The republicans are good at looking down on the rank and file, it seems.
Mike Carlton, a prominent republican, has shown himself to be completely out of touch with the Australian people. That is why the ratings for his Sydney 2UE talkback programme fell so low the programme had to be put out of its misery.
It always seemed that he had the contempt for the common man which is too typical of the republican elite.
He actually admitted this in his 19 February column in The Sydney Morning Herald where he says:
“One of the delights of my retirement from breakfast radio is that I no longer have to read The Daily Telegraph to see what the thick end of town, the really stupid people, are doing and saying.”
You said it Mr.Carlton.
The Daily Telegraph enjoys the highest circulation in New South Wales, and in what used to be called “working class” suburbs. It often contains valuable news which does not appear in its rivals. And it publishes some very good comment, and perceptive readers letters.
…superiority…
Carlton’s affected superiority is common among republicans. Robert Hughes said at the time of the referendum, anyone who votes No is stupid.
The vitriolic attacks by the republicans on the people following the referendum along the line argued by Hughes were very revealing.
Why do republicans look down on everyone else?
As one commentator – not a monarchist – said recently, the republicans are like the French Bourbons, they have learned nothing and forgotten nothing.
I even received an email from the republican movement when I recalled that the IRA’s Gerry Adams had campaigned for a Yes vote in 1999, as he did.
The ARM asked:
”Are you quite mad, a habitual liar or just an idiot?”
Who would send such an email when he would be soon shown by the national press to be completely wrong?
More recently they have played the race card asserting I am a “ perma-tanned… Indonesian born…blow-in.”. Obviously they look down on all Australians who are foreign born or are not fully white.
…as for the states, run everything from Sydney …
On the same day, The Australian’s Cut and Paste column lamented that it will be sad if George Negus's TV show dies because he'll have more time to write books.
This was about reports that the news programme on Channel 10 hosted by Mr. Negus had lost half its viewers since it was launched.
Cut and Paste puts it this way:
Plummeting ratings? What on earth is the matter with us as a nation? Negus explains in "Well and Truly Hung Down Under!", a chapter in his new book, The World from Down Under: A Chat with Recent History:
Meanwhile Down Under, the idiocy of those anachronistic 19th-century British colonies we turned into 21st-century "States of Confusion" continues to stymie proper politics and thwart a sensible economic and social fabric for the nation.
Federalism — via the counter-productive silliness we laughingly call a system of national government — sucks!
Running a country based on meaningless imaginary lines scribbled on a map by a drunken cartographer in the middle of the night over a century ago?
Spare me . . .
Stalemated by our collective ideological immaturity and rampant political indecision, we were left scrambling for a makeshift, cobbled government via what turned out to be a hung parliament, a well-hung parliament or a not-so-well-hung parliament!
Carlton is all for abolishing the states too. If the question were ever put to the people, expect a resounding No.