Dinosaur of the week

This week, The Echo is proud to introduce Liberal premier of Western Australia, Colin Barnett, as the first troglodyte in our new occasional column: Political dinosaur of the week.

Prerequisites to be included in this column are an inclination to wreck pristine environments and act against conventional science, open transparency, human rights, basic decency and ethical behaviour. 

So, who is Colin? This 63-year-old former economics lecturer and barbarian was elected to public office in 1990. He represents the WA Perth electorate of Cottesloe and retained his seat in 2013 with an impressive 64.7 per cent. But ever since taking office, he has racked up a formidable list of accomplishments that hark back to the dark ages.

In 2010, his new drug laws made cannabis cultivation a crime in that state, among other draconian measures. 

His contention that marijuana is a gateway drug that leads to harder drugs is incorrect, it’s more of a drive-through drug that leads to cheeseburgers and fries.

Barnett the barbarian also doesn’t like education, having refused Gonski reforms.

But his pièce de résistance was last week annoying almost the entire country, including Byron residents, with his stone-age plan to cull sharks. Every prehistoric predator over three metres will be shot and disposed of at sea if they come within one kilometre of his coastline. Bravo! 

Klling off an endangered species at the top of the food chain fits perfectly with the state of current politics.

The likely result will draw a shiver of more sharks into a uncontrollable bloodied feeding frenzy. And just like politics, it will be a wholesale butchery on their brethren. Which would it be more interesting?