Only eight days after the (terrorist) mass murders in Christchurch, punters voting for the glorious state parliament of New South Wales have elected three Shooters, Fishers & Farmers Party members in the lower house.
The three seats comprise the western half of the state, which roughly equals the size of Germany (albeit with a somewhat smaller population), and are their first in the Legislative Assembly.
How can country punters have the murderous event still fresh in their minds and vote for a political party referred to as Shooters, its original name? If they are the answer we are asking the wrong question.
Yeah, the discredited Nationals (ex-Country Party), are on the nose in the bush, but come on folks, what about the vibe? How can the Electoral Commission even allow a political party name to be registered these days as Shooters – a world first.
The three seats of Barwon, Murray and Orange encompass the disappearing Murray-Darling river system, which is literally that country’s lifeblood – the scene of massive fish die-offs and corrupt water mismanagement overseen by the Coalition’s junior partner.
The Greens clamoured for decades to protect those vital rivers, and scored dismally in the same electorates. Country voters know that Greens are watermelons (green on the outside, red inside), evil socialists, the devil incarnate, etc., and so they viscerally reject a party defending their own environmental interests.
The new parliament will have three Shooters members and three Greens members.
Say no more.
Meantime the NZ government is now scrambling to finally fix up its slack gun laws. Not surprising that a NSW-grown terrorist murderer moved to New Zealand a couple of years ago: after wandering the globe building up his so-called manifesto, he then easily put together an arsenal of semi-automatic weapons.
