And it’s not just the scrapping of the socialist objective. Update [by Kim] – which is now off the scrapheap – commentary from Tim Dunlop.
So much for product differentiation, Rudd style. Kim Beazley could quite rightly say that Labor had sharpened its differences with the government this term, and this was going to make the next election something quite rare these days in Australian politics – a genuine contest of ideologies and ideas.
But Rudd and various newly anointed and reshuffled shadows have spent the week blurring the differences. Passive welfare be damned, “symbolic reconciliation” is out, there’s no difference between private and public schools, there’ll be “careful consultation” with America on Iraq, political correctness is out and the 3Rs back in.
It’s a puzzling strategy.
If the two recent polls are to be believed, the movement to Ruddian Labor comes largely from those with Greens, Democrats and independent voting intentions. There’s not a lot of evidence that many who voted Liberal in 2004 are shifting.
The Rudd rhetoric won’t do anything to convince those Labor inclined voters who thought Beazley too conservative and parked their votes with the Greens to shift back if it keeps up. And it’s questionable whether it’ll be all that effective with more socially conservative voters.
The Democrats tried a similar strategy in the midterms. After the 2004 loss, Democrats from Clinton down proclaimed their religiosity and their values. But the post election polling showed that the Republicans’ implosion on corruption, sleaze and Iraq was what shifted evangelical and socially conservative voters in large numbers. The Democrats may have made it easier for them to come over, but it took major Republican own goals to motivate them.
There’s no evidence that Howard is anywhere near as much on the nose with voters as Bush and the Congressional circus were.
Similarly, the “New Labour” rebranding in Britain relied for its plausibility on a deeply unpopular government.
Paul Kelly is totally wrong when he sees religion as a key factor in Australian politics, the recent electoral success of Santamaria’s ghost notwithstanding. All the evidence from every psephological source, including the AES surveys conducted after every election, shows it motivates only a small number of voters. Rudd’s no doubt sincere in his convictions. But conservative voters are going to (sensibly) vote for a really conservative party, not for a largely secular and socially liberal party with a new line in values talk.
The true meaning of a “bridge too far” is becoming evident. Rudd is replaying Howard’s line that the electors liked Labor’s policies but found Keating too extreme or distasteful. But Howard is not Keating, and his government is not the carcass swinging in the wind that the Keating government became on the day Dawkins brought down his budget.
Update [by Kim]: Don Arthur’s take at Troppo. Arleeshar isn’t impressed with the Ruddster.
As I said the day Rudd was elected was leader, it will be Howard in ‘07 with an increased majority in both houses. Face it guys, the ALP’s historic mission died when Hawke was elected. Time to nag the old nag at the back and put her down.
He’s not going to win the election by moving to the Left. Australian elections are won in the middle ground and Greens and Dems are hardly going to be preferencing Howard because Rudd has disowned Socialism. Who hasn’t?
I agree that religion is pretty much a non-issue electorally apart from the turn-off engendered universally in Australia by overt God-bothering and religiosity – it’s not for nothing that the political wing of the Assembly of God eschews any mention of the Bod himself and calls itself Family First.
Beazley also said that he would be consulting with the Americans before pulling out and I don’t think its to audacious to predict that unless things turn around radically in Iraq between now and then the Americans will be beginning withdrawing themselves by late 2007.
I think it’s the presentation more than the substance, Chris.
Geoff, no. But the ALP wasn’t very far to the left to start with. He’s probably trying to sweep the plate of issues where he doesn’t want to fight, but I’m not convinced a “Howard lite” strategy is going to work. And there has to be considerable impact on the morale of Labor members and supporters.
Beazley’s entire leadership was Howard me-too and fly under the radar. He deserved to be boned.
“And there has to be considerable impact on the morale of Labor members and supporters.”
Nothing compared to the impact on their morale that another Howard victory would wreak…..
It’s early days. Let’s say how this unfolds over the next 2 to 3 months.
It is early days.
The thing that most concerns me, though, is that the message is all over the place from him. Last week Howard was a “market fundamentalist” and fairness was vital. This week it’s “hey, look, we’re New Labor”. I doubt too many people are paying attention at this time of year, but he needs a focussed message about what a Rudd government could do.
What Geoff said. It seems Labor has finally reallised that the key to winning the next election is to take votes off Howard, not the Greens — which are mainly in the bag anyway, thanks to preferences.
As to this “new look” Labor, Robert Manne rather sourly commented after the last election that for Labor to win government it had to divorce itself from the agenda of the left intelligentsia (RM’s words). The electorate won’t buy it. Maybe Rudd has realised it too, and reckons this is the time to ring the changes.
No doubt a lot of ALP members will be bruised by the abandonment of socialism, but let’s face it, there are probably not enough actual ALP members to affect the outcome in a single electorate.
Of course it’s not going to work! A “Howard lite” strategy alienates everyone who would possibly want to vote for you.
People who like Howard aren’t going to vote for you anyway, because they’ve got actual Howard.
People who don’t like Howard aren’t going to vote for you, because you’re acting like Howard.
And people who think that Howard is the evil scum of the earth and hate him with the fire of a thousand suns will probably vote for the Greens or another minor party because YOU’RE ACTING LIKE THE SCUM.
It’s lose/lose/lose all over.
Besides which, I’m of the opinion that people will only vote Labor Federally on occasions when Labor outlines a different philosophical vision of Australia’s future, and will never vote Labor solely on the grounds of tax cuts, etc, etc. We need to re-articulate Paul Keating’s vision of no-one being left behind. Labor’s mission didn’t die when Bob Hawke was elected – it died when Australians rejected a vision of Australia’s future as fair and equitable because they thought Keating was arrogant and out-of-touch, and because Howard was presenting a view of his party (at that stage) that made them look like they weren’t Evil Tories. More fool the electorate for falling for that.
