Memorably, Paul Keating once said we were headed towards being a Banana Republic if parliament wouldn'btput through his reforms - whatever they were at the time. I can't even remember which reforms he was talking about because my politics radar wasn't exactly tuned in at the time. I think I caught the phrase Banana Republic because I was a Woody Allen fan even back then and one of his early funny ones was 'Bananas', about Banana Republic. If you asked me what the hallmarks of a Banana Republic might be, I'd have say it was the rampant abuse of power carried out by the party in power, in order to stay in power.
That might ring strange or lame, but when you think of all of those Banana Republic dictators and juntas in Latin America during the 50s, 60s and 70s, it is clear that those regimes were not shy about getting the police to do they regime's dirty work.
And so we have tonight's breaking news:
The Australian Federal Police are raiding Labor Party offices in Melbourne over the alleged leak of documents from the National Broadband Network.
In an explosive development in the middle of a federal election campaign, the Treasury Place office of former communications minister Stephen Conroy was searched.
Two staffers for Labor's communications spokesman Jason Clare, one of whom is a former staffer to Senator Conroy, are believed to also be targeted by the raids. One of the staffers is a key operative in Labor Party campaign headquarters.
Labor confirmed the raids on Thursday, shadow finance spokesman Tony Burke saying they were in relation to allegations about documents which revealed that the NBN roll-out was slower and more expensive under the Coalition than under Labor.
Mr Burke said the revelations about the NBN had caused "immense damage" to Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull as former communications minister and questioned the timing of the raids.
It's also understood that up to 20 NBN Co employees have been interviewed by the AFP over the leak.
So there we have it. In order not to lose the election, the Coalition go and sic the AFP on to the ALP staffers to screw up their election campaign. Irrefutable proof that our government is behaving very much like some Latin American Banana Republic. It's a highly powered Nixon-ian act of rat fucking but that's what's going on here. I guess we're beginning to see the true colours of the much-admired Malcolm Turnbull now. He's a cornered rat given the tight polls so naturally it's time for some rat fucking.
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