Well may we say …
If Malcolm Fraser was to have been known as Kerr’s Cur – it didn’t stick – perhaps Samantha Mostyn will become known as Albo’s Trojan Mare.
Setting aside some of the initial attacks by the right on her appointment as Governor-General – that she was a political appointment and so not a sensitive one, reflecting and appealing to all of the citizenry, that she was a woke leftie and that her pay rise was an awful and an awfully timed move – there are more important issues in play.
(Of course, Mostyn isn’t the first partisan political appointment. Bill Hayden’s in the 1980s raised a few eyebrows at the time, and he proved to be a gem of a head of state. Not seen much, and not heard much, and kept both his views and his qualities to himself. Way before Hayden, Robert Menzies appointed the disgraceful Richard Casey, who was appallingly and regularly active in politics from his perch in Yarralumla, and John Gorton appointed Paul Hasluck, who wasn’t appalling in the role).
Then there is the salary issue. The salaries of all of our current lot of public officials are, to use that old leftie term, “obscene”. They should all receive nothing. They should be paying us!
The “queen of woke” descriptor of Mostyn aired back in April at the time of the announcement might well be true.
Michael Costa, on the Andrew Bolt show, noted that she deleted many of her woke tweets from X. Like calling Australia Day invasion day. Yawn. I don’t even see this as the main issue.
But there is a clue to the real Mostyn worry in her salary. Perhaps the Government wants her to earn it. One couldn’t imagine either One Term Albo or his republican sidekick, Matt Thistlethwaite – try saying that after eight beers – simply making a nondescript appointment to such a post and so ignoring the rich opportunities for republican narrative development. No, I don’t think this is just about rubbing Liberal noses in it. The Labor republicans have a plan, and it is already emerging into the daylight.
Our new Governor-General has certainly hit the ground emoting this week. One report suggested that “she wants to put her arms around us”. Oh dear. I don’t want any head of state to put his or, inevitably, these days, her arms around me.
The role of governor-general is often seen as one of process and protocol, but Sam Mostyn is promising to prioritise kindness, care and respect.
Australia's newest head of state vows to deliver a more humanitarian flavour to the role.
Sam Mostyn, who was sworn in as the nation's 28th governor-general in Canberra on Monday, said she would aim to bring a sense of modernity to the position as the King's representative.
"These testing times call for an unstinting focus on kindness, on care and on respect," she said after being sworn in.
"I will be an optimistic, modern and visible governor-general, committed to the service and contribution that all Australians expect and deserve from the holder of this office."
https://au.news.yahoo.com/sam-mostyn-sworn-next-governor-173000238.html
Mostyn seems nice. But I don’t want nice. I don’t want anything other than someone to shut up and sure-footedly safeguard the Constitution against creeping (and creepy) political elites.
And as a Lismore resident, I don’t want platitudes about flood victimhood. In one of her first meetings as G-G, she met with the do-nothing mayor of Lismore to talk about floods.
Our meeting and discussion was a great example of how trust is built and reflects what I have heard across the country in recent months - communities crave kindness and care," Ms Mostyn told the gathering of the nation's councillors in Canberra.
"They seek empathy from those with power over the decisions that affect them and they deserve respect and engagement.
"I also heard repeatedly that Australians desire unity and optimism."
The G-G wading in with sympathy for flooded areas and expressing due recognition of regional Australia – a trait not unexpectedly noted and celebrated by the good mayors at the local government conference at which she spoke – is both unnecessary and probably counterproductive. Two and a half years on, virtually nothing has happened, other than the creation of new qangos with equally highly paid boffins who actually should be doing something, but are not. Why counterproductive? Well, it simply lets decision-makers off the hook.
No, Australians want action and accountability, not kindness and care. We want honest governance, not stroking. Cuddling is what Mostyn wants. It is not what we want. And we do not need her to be an advocate, another role seemingly implied by her initial words and deeds.
"I want to visit all of you all around the country and be visible, listen to you when I come to visit, and then take your messages back where I can to whoever I can."
We already have advocates – our local members of parliament – at least in theory we do. They and those to whom they report in Canberra have done a pretty good job of ignoring us and annoying us. Of bullying us. And, during Covid, killing us. Locking us up. Lying to us. They are still doing that. Anything the new caring G-G might do is mere theatre. Yes, woke theatre. But theatre.
So, what is Labor up to? The Prime Minister went on the record thus:
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said Australia would begin a new chapter with the appointment of Ms Mostyn.
"In Sam Mostyn, our nation has the right leader, you are a person of intelligence and compassion, of loyalty and integrity. You have clear eyes and a big heart and both have shaped your vision of who and what we can be as a nation," he said.
The alarm bells are clear, and plentiful, if you look for them:
· “The role of governor-general is often seen as one of process and protocol” – but not anymore;
· “A new chapter”;
· “The right leader”.
There you go. No, there is no mandate for “a new chapter”. And no, the G-G is decidedly NOT meant to be a “leader”. And you do not have to look very far to see the game plan. As least Airbus isn’t trying to hide the Labor agenda. They never bother, these days. They know they will never be held accountable. Such is the decrepit state of our democratic safeguards. Where decision processes are murky and complex and where the understanding of basic civics, the sort of understanding that would lead to an actively questioning electorate with sharp politic antennae and some basic knowledge of policy, has been surgically removed from our education system.
And the PM is choosing his words very carefully, I would think.
This charade with the new G-G turns out to be another version of replacement theory. Or, if you will, a double-barrelled replacement theory. If we can’t get Australians to vote for a republic, let’s have one anyway by simply changing the role of governor-general. Replace one job description with another. Having already commenced the long-term strategy of replacing one electorate with another, imported from mainly Asia and other places without any semblance of knowledge of, or empathy for, our traditions and history.
They are already doing this with the Aboriginal voice, treaty and “truth” telling. Just about two thirds of us said no, but we are going to get it all anyway. I have no doubt it will be the same for the head of state’s role.
This is the flip-the-bird-at-the-popular-will school of governing.
It simply takes to another level the various infractions already routinely committed against we-the-people. The broken election promises. The policies enacted without a mandate. The imposition of policies the Government knows that we hate and/or do not need. Claiming mandates when you have obtained only one third of the first preference vote. Addressing non-problems while ignoring real issues. Abandoning due process during falsely claimed “emergencies”. Routinely lying. Shovelling our democratic prerogatives to the unelected, both here and in Geneva. The last is mimicking the offshoring undertaken for to generations by greedy corporations and taking it into the public square.
The Labor MP Andrew Leigh has suggested (on Facebook) that Ms Mostyn will be a “remarkable” G-G. That is just the problem. The salary isn’t the problem. Nor is the bond she has with Labor. Nor is her wokeness. It is the potential for being remarkable, and so transforming the narrative about the role of our head of state, that should be causing us the most unease. All of the proposals for a president at the ConCon (Constitutional Convention) and beyond, back in those distant late 1990s, suggested “leadership”, “a new chapter” and the emergence of someone “remarkable” to take the nation to a very different Constitutional place. The whole system of Constitutional Monarchy rests upon having a non-remarkable G-G.
One’s greatest fear in this episode should be that nothing will save the Governor-General.
Paul Collits
5 July 2024
Mostyn better keep her arms away from me. What a creepy woman. I don't even agree with when having the position. I agree that it is a republic by stealth.
With the 1901 Constitution and the Qld Constitution both ‘reprinted’. These imposters are not a head of any state. They are public servants reporting to the corporate Federal and State governments respectively. They must know that whatever oath they swore is a farce and are therefore pretending to be something they are not. Isn’t that criminal?