But I digress. Early days, as Geoff says. We’ll see what Ruddard articulates over the coming few months, in terms of that vision thing, and Labor principles.
If I’m a Howard voter who thinks that welfare is a sop to bludgers, Aboriginals have it too good, and public school teachers aren’t teaching the 3Rs, Rob, what incentive to I have to vote for Rudd? I’ve already got a government that pushes my buttons.
Mark, can you point to _any_ recent example of a social democratic party deliberately choosing a more radical agenda, and then winning with it against an encumbent conservative party that had not already shot itself in the foot or imploded?
The most obviously successful social democrats I can think of were Blair and Clinton, and they went with platforms more or less similar to Rudd’s in terms of political positioning.
What Rebekka said as well.
Mark
The irony of all Rudd’s gloating about exposing the supposed uber-Hayek disciple John Howard is that economic rationalism was introuduced into Australia by Paul Keating!
For all intents and purposes Labor abandoned socialism in the 1980s. Rudd is simply restating what his old boss Wayne Goss said sometime in the early 1990s when they were governing Queensland.
The issue now is whether Labor still remembers what’s wrong with capitalism, in particular what’s wrong with the current version of Australian capitalism, and what a social democratic party should be trying to do about it.
Paulus, both Blair and Clinton were elected when there were governments far more on the nose than Howard’s.
I’m not suggesting Rudd institute “a more radical agenda”. I’m suggesting that the broad points of difference with the government that Beazley had articulated should be retained, and as Rebekka says, that there should be a narrative about social inclusion and Australia’s future that’s to the forefront.
Politics is mainly in the packaging. Krullard will have to box clever and make it look as if they are different, e.g. they will do more or less the same things as Howard (the things the electorate wants the government to do), but do it more nicely and more better.
Which is what Howard did with Keating. It only works if there are good reasons to vote against the devil you know.
FWIW, I think the socialist objective is nonsense. But why pick a fight on it? Blair had to because the Labour Party generally had gone way to the left in the 80s. That’s not been the case here. All it does is keeps a smile on Paul Kelly’s face, and draws attention to the fact that there are people in the ALP who’d like to keep it there.
It never worried PJK when he was floating the currency or deregulating product markets.
Rudd has every chance of winning because he’s very much like Howard. Solid married family type with Christian values. That’s why they both voted the same(no) on using human embryos for stem cell research for crying out loud. Gillard and Rudd have nothing in common. She’s a raving lefty and hasn’t had a hubby and kids, which at her age makes most of the electorate suspicious. Like Cassius she has that lean and hungry look about her that puts you off too. Rudd’s exactly the man to supersede Howard but the only query is whether his Party frightens the horses at the starting line come Cup time. Naturally, Howard will be doing everything to see that they do.
So are you going to vote Labor because of Rudd’s solid values, obs?
No? Point made.
Early days for Rudd but he’s not impressing me: he’s actually going backwards in my opinion and becoming more ‘Sunday School-teacherish’.
If I hear him say once more, when asked for a comment on an issue, ‘I haven’t been briefed on that yet’, I will know he has less guts than even Beazley.
Well, Kath, Rudd’s got the wrong target with Hayek anyway. The people really pushing his views in the 80s were the “New Right” associated with various thinktanks and fringe-ish business groups and factions in the Liberal Party. What Keating was doing was adapting social democracy to modern economic conditions. Social democrats have never had a problem with markets provided that they’re structured in such a way as to ensure a balance between equity and productivity outcomes.
So, as has been said already, what’s the point of voting for Rudd? He and his team are still largely unknown and the saying, ‘the devil you know …’ springs to mind.
There’s no doubt it’s not going to be easy. For mine, Howard’s government does not have the smell of decay that Keating’s had towards the end. The whole AWB thing has not worked out for Labor, so they won’t have a big scandal to leverage off.
A lot will be down to how well the Kev and Jules show works. They’re both prettier than Howard, which should give them a head start in some respects.
My bet wold be Labor is hoping for reasonable gains next year and a real push for government in the election beyond, when Howard really will be old and tired, or just maybe Costello will be at the helm.
The ‘Socialist Objective’ in the ALP has been a dead duck since the 1977 Conference.
Anyone who links the ALP with the word ‘Socialist’ really hasn’t been examining political trends in the last 30 years.
The ALP is a Social Democrat party, which is fine.
The latter point is only of interest to small minds and will therefore attract no further comment from me.
On the former point, I knew Julia Gillard in the early 1980s through our mutual involvement in the Australian Union of Students. Far from being a raving lefty, she is a pragmatic person with the instincts of a political fixer, and her formative political experiences occurred in bruising battles with what she viewed as “ultra-leftist” factions and positions which she regarded as likely to be unpopular with the punters, and which carried over into her subsequent involvement with the most moderate of the Left sub-factions in the Victorian ALP (namely the Socialist Forum group).
We got on well enough at a personal level in spite of my youthful ultra-leftism and the fact that I drunk all her port one night when she wasn’t home.
Mark
I am quite alarmed that many, such as Robert Manne, have become itoxicated by this new alleged “philosopher king” just because he cites Hayek and Milton Friedman! From what I have read in The Monthly there is no evidence that Rudd has read, let alone understood, either of these men.
However one regards the thoughts, scholarship, and legacies of these two men, having Labor-luvvies running around shrieking “Rudd has proved Hayek and Friedman” wrong is only going to backfire. Any potential vote-changers will hesitate because they will think Rudd is a ponce!
