There’s been a lot of very interesting discussion, particularly on this thread, about the increasing dissonance between the almost unanimous narrative of the punditariat and the reality of politics in this election year. I say “almost unanimous”, because there’s some difference in the degree of overt partisanship between say, Dennis Shanahan, and Michelle Grattan, but almost no departure from the press pack “honeymoon is over”, “Howard is a political genius” tropes, which may I just point out, are also in a sense partisan as they can’t be unrelated to what Coalition spinmeisters are saying. The latest Morgan poll shows no change in the two party preferred - 60/40 in Labor’s favour - after the alleged “tipping point” of the ALP conference and a week of business and media IR hysteria (which should not be dignified with the term “debate”). The punditariat don’t appear to have noticed that as early as Clinton’s election campaign in 1992, winning politicians have sought to speak over the heads of the political media to the people - through grabs on the news, lifestyle shows, talkback and now the nets. They do notice it with regard to Howard’s use of media, but this then just gets reinscribed into the political genius narrative, without consideration of the fact that the distant and self-referential discourse of the Canberra press gallery both floats free from voters’ lived experience and has little role any more in shaping political perceptions in the electorate.
I’m posting two stories from today’s Crikey over the fold which I think can be seen through this prism - one from Christian Kerr and one from me. It will be very interesting indeed when the history of coverage of this election comes to be written, what roles the punditariat and new and independent media respectively will be seen to have played. In this sense, I’d like to pick up on an insight from Joseph Pearson, referenced in this post:
What this and most definitions of the concept egregiously labelled ‘citizen journalism’ get wrong is the emphasis: it’s on the source.
It may well be that the quality of commentary from new and independent media is better, not because of any great quotient of superior intellectual skills at political analysis, but because those of us outside the punditariat are literally outside it - embedded in our everyday lives and work, friends, families and community networks and perhaps therefore better placed both to read what’s happening in the electorate and to critique the very narrow perspective of the richly rewarded Canberra media machines.
3. Rudd – cutting through by cutting out the commentariat?
Christian Kerr writes:
Neville Wran once paid Gough Whitlam a suitably imperial compliment: “It was said of Caesar Augustus that he found Rome brick, and left it marble. It will be said of Gough Whitlam that he found the outer suburbs of Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane unsewered, and left them fully flushed.”
Kevin Rudd, it appears, wants to get elected by plugging the leaks. Last night, in his Budget response, he promised $250 million to fix the problem.
Michelle Grattan calls it “a populist gesture” in The Age today.
“There was so much in the budget that Labor had to agree with that Rudd took the path of least resistance last night,” she goes on to say. “He did not bother with a critique of it all. Surely it was the best compliment Peter Costello has received all week.”
Grattan concludes: “It was a competent performance, but it was less a budget reply than a mini campaign speech off the shelf.”
Isn’t that what the opposition leader is supposed to do – make a pitch to voters?
The view from the Press Gallery is that Labor has had a pretty ordinary week. They’ve been under attack on industrial relations, unsure of their policy direction. Ditto with full fee paying university places. Their immediate budget response has been criticised for being weak and lacking detail.
But that’s the view from the Gallery. The next election won’t be won on the op-ed pages of the broadsheets.
Matt Price is more on the money with his observation today, “Watch the commercial television news and you get a better idea of the reason behind Kevin Rudd’s popularity… When Rudd’s cheesy countenance pops up during these frenetic bulletins, as it does regularly, he tends to arrive like a zephyr on a blistering hot day.”
All the polls so far this year suggest that voters simply aren’t listening to John Howard any more. He knows that. That’s why his budget was firmly pitched at the middle income families and older Australians who have given him four terms in office.
If they’ve stopped listening, though, his message won’t get through.
Instead, the voters may prefer to tune into Rudd – and simple, practical policy pitches. Like saving water by plugging leaks.
They mightn’t be bothered too much about what the bodies that regulate industrial relations laws are called or the details about who in his party said what and when over full fee paying students.
Sewers aren’t s-xy, but look what they did for Whitlam.
The next few rounds of polls will be a real test of both the leaders – and their leadership styles. And they’ll also say something about the connection of the commentariat.
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8. The Rudd reply: can his Budget message pack a punch?
Mark Bahnisch writes:
The proof of the Budget will be in the bouncing, perhaps. Or perhaps not. It’s now more common for commentators to observe that no one may be listening to the Government anymore. But the question that should be asked hasn’t been yet: does the Government have anything to say?
Both Kevin Rudd and Wayne Swan honed their skills in the Goss political machine in Queensland in the late ’80s and early ’90s. The one thing any observer or participant in Goss campaigns will tell you is that they were ruthlessly on message. The campaign themes were both difficult to counter and pithy — being reflections of what the punters themselves had been saying in focus groups.
Peter Beattie’s “smart-state” mantra has been cut from the same cloth.
Despite paroxysms of praise from columnists in The Australian, it’s hard to see how the Costello Budget communicates a pithy message for voters about the future. Labor has been working hard on framing it as cynical and too clever by half. And as having “failed the future test”.
