Yesterday we lamented the departure of the great traders in the outrage economy from the last Parliament — George Christensen, Eric Abetz, Craig Kelly et al — and with them, plenty of great content. We determined we would find replacements, with your help.
Our first candidate was Jacinta Price, the Warlpiri/Celtic woman whose deeply conservative views on Indigenous issues in particular at the very least guarantee her reams of coverage in the hard-right nooks of the Murdoch empire. But we need more, much more. Here are a few more to keep an eye on:
The teals
The teal independents feature high-profile professional women who are nevertheless outsiders new to the world of parliament, and they’ve already produced a lot of “we ought to stick together” posts. Plus, they can go hard on the relatively narrow focus of their platforms — gender equity, integrity, climate change. And it’s promising that teal MP Monique Ryan — who snapped up Kooyong at the expense of former treasurer Josh Frydenberg — announced today that Sally Rugg, former campaign director with grabby content experts GetUp, is her chief of staff.
Stephen Bates
But the teals are a little straight, a little too “let’s do a serious podcast discussing the issues” for our purposes. We want something a little weirder. The Greens (or is it Greems?) have made chaotic shitposting a central plank of their social media presence for a while. Who can forget the TikTok they released featuring party leader Adam Bandt looking approvingly off-screen — with text saying “Pretty excited for our newest Greens candidate” — at what is revealed to be (and once again, this is simply a factual description) a giant Shrek decked out in a low-cut, black leather catsuit and gyrating above Parliament House.
So far their new MP for Brisbane, Stephen Bates, has been very straightforward and issues-focused on media both social and mainstream. Still, we are hopeful that as one of the very few young people in Parliament and one of the even smaller number whose immediate pre-politics career was that of a normal person (Bates worked in retail), he will give us some decent meme work over the next three years.
Ralph Babet
But still, this is all too… deliberate for our content needs. We need someone a little more likely to go rogue, a little more chaotic. On this front, we have high hopes for new United Australia Party Senator Ralph Babet. Babet is the surprising answer to the question “What does $100 million buy you?” The sole representative elected as a result of mining magnate/agent of chaos Clive Palmer spending on the election with the profligacy of a Saudi consortium company buying premier league footballers, Babet sneaked in on the final spot of the Victorian Senate.
And as soon as that news prompted him to delete old posts that claimed the election he’d just won was going to be rigged, we knew he would fit the bill. He’s already complained that climate science isn’t “settled” and complained that his $200k salary wasn’t enough to compensate him for what he will “suffer” as a senator. One to watch, for sure.
Who have we missed? Who else is a potential loose unit in our new Parliament? Let us know.
