President Abbott

Image courtesy ramblingsdc.net

Our Prime Minister has been going around saying things like – “The electorate voted for me as leader to end the chaos of the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd Labor governments".

Now this statement would be true if we had a presidential electoral system. We don’t – so it isn’t.

The only “electorate” that voted for Tony Abbott were the voters of Warringah. Just to state the bleeding obvious, the Liberal Party elected Tony Abbott leader, and he was commissioned by the Governor General to form government.

Now this meme by Abbott is no big deal - he often talks rubbish - except that not only does he put it forward ad nauseum, but it seems to be largely accepted by most Australians, led by the mainstream media.

I venture to suggest that it comes from the same place as pattie cakes being called cupcakes, aeroplanes being renamed airplanes, and biscuits metamorphosing into cookies. I swear that if I had somehow done a Rip Van Winkle and woken today after a fifty year nap, I would have difficulty believing that during that time we had not been invaded by the US military and annexed as the fifty-first state.

Language wise, we might as well have been.

Now don’t get me wrong – the US of A is a great country. But it is not my country. I don’t appreciate my lingo being mangled. Nor do I appreciate the public's understanding of my system of government being carefully and deliberately  subverted, even if it is to construct a political meme.

We’re on a slippery slope to becoming a fully-owned subsidiary of the US of A, fellow Australians – assuming there are any of you who continue to identify as such.