But how is the Government selling it?
The difficulty with lots of small (but expensive) policies directed to a grab-bag of electoral demographics — pensioners, superannuants, carers, and so on — is that they don’t easily add up to an overall narrative that the electorate as a whole will be interested in.
The only real message the Government has is now a negative one. Four interest rate rises have taken the shine off its economic management credentials among voters, if not pundits. So Costello replicated his question time routine by going negative on Labor in the Budget speech. That’s a lot less effective than “we’ll protect youâ€? in ‘01 or “trust us on interest ratesâ€? in 04.
As I suspected he would, Rudd easily countered this by wearing his fiscal-conservative heart on his sleeve.
While columnists still ask whether Labor has scope for more spending, they’re asking the wrong question. Labor can better target spending, as with the proposal for trades centres in schools, because it is universal public provision not expensive symbolism like a few technical colleges or small grants to apprentices which cost heaps when they’re added up.
That’s the trick to the cooperative federalism card. Work with the states and pour modest amounts of money into services instead of going for the political headlines with symbolism and easily forgotten tax cuts and cheques.
Much of Rudd’s approach to education is already in effect in Queensland. Watch for more of the same, not huge dollar figures. And all wrapped up in a very clear and punchy message as were Rudd’s three priorities last night.
Excellent post Mark.
I would be very interested to see how the opinions within focus groups have changed in the last month or so. It’s more than plausible that the Libs aren’t cutting through.
Interesting to see that you note the relationship between the apparent Labor strategy and Rudd and Swan’s background in the Qld ALP. My first impression of Rudd’s budget reply was that it sounded like it could have been given by Peter Beattie or Wayne Goss. Full of fiscal responsibility and at the same time providing practical solutions to problems that the average punter is interested in. I suspect, as you’ve noted, that Labor is in a much greater danger of being painted as being loose with the economy than for taking a hit for not throwing out a pork-laden budet reply.
Yes, the punters are tired of the same old elites making their mind up for them.
Be they the Luvvies (Adams, the Age, some LP commentators), or the Hateys (Alan Jones, The Oz, Laws, some LP commentators); I sense a twilight of the elites.
Wouldnt you agree, Flinty… old bean?
Whitlam won his election in ‘72 by succesfully appealing to the voters in the outer suburbs, who were then devoid of basic infrastructure, like sewerage. He was much mocked for it, but as he said at the time (and I paraphrase, but not much)
“sewerage is the most important item on people’s plates”
Outer suburban voters have been lost to Labor for a long time. Latham knew they were important, because he lived amongst them, but couldn’t connect with them. John Howard has been trickling their tummy siccessfully for a long time.
These people are critical to electoral success. Rudd figures he can appeal to them by promising to fix water pipes and teaching their kids trades in school. And of course, by repeating the fiscal conservatism mantra, he wants to reassure them that the interest rates on their whacking great mortgages (and their investment properties) won’t be going up. And he wants to reassure them hat won’t get screwed over by their boss.
It might work. It might not. Life is pretty good in McMansion land, if somewhat exposed to economic downturn. The voters might decide to stick with the devil they know. Or they might decide that Rudd will deliver the icing on Howard’s cake.
It’s certainly got a better chance than anything else Labor has tried for the past dozen years.
Life might be pretty good in McMansion land but as well as being exposed to an economic downturn they are also being exposed to a piece of legislation called “Workchoices”.
Any glance at the opinion poll trends will tell you there have been very few positive polls for the government since the introduction of this legislation. People are hardly going to embrace a potential loss in the pay packet at a time of high household debt. I know Mark has constantly underlined the concern out there about this legislation but it contnually gets played down and spun into a non issue. I would venture to say that Howard would be coasting towards another victory if it wasn’t for “Workchoices”.
Mark,
I’m not convinced by your analysis of Rudd’s response.
I DO think that this week has been bad for Rudd. While I totally support his Asian Languages program (for obvious reasons!), I don’t see it as a vote-swinger. Sure, water piping in the cities is probably decrepit, but New Farm and other inner city suburbs tend to be pretty safely Labor. The marginals are in the outer suburbs. I am not sure that water piping is a vote changing issue out there either. Many of those marginal seats (eg Dickson) contain new housing estates with pretty new sewerage and piping infrastructure. Added to that, many people now see issues like that as a local government issue rather than a Federal government one. Finally, I’m not sure promises to increase funding for trades in schools will swing any votes in the marginal seats either. It is my experience that voters in these marginal seats tend to be aspirational and upwardly mobile. many of these households would seem to prefer their kids to go to unversities rather than get trades and have an unfortunate stigma against their children going blue-collar.
This is just my general doorknocking impression. I still think that it will take a little while for Rudd to start to feel it in the polls but I think that the slide is inevitable.
Well there you are Mark. You’ve gone and said it. The Ten Commentariats are really nothing more than a pack of well paid hacks with no more insight into what’s happening than the rest of us well unpaid hacks with basic research skills who come to different unpublished conclusions.