Where do I believe Rudd will take Labor, towards the middle ground, trying to win the swinging voter, you know the one that is forever vacillating and has the power to alter the political landscape. Ah, the price for democracy
Rudd is like a new ball bowler, (in keeping with the ashes, a cricket metaphor seems most appropriate). He’s taken a wicket with the new ball. See how he goes with the old ball.
How will he go, very well for the Greens
Paul
You are totally correct. Julia’s alignment with the Left early in her political career was largely pragmatic. It gave her protection and no doubt suited her natural youthful rhetorical style, and let’s face it, it gave her a profile. As a more mature and senior politician, her responsibilities and limitations are much greater than they might have been in those halcyon days of Left Action lamington drives.
She has the makings of a first class politician of pragmatism.
Hmm. Well, I am certainly amused (or perhaps bemused) at the ALP coming up with Elmer Fudd and Gladys Hacksaw as their dream team.
And by the thnly-veiled despair here, of course.
Every mid-ranker in DFAT just knows that he/she/it would be a MUCH better PM than the incumbent. Well, now the ALP has chosen a former mid-ranker at DFAT and a professional nothing to have a go at the crown.
This won’t be as dazzingly funny as the ‘Mad Max’ Latham show, but Elmer Fudd and Gladys Hacksaw WILL be pretty funny.
I LOVE the national tour… just before Christmas when no-ones a rats about politics. Such deep understanding of the national psyche has not been seen in years.
MarkL
canberra
Re. middle Australia. It’s true that that’s where the battle’s lost of won. But in reality — and I’m no psephologist, so may be wrong — each party is pitching to only a small slice of it. Most people vote the same way at each election, Labor or Coalition. Around 45% for each, say? So there’s 10% who can be swung one way or the other. Not much room to move — it virtually forces parties to the middle ground because that fickle 10% will be scared off by anything too radical.
It’s different for the Dems and the Greens because they do not aspire to government.
It’s more like 20% these days, Rob.
I’m with Mark, 20% of say 12 million is a v.large number
Are there breakdowns of the patterns and percentages? E.g. percentage that swings Labor to Greens, Labor to Lib, etc.
Yep, tic toc, it’s a lot of people.
Sure, Rob, try to dig up the Australian Elections Survey on the web – it’s a longitudinal study that tracks a sample of about 4000 after each election. Coordinated at ANU. I’d have a look myself but have to pop out for a few hours.
I think, unfortunately, Rudd got most of his Hayek/Friedman stuff from David McKnight’s book “Beyond Left and Right” which is a polemic.
Mark
I read McKnight’s extract on his website and I have never seen many political and philosophical labels conflated in such a short piece in all my life. Reading it was like listening to finger nails scratch down a chalk board.
Dear The Greens,
Please modernise and diversify your platform and change your fucking logo so that people in the middle of the political spectrum aren’t embarrassed to consider you a political party in the first place. Its obvious we’ll get no joy from Rudd this time around. Please give us something. Anything.
Sincerly,
-Everyone
What do you know of the Greens’ platform, Christian?
Agree about the logo. Too narrowly defined. Platform is constantly evolving and devoid of arcana.
While, you’re at it, change the name as well. ‘Greens’ seem to tree-hugger-ish for ‘people in the middle of the political spectrum’.
It certainly looks that way based on his article in the Monthly, but his CIS lecture went into considerably more detail about Hayek than McKnight’s book does, so I would say that while his thoughts on neo-liberalism do draw on McKnights work he has read more widely.
Bob Brown is a man of integrity, but too many others just come across as nutcases. The problem is systemic and can’t be fixed.
I disagree. First, there is no report of scrapping the socialist objective. Rudd is reported only as clarifying his position. Second, the idea that Beazley had sharpened the differences with the government that are now blurring strikes me as preposterous. The ALP’s striking public differences were IR, the war and climate change, and the position on these have not changed (moreover, and thankfully, new life has now been breathed into industry policy). The difference now is that people are actually listening to Kevin and Jules, not witnessing everything drown in a prolix bog, and the positions are being finessed in the process. Third, the roadshow is brilliant, supplying easy daily colour and movement as the media slope off into the silly season and everyone watches the cricket and goes to the beach. Fourth, Rudd’s critique of Hayek was crisp and well-targeted. Fifth, the idea that amateurs can lord advice on how to communicate political messages to someone like the Ruddster, who already has the highest voter recognition of any new ALP leader since Hawke, is fanciful. Often buried in these sorts of comments is an implicit assumption that he has to somehow say everything at once every time he speaks, all in a five-second grab. Critics on the left might be well advised to have a bex and a good lie down. The new leadership team is doing real fine.
“I knew Julia Gillard in the early 1980s through our mutual involvement in the Australian Union of Students.”
Speaking of which, Paul, do you remember the International Year of the Lesbian?
CS, you mention rudd has breathed new life into industry policy, I’ve heard the rheotoric about China, manufacuring, and dumping grounds. Pleeeaaaseee!!!
These comments were populist 5 second grabs, when in reality the whole country was listening, what does he do, populist “trust me” tripe. I sat watching the 7:30 report chanting the 30 40 50 thousand mantra of that other saviour. Still its early days.
What I do see; excellent fodder for political cartoonists and a new definition for the word rudderless
tic toc, I can only give you the drum – you have to supply the ears.
