My mother has very sensible instincts. After two decades or so of exposure, as a Maribyrnong ratepayer, to the municipal intrigues of the Cumming family, local landowners and perennial council candidates, she is very cynical about Catherine Cumming.
After all, as a long time councillor and erstwhile mayor of the City of Maribyrnong, ‘Doctor’ Cumming does not seem to have done much good in reducing council rates, which seem disproportionately high compared to other local government areas in Melbourne.
The last straw for my mother was when ‘Doctor’ Cumming got elected at the 2018 election on the Deryn Hinch Justice Party ticket (my mother loves Hinch) and then resigned from that party just after the poll was declared.
That action really showed a deep seated commitment to the principles and policies which Hinch had been espousing (whether or not you find him dogmatic or annoying, Hinch is sincere and courageous, which is more than one can say for many other political figures).
[I recall that someone had taken a red Texta to a corflute poster of Cumming on the corner of Gordon Street and Ballarat Road during that election campaign and transformed her to resemble a vampire. Rather apt perhaps.]
Ever since then, my mother has a tendency to put any candidate named Catherine last on the ballot paper in any election, in case that that it might be Catherine Cumming.
I cannot fault her reasoning.
In the middle of last year, I commented on the sudden appearance of a Catherine Cumming MP fridge magnet in my letter box as a sign that she was starting to think about reelection.
Until that point, her main claim to fame in her parliamentary career was providing employment to various of her family and friends.
Since then, to her credit, she has usually voted against the various emergency powers over-reach bills which Dictator Dan has put before the upper house. This gives her slightly more sympathy in my book than those very irresponsible and lazy cross benchers from the Animal Justice Party, the Reason Party and the Transport Matters Party, who were quite happy to abandon their duty as legislative councillors to place strict limits on the length and extent of such powers.
Our Catherine is not really a party girl though. She was recently unsuccessful in getting her own ‘Independence Party’ registered. However, when nominations closed, we find her running for the ‘Angry Victorians Party’, a local franchise for the recently formed ‘Australian Values Party’.
Having a low profile as she has, aside from being resented by Deryn Hinch and Maribyrnong ratepayers alike, ‘Doctor’ Cumming took a stand on the weekend at some rally of the Angry Victorians. She made some very silly comments about Dan Andrews needing to disappear in ‘red mist’ – an allusion to the ‘pink mist’ of a shot to the head.
I dislike Dan Andrews as much as most sane people do, but he does not deserve thinly veiled threats of extreme violence like that. And as a parent, ‘Doctor’ Cumming should see what sort of impact such rants would have on Andrews’ children.
Of course, the Angry Victorians and others at the rally would have lapped it all up.
I am a lot more skeptical than that. ‘Doctor’ Cumming is mostly interested in maintaining her marginal political career. Having started it by exploiting the trust of Maribyrnong ratepayers and then Deryn Hinch, neither of whom have done their due diligence, she then failed to set up her own party (which shows a lack of organisational skills and charisma given one of her fellow local MLCs, once expelled from the ALP, had no problems in getting her own new vehicle set up despite her own colourlessness), and has now grabbed a ride on the Angry Victorian Party.
Personally, I think that ‘Doctor’ Cumming is about as ‘Angry’ as she is a ‘Doctor’ – she has a B.AppSci in alternative medicine, which is a degree of similar length to what a nurse studies.
I would have put her last on my ballot the way that my mother did, except that I think that the Reason Party, Animal Justice, and Transport Matters all revolt me slightly more.
Lost For Words! 