Which simply reflects what’s been happening in the US.
So let’s see. I’d have a lot more respect for Grattan, Kelly, Milne, Shanahan, Hatcher, Lewis, Kerr, and the rest of the Canberra crowd if their opinions actually differed from each other. Except they don’t very much.
Look, I’d be quite happy if one or two thought that Rudd didn’t give ‘em their pre-conceived story:
1. ‘Rudd Stares Down Unions in Blair Replay’. Sadly for them, he opted for collective bargaining which is now apparently akin to terrorism and not a mainstream value reflected in the industrial systems of the US, Europe Canada and, oh yes, Britain, or
2. ‘Howard Brilliant Again!’ Yes, that sounds good.
So that means they’re possessed of quite exceptional wisdom, or regular reasonably intelligent readers like me are just missing something big-time.
My comments was apparently immoderate! Stuck somewhere….
Mark,
So are you effectively saying the almost complete and utter pro-Howard bias in the News limited papers, and to a lesser extent fairfax, has no bearing on the way people will vote?
Well it didn’t in the recent NSW election.
Can’t seem to post for some reason…
Great post Mark. The water-pipes thing feeds into Rudd’s wider theme of complacency and waste. I suppose the mark of a political genius is someone who can get Glenn Milne to write about what a political genius they are.
Spiros, Australia has changed since 1972 (oh yes). Look at this list of seats and note the 23 marginals under The marginal government seats. Only Kingston, Greenway and Hasluck fit your bill. You can either try to win over voters or you can sneer at “McMansionland”, but it’s difficult to do both. Rudd is going to have to get out into those regional seats or else he’ll have to go cap in hand to Peter Andren in a hung Parliament.
Even the latest Morgan Senate polling is not what the Conservatives will want to see.
For what its worth, I heard Barry Cassidy, on radio the other day, admit that The Insiders has never had, rateings as high, as the day that Kevin Rudd appeared.
Lower viewing numbers might say a lot about the galahs that they persist in rotating as commentators and a rump of masochistic viewers who want to improve on an already bad hangover.
Still, people are genuinely interested in him and what he has to say. I suspect that the ruder and pickier the libs and their ‘hangers on’ get … no courtesy in his right of reply speech, shown… the more they actually play into good natured preachers, soft hands.
Spiros
Revisionist romanticism that has nothing to do with historical reality. Whitlam won by the hair of his chiny-shiny-chin by bribing Catholics.
Labour almost seems to be ignoring the media analysis at the moment. The way they’re running their campaign at the moment you almost feel that Labor is making its decisions about what to do with its campaign in a different world to the one the commentariat is living in. Seems to be working so far.
That seems to be the problem at the moment for the government. They just don’t have a theme to build towards. In a few days Costello’s budget announcements will be largely forgetten simply because they are so hard to remember. They just don’t have a pattern or idea to hang them all together to make it easy for the punter to know what they’re on about. Rudd is doing alot better on that front.
“Sewers aren’t s-xy, but look what they did for Whitlam. ”
Almost forgot. Goughie’s “No Floater Left Behind” policy boosted Treasury coffers with an unexpected tide of revenue. Whitlam achieved this by placing hefty tariffs on Bondi cigars. The Union Movement, emboldened at this Labor government initiative, immediately declared that, “Free Piss For The Workers”, was no longer an ambit claim.
And is it just me, or does anyone else think it’s slightly odd for a political commentator, posting in subscription cyberspace in 2007, to self-bowdlerize the word “sexy”?
Accurate post, I no longer read them for anything substantive, just to find out what the Govt spinmeisters are spinning. The entire press gallery should be ashamed of itself. Shanahan in particular has become the Andrew Bolt of political commentary……..or should I say the Iraqi information minister.
I also suspect that the press gallery is annoyed that Rudd has succeeded in talking over their heads and are looking to take him down a peg, like the mafia they want their cut.
As for their attempt to convince us of Howards genius and his use of traditional media? See above but in reverse, The Libs probably validate the gallerys opinion of themselves. Wankers.
Good post, Mark.
I haven’t been reading many blogs over the last couple of days, including this one, and just posted my take on the disconnect between the Canberra Commentariat and voterland, before perusing today’s blogs. This one grabbed my immediate attention.
Enemy Combatant
I think they are trying to avoid the text filters that will look for that particular string o f letters and block the whole thing, guessing that it is robo-sp4m.
—-
Further to the rest of it, how many times have you recently seen a columnist starting a sentence “We all know what it’s like to..” when the it is something that is
a) restricted to within 3 kms of the CBD
b) restricted to people on six figure incomes
c) taking their progeny to a private school
Though they are obviously using “We” in order to be inclusive and warm, you have to wonder who the “We” is. I’m pretty certain its not me or anybody I know.
Self-regarding, self-referential and out of touch. You wonder it they ever leave their offices during business hours.
