That’s actually kinda how you could read the day’s news in politics - Victorian Premier John Brumby has agreed to sign up to the Commonwealth’s Murray-Darling plan (just over a year after it was pulled out of John Howard’s hat), Kevin Rudd thinks he might be able to end Japanese whaling through diplomacy, while he’s off re-engaging our fair nation with the world, and meanwhile the blame game just got ended, and health got a big injection of funds.
Meanwhile, Joe Hockey is whining:
Making fun of the Liberal party seems to be the new national sport, Joe Hockey has complained.
The shadow health minister and former workplace relations minister told Fairfax Radio everyone was picking on the party following revelations a serving federal MP - Scott Morrison - was denied membership of his local branch because of a factional dispute.
“Will everyone please stop bashing up the Liberal Party at the moment,” he said.
“It’s like a national sport for people, particularly journalists, at the moment to belt up the Liberal Party.”
“I think it’s in the national interest that the Liberal Party be a viable, feasible alternative government at state and federal level.”
Two points.
Rudd’s media management works much better when Parliament isn’t sitting. I’d bet my left leg that there’ll be a jump in the polls for the government. One interpretation could be that the messy business of politics gets in the way of governing in the national interest. Another could be that the spin machine works much better when the opposition is in the headlights and out of the spotlight.
Secondly, how hard can it be to “end the blame game” when it’s just a matter of getting the Premiers to agree to stuff in the first months of a Labor government? I’d really welcome any comment from anyone who is actually knowledgeable about the nuts and bolts of the issues discussed today at COAG about how feasible the projected solutions are. Is Rudd raising expectations too high? Will delivery be more difficult than spin? (That really is a Ruddism - the answer’s obvious). Or is it genuinely the case that we have a national government focusing on solving the big issues and downplaying political carping? That is in some real sense the case, and it really boxes the opposition in, but the nuts and bolts still matter.
Update: Possum on the history and politics of the Murray River plan.
If Hockey’s so concerned that the Liberals aren’t being seen as a viable, feasible alternative he needs to understand that it’s not the perception that’s the problem but the party itself.
Santoro’s faction trying to keep Brough out of the Qld Division Presidency; one of the Lindsay pamphleteers fighting their expulsion (and winning on grounds of process); the disastrous UCP proposal; Frydenberg’s perennial challenging of Georgiou (when Georgiou’s one of the most popular Libs in Victoria); the list goes on. It’s not a media beat-up, Joe, your party is terrible.
I agree Sam. By far the silliest thing about this is that he seems to be implying that it is the nations response to the Liberal farse and not the farce itself that is preventing them from being an effective opposition. Is he stupid or does he think we are?
Take your hand off it Joe!
The Japanese whaling issue is such a no-cost tub-thumper for the government. It irritates the Japanese a lot (the culling of kangaroos has been a big media story in Japan for the last few weeks) but ultimately costs the government very little in international relations with a big benefit in domestic politics. Relations with China will be far harder to manage over the next several months.
Indeed, MH. But then relations with China is a far harder story for the lazy and sloppy media to dramatise too. As I’m sure Rudd understands.
Mark,
I think that “lazy and sloppy” is an astute assessment of media reality. The combination of the faxed press release, profit expectations for news, commercial analysis in editorial decision making, and an over obsession with “celebrities”, has steered news presentation down a path that is a very shallow reflection of reporting ideals of the past. Meaningful analysis of the world through the media is a rare event in Australia today.
But why oh why is the ABC so intent on dumbing itself down with the rest of them? I rarely watch the 7.00 pm news because of work, but on the times that I have caught it recently, I was amazed at the extent to which it had deteriorated.
You think Hockey is bad, what about those two clowns Bolt and the words cant describe what I would call Ackerman and there merry band of Idiots.
Why any one would give those two room has me beat,as the Rudd govt goes on this pair get more and more hysterical,Ackerman is still trying to get the Heiner thing up when he has had his theorys debunked but still he trys.
Still I suppose with friends like them the Liberals get what they deserve
Really? Tibet would seem to me to be an easy story to dramatize, as the media in the UK have been vigorously doing. More so than in Australia, I sense, overall, in the media and the blogsphere. I wonder why that is. And an easy dismissal of the media is a little glib, I might suggest. Rowan Callick’s pieces in The Australian on China, and recently on Tibet and the election in Taiwan have been very good indeed, more nuanced and complex than anything I have read in blogs.
It was pulled out of John Howard’s hat because it was John Howard’s idea. It was a Labour state government, John Brumby’s, which deliberately stalled it. So that Kevin Rudd could claim credit for it by “announcing” it at yesterday’s meeting of State Premiers.
