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![Gallagher saga matters little on Struggle Street Gallagher saga matters little on Struggle Street](/images/transform/v1/crop/frm/3ye84bKWuWiYMa84cGAXjf/52e42c58-b3f2-4933-91a1-074e3f00f9a1.png/r0_0_3605_2028_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg)
Sometimes, you wish they'd just stop bickering. The name-calling, the shouting, the accusations and denials, the conflated indignity and childish point scoring. It's schoolyard stuff with very little bearing on what really matters to everyday Australians.
Senator Hanson Young called it out yesterday, expressing her disgust at the cheap politicking over the Brittany Higgins-Bruce Lehrmann saga and vowing not to be drawn into it. She's right.
No one looks good in this political brawl. Not Katy Gallagher, the Finance Minister accused of misleading the Parliament while in opposition. Not the Prime Minister, who's resorted to the time-honoured trickery of weasel words to defend her. And not the opposition, whose accusations of a breach of integrity hinge on a couple of words uttered in a heated exchange in Senate Estimates a couple of years ago and carry the stink of political opportunism about them.
And certainly not the unknown source of the leaked private text messages which found their way into The Australian and lit the fuse of the political scandal.
With the focus on who knew what and when somehow it's been forgotten that there are young people at the centre of the issue, both of whom have been denied justice: the accuser Brittany Higgins and the accused Bruce Lehrmann.
The case against Lehrmann was abandoned after juror misconduct came to the light and a retrial dropped out of fear of the consequences on Ms Higgins' mental health. Consequently, Mr Lehrmann was denied the opportunity of a possible not guilty finding.
The unresolved saga hangs over both their heads and is now being amplified, a reminder of the ugly intersection of politics and justice which have dogged the case since it first came to light. It must be traumatising. Besides, it's not a stretch to argue that accusing the Labor Party of weaponising a rape allegation is pretty much ... weaponising a rape allegation.
Out there on Struggle Street, where most of middle Australia now resides, householders are bracing for the next hike in electricity prices and worried about paying for groceries and rent, whether or not Katy Gallagher knew in advance of the bombshell allegation Ms Higgins was about to drop is absolutely immaterial.
It. Just. Doesn't. Matter.
We all get the opposition is desperate to land a blow on Anthony Albanese's government - and, if the polls are to be believed, it's making headway on The Voice referendum, for which support is slipping. But it could do better than raking over the past, the smouldering coals of the Higgins-Lehrmann story, when the present is such fertile ground.
In just 17 days' time, says the Australian Energy Regulator, residential consumers will face up to a 25 per cent increase in their already expensive power bills. And three days after that, there's every possibility of another interest rate hike. Food prices, which rose 8 per cent in the March quarter, remain stubbornly high with no relief in sight.
Those issues weigh more heavily on most people's minds than what Senator Gallagher knew about the Higgins allegations before they were made public. And that's where the opposition needs to go.
HAVE YOUR SAY: Is the Katy Gallagher issue front of mind in your household? If not, what is? Should the Opposition focus more on issues that affect everyday Australians? Has anyone come out of the controversy looking better or worse? Email us: echidna@theechidna.com.au
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IN CASE YOU MISSED IT:
- Labor frontbencher Katy Gallagher insists she has always acted with the highest levels of integrity and did "absolutely nothing" with the information she was given about the Brittany Higgins rape allegations, days ahead of it being made public in February 2021.
- Stubbornly high prices and slowing business activity are casting shadows over the Reserve Bank's chances of a soft landing for the economy. The pipeline of work in the business sector is drying up, NAB's business survey has revealed, which has worrying implications for Australia's economic growth.
- Speed up investment and cut red tape around building the transmission for renewable energy to power new jobs, or risk falling behind, the industry has warned. "Australia's prosperity and quality of life depend on the decisions that everyone in this room makes now as leaders," Paul Gleeson, head of energy at engineering giant Aurecon, told a business summit at Federal Parliament.
THEY SAID IT: "Scandal dies sooner of itself, than we could kill it." - Benjamin Rush
YOU SAID IT: Trump's hoarding and bathroom tastes speak volumes about money and power and raise the possibility he'll return to the White House.
Karis says: "The vulgarity and madness of Trump reminds me of the larger and equally repulsive taste and vanity of Putin's palace."
"At one point I was sure Americans would not be dumb enough to vote him in and they proved me wrong. I expect they are dumb enough to do it again," says Lee.
Ian says: "I have to say, rather than the document boxes, I was more shocked by the tacky shower curtain in the otherwise sumptuous bathroom, which also suggests it is actually a bathroom, and not as we prefer to say, a toilet. As to Trump's chances of being president again, that depends on factors you alluded to. That is, the ability of his large, rusted-on base to filter out, deny, or reinterpret anything that doesn't agree with their preconception of him. As with most of us to some extent, it's not that we believe what we see, it's that we see what we believe, or more accurately, want to believe."
"I would expect that he has already forfeited his right to even vote, let alone be nominated! He's laughing at the US democratic system," says Paul.
Mark says: "Xi Jinping and Putin must be laughing their heads off. If the choice is between Trump and Biden again; then heaven forbid. Much as I dislike Keating, maybe he is right to say we should cosy up to China."
"And, of course, it's perfectly OK to politicise the judicial system to destroy a political opponent," says Carl. "Yup. No one's talking about that. USA, home of democracy, my ass."