Labor’s Ooshies Housing Farce

Have you seen senior Albanese Government minister and serial travel allowance rorter Anika Wells’ social media contribution on housing, using Ooshies?

What a total embarrassment. Beyond cringeworthy.

At a time when rents are crushing household budgets and families are struggling to meet mortgage repayments, this is what a senior Cabinet minister apparently thinks passes for serious political communication.

There are three possible explanations.

The first is that this really is an accurate demonstration of Anika Wells’ grasp of economics.

The second is that she genuinely believes she is so intellectually superior to ordinary Australians, and holds voters in such contempt, that she thinks complex economic issues need to be explained to them using children’s supermarket collectibles.

And the third possibility?

Both of the above.

If I was having a bet, I’d say “both of the above” would be a short-priced favourite.

Either way, it is another demonstration of just how badly standards have fallen under the Albanese Government.

Australia is facing a housing affordability crisis. Young Australians who work hard and save are watching the dream of owning a home disappear over the horizon. Rents have soared. Mortgage holders have been hammered. Homelessness is at record levels. The cost of building has exploded.

And a senior minister reaches for the Ooshies.

But what makes this episode even more extraordinary is not simply that Wells posted a video that has opened her to ridicule and turned her into a national laughing stock.

It is that she apparently filmed it, watched it and approved it for publication without recognising how ridiculous it would look.

That is the real issue: judgment.

This wasn’t some spontaneous comment made during a live interview where she had microseconds to think and respond.

She must have conceived the idea. Planned it. Written or approved the script.

Then she obtained the Ooshies. I wonder if they were paid for by taxpayers of if she’s claiming a tax deduction on them.

The video was filmed in her parliamentary office. It was presumably edited.

And after all of that, Wells apparently looked at the finished product and thought: Yes, this is how a senior minister in the Australian Government should communicate about housing. Post it.

In any other government, this would be astonishing. But under the Albanese regime, with out-of-touch incompetents like Blackout Bowen, Chalmers, Michelle Rowland, Patrick Gorman, who is facing assault charges, Matt Keogh, Clare O’Neil, Katy Gallagher and so on, it’s par for the course.

And this comes from a minister who has already faced intense scrutiny and controversy over her rorting of taxpayer-funded travel and expenses. She should be lying low, keeping out of the media and hoping that voters forget.

Whatever defence Wells offers over those expenses, this latest performance raises another serious question about the judgment of someone entrusted with ministerial responsibility and enormous amounts of taxpayers’ money.

Then consider what taxpayers are paying for all this.

A minister in the Albanese regime pockets around $450K a year, plus a car, expenses, taxpayer-funded staff, offices, travel and the considerable resources that accompany ministerial office.

Australians are entitled to expect competence, seriousness and sound judgment in return.

Instead, while millions of Australians are worrying about whether they can afford their next rent increase, save a deposit or keep up with their mortgage, we get a senior minister playing with Ooshies on social media.

This is what passes for political leadership in the Albanese Government.

And perhaps the most damning point is this: Anika Wells isn’t some obscure backbencher sitting unnoticed on the government benches.

Anthony Albanese promoted her. He put her in Cabinet.

She is supposed to represent the calibre of people Labor considers capable of governing the country.

If this is among Labor’s “best and brightest”, Australians are entitled to wonder what on earth the rest of the talent pool looks like.

No wonder Australians increasingly feel Canberra exists in a different universe from the people paying its bills.

Australia deserves ministers who understand the real world, not ministers who think the housing crisis is an opportunity for an Ooshies video.

No wonder Australia is going backwards and voters are flocking to One Nation.

“The price of greatness is responsibility.”
― Winston Churchill