Chris said:
You’re dreaming. They are seriously considering “doubling down” i.e. escalating the forces in Iraq. My money is on the US asking Howard, Downer and Nelson for more troops in more dangerous places. Watch what happens when the ethically bankrupt political bluff of sending 5 troops into an empty desert turns into street fighting when our cowardly leaders decide that the US is their master and not the Australian people. Cross your fingers that the casualties are going to be minimal. Hope that Rudd doesn’t fall into the Beazley trap of supporting whatever action is called for in the vain hope that he won’t be painted as a traitor or some other equally odious liberal party smear.
Righteo, then, cs, we’ll just pack up the blogosphere and put it back in its box, shall we?
We know you’re a Rudd fan. You don’t have to be rude about it.
And you might contemplate the fact that your own perspective might not be the only one with insight.
While we’re at it, care to define what message exactly Rudd has communicated on his travelling road show?
I suggest reading the newspaper and watching TV – usually you only need check the front page and watch the headlines. Today’s message is dental care and SA. Googling “Kevin Rudd” in Google News will show clean messages everyday, twice a day.
This guy’s the real deal, and there is very little anyone can explain to him about political messaging and strategy that he has not already heard a zillion times. I would advise the commentariat to do a little watching and learning, yet I accept that it will take time for many folks to realise what’s happening. Go the Ruddster!
Serves all you Leftoids Right.
Ha
So Rudd is going to fix the Murray and all our teeth to boot eh? http://www.news.com.au/story/0,10117,20927799-1246,00.html?from=public_rss
He’ll be able to sit down together with all the Labor Premiers and sort out the Murray in an instant. What a guy! Of course Julia won’t have much to do after the first week when she hands back IR to the Labor Premiers and the unions. That’ll leave plenty of time to tackle GW and those dirty coal-miners. Get them all reskilled as windmill mechanics. That just leaves troops home from Iraq by Xmas and then off to Afghanistan for the New Year and Bobs yer uncle! It’s all plain sailing from there.
‘It’s a puzzling strategy’
It’s not that puzzling really and is in accord with usual political theory as I have always understood it. The theory has always been that opposition parties swing left during the first eighteen months of the electoral term and then swing back towards the centre from that point until election day. The theory is good from the point of view that it works when the timing is right. Don’t look for any swing to the left at this stage of the cycle because it won’t be happening any time soon.
I’m entering this thread late in the discussion so haven’t had time to review all the posts but I’ll make a few comments on Mark’s post and Rudd’s announcement.
I think that, within the ALP, embracing or renouncing socialism is embracing or renouncing a symbol with no real referent but the past. No one in the ALP today would be a comprehensive socialist (unless they’re of the baby-steps Fabian variety perhaps)…. and nor should they be. I think social democrats describe them better, and even then that is a stretch. I do find it funny however that Rudd so adamantly denies being, or ever having been, a socialist, given that in his interview on Compass he very proudly referred to himself as a “Christian Socialist”…. though maybe in reality that label bears as much affinity with actual socialism as National Socialism… I don’t know. The point is, I think he’s just making a symbolic gesture here with no actual substance. Its just a rhetorical move designed to (hopefully) defuse any Government scare tactics regarding his anticipated industry and economic policies. Substantively, his rhetoric hasn’t changed:
As for Rudd’s actual proposals in this article, they included opening a debate on the Bill of Rights, (something attempted by Curtin and Hawke before, both Labor leaders), mandatory renewable energy targets, a commitment to consult with Aboriginal leaders on how to achieve reconciliation, and a reaffirmation of Labor’s policy on the Republic. He’s hardly handed the game to the right if you ask me.
“I suggest reading the newspaper and watching TV – usually you only need check the front page and watch the headlines. Today’s message is dental care and SA. Googling “Kevin Ruddâ€? in Google News will show clean messages everyday, twice a day.
This guy’s the real deal…”
Sweet Jesus cs, if Rudd starts off with saying he’s going to ‘fix the Murray’ and that’s one of two clean messages a day, he’s gunna get to ‘no child shall live in poverty on my watch’, pretty soon after fixing global warming in a week. Anyhow here’s why he says he’s gunna fix the Murray
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,10117,20927137-1246,00.html?from=public_rss
I guess like any good polly worth his salt, he didn’t actually put a time frame on it.
Oh boy, every time cs comes along here with the Go Ruddster message, I drop another little stake on at Centrebet.
But then again, cs was an early enthusiast for Latho, I seem to recall, so I’d better not get too carried away.
National Dental Plan is an excellent campaign message. Howard scrapped dental money in 1996, I believe. There was an outcry at the time, but since then I haven’t heard it raised by the ALP. Not on TV, anyway. And that’s the trick. Get it on the box. Our village square.
But then again, cs was an early enthusiast for Latho, I seem to recall, so I’d better not get too carried away.
Correction Babs. I’ve been in the Rudd camp for 16 years, which is how long I’ve known the guy, and supported him in every leadership tilt. My preferred fallback in the Crean days was the Beazer, with Latham the worst choice. I admit to being bouyed by Latham’s campaign, especially when the Newspoll gave the ALP a 52/48 split with less than two weeks to the poll. Yet all subsequent events have confirmed my initial Latho’ impressions. This is the opposite scenario to Rudd, always my preferred candidate, a former colleague, and I someone I always think of as a friend.
I can supply links, should anyone wish to stalk my record on this. More relevant, I would still stand by my take on the Ruddster at the last tilt, although if I was to write it again, I would add to it substantially. It’s way too early for a professional call, but if I was a betting man – WBB, your on the money.
Sorry but this thread needs lightening up. With all this talk of dental plans I thought this quote from the Simpsons might do the trick:
OK, I stand corrected. It must’ve been your bouyedness just prior to the election that I remember, cs.
And thus I will continue to invest. Without a care. (You are licenced to give financial advice, I presume?)
