Senator Cory Bernardi has again opened his mouth before checking his facts and it has been to the benefit of a school fundraiser. Craigburn Primary School was involved in the ‘Do it in a dress’ fundraiser in which the children were encouraged to come to school in a dress or casual clothes and to bring a gold coin donation. This fundraiser was chosen by the children after they heard about girls in Africa not having access to education1.
Bernardi, seemingly gullible enough to believe that it was part of some large conspiracy to change the gender identity of all the children in the school. He therefore tweeted “This gender morphing is getting absurd”. This stupidity from Bernardi led to an immediate backlash, such that instead of the school raising the expected $900, it has raised over $180,000 for educating girls in Africa. Federal Education Minister Simon Birmingham hammered Bernardi for not checking his facts. One of the funniest parts of this Bernardi fiasco was his defence of his tweet. It was his belief that the fundraiser, which the school had entitled ‘Casual Day Fundraiser’, was inappropriate and that it was part of some social engineering by the South Australian Department of Education. He then brought the ‘Safe Schools’ program into it and its non-existent relationship to the same-sex marriage debate. Believe it or not, Bernardi stated that children “are being politicised and indoctrinated”1, seemingly completely unaware of the irony in his statement. Firstly, this was a school fundraiser which was only politicised by Bernardi, and it is the religious organisations who insist on the indoctrination of children.
Given the dramatic improvement in the number of dollars raised by the Craigburn School to educated girls in Africa, I imagine schools will be lining up to pique Bernardi’s obsession with sex so that he shoots his mouth off again, thereby providing publicity that would cost a lot of money to get otherwise.
This will be a handy little reminder to the Liberal Party why they should be relieved that Bernardi jumped ship2. Although not as big an embarrassment as people like Abbott and Abetz, every little decrease in the idiot coefficient of the party helps.
Sources
- http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-09-21/bernardi-backlash-prompts-fundraiser-blow-out/8967698
- http://www.blotreport.com/australian-politics/where-to-now-saint-bernardi/
The figure is now way over $200,000 and growing rapidly. However, on the assumption that any publicity is good publicity this event will probably help the Australian Conservatives rather than hinder them. Something probably more helpful from their point of view is that their far right rivals, One Nation, have forgotten to register themselves as a party for the SA state election on March 18, 2018, and hence will struggle to have any impact in the Legislative Council election where they may have hoped to win a seat. This has to be done at least six months in advance of the election, the date of which is set–it is the third Saturday in March every four years. In SA, the Legislative Council (upper house) is a bit like the Senate in that it has many minor party members (Greens, Australian Conservatives [aka Family first], Xenophon’s lot and Dignity for Disability) and given that eleven members are elected every four years, there is always a good chance for a well organised minor party.
Jim,
An hour or so ago, a tweet from Wendy Harmer said it had reached $400,000! It is a relief to realise that enough people are annoyed by the stupidity of Bernardi, to give away their cash in large quantities. Online One Nation is either referred to as ‘One Notion’ or ‘One Neuron’. This seems appropriate given they aren’t capable of registering as a party for an election, and also aren’t cognisant of the fact that if you believe something is true doesn’t mean it is. Like being a dual citizen, for instance.