OK Mark,
I am waiting, tick, tick, tick for the Newspoll results to be revealed on Monday night on Lateline. It’s either you and Phillip Adams who wrote “Howard shouting, no-one listening” in the Oz about a week ago or the murder of press crows all over Australia. Remember, your ass is on the line…
Well, Morgan after Labor’s “terrible” week on IR makes me feel that I’m not so out on a limb, St Margaret.
I was in town grabbing a quick feed at a foodcourt tonight and saw the channel 9 news and the only politics was Rudd at a school and the mention of million dollar grants for every school - so I think Christian is on to something with what he’s saying. I think the press gallery forget that most people only pay passing attention to politics - which is why of course a disciplined message and repetition of a pithy line is important. Shanahan might be right to say Rudd looked rattled in question time, but to say voters might remember that instead of the budget reply is totally absurd.
The government might get a point or two, but we’ll see.
Btw, Lefty E, it was your use of that L word that usually comes from the keyboard of Mr Greenfield that was considered immoderate.
Yeah, looks like the punters have completely switched off the “hateys” at the Oz.
The twilight of the elites, ne c’est pas, Flinty ol boy?
Antonio - well, I think the point is that leaky pipes in the inner city lose water for the city as a whole. People in Aspley are drawing water from the same sources as people in New Farm.
delrio, not a huge amount. Have a look at some of the research on where people get their sources of political information from and how much time they spend on it. Swinging voters, in particular, tend to pay much less attention to political news and commentary than those with firmer opinions, more interest and more partisan loyalty. In most cases, it’s tv news that’s the major source of info.
But LP, the l*vvie obsession is such a highlight, and I finf it only gets better with repetition. Dont you just feel so intellectually rogered, bested and QEDed every time?
In that case, feel free to delete the repetitive one I just posted….
Very much agree with Mark’s and Christian’s view on this. Occasionally when a government falls it takes the commentariat with it and I think it is happening in this case. There has been a constant tendency to view this election in terms of 2001/2004 even though the background is now very different. Hence they keep on waiting for the same factors of those elections to work again i.e. character/Iraq/policy retreats and tax cuts.
Politically, I think the budget was a failure. There is no way the coalition could hope to compete with Labor on education. I bet the last week will make little difference to the polls .
In my case Mark, you could have been writing about me. Before 2004 I was the swinging voter, who only paid attention to the 6pm news and maybe read the odd paper. I would only pay attention to news reports about 1week before an election.
Now that my head is well and truly out of the sand, I sometimes wish I can go back to not caring. I promised my family, that after the election that I would shut up, but IF Howard gets back in, I feel that may have been a non-core promise.
amj, after the 98 election I completely tuned out of politics in the news for a couple of years - it’s pretty tempting just to ignore it and get on with your life, but I guess in the end you have to plunge in and take a stand against the Howardians!
It could be that this election is already ordained to be won by one side or another.
By Labor if people switched off Howard in the past year or so and have settled on Rudd as intelligent/dependable/fresh. By the Tories if the election is reduced to a referendum on satisfaction with the current economic climate. If the former be true, then the election is in the bag (Rudd being caught in a threesome with Julia and Dean Mighell aside). If the latter is true, we won’t know again until Howard flicks the election switch.
In the meantime, we sit unknowingly like Heisenberg’s cat. And all the commentariat’s yapping (and our blogging for that matter) is just an amusing way of filling in the time and assuaging our nerves.
The marginals are in the outer suburbs. I am not sure that water piping is a vote changing issue out there either.
Leaking pipes is a big issue on the Alan Jones/Ray Hadley type talkback programmes. You would not believe the number of complaints it draws. A “vote changer” — who knows? But peoples ears are going to prick up at it, for sure.
In Sydney anyway.
I also find it interesting that none of the commentariat ever pop up on _any_ of the Australian political blogs - with the notable, admirable and regular exception of Antony Green.
After all, there is an excellent variety of informed and interesting opinion, of all political colours in many of Australia’s political blogs, and yet none of them - left or right - seem to notice, or deign to speak if they do.
Schrodinger’s cat, please. Heisenberg didn’t know how fast he was going. Or if he did, he didn’t know where he was.
I was so glad that Rudd was made leader. Beazley although he tried, tended to woffle and lose message to much for me. If Beazley was still leader I would be just hoping for a balanced senate. Rudd appealed to me, when they were voting in Latham. I thought “shit not him”. Due to the exposure of Rudd on TV, I was able to get to know him, as a SAFE person, I guess. As I said before I was not politically aware before. But I do remember, that I didn’t like the look of Latham.
Mark, your article is taking me back, and making me think. Pre-politically aware days, I thought if Labor elected a decent leader, then I would probably vote Labor. That was pre-workchoice days. I do remember, and maybe this was part of the reason I started seeking more information on politics …..”God, I bloody sick of Howard and Peter Costello”.
Zebbidie, wrt “us”, remember 1996: “For all of us”? The emphasis was supposed to be read as on “all”, but of course it was on “us” and it wasn’t a comprehensive “us”, lemme tell you.
