bitch and fold

This is a strategy, adopted frequently by political parties and given its name by Katherine Murphy (pictured above) in her time as a journalist for the Guardian Australia.  She used it to describe the behaviour of the Labor opposition at the time but it is being used now for the Liberal Party in opposition, in particular in relation to their response to the reframed tax cuts proposed by the government.  It is definitely a useful label for an all-too-familiar political response so it has been adopted by the Canberra press gallery and, you would suspect, by everyone in the Canberra bubble.  Albanese didn’t like it as a description of his manoeuvres in opposition and Dutton doesn’t like it now that he is performing the classic bitch and fold.  Katherine Murphy, in the meantime, has recently moved into Albanese’s office, it is thought to advise on communications.