From today’s Crikey email:
Much ink has been spilled over the last few weeks on the question of whether the Rudd campaign was a cunning News Limited plot, with the speculation spilling over into the pages of the Fin Review, which moved Rupert Murdoch himself to deny that he was looking for a leadership switch as a pretext for turning on the Coalition. Such conspiracy theories are far fetched.
There is no doubt, though, that the attack lines that will be used against Rudd have been well and truly signalled in The Australian.
When Kim Beazley replaced Mark Latham as leader, business groups were quick to assert that Labor could only regain “economic credibility” by ditching its support for collective bargaining and distancing itself from the union movement. The irony, of course, was that Latham himself was probably the Labor leader most likely to do this.
Beazley would have won no friends in corporate circles, or among those like Paul Kelly whose constant refrain is that Labor’s path back to power is to swim in Tony Blair’s wake, by promising to rip up AWAs.
These themes were heavily pounded on News Limited keyboards over the last few days.
The Australian editorialised on Saturday:
Instead of remaining captive to fringe thinking and the demands of environmentalists and union bosses, Labor must show itself as a new ALP for a new age, the age of globalisation and rapid technological change.
Paul Kelly chimed in, calling for Rudd to devise “policies for the future”. Kelly’s criticism of Rudd’s agreement with Beazley’s IR policy and his references to globalisation would have made it clear what he thinks they are. But he spelled it out explicitly, just in case anyone was in any doubt as to the sort of “New Labor” he would like to see:
There is no policy difference between Beazley and Rudd on industrial relations, just a message that the political and industrial wings remain locked together a century after arbitration’s inauguration. Labor’s refusal to redefine this relationship is a contemporary political disaster that doesn’t need Tony Blair as confirming witness.
The government will run on the backward-looking line, seeking to embed Labor’s links with the union movement as the “political disaster” Kelly thinks it is. The Liberal Party’s cutesy web graphic is only the first shot. Rudd will be portrayed as untried and untested and subject to union influence, in an attempt to turn WorkChoices into a positive for Howard, just as “trust” was in 2004. And ritualistically, the first calls to ditch Labor’s IR policy have been made by a New South Wales business group.
If Rudd ever believed that he had the support of News, he’d better think again quickly.
News haven’t spent the last few months hammering away at Labor because they thought a change of leadership would do Labor some good. Neither will they be backing the new Labor leadership team. It will give them some “fresh meat” for them to get their teeth into though. I agree Mark, anybody looking for News to change their attitude to Labor will be sorely disappointed.
Wait until the Front Bench is announced, then will see Rupert’s rodents rip into Garrett etc. Especially if the new Shadow Communications Spokesperson decides to dump the media laws just introduced.
Also because the ALP is such a supporter of the ABC, Murdoch will run the line that Rudd/Gillard were treated softly by Lateline/7.30 Report etc.
As the old saying goes, beware of Wolves in Sheep’s Clothing.
This will be naive and off-topic no doubt, but I have to ask: at what point does the awe of News Limited’s influence become unwarranted?
I don’t doubt the desire of News Limited to shape politics to Rupert’s liking, but what of their actual power. One of these days some politician should try it on and see.
And in the current era, surely whatever influence News has can only be less than it was say, 20 years ago. I don’t know about Rupert’s state tabloids, but hasn’t The Australian been running at a loss since forever? And even if people do read the Telegraph or whatever, would they not respect a well-articulated ‘fuck off Rupert’ in cases where the public good is at stake?
Ok, that last comment might have sounded ignorant… of course I’m aware of the media laws etc etc, and News Global is no doubt bigger than ever… but surely the point is that newspapers just aren’t all that, these days?
“Labor must show itself as a new ALP for a new age, the age of globalisation and rapid technological change.”
wtf… where was this person during the hawke years? button plan anyone? economic rationalisation of the automotive industry to be globally competitive? hello?
reactionary nationalism of Howard’s neocon Liberals is not very hip to globalisation ffs..
the editor of the australian should get the sack for sheer stupidity
Exactly! Murdoch power-munchers like Paul Kelly have always been in tune with the globalizing and Asianizing imperative of the Hawke/Keating(/and Evans) governments and Rudd is absolutely cut from the same cloth. It’s a bit like Gareth Evans has just been elected to ALP leader.
News Limited played a pretty fair hand in bringing the ALP leadership we have today. They were obviously being fed by somebody but some of those polls Dennis commissioned were absolute “crackers” for the Gillard Rudd team. Don’t think they won’t use the same sort opinion and “strategic” poll questions to do the same thing to the latest beneficiaries.
And they’re at it again – http://www.news.com.au/perthnow/story/0,21598,20878093-5005361,00.html
‘New look’ team Rudd to have old facesBy Maria Hawthorne
December 05, 2006 05:35pm
LABOR leader Kevin Rudd’s new-look front bench looks likely to have only three new faces on it – and possibly only one who has never held a shadow portfolio before.
As Mr Rudd and his deputy Julia Gillard prepare to go on a 10-day campaigning tour around the country, four MPs are fighting for three vacancies in the 32-member shadow ministry.
Only one of them – former Midnight Oil frontman Peter Garrett – is a certainty.
The other three – Chris Bowen, Bob McMullan, and Craig Emerson – are waiting to see whether the final decision will be up to the new leader or decided by factional pressure.
Mr Rudd has vowed to choose the front bench he wants, raising expectations of a mass shake-up which would defy the wishes of the party’s powerful factions.
So much for the Honeymoon period at Murdoch Manor.
I don’t think you sound ignorant at all, Kiernan.