As for the more general point: you can fool all the people, etc etc etc. I feel that “all” the people are no longer fooled. For all the commentariat’s attempts to frame Rudd as “hectoring” or “lecturing”, Howard’s tone comes closer to that.
You forgot to mention that JH’s great child-care efficiency drive has enabled Eddie Groves to make a $250 million fortune in about 5 years.
Just think about that - 250 million dollars that was meant to create better care for little children with better trained carers and better facilities has been ripped out and used to fatten Eddie Groves bank balance.
$250 million. Think how many books and pencils and pieces of equipment for playgrounds were not bought so that Eddie Groves could become the richest under 40 year old in Australia.
Ripped out of the education of little kids.
Just disgusting. The whole Liberal Party (and their supporters) should damn well hang their heads in shame.
And don’t think that parents don’t connect the rich list and what care their children get
With enrolments now closing early, I trust the parties are doing advance door-knocking, and having any apoliticals who are leaning their way fill in an enrolment form. (With a laptop, they can check electors’ enrolment status on the spot - either with a copy of the roll or online, assuming wireless coverage). Howard wins elections by cobbling 51% out of the apoliticals: by making voting harder he may just have bitten himself on the bum.
(ps John - if Whitlam won by ‘bribing Catholics’ rather than listening to DOGS, why was he doing anything more than welcoming the flock home after the Split?)
My anecdotal input is that an acquaintance who is party-apolitical (but from a wealthy, Liberal milieu) said something about “when Labor gets in later this year…” I said I wouldn’t assume that was inevitable, which he disputed. He thought people were completely tired of Howard and want a change. If his kind of people (squattocracy) are willing to trust Rudd (which was the impression I got), then the mood for change must be pretty deep.
[I won’t be counting any chickens, myself.]
Agreed! I am particularly exasperated by the querulous commentary dished up to me on the front page of ‘The Australian’ by Dennis Shanahan et al. I On Saturday, the mix is boosted by lashings of Christopher Pearson (except for the times he’s being some kind of Vatican groupie). And why oh why can’t ‘The Australian’ find a new voice to represent ‘the left’? Phillip Adams has been playing that role for decades. He’s like an old dog whose tireless loyalty you respond to dutifully even though he’s getting dreadfully tired and smelly, and he still seems to enjoy it so it’s not quite time to take that trip to the vet … but wouldn’t it be lovely to have a sweet, lively puppy about the place.
Rudd is my local member and easily the canniest I’ve ever had. I am comfortably convinced that he is far more in touch with ‘voters’ lived experience’ than the denizens of the Canberra press gallery.
Can’t wait for Virginia Trioli tonight.
suz –
I think your comment confirms earlier reports about the fact that, behind the MSM noise-machine kerfuffle about the release of the ALP’s IR policy and the relative performances of Swan and Gillard, big-business is embracing the idea of a Rudd-led ALP government. Or at least they are hedging their bets.
Some of the plans floated in Rudd’s Right of Reply will have a number of small business owners pricking up their ears too, and might assuage any MSM-massaged fears of a return to … (scary organ music please) … union domination. In fact I’ve been struck by Rudd’s strategic thinking over the last 6 months, and believe the small-business announcement are a deliberate effort to counter the usual banal Coalition/MSM claims of the ALP being the enemy of free enterprise.
I recall reports of a fundraising dinner the night before the ALP conference; according to a news report at the time this was a hot ticket, with business types forking out $7000-odd to be there. I also remember a Jason Koutsoukis article from about a month ago describing the quite favorable impression Rudd made on a number of business leaders at the climate change summit he teed up.
See, some MSM press-gallery types can think outside the square (and I don’t just mean “provide positive copy for the ALP”). At the time I think Koutsoukis was being pilloried as a Coalition message-boy (we’re putting Rudd on the operating table … an empty boast I will savour if the ALP gets up on election night), so at least he was prepared to provide a unique perspective.
This has probably already been said haven’t had time to read all the replies, but I think that the fact that Labor hasn’t found much to oppose in the budget could be a net benefit for them, rather than a deficit. This is because the Labor opposition found itself unable to the old trap it (and other oppositions) always seems to fall into: the trap of opposition. But Rudd’s hand was forced in the right direction, he had no choice but offer an alternative vision, rather than a critique, in his reply. And I think it could work for him… I only have the Courier Mail to go by… but the front page, and indeed much of the paper’s political reporting today focused on Rudd’s new policies… rather than simply reporting negative critique of the budget (which would have simply reiterated Government policy). The fact that, only a day after everyone was talking about Costello’s five billion dollar endowment fund for Unis, the papers are plastered with chatter about Rudd’s trade school plan, suggests to me that Rudd has potentially deflated what seemed to be one Costello’s biggest coups. Note Rudd’s comment that not every teenager will go to Uni…. but you can be sure they’ll all be going to High School. I think average Australians will respond to that policy much more than an untargeted general fund for university infrastructure. Well done Kev.