Or it may have been this post just after Latham became leader with the “admittedly excited headline” “Bye Bye Johnny”, wbb:
http://backpagesblog.com/weblog/archives/000158.html
I’m not trying to play silly buggers, cs, because all political analysis and commentary is contextual to the current configuration and it’s very hard to extrapolate too far forward. It’s just that I found the way your phrased your comment quite patronising. And I’m not sure how far your friendship with Rudd affects the objectivity of that analysis.
Quite seriously though, I’m not sure that Rudd is marching to the right and I don’t think that doing this would be a good strategy. Labor has to make the Howard government look old and out of ideas and then demonstrate that they are a capable of taking over. Getting rid of Beazley has made this easier for them, they need the media to use the words “new” and “alternative” as much as possible and they have achieved this.
I’m with CS in that I think that his travelling roadshow idea was a great one. All this talk of “values tests” is Howard rushing to steal back the agenda leading into the holidays. He’ll say anything to make sure that people aren’t talking up Labor policy at all those BBQs in the next few weeks.
If we talk content for a minute over con then the the ‘ three ‘R’s ‘ issues that will be absolutely matters of life-and-death are…
1) Republic – this has huge overlap with IR because no sane worker will keep voting for a loser who can be sacked without even a weeks notice. ( And has already been TWICE btw!) If the Alternative Liberal Party won’t stick up for themselves then no-way to trust them for anyone else.
2) Reconciliation – the huge overlap here now is with FO. Suddenly our Pacific neighbors are looking for operation helpum fren in Biejjing. How the hell did that happen and where the fuck are you?
3) Rooting vouchers for pensioners. Well I haven’t voted since 1975…I need some incentivation okay!
This new Warney COULD just spin the old English team out but it will be a Blairite new labor party not a Bennite. Boring, boring, boring.
Salad days for Extra-parliamentary socialism?
YES – but less democratic socialism and more libertarian ( anarchist)
So what about Rudd’s “new emphasis” on integration and English skills and Burke’s reframing of multiculturalism, mick? And he’s dumped Beazer’s dumb assed tourist oath of loyalty but indicated he’s considering supporting Howard’s test.
And Macklin has come out saying Indigenous Affairs has to move beyond ideology, and symbols are secondary to overhauling passive welfare.
And while cs notes that Rudd didn’t call for the abolition of the socialist objective, it would be astonishing if having made those remarks, he didn’t move to have it rewritten. He’s clearly given thought to what should replace it.
Mark, I think that Rudd is trying to avoid getting wedged and is trying to avoid issues that might possibly play into Howard’s hands. Basically, I think he’s trying to make sure that he is setting the agenda. He’s trying to make Howard look like he’s got nothing to offer. The Oz is running a campaign to try to drag Labor to the right on industrial issues, I think he’s doing well to resist the temptation.
Then again, he could be taking steps to the right and messing things up in the process. Like you, I don’t think that he will win by trying to be a Howard lite.
mick, I think that he’s trying to minimise the differences so he can fight on his preferred fields which is textbook political strategy. But for the reasons I gave in the post, I don’t know that it’s the best one in this instance.
Mark, I guess you figure that Labor should be really putting some distance between itself and the Libs in order to capture the voter’s imaginations a bit. I think that Rudd is terrified of the comparisons to Latham he has to paint himself as the “anti-Latham” so that they can’t use Latham as an attack weapon in the campaign proper.
It’s going to be an interesting few months as we see how all this pans out!
In the article there are references I find particularly interesting:
1. no difference in private and public education: For my thoughts read here and here –
and
2. welfare dependency be damned – For my thoughts read here.
Anyway I hope you are right and Rudd really is travelling that way.
Mark – I don’t see that differential vouchers or welfare to work would cast Rudd as more right wing or less ideological than Beazley. Indeed I’d say the task is to set an agenda that is longer term and funding student on need rather than stream is better policy as an example.
My fear is the opposite to yours – it is that Rudd won’t have the courage to follow through. He will cave to the educational establishments and the unions.
It will be indeed mick!
I think Michelle Grattan’s analysis is pretty good:
http://www.theage.com.au/news/michelle-grattan/goodbye-to-the-old-alp/2006/12/14/1165685821343.html
That’s basically my argument in the post.
She also observes:
Which is pretty much what I’m saying too. [Sometimes you wonder if highly paid commentators read blogs?]
I don’t contest cs’ point that he’s sent some clear messages – today, on dental care and the Murray.
What I’d point out, though, is that this is not an election campaign. As Grattan observes, voters don’t know much of what he stands for. That was also a concern of a lot of Labor members who ended up backing Beazley – it’s not to his discredit, it’s just that a leader has to take a wide range of positions and his weren’t known widely.
What an election campaign has that the tour doesn’t is an overarching theme or message. What worries me is that this hasn’t yet been articulated – though there’ve been several stabs in that direction – ie fairness. I’m concerned if “a bridge too far” is taken to be a rerun of Howard’s strategy – ie things are on the right track, but I’m not that bloke. I’m not saying that it is, just that it might be. I doubt it’s been worked out yet.
What I worry about is the scattergun approach of it all.
cs might scorn soundbites but when you’ve done polling as I have and seen party polling, you realise from the qualitative stuff that the best pollies – like Beattie – can embed not just the words but the message in the way people conceive of issues. So you do need to have something that ties all the policy threads together. No one’s going to vote for you just because of dental care or the Murray.
I’m not trying to diss Rudd, but to express some concerns.
As he himself said, those who are too buoyed up by the polls need to take a cold shower.
I’ll add that it is early days.
