Last month we lamented the loss of the Parliament’s outrage machines: those politicians/political content creators, such as Craig Kelly and George Christensen, who traded in borderline memes, brazen tweets and scandalous quotes.
Well, luckily for us (and the Australian internet at large), former prime minister Scott Morrison’s incredible made-for-memes revelations about him secretly taking on several portfolios have brought to the forefront the next generation of those looking to walk the line between clever, relevant, funny and defamatory.
We’ve graded their approaches.
The teals
It should come as no surprise that the independent MPs who campaigned and won on a platform of, among other things, integrity had something to say about Morrison pulling the wool over the eyes of voters and colleagues alike.
Zali Steggall went the serious route, sharing an appearance on ABC Radio where she condemned Morrison’s lack of transparency. Kate Chaney, too, doubled down on integrity with a renewed call for a federal Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC).
But some teals dipped their toe into the humour pool and tested out the waters.
Dr Monique Ryan made a good effort, checking her cupboards for a spare member for Kooyong. We wonder how her predecessor, former treasurer Josh Frydenberg, felt, given he was a victim of Morrison’s double-up.
Member for Goldstein Zoe Daniel was pulled into the fun and gave it a half-hearted go.
Rating: 6/10. It was a bit dad-jokey, but points for jumping in.
The Greens
Never a party to shy away from proving that they’re “with it”, the Greens pulled out some solid memes for the cause — and their individual members also chimed in with their own great takes.
Rating: 7/10
Greens Leader Adam Bandt jumped into the fray, although most of his memes were cross-posted from the main Greens account. But what makes that very fitting is that the one meme that wasn’t cross-posted was a sitcom crossover: Brooklyn Nine-Nine meets New Girl meets ScoMo’s secret portfolios. Nice.
Rating: 8/10
Greens Senator Lidia Thorpe was very on point with a Last Supper/Morrison mashup and a simple message: federal ICAC now. It’s great to see all the ScoMos interacting with each other in such good detail.
Rating: 8/10
Member for Brisbane Stephen Bates walked the line nicely between humour and gravity. A joke with an ABC clip, very nice.
Rating: 7/10
Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young won the day, however, by bringing our minds back to not one but two WTF moments in Liberal Party history. First, when Scott Morrison thought that crowds of protesters at the 2021 March for Justice should consider themselves lucky they weren’t “met with bullets”. Something, we presume, he thinks only possible in countries with tin-pot dictators who have full control of power and openly flout basic transparency.
Second, when, y’know, the Liberal leader we all thought was going to go down in history as the weirdest of the 21st century, Tony Abbott, did in fact declare himself Minister for Women. Hey, at least he told us!
Rating 9/10
Conspicuously absent from this lineup are any Labor politicians. Maybe this is Anthony Albanese’s “new politics” at work. Maybe it’s the knowledge that Morrison and the Coalition couldn’t possibly be doing worse than they currently are, just by being themselves. How much more damage could a well-placed meme really do?
