Federal election 2022

[SBD]

Maybe our shitty politicians and their even shittier behaviour is just a sad and honest reflection our of society.

We're not that bad are we?

Most of "them" are not that bad either. Pick any random group of that many Australians and sometimes some of them will do something stupid. The problem is that these people are seen, scrutinised, and held to a higher standard when they fail. The ones who just get on with being competent backbenchers are never heard of.

[ghs]

Maybe our shitty politicians and their even shittier behaviour is just a sad and honest reflection our of society.

Today albanese wasn’t even able to recall the unemployment rate.
I can’t believe how hopeless our politicians are.

[SBD]

Maybe our shitty politicians and their even shittier behaviour is just a sad and honest reflection our of society.

Today albanese wasn’t even able to recall the unemployment rate.
I can’t believe how hopeless our politicians are.

I am not convinced it really matters if he could quote the number. Either it's "low enough" that he doesn't need to talk about it or it's "too high" and he has to talk about ways to reduce it. But really, at the individual level, body can tell if the overall Australian unemployment rate is 2.5% or 10.0% - either you can or can't get a job and it doesn't really matter to you if other people can or not.

I have issue with a policy that mandates more nurses being employed in nursing homes and hospitals, but I haven't heard anything about education and training. I doubt there are that many unemployed or otherwise employed people who already have current nursing or paramedic qualifications.

There's also the issue about harvest jobs in rural areas. It is not reasonable to expect established families to move for a few weeks or months work. I don't understand what has happened to al of Australia's outbound young backpackers during the pandemic. If they couldn't go to harvest something in South America and European backpackers couldn't come here to harvest something else, then there should have been assistance to help the Australian backpackers match up with Australian employers of backpackers.

[Nort]

Maybe our shitty politicians and their even shittier behaviour is just a sad and honest reflection our of society.

Today albanese wasn’t even able to recall the unemployment rate.
I can’t believe how hopeless our politicians are.

Total beat up.

[Nort]

There's also the issue about harvest jobs in rural areas. It is not reasonable to expect established families to move for a few weeks or months work. I don't understand what has happened to al of Australia's outbound young backpackers during the pandemic. If they couldn't go to harvest something in South America and European backpackers couldn't come here to harvest something else, then there should have been assistance to help the Australian backpackers match up with Australian employers of backpackers.

Our Australian backpackers were doing the same everyone else was, staying home. Most of the same things that stopped people moving overseas were also stopping people want to wander around the country, especially when much of the appeal of the backpacker lifestyle either wasn't available or super restricted.

It's very easy to understand someone taking a gap year to travel overseas in normal times, very few people would have looked around at the end of 2020 and decided it was a good time to spend a year travelling the country.

[Jaymz]

Maybe our shitty politicians and their even shittier behaviour is just a sad and honest reflection our of society.

Today albanese wasn’t even able to recall the unemployment rate.
I can’t believe how hopeless our politicians are.

He also couldn't recall the official cash interest rate either.

It's already obvious the Liberals mantra will be, rightly or wrongly, that Labor cannot be trusted to run an economy and these types of blunders play right into their hands.

[ChillyPhilly]

It's a blunder, but a minor one and it happened at the start of the campaign.

[Ho Really]

It's a blunder, but a minor one and it happened at the start of the campaign.

No excuses. In politics there is nothing minor. This is the supposed new prime minister. Besides if this was Scomo those on the other side would be all over him.

Cheers

[Ho Really]

In the list of political parties also add the Liberal Democrats whether they field candidates in the house of reps or the senate.

Cheers

[ghs]

It's a blunder, but a minor one and it happened at the start of the campaign.

No excuses. In politics there is nothing minor. This is the supposed new prime minister. Besides if this was Scomo those on the other side would be all over him.

I agree, its frightening that a man who doesn’t know the cash rate or the unemployment rate could be running the country in a few weeks.

[bits]

I agree, its frightening that a man who doesn’t know the cash rate or the unemployment rate could be running the country in a few weeks.

The prime minister does not run the country.
They are one vote in the lower house.
The parliament as a whole creates laws that others run the country within.

We should stop trying to convert the elections into presidential style where only the figure head is seen as so significant.

Not knowing the exact figures for a random subject doesn't seem a big deal at all. Same as como not knowing the price of bread the other week, who cares.
What next? They don't know the exact health or military spend, maybe it is the exact weekly pension, the price of fuel, the average age of death?

[rev]

I agree, its frightening that a man who doesn’t know the cash rate or the unemployment rate could be running the country in a few weeks.

The prime minister does not run the country.
They are one vote in the lower house.
The parliament as a whole creates laws that others run the country within.

We should stop trying to convert the elections into presidential style where only the figure head is seen as so significant.

Not knowing the exact figures for a random subject doesn't seem a big deal at all. Same as como not knowing the price of bread the other week, who cares.
What next? They don't know the exact health or military spend, maybe it is the exact weekly pension, the price of fuel, the average age of death?

It is a big deal, I know the lefties and Labor voters here will dismiss it as nothing important.
But this is an election campaign, they want us to vote for them, they are trying to convince every voter that they're the best choice.
If a party leader can't get those basic facts right, when he/she has a small army of staffers working for them as well, then they should not be leading this country.

He's not making a very good sales pitch to the voters is he?

If he was a car salesman, and he couldn't tell the average fuel consumption per 100km, couldn't tell you warranty details, would you still buy the car?

[gnrc_louis]

I agree, its frightening that a man who doesn’t know the cash rate or the unemployment rate could be running the country in a few weeks.

The prime minister does not run the country.
They are one vote in the lower house.
The parliament as a whole creates laws that others run the country within.

We should stop trying to convert the elections into presidential style where only the figure head is seen as so significant.

Not knowing the exact figures for a random subject doesn't seem a big deal at all. Same as como not knowing the price of bread the other week, who cares.
What next? They don't know the exact health or military spend, maybe it is the exact weekly pension, the price of fuel, the average age of death?

Exactly. It shows a lack of understanding of the Australian political system to focus solely on the leader. Cabinet are the ones who make the important decisions. Albanese should’ve known those stats off the top of his head, but ultimately it’s not the end of the world that he doesn’t. A leader should be judged on more than just one gaffe anyway.

[Nort]

There's been plenty of occasions when leaders haven't recalled the numbers offhand or gotten them wrong in previous election campaigns (including supposed best PM ever John Howard) that basically just got footnotes in reporting of the day.

[Nathan]

I think it's more concerning the different standards that Albanese and Morrison are being held to. Most of Morrison's many gaffes get played into the "daggy dad" persona and are fairly quickly forgotten about — and yet Albanese's slip up is getting hammered by the media. I'm not saying it wasn't a misstep (it certainly was), but the reaction is completely disproportionate.