The worst political statement of all time

This is not an emanation from Trump Tower but from Sydney.  

I was astonished to read in the media on Sunday that the Shooters and Fishers Party were likely to win the Orange by election as a result of ALP preferences.  I couldn't believe that this was a result of a formal preference allocation so sent an email to the alleged Leader of the ALP - an invisible person called Luke Foley - asking whether this was the case.

The pro-forma response I got included the following:

Your email is important to us, please be patient while we address your concerns. You will receive a response in due course, if appropriate.  Please note that if your email is not addressed to Mr Foley your email will not be responded to. If you wish to receive a response, please resend the email addressed to the Leader directly.

In other words "We'll reply if we feel like it."  This is so redolent of the email technique used by Peter Hendy, the recently departed Federal Member for Eden Monaro on behalf of the Liberals, that I wonder if the NSW ALP have taken him on as a communications consultant.  Whatever: after close to a week I haven't got a substantive response.

However the SMH has covered the topic this morning and made it clear that the ALP had formally supported the gun-nuts. The article concludes with the following from The Invisible Man:

Mr Foley said: "Labor makes no apology for recommending that voters put the National Party last at the Orange by-election, given the Nationals' failure to deliver on a range of policies for the people of the Central West."
"We unequivocally support Australia's strong gun laws, unlike Mr Piccoli's government which attempted to weaken them at the most recent Council of Australian Governments meeting," he said.

How someone who is the Leader of a major political party, and thus presumably got through Primary School without having to repeat too many years, cannot see that supporting the election of the Shooters and Fishers Party is directly going against the national gun laws is beyond belief.  By giving these vicious people the cachet of having a lower-House member they are perpetuating the current sorry situation, and strengthening the case of the elephant killing Leader of the gun nuts.

I just hope that the Greens come up with a good candidate for the next State election because I won't be able to hand out cards asking voters to support the party led by Foley.