It’s easy to fall into the trap of over analysing when you get a new Labor leader!
Mark, I was just about to link to that article! I was going to say, “it looks like Michelle Grattan has been reading this thread”, but you beat me to it.
By the way, Rudd needs to learn to duck questions. He doesn’t have to comment on every issue in the press at the moment. Like you say, he needs to define what he stands for and he won’t be able to do that by making comments on the fly on every issue that comes up.
It appears to me as though Rudd is trying to just make it through the first few weeks without the government landing a punch…
Or is that a “New Labor” leader?
Thanks, I’ll be here all week. *takes a bow*
I guess I’m an old Labor man! At least he’s not nutsoid new Labor like Latho, I guess…
Anyway, better get to bed!
I don’t scorn soundbites. Rudd excels in them. How do you think he ever got to have such a high name recognition? The ‘fork in the road’ was a pearler, even enlisting the far right in spreading it around. What the pundits imagined was that this was somehow like the ‘ladder of opportunity’, which is what Latham put himself out as so-called ’standing for’. Yet the ‘fork’ was not intended to symbolise Rudd, but send a message about Australia being at a turning point, which all the repeats and jocularity assisted in ensuring went far and wide across the brown land. Ruddy joined in the jocularity, except his was real. These will come frequently, not necessarily as intending to symbolise Kev, but as ways of encapsulating the message, and the more oxygen they get, just like those adverts that everyone talks about, the better for the ALP. The tremours clearly provoked Howard’s citizenship stunt.
The team’s doing real fine, and by this stage will be most of all needing a very good holiday break. There are very few qualified to teach them how to suck eggs, including Gratten. She might imagine that the Beazer sharpened differences between the parties, but everyone I know just saw the same old loser from the same old era. In Rudd, Gillard, Combet and Burrows, the Australian labour movement now has four real bright sparks, all around the same age, and almost certainly comprising the most talented leadership across the board ever. Get behind them I say; this time we’re going all the way.
I’m with wbb in that everytime I read one of CS’s comments I want to go and put a bet on Rudd.
Shorter cs: Rudd is the new Messiah.
I’d love Labor to win, but I don’t think we need or have to accept that we shouldn’t be critical, or that it’s necessary that we do nothing but cheer them on.
The “fork in the road” makes the negative case against Howard. What’s the positive case for Rudd?
What does he stand for, cs?
I mean yeah, he’s got name recognition. But if you’d asked me what his policy approach was a few weeks ago, I’d have been buggered if I’d known. Great traditions of Christian socialism, etc, and opposition to market fundamentalism could imply all sorts of things.
And that’s all I’d ever heard on domestic stuff.
And I follow Ozpolitics a lot more closely than most of the punters.
cs, you sound kind of seriously star-struck.
That’s the impression I’m getting, Rob.
I’d like to hear less of the fan and more of the analyst from cs.
Wasn’t wbb talking up an anti-gambling majority in the Vic upper house?
He’s not the new messiah, but he certainly is the most talented public official, elected or appointed, that I have ever had the good fortune to work with, including way better than this humble trier. That’s not hero worship, just brutal personal realism. This guy is in another class, and they don’t come round often.
There are already acres written by him and others about him on the so-called ‘what he stands for’ question (doesn’t anyone read anything anymore?). And there is already plenty of policy out there, and you’ll get plenty more, don’t you worry about that. Right now, it’s meet and greet, soak up the easy honeymoon media exposure, get the party on a war footing (this is the inside story of the roadshow), and get to bloody Xmas and a beer. In 2007, it will get real.
Well, since you’ve read the stuff and I haven’t, I’d appreciate a distillation, cs! Then I can think about it in the process of getting to Xmas and a bloody beer.
What does the ‘what does he stand for’ question mean? This question seems to have been constituted as a salient point of political analysis during the Howard era, as he is always said to stand for hating unions (the ‘like him or hate him, at least people knows what he stands for’ gig, as compared to Beazer the equivocator supposedly not standing for anything). What does Howard really stand for? Destroying working conditions? Perfecting the art of publicly lying without being caught-out on film? Himself and his own legacy? Is ‘what you stand for’ a myth you create, a line you spin, a slogan you coin? What does Peter Beattie stand for? What do you stand for? What does anyone stand for? Just today, you’ve already got Rudd standing for equality, solidarity and sustainability. What more do you want? A full speech? No doubt you will get many. The Ruddster stands for a better Australian future; a much better Australian future. What’s more, he has the talent to make it happen. This time, it’s serious.
Peter Beattie stands for a Smart State.
You don’t need the snide tone, cs. It’s very offputting. It’s coming across like “how dare anyone question that Rudd is the brilliance – take my word for it, I don’t need to answer questions about why”.
I liked the Beazer. Just shoot me.
I mean I’m a voter too. I await persuasion.
And some Labor supporters aren’t enamoured:
http://stoush.net/arleeshar/491/what-i-stand-for?PHPSESSID=65e43245e000ffc65bbad789accb0153
Not that I’m a socialist. But I’d like a bit of inspiration that goes above and beyond I’m a capable technocrat who can think up postmodern twists on French revolutionary values.
And the strongly in favour of the 3Rs and down with symbolism in Indigenous policy doesn’t push my buttons. Quite the contrary.
Fine Kim. Everyone is a voter who will make up their own mind, of course. I’m far and away past that debate, however, and will watch the process from the sidelines. Cheers.
Cheers to you too, cs. Nice to see you.
Kim and cs,
What does he stand for?? Or does he stand up for [insert your issue]. I tend to think people cast on the ALP there own set of agendas and therefore always think it is not living up to it: i.e. the liberal Left and the Catholic right of the ALP will always fundamentally have problems with the policy set of the other and they will certainly bitch and moan as well about it.