The Carpenter Government has come out swinging against the only daily newspaper in WA recently. Alannah MacTiernan put out a media release titled: “Is it true, or did you read it in the West?”, and the Premier said he’d cancelled his subscription. I think they figure The West can’t show much more bias than it does now, so they’re either hoping to reduce its influence, or betting it doesn’t have much now.
Ahh yes, the Herdsman Lake Liberal Sub Branch
Unfortunately, our electronic media, especially those fari and impartial NOT people at Southern Cross Broadcasting, take the words of Strongarm and Co as Gospel, as does to a lesser extent Ch 7, 9 & 10.
Today’s efforts of Strongarm and Mooner Murray in blasting Rudd etc was nothing unusal, but surprisingly, Gerard Henderson actually said something decent ofor once and said that the new team would give Howard a run for his money.
Mind you the West lost whatever little Credability it did have, when Strongarm praised Brian Burke
I See Janet is singing from the same News Ltd Hymn Book re Blairising the ALP.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,20879834-601,00.html
The Australian — NewsJanet Albrechtsen: Forging a modern ALP
Ditch the working-class man and embrace aspirational, upwardly mobile new workers
——————————————————————————–
December 06, 2006
JIMMY Barnes can teach Kevin Rudd a thing or two about rejuvenating the ALP. The last image most voters will retain of Kim Beazley as Labor leader is of him standing in a half-filled Melbourne Cricket Ground, swaying uncomfortably to the tune of Barnes singing Working Class Man at last week’s national day of protest. An ageing rock star singing a 1980s song filled with lyrics about a class war that started fading back in the ’70s.
Meanwhile, across the nation, men and women were in their factories, shops and offices just getting on with it, ignoring the downtrodden working-class man rhetoric of Beazley, Barnes and the ALP. It was a powerful reminder why Beazley’s mantra of being Mr Experience had become a synonym for Yesterday’s Man.
That vignette should tell Rudd that a change of leader is not enough. A change in style will also not suffice, though it will help. The ALP is now a party of reactionaries. It represents an Australia that no longer exists. To his credit, Beazley provided the nice, safe pair of hands to steady Labor after the Latham tumult.
Rudd has a different role. He needs to do what British Labour Prime Minister, Tony Blair, did in Britain: pick the party up by the scruff of the neck, shake the unionist ticks and fleas off and reposition it at the centre of Australian life. That will necessarily offend the out-dated union mentality built around the myth of the unhappy worker.
That’s persuasive! I’m sure Ruddy will be rushing to embrace Janet’s words of wisdom…
I hate the ‘aspirational’ voters. I hate Janet Albrechtsen. Can’t they both just die?
That’s unkind, Bob.
I wonder has Albrechtsen actually listened to Working Class Man? As I remember it it’s about self-reliance, masculinity and a struggle for dignity (and blue denim).
Sounds like she’s hearing an anthem to Arthur Scargill.
Indeed Liam, he’s also a war veteran who believes in God.
Further to Kieran’s and Anna’s comments, I would suggest that several of the Murdoch press’s papers and writers have reached the point where virtually anything they come out with is such predictably partisan boilerplate that it loses the ability to persuade and serves only to provide a regular ideological sugar fix to the converted. And the Australian‘s sponsorship of minimalist republicanism and greenhouse denialism has underwhelmed the punters on both issues.
The parallels with Tony Blair are unavoidable. In terms of their political record, the most obvious similarity is that both Rudd and Blair have risen very quickly within their party, and so don’t have the baggage that an old-timer might. On a personal level, both see their Christian faith as a strong part of their politics. I hope for Australia’s sake that this is where the similarities end.
On the thumbs-up from Murdoch, the parallels are also striking. The Sun’s front page headline when Labour were elected in 1997 was ‘It was the Sun wot won it’. That could be the kind of re-allignment happening now in the Aussie tabloids. I don’t know how much influence Murdoch had on Blair’s subsequent policies, but there was probably an influence on the way that Blair and his media coterie went about governing the country – through soundbites and spin, catchy but vacuuous policy snippets, and brutal character assassinations (or in the case of David Kelly, perhaps a real assassination).
There’s nothing wrong with Labor becoming ‘New Labor’, just as long as it doesn’t mean what it has in Britain – the presidentialisation of the PM’s office, and the granting of massive powers to spin doctors who deliver style over substance, and are completely unaccountable. Also, Blair’s personality cult was balanced by sound economic management from Brown (except for his madcap nuclear ambitions). Who is Labor’s Gordon Brown?
Hopefully Anita Quigley’s plea to Julia Gillard to fix her hair will be heeded as well. Good to see the real issues getting an airing in the ‘News’.
I knew Julia Gillard when she was blonde. Just sayin’…
I don’t doubt the desire of News Limited to shape politics to Rupert’s liking, but what of their actual power. One of these days some politician should try it on and see.
I guess. One can say the same about Jones. You also have to be careful when you see the Aus runnign a different line to the Daily Terror of the Horrald-Sun. They are all News Ltd.
I read that thing by Quigley. Could. Not. Believe. It. But still, can’t help but think that jacket was a mistake – especially since it will be played over and over and over on the news until the election and beyond. She looks so much nicer in pale colours anyway …
Exactly. It’s a song about the dignity of labour, not class war. I suspect Albrechtsen does know this, and thats why she dosn’t like it. The idea of the dignity of labour has been a strong one throughout Australia’s history. It is also an idea that Janet Albrechtsen’s worldview, which treats labour as just another commoditty to be traded on an open market, can’t handle.