There also seems to be quite a bit of political transvestitism going on right now too… the Government spending large on Universities, and the opposition, with utmost piety, chanting the mantra of fiscal conservatism. I guess that’s a pretty old phenomena now… but its amusing to watch.
Yeah, Christopher’s Vatican groupie act is pretty bizarre!
The best thing that ever happened to Rudd, probably, was losing Griffith in 96. Since then, he’s been assiduous in actually getting out and keeping in touch with folks in his electorate, and been rewarded by increasing margins. I’m sure it’s done a lot to broaden his previous rather policy wonky perspective.
In fact, Cliff, it’s made the government go negative. Far from touting their budget’s virtues, Howard and Costello spent the whole day talking like Rudd. They’re the ones acting like an opposition again, and by putting the focus on Rudd, are helping ensure that their own budget is a one day wonder.
Very dumb politics.
While there is nearly always a good case for throwing whoever is in out in the case of the Messiah from the manger I would reserve all my bets. This ‘Dr No’ from the deep North is merely distracting the virile youth of Australia with visions of backdoor ‘tradesmens entrance’ joys of unrestrained access all the while and all the time enforcing a brutal Leninist Mandarin regime. True fiscal conservatives don’t need massive new budgetary black holes like the proposed ‘ Department of Homeland Security’. Only a stealth socialist sneaks around installing Marxist infrastructure in the Nations toilets. No - don’t look for reds under the beds - try BLOOD in the STOOL! Give Dr No five years and we will all be eating NORTH KOREAN GINSENG. Fuck save us. Howard is looking the lesser of two diabolical evils. Better Deng than Il Sung.
‘JH’s great child-care efficiency drive has enabled Eddie Groves to make a $250 million fortune in about 5 years.’
But that was the point Zebbidie - free market forces! None of this commie stuff like subsidising community-based non-profit child care centres oh no! The money goes to the individual parents who know best how to spend it. And an added dividend is that the handouts could always bring in those votes.
It’s terrible for the parents, whose child care fees rise every time their child care assistance is increased. More mothers than ever stay home because it’s not worth going out to work any more. Child care workers are even more underpaid and overworked than ever. The waiting lists are just as huge. Apart from that private operators like Eddie Groves say their priority is about children, but it’s really about making a profit. Far from being more efficient, the child-care situation is worse than pre-Howard.
There is no easy way to go, but I think childcare centre subsidies work better than anything else. However that is way, way against Howard’s ideological mindset.
Spot on, St Margaret.
And everyone I talk to knows it - so-called “choice” and “efficiency” translates to unaffordability and poorly paid childcare workers to boot.
I used to have a bit to do with the accreditation process for childcare centres in the Keating era - non-profit community run facilities as they then were - and it was very rigorous indeed.
I’ve also, when I’ve been looking for sessional university staff to assist in tutoring, had women with kids turn down the job either because the pay’s not high enough to make it worth while after factoring in childcare or because the waiting lists are ridiculous and it’s not available anyway.
Im hoping Rudd has a wee childcare package up his sleeve. There just arent enough places around (despite the Government’s bizarro world claims to the opposite - ask anyone who actually has a child) and the whole schmozzle is it own little marginal tax rate fiasco for families.
I dont know how a single parent on an average wage would manage it.
hmm, The Howard Hearld has even got Rod Cameron cheering for him.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,21716554601,00.html
Bugger, stuffed up the link.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,21716554-601,00.html
Rod Cameron has been banging on about that ever since “workchoices” was introduced. Anybody would have thought he had a vested interest in the legislation.
Christian Kerr from Crikey provides interesting insight into the ways of the Mainstream Media Punditariat when he spoke this week to Counterpoint on ABC Radio National.
In summary, Kerr feels that modern day journalists behave almost like advocates of a cause rather than reporters of news.
I don’t actually have a big problem with that alone. You can’t expect anybody’s opinion to reflect all there is to know and nobody can anticipate every unintended consequence of political decision-making and action.
However, I do have an issue with the Mainstream Media trying to convince us that Rudd is in serious trouble, while John Howard is significantly resurgent, every time Labor has even the slightest decline in the polls.
For example, if the next News Poll follows the trend of the latest Morgan Poll, expect the increasingly predictable line that “Rudd has ‘certainly’ made significant errors that will affect the poll results, but these things take time.”
It’s not that they really know for sure, but it’s not difficult to conclude these pundits in the Mainstream Media are trying to “impose their influence” as fortune tellers.
Unfortunately, I suspect a lot of this “imposing” is being driven by the hope of certain powerful people that democracy can be “risk managed”.
Consequently, I believe John Howard will be presented as most likely to win the Election, even if his polls do not improve. If Rudd continues to dominate the polls, the Mainstream Media will place as much emphasis as possible on some portion of the poll that presents Howard’s strengths against Rudd’s weaknesses.