I always thought Beazley had agendas – he just didn’t have agendas that lasted the test of time. See tax credits (which were a good idea), industry policy, then rollback, knowledge (noodle) nation. None lasted really. It will be interesting to see if IR last the test of time – I think the jury is still out – but it has a better chance than some.
Ultimately – the ALP needs detailed policies out sooner rather than in the election. People are far to spooked by Fightback and the idea of running on policy substance. Latham needed his tax policy out 12-18 months before the election to expain the rationale at the heart of it.
Rudd will likely fail for not having hard nose (tough) economic policy out. See offset co-payments for Medicare as a start. Not popular in the ALP but a necessary evil for dealing with long term ageing.
Cheers, I might leave you guys alone for a while with the rants about the ‘lack of substance or forsight’. It is a touch dull and boring really.
PS. the irony of me casting my own agendas on the ALP is not lost as I heartily chuckle about doing it.
Even more boring is the line to the effect that “the ALP needs detailed policies out sooner rather than in the election”.
The truth is that parties have won with policies out early and with policies out late. Whether policies are out early or are saved for the election campaign is evidently not decisive.
Sensibly, a party needs a mix of both. Ideally, you go out early with the policies that you know the other party cannot match (defining policies, such as IR), and save the one’s at risk of being stolen or negated until the election (incremental or clever policies; perhaps including tax policies – but you make sure they add up), along with a couple of other campaign headlines (to reinforce the defining policies). There’s lots of policy out there already, and Ruddy loves policy, so he will have a policy on everything that moves. Policy is not a problem.
If it was all about policy, Howard woud have never won in the first place, and would have never been returned. The key will be having the presence of mind, the nerve and the decisiveness to directly confront and bury Howard’s bullshit.
As someone who has also worked with Rudd, I can only agree. But his interpersonals were (still are?) problematic.
Yes, it was 1983, the year Julia was AUS President and Gayle Tierney (just elected to the Victorian Upper House) was Education Vice-President. Kelly Gardner from the Communist Party of Australia was Women’s Officer and had to engage in a great many ticklish media interviews about IYL.
Of course, the AUS Women’s Department was the stuff of legend, its activities including festooning AUS HQ with banners denouncing the union’s poor employment practices (under the aegis of an Executive controlled by the commos and the ALP Left, no less!) and scoring a sympathetic interview on the matter with the Radion 3UZ Newsbeat reporter.
Oh, and barricading Charles Richardson from Crikey in the toilet when he and his friends attended a session of AUS Annual Council wearing dresses and reading Playboy.
I really don’t know why anyone would think this.
According to the ABS, estimates for 2000 suggested that 24% of women currently in their reproductive years would never have children. That’s about a quarter of the adult population who will never have kids. One in four people – everyone in the population’s likely to have friends and relatives who don’t have kids. I know the meeja likes to rattle on about this, and people (and I use the term people in its loosest possible sense here) like Piers Ackerman like to hurl insults about deliberately choosing to remain barren, but given that a quarter of the adult population are not having kids – do we really think anyone would care or be suspicious of this?
In 1996, 4.4 million people, 37% of the adult population, were living without partners
That’s more than a third of the adult population who don’t have a partner. More than one in three people in the electorate are not all happily partnered up. Are you really suggesting we’re suspicious of all of them? If you were hiring someone for a job, would you really care whether they had a hubby/wife/partner or not? Why on earth?
40% of marriages end in divorce. That’s a large population of people who may well think our Julia’s more sensible not to go there in the first place.
Honestly, people, John Howard aside we’re not actually living in the 1950s. The electorates’ concerns over Julia’s childlessness and inability to “ketch a husband” are vastly exaggerated and I think largely the product of a bored and useless media.
And of course if she did have a hubby and kids there would be no shortage of prats saying she should be at home looking after them instead of pursuing a vocation in politics – as happened to Gaby Harrison during the 1994 NSW State election, and Kirsty Marshall when she was breastfeeding in the Victorian Parliament, and Tanya Plibersek who was gratuitously advised to stay home with her second child rather than returning to Parliament, in a column by Sydney’s queen of vacuous soft conservatism, Sally Loane.
The new logical Rudd http://www.news.com.au/business/story/0,23636,20927135-31037,00.html
That’s the trouble when you are responsible for real policy. Then the tradeoffs begin.
Tim Dunlop’s take:
http://blogs.news.com.au/news/blogocracy/index.php/news/comments/coaltion_lite_is_a_dumb_strategy/
P13 of the Fin Review today – an advert by Rudd for senior staff.
“Conditions of employment are governed by . . . an Australian Workplace Agreement.”
Now that is funny!!!!
In order to win, the ALP has to keep the seats it currently holds and win at least another 18. That means the swinging voters in the 18 most marginal electorates are the target. The current over the top media exposure will dry up over summer (how much has the coverage been worth? I reckon $100 million at least if they had to pay for it so they should be doing better in the polls). At the same time the ALP failed to find the smoking gun in AWB, the T3 sale has been a success that no market observer predicted, and Howard hasn’t put a foot wrong. Costello is preparing an election budget and one he hopes will pave his way to the leadership – there will be plenty of incentives and opportunities to see what the ALP really thinks about tax reform (cuts!) and middle class welfare. Anybody who thinks that the old maxim that “Oppositions don’t win elections, Governemnts lose them” doesn’t apply is delusional.
I admire the positive outlook of the ALP/Rudd supporters because I like positive people but a sober analysis of the situation really gives a poor outlook.
