PM baiting game!

 Prime Minister baiting by the Opposition is certainly on the rise…in Parliament, at door stops and in nearby shopping malls. This week’s Question Time has been a battle of claims and counter claims over the framework announced by the Government to price carbon with the Opposition peppering the PM and Treasurer with questions on ‘the great big new tax’ despite there being no price and no policy.  

And on the dot of 10 to 3 each day of this week’s sitting the Leader of the Opposition rose from his seat, strutted to the box and moved the suspension of Standing Orders to allow for a debate on the Government’s proposed pricing of carbon.  In a cart wheeling performance Abbot lambasted the PM on the impact of a carbon price and called for a public revolution. Following the tirade Shadow Treasurer Hockey would rise and thunder his lightweight arguments against a carbon price. It was a manipulative use of Question Time for the purpose of no doubt baiting the PM.

Out in nearby shopping malls Tony Abbot throughout the week has pumped petrol, bunched bananas and filleted fish ranting and raving about the great big new tax whilst some of his backbenchers in doorstops back at Parliament House have compared the PM to Gadaffi.

Postscript: Michelle Grattan and Fran Kelly in the daily Q&A metoo segment on Radio National this morning rather than reporting on the disruptive and demeaning tactics in Parliament focused instead on the PM and her accusation that some members of the Opposition were guilty of race baiting. And in an aside Kelly remarked that all this would impact on the ‘Labor paradise’. A throwaway line or PM baiting?