Shadow Ministers

They have a political entity here in Australia called a Shadow Minister. I keep seeing these shadow ministers being interviewed and quoted on the news. So I finally had to ask, "What the hell is a shadow minister?"

The obvious answer would be someone in the government who is in charge of shadows. Why? I have no idea. Did they figure out how to tax them or something? It turns out that a shadow minister is what I would term an "anti-minister".

A government minister is a top ranking official in charge of department of the government. It is sort of like a secretary position in the US, such as out secretary of defense, secretary of state, and so on. And like in the US, they are usually assigned their jobs by whoever is in charge. In Australia, the Prime Minister. In the US, the President.

The prime minister belongs to a political party, so they of course assign these minister jobs ("posts" as they call them here) to people in their own party. The other political party then assigns what they call a "shadow minister" to the same post. However, the shadow minister doesn't actually have the job. They just get to pretend they do.

It works like fantasy baseball. You don't get to actually own a baseball team. But you could pretend you do. You could pretend to buy and sell players, win games, and loose games. You get to second guess the decisions of the real owners and managers.

In Australia, the party not in power sets up a complete shadow cabinet of shadow ministers. Just like a complete fantasy baseball team. They get to run around in their fantasy world making decisions that have zero concequences because non of it is real. What a great system. You get to claim that you have solved all the countries problems with your fantasy government inside your virtual country on planet la-la-land.

Now here is where it get silly. From what I've observed living here, a shadow minister has the easiest job in the world. All you have to as a shadow minister is criticize any decisions made by the real minister by claiming that you would not do the same thing. How hard is that? Just say the opposite of what the real minister says and you've done your job!

For example. Lets say that the minister of polishing apples issues a decree that apples must now be polished clockwise instead of counter-clockwise (or anti-clockwise as they say here). The nightly news will then have the shadow-minister of polishing apples storming up the steps of parliament surrounded by aids carrying important looking papers loudly proclaiming that the minister of a butt-head and that he would not to the same thing.

Now here is the funny part. The press actually interviews shadow ministers! Yup. They take them seriously. Why? I have no idea. I think it is simply a lazy way for the press to claim they are presenting a balance of news.

So the reporter breathlessly asks the shadow minister. "What do you think of today's decision by the minister?" Well no shit Sherlock. Of course that is what he is going to say "I would do the opposite." Do you think he is going to say "Yea. That's a good idea! I would do the same thing." Of course not. How else do they differentiate themselves from their opposition party?