I’m putting my money where my mouth is on Howard on IAS Bet and if he loses I will stop visiting this site to point out the errors of your ways.
If the ALP ain’t socialists, why is it still in the ALP constitution. If the ain’t then it shouldn’t be a problem to bang through an amendment, should it?
Not really. It isn’t up to Rudd, it’s the Department of Finance that pays staffers and decides their conditions. But nice try.
FWIW, I thought Sinclair Davidson’s lengthy and chapter and verse demolition of Rudd’s reading (aka McKnight’s take) of Hayek in the Fin Review today was a superb piece of work, having taught a postgrad pol econ seminar including a close reading of The Constitution of Liberty, which as Sincs rightly says, is the key text. Rudd’s adventures into political philosophy were amateur hour stuff. No doubt cs will come along and damn me for not recognising Rudd as the Philosopher King that he is, but I have an old fashioned view that if you’re going to write about a political thinker, you should write about what they actually wrote not a derivative caricature.
Just sayin…
for many years after coming here, i was bemused that people who call themselves ‘lefties’ never thought to demand actual democracy. the whole nation thought they had ‘democracy’, it went on in parliament.
the british heritage and australia’s particular colonial experience has left the nation with a deep-rooted belief that politics can only be practiced by politicians.
politicians say that, academics say that, media say that, by the time you’re old enough for an adult library card- you are brainwashed. doublethink and newspeak are real and practiced effectively in australia.
parliamentary rule is not democracy! aristotle would have called it oligarchy, superficially, and plutocracy fundamentally.
until you understand this, you can make no progress. until you understand this, your role in politics is that of ‘onlooker’, of no more significance than a fan of a footy club. look back at the comments, indeed, the lead essay- all are essentially commentary on the form and prospects of the league leading clubs.
imagine for a moment that australians had an accessible and effective power of citizen initiated referendum. do you think oz would be a better place? if you do, do something to bring it about. email kevin rudd to say: “i’ll vote labor when/if labor promises to establish cir.”
if enough people do, it will happen. if only you do, at least for a moment you are a citizen, not a cow.
Yes al, and Lyndon LaRouche would be so pleased. Do you work for the citizens electoral council by any chance? Managed to get any of your candidates elected recently?
Mark Says:
Product differentiation on the Culture War is an over-rated virtue. Politics is not an epicurean activity, variety is not the spice of life where political culture is concerned.
It is not good to have dramatic “bi-polar cleavages” [!] between the parties on major issues of social policy. This would imply incipient culture war. Iraq is a good example of elections where parties offer “a genuine contest of ideologies and ideas” on political culture. I dont see many Australian takers for this kind of excitement.
The Australian major party convergence on cultural issues should be applauded not lamented. It demonstrates the general health of the Australian polity since it shows that the “ideological preference curve” for Australian political culture is unipolar and moving towards a fairly narrow base. This indicates that major parties are aligning to capture the boring and bland median voter. A sign of a well-settled polity showing normal integration and only mild deviancy.
Mark says:
This kind of moderate social conservatism coming from the incoming leader of the major Left wing party is bound annoy social constructivists like Mark. He wants to go on with the Culture War and is still keen to indulge in little social “experiments in living”. Been there and done that to death.
The Wets will be forever playing catch-up in the Culture War, given their fundamentally unscientific philosophy of culture. They never stop making “we wuz robbed” whines over the scoreboard whilst denying that this reflects the state of play. Friendly advice: quit while you are behind.
If you want to beat Howard you should concentrate on the Class War. The Left cant seem to score many goals on the War on Terror and is on the losing side in the Culture War.
I think many of the criticisms of Rudd’s approach so far are fair.
I cannot, for the life of me, see how people can use those observations to be sentimental about Beazley’s passing.
Kimbo had one of the worst sound-bites in the game (admittedly for a different reason than Kev).
His points of “clearly articulated difference” with Howard were few, and were also balanced by minimising difference in other areas – precisely the strategy that Mark is criticising.
And frankly, while those points of difference may have extended beyond IR, insofar as they did they were having zero impact.
FWIW I still think that the ALP will make solid grounds in the next election under Rudd, and I believe they would have made solid ground under Beazley. As armchair analysts I think their is a great temptation to place far too much importance in these events as being definitive in themselves. The variation in results between what each leader could have achieve off their own bat will almost certainly be swamped by the variation produced by external events.
I’d have agreed with you, Martin, but it appears that there’s a recently published paper using data from the latest Australian Elections Survey which suggests that leadership is more important than many other factors in Australian elections:
http://www.smh.com.au/news/opinion/number-and-number-or-labors-lost-loves/2006/12/17/1166290412029.html
Interesting article. Have you read, or seen the original report? I would be interested to see if the result was, or could be generalised beyond the last election.
I’m certainly not saying that leadership never has an effect. In situations like Howard v Latham, or Keating v Hewson I imagine it would have a larger effect. In fact I would think that Howard v Latham would be about as extreme as the effect could get.
However in the comparison of Howard v Beazley with Howard v Rudd, I don’t think the difference between these two scenarios is enormous. Just a personal opinion.
No, I haven’t seen it, Martin. I’ll try to remember to go in search of it when I’m less busy.
A short comment on Grace Pettigrew and Al Loomis. Grace, please do your research. The Citizens Electoral Council abandoned its Citizens Initiated Referenda policy in 1992, and Lyndon LaRouche has never supported that policy. And Al, stop being a populist idiot. CIR merely leads to mob rule. Just because something is popular doesn’t make it right.
I’m with Andy. Can you imagine what sort of shape the economy would be in if every person and their dog had a say in running it?