World War, 366 merchant ships were sunk off Australia.”
The point being?
For South Australians who depend on selling premium tuna, grain, citrus and much more to Japan, it was a cringeworthy moment.
But at least it wasn’t as bad as this, from dairy company, Devondale, which shows an Asian man struggling to herd cows.
Obviously, it takes a true blue Aussie to properly handle a big muscly bovine.
The Outsider appears in InDaily every Friday, digging into places where we’re not welcome, and probing Adelaide’s obsessions.