…From Justin
Just to kick the dead-tree commitariat while it’s down, I can’t stand Michelle Grattan. She hides incredibly offensive, personal and subjective comments using the passive voice to make them sound like the pervailing orthodoxy. Just to take an example from her “effort� yesterday:
“Rudd is looking less impressive than at any other point in his leadership.�
To whom is he looking less impressive? To you maybe, Grattan, maybe not to the rest of us. Hiding behind the passive voice irks the cr*p out of me. She does this ALL THE TIME.
How silly is the cartoon series in the Howard Herald going to look if the polls show no bounce next week. A series of bullying cartoons dressed up as sport in a boxing ring is a bit below the belt.
Paul Kelly has been frothing at the mouth and has gone barking mad in trying to get Rudd to back down over AWA’s. Anyway there is a Galaxy Poll out in the Curious Snail on Monday morning so we shall see.
The commentariat speaks.
Shanahan really is a laugh riot.
Yeah, what a surprise!
Published by Mark on 11 May 2007 at 3:24 pm
They do notice it with regard to Howard’s use of media, but this then just gets reinscribed into the political genius narrative, without consideration of the fact that the distant and self-referential discourse of the Canberra press gallery both floats free from voters’ lived experience and has little role any more in shaping political perceptions in the electorate.
Mark is delusional if he thinks cultural elites and press pundits are in the spell of Howard. The majority of opinion journalists can’t stand him.
In fact it is the populus which tends to have a strong feeling for Howard, whereas the elites tend to despise him. If anything the populus tends to like Howard because of his generally unfavourable coverage by the metro pundits. This inverse snobbery is something that Howard works off to his own advantage.
I dont doubt that an anthology of sidestream media pundits would be better than an anthology of mainstream media pundits. But this does not prove much as pundits are a dime-a-dozen, over-rated whatever the media.
Its certainly true that many mainstream pundits overrate Howard’s skill as a political tactician and electoral strategist. The times have suited him. They have to write about something from day to day.
Now the sidestream pundits are focusing on Rudd’s amazing empathy with the popluis policy concerns. Baloney. No one much cares about Rudd’s policies. The populus are just sick of the faces of the LN/P, which has only ever had one strong political asset.
Over the past couple of decades the most important conditioner of political success in Anglomorphic states is the synchoncity of the partisan “electoral pendulum” with the global “business cycle” and Southern Asian “cycle of violence”.
HOward’s success has mostly been due to being a conservative incumbent during a period of economic prosperity and cultural nationalism. It pays to not rock the boat when “we” are favoured and “they” are feared.
As mumbles argues, the economic boom and war on terror have benefitted other similar governments around Australia and the world.
We live in salad political times for comparable governments around the world. Look at the performances of Tony Blair in Britain, Helen Clark in New Zealand and Canada’s Jean Chretien. And at our own state premiers Jim Bacon, Peter Beattie, Steve Bracks and Bob Carr. All these leaders were elected between seven and 13 years ago and found themselves, as did Howard, in the longest period of sustained international growth in generations.
Most cultural elites are hateful, or at least ho-humfull, towards Howard. This includes a majority of the metro press punditariat, particularly in the Fairfax press.
The cultural populus tends to think otherwise. Polling evidence shows that Howard retains the respect of a sizeable majority of the Australian populus, despite a decade of calumnies against his character. Newspoll shows that Howard’s personal approval ratings accross a wide range of dimensions have been consistently well north of 50%. This is during a time when Rudd is enjoying the usual electoral honeymoon.
The majority of The Australian pundits are Howard-hugfull. Perhaps these folk loom large in Mark’s nightmares. But Shanahan and Milne are not particularly influential amongst other pundits. They just like to give off that impression.
The tabloid department of News Ltd boasts a couple of died-in-the-wool Howard-huggers such as Andrew Bolt and Piers Ackerman. They are hardly agenda setters in Canberra or anywhere else.
But their risible efforts are easily swamped by the endless supply of Wets-on-Tap that the Fairfax press can turn on any time its errant cultural philosophy starts to run aground on Dry land.
Even the Australian Financial Review, the bosses bible, tends to take a Howard-skeptical line. And two of its main commentators on public affairs, John Quiggin and Peter Brent, are invariably hostile to Howard’s policies and unimpressed by his politics.
Howard-haters or Howard-ho-hummers
THE AUSTRALIAN
Phillip Adams
Matt Price
Emma Tom
Michael Costello
Mike Steketee
SMH
Ross Gittins
Richard Ackland
Mike Carlton
Elizabeth Farrelly
Richard Glover
Adele Horin
Alan Ramsey
Anne Summers
Hugh White
Lisa Pryor
THE AGE
Catherine Deveney
Kenneth Davidson
Robert Manne
Melanie La Brooy
Michelle Grattan
Shaun Carney
Michael Gordon
Tim Colebatch
Sushi Das
AFR
John Quiggin
Peter Brent
Howard-huggers
THE AUSTRALIAN
Paul Kelly
Dennis Shanahan
Glenn Milne
Greg Sheridan
Frank Devine
Janet Albrechtsen
Allan Wood
Kevin Donnelly
SMH
Paul Sheehan
Miranda Devine
Michael Duffy
Gerard Henderson
Peter Hartcher
THE AGE
None, nil, nada, nix. You wont get a regular op-ed gig on the Age if you have an ounce of sympathy for John Howard.