This is a bit like Kevin Rudd’s “intervention” on behalf of Aboriginal kids. His forward-looking policy on Afghanistan, which he’ll announce to NATO in a few days. And not to forget the excellent performance of Australia’s economy under his wise stewardship.
There is also the ABC’s Newshour program, which actually covers stories and interviews people, politely but in depth.
Joe Hockey should realise its going to take quiote a while for the stench of Howard and Workchoices to dissipate. The Libs has moved themselves tro the extreme right, and they only have themselves to blame. Meanwhile the ALP seems to have moved itself dead centre - it certainly isn’t left, and so far I don’t see too many intimations federally of it taking a far right position. Only time will tell in the latter case. (Labor in NSW has its own idiosyncracies, most of them highly unpleasant, but I won’t go into that. Even so, they’re better than Clarke and Opus Dei any day.)As much as it is unpleasant news for far lefties like myself, its axiomatic that Aussies generally don’t like extremes of the left or right. But its my bet that the majority of the electorate now think we’d all moved a bit too far right under Howard and his bovver boys. And they’re prepared to move a little bit left to compensate. (I know that is like being a little bit pregnant, but still its what we have to work with.) I, for one, am taking advantage of it.
Today Rudd has announced the country will take more of an “activist” role in world politics. Good news if you’re a whale, not so good if you’re a Tibetan.
Rudd’s “re-engaging our fair nation with the world”. Well, everyone except Japan, who only happen to be our oldest friend in the region and biggest trading partner.
Ok, so the Liberal Party are the punching bag of the country, but they sort of were in government. Weren’t we promised by Australia’s comedy elite (the “stars” of The Glasshouse come to mind) that it was because they were in government? So, really, isn’t it Rudd’s turn. The conga-line of suckholes just goes to Beijing these days rather than Washington.
End communication.
On federal-state relations I think we are going to see a lot of backslapping from Labor over the next couple of years. What I really do hope is that lasting reform that de-politicises the division of responsibility between the federal and state governments is delivered along with it - otherwise the whole thing is going to go back to the dogs in a very predictable way before too long.
Labor has promised much on federal-state relations and with a monopoly on power has unprecedented power to deliver. Labor not actually delivering now would provide some excellent fuel for the Coalition; that is, if they ever manage to become cohesive enough again to genuinely trouble the scorers.
Only the Coalition would reject a candidate for pre-selection because he is simply not right wing enough, a bare 3 months after they were comprehensively thrown out of Federal office in an election where their leader and the Prime Minister of the day lost his own seat - only the second time in this country’s history this has ever happened.
This is willful refusal to adapt and learn. Get ready for at least 10 years of ALP government.
A lot of changes in state-federal relations didn’t occur because the block-Labor states were able to provide a kind of de-facto opposition to the Howard Government, who they were ideologically opposed to.
Thus you got farces like Steve Bracks refusing to sign up to the Murray-Darling water deal. Media often liked to present problems in state-federal relations as a result of the Howard Government stubborness, but of course this wasn’t always the case.
As it turned out, Kevin Rudd and Federal Labor were able to capitalise on this perception of Howard Government stubborness/arrogance with slogans like ‘end the blame game’, etc - the other problem, of separate state and federal Labor parties acting as a bloc, didn’t get much publicity at all.
Update: Possum on the history and politics of the Murray River plan.
Oh good on ya Kevvie. Kevvie to the rescue. Hint to Kevvie if you wanna the Japanese to do you a favour don’t piss ‘em off first. But he’s a professional what would I know.
If the shadow health minister wants to see a “viable, feasible alternative government at state and federal level” why doesn’t he start by setting an example? Joe Hockey has done absolutely nothing as opposition health spokesman. That job seems to have been delegated to the president of the AMA. Maybe I missed it but has Joe Hockey made any significant comment at all on Nicola Roxon’s health policies so far?
“Hint to Kevvie if you wanna the Japanese to do you a favour don’t piss ‘em off first. But he’s a professional what would I know.”
Yes, that does seem pretty counter-intuitive so far. But you don’t become leader of some G20 country without being a pretty cunning bastard at some level. On the other hand, I can see his both Private and Cabinet offices overstaffed with China watchers who could well not be that simpatico to or well informed about Japan. But hey Nippon is so yesterday. She’s losing her figure anyway whereas China likes to party, pick up the tab and returns our emails within a few hours. I think she really likes us.
Nelson to launch workchoices Mark 11.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23443873-5016654,00.html
Why is Joe Hockey whining?
The Press always gave ample coverage to ALP shenanigans like branch-stacking, assaults in the street, tomatoes thrown at a Victorian State Conference [hence “The Tomato Left” faction], union slush funds, etc
It’s just scrutiny Mr Hockey, and we the voters deserve nothing less than some light being shone into dark, dank corners.