@gogo1 said " Keating, and to a lesser extent, Hawke, singlehandedly trashed our political debate with oozing invective,the like of which never existed before; and cowed the media, allowing the Barrie Cassidys of the country to rise to the top."........ I like your metaphor of "oozing invective".
As I see it we had in Keating an insult specialist. The Iron Curtain had disappeared in the 1990s when Keating began to insult big time. Previously there had been a type of unity but now that was gone. Now it was use any means to grab power.
As I remember the media was energised by each of his insults which they rushed into print. Remember how energised Richo was when Keating began to launch his final attacks on Hawke.
Bottom line, as I remember anyway, is that the media loved the insults (slander) that poured out of Keating. ALP members then got behind Keating out of fear of being insulted (slandered) themselves.
While this was going on a small nefarious group was watching closely. The Greens saw the power of the insult to control your own members and impress the media. They seemed to have spent a lot of time researching the most effective insults and they found it with "denier".
Denier comes from the Spanish Inquisition and was decreed a worse crime than to be possessed by the devil. The crime of DENYING the existence of the beast was meant to strike maximum fear into the population because anyone could be accused. The Greens have found this to be a real gem in their need to stop any discussion within their own clique.