PS If mark is serious about his post he will be plunging a fortune on a Rudd landslide. This would be brave of him as Centrebet still has the LN/P as slightly favoured to win. FTR my money is on a comfortable victory for Rudd.
Actually, Shanahan sounds like he doesn’t believe there is going to be a “budget bounce” and is spinning in advance.
Suz:
Regardless of his origins, Rudd, like Keating before him, IS one of their kind of people ….. of course they will vote for him.
Take a look at the Labor line-up …. then take a hard cold look at the other side, at all the corporate socialists and nomenklatura who are threatening to cling to power in Howard’s Soviet Australia.
I’m sorry, Graham, I don’t see the point about Keating at all - someone more inimical to the old upper classes would be hard to imagine.
Carney in The Age:
http://www.theage.com.au/news/opinion/a-very-real-contest/2007/05/11/1178390549276.html
Howard still following Rudd around like a lost puppy…
http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200705/s1921290.htm
Mark says on 12 May 2007 at 12:17 pm
Carney is here just rehashing press gallery conventional wisdom on the Budget bounce and the ephermerality of new Opposition leader honeymoons. Remember Latham’s honeymoon lasted six months. Carney is probably right that ALP will slump and LN/P will bounce in the next poll or two.
Mark selective quotations seems to have missed the point of Carney’s article, which directly counters Mark’s assertion that the political media are all over Howard like a rash. Carney thinks that the pundit/populus divide exists but that its sign is exactly the opposite to mark’s contention. He is a metro press editor and presumably knows the mood of the punditariat better than anyone.
The more expansive quote below shows that Carney, no Howard-hugger, thinks the political media are somewhat Rudd-struck on account of his stellar poll ratings. Certainly headlines blaring out “Ruddslide” bear this out:
In the lead-up to the ALP national conference and the opening of the budget session, the media had convinced itself that Labor was dominant — in effect, had taken over the role of government — while the real Government was viewed as the feisty, spirited underdog, punching away at the outfit that’s been setting the agenda for the past five months: the ALP.
Because Labor has been doing so well in the polls, and because Rudd has been able to jump ahead of Howard on a number of issues such as climate change, Labor had been cast as a virtual government. Meanwhile, everything done by the real Government was viewed as an effort to “deal itself back into the game”.
This does not accord with the way the vast bulk of electors see politics.
Voters — most of whom take a passing glance at the endless political narrative as they go about their lives — have not lost sight of who is in office. They know that the Coalition runs the game and has for the past 11 years. It controls a vast bureaucracy, an army of spin doctors, has unlimited funds for advertising, and enjoys more power under the constitution and more money than any previous government with which to win favour with voters.
The chances are that Howard’s poll ratings will be competitive come the election campaign. mark is just getting overexcited about the likelihood of a Howard loss and indulging in a little premature vindictiveness against his fellow pundits. Its a catty little world.
Most media politics comment is the equivalent of rainbreak comment in a Kenya-Ireland cricket match. The Oz pack are simply hacks pushing a line (see today’s bizarre issuse). But the fact that most Australians are enjoying record living standards is a strong card in the favour of the incumbent government, the coincidence of the Howard govt and the boom accounts for the unsurprising fact that voters think Howard is better on economic management, this perception has very little to do with the details of Labor policy. Voters may not be listening to Howard but they are not listening to Rudd either, why change is a powerful argument. Labor’s stress on the absense of planning for the future will close the economic management gap as much as it can be closed, but it will remain a big help to the govt.
Obviously you’ve given up reading Michelle Grattan, Jack, or you’d hardly put her among the Howard-haters list. Unless you’re implying that she’s like Mungo McCallum: hates Howard’s guts but is convinced he’s a political wizard.
Someone above mentioned her passive-voice put-downs of Rudd. I don’t read her much these days, mainly for the reasons Mark and Kerr describe. I did have a look the other day, and at one stage she mentioned a big obstacle for Labor was their “hard-line industrial relations policy”.
If that’s any guide she probably reckons Workchoices II, when it’s finally drafted and passed into law, is a winner!
I think thats a good point Geoff - and why Rudd needs to shore up an economic story and vision thats credible, without getting fixated and ignoring strong suites like climate change.
Don Wigan on 12 May 2007 at 1:04 pm
Obviously you’ve given up reading Michelle Grattan, Jack, or you’d hardly put her among the Howard-haters list. Unless you’re implying that she’s like Mungo McCallum: hates Howard’s guts but is convinced he’s a political wizard.
Yes and Yes. At a guess I would say that 2/3 of Grattan’s journalism over the past year has been overtly hostile to Howard.
I think the majority of the punditariat dislike Howard personally and disagree with him ideologically but think he is pretty clever politically. THis is pretty much the Gratt