A Dream of Two Political Hypocrites

Being a spiritual little insect The Blowfly has been trying to take more notice of his dreams as a source of wisdom and guidance.

Let me share with you a dream I had a few nights ago and see what you can make of it.

I was buzzing through a dingy little alley and I saw a light through a window. I stopped and looked in. There was a meeting in progress.

Tony Abbott and Kevin Rudd were sitting in the front row.

The chairman called the meeting to order and welcomed all attendees to the regular monthly meeting of Political Hypocrites Anonymous.

Tony Abbott was the first to speak.

“Hello”, he said, “I’m Tony Abbott and I’m a political hypocrite.”

“Last week I sought to woo the votes of small business owners.”

“During 2011 I visited over 130 businesses across Australia and became convinced that setting up a new deregulation taskforce to slash red tape would lighten the load on small business owners.”

“I appointed Senator Arthur Sinodinos, former chief of staff to John Howard, to head up a deregulation taskforce to save the economy $1 billion a year. Federal Labor has introduced a damaging compliance burden on Australia’s companies.”

“I proposed that the Coalition would reduce red tape by measures such as allowing small business owners to shift some of the responsibility for superannuation to the Tax Office and administering its parental paid leave scheme through an arm of government.”

“Most of you will see how big a hypocrite this makes me.”

“In respect to red tape, the biggest burden for business owners is the GST regime. Just ask any small business owner!"

"And this was introduced by the Howard-Costello Government----of which I was a Minister!”

“And not only was it introduced by Howard, but it was done after he had previously said he would not introduce it AND it was initiated by Howard unilaterally. He did not consult his Treasurer.”

“And no-one really believes that handing over administration of anything to government will reduce red tape.”

Tony then sat down and Kevin Rudd stood up.

“Hello I’m Kevin Rudd and I’m a political hypocrite,” he said without batting an eyelid.

“During the week I called for greater internal democracy in the ALP.”

“Most of you know the way I ran the country when I was PM.”

“I focussed power within my ‘gang of four’ and side-lined Cabinet as a decision-making body. Ministers found it hard to get to see me. My own department became a bottleneck because I wanted to control everything.”

“I have called for the ALP national conference to be ‘a genuine public contest of ideas’. Yet, the only national conference held while I was PM, in 2009, was the most sterile in the party's history.”

“By my order, not a single vote was allowed on the floor. Rank-and-file participation in pre-selections was severely depleted. A star chamber comprising key factional bosses within the national executive presided over pre-selections in key seats.”

“Most of you will understand immediately how big a political hypocrite I am.”

He then sat down.

Can anyone interpret the meaning of this dream for me?