In Friday’s SMH, Peter Hartcher gave a sanguine appraisal of the Rudd government’s symbolic actions since winning the election, and concluded that Rudd has been “a keen student” of Howard in the effective political use of symbolism.
I find this statement unsatisfactory, as the two seem to have studied completely different tactical playbooks. While Howard engaged in culture war of the trench variety, Rudd is clearly a proponent of blitzkrieg.
One of the most notable features of Rudd’s symbolic acts is the stunning rapidity with which they have been deployed. We are not six months into the new government, and they are yet to bring down their first budget, but already we can see the distinct outline of Rudd’s social and cultural agenda. By this time in Howard’s first term, the only analogous action he had taken was gun control, which itself was in reaction to the Port Arthur Massacre. And it wasn’t until the electoral threat of One Nation became clearer that Howard, again reactively, began to articulate his preferred cultural agenda.
For those who are dismayed by talk of culture war and all the militaristic language it entails, I’m afraid I can offer little consolation. I believe such terms, when you look beyond the hairy-chested rhetoric, are analytically useful to help us examine what is going on. Many have declared that the years of kulturkampf are over, but I think these are false hopes born of a failure to recognise that the war has moved on from the grinding futility of the trenches to the ruthless devastation of lightning war.
Rudd’s fast tempo of operations warrants more discussion than it has hitherto received. By moving swiftly and decisively on grand (some say empty) declarations across many different fronts, Rudd makes it almost impossible for opposing forces to organise their defences. No sooner have opponents rallied in response to one strike, than Rudd is already shelling the next fortress. If the opposition weren’t so busy dividing and disorienting themselves, this approach would have had the same effect.
The blitzkrieg is also the antithesis of the deliberative, incremental, failed Republican movement of the 1990s. A big, slow-moving target is as easy to bring down as a dirigible. But a big, fast-moving target is more like a rampaging elephant: you either get out of the way or get trampled.
And having the symbolic foundations in place lends greater legitimacy and urgency to whatever practical actions are now to follow (he said optimistically). It’s harder for opponents to work against “practical reconciliation” when the big Sorry is out of the way. It’s harder for opponents to push back against environmental action when Kyoto has been put to bed.
Another effect of the blitzkrieg is that grandstanders lose all their familiar territory. If you look at how many newspaper opinion columns were written in recent years around Kyoto, or the Apology, well you can see why the former government found it politically useful to not resolve the issues. By keeping the issues alive, you can keep your commentators running the same tracts year in year out. But it’s a waste of time to say the 2020 Summit was a waste of time once it’s over. And the commentariat’s territory will shrink further if Rudd carves out a Republic, or a constitutional preamble, or a bill of rights. Then they’ll have only the ABC to whine about.
Incidentally, conservatives who love to deride symbolic actions face a contradiction: if an Apology or Kyoto or a Republic are just meaningless symbols, why spend so much time and energy opposing them?
I too would like to think we’ve left the Culture Wars behind, but it seems the conservatives are currently getting the rough end of a Dresden-like experience, mixed in with a little Shock and Awe. One almost feels sorry for them. Almost.
But… but…. WE DON’T LIKE CHANGE.
That’s what the Right has always said. That nasty Whitlam stirred up the horses and the PACE OF CHANGE brought him undone, along with his CRAZY ECONOMIC THEORIES.
Be interesting to see what happens this time. I doubt very much whether the Rudd government will fumble the technocratic issues like the Whitlam government. And the previous two governments have done a brilliant job of convincing us that bad change is caused by TEH MARKET, which we don’t control.
In 1973, any economic shivers were seen as Whitlam’s responsibility. Now, we are moving into bad economic stuff and the government is seen as magnificent protectors of us mob against a cruel world of sub-prime and peak oil. That line of Keatings about teaching us all economics is a far more important meme for this government than any traditional light on the hill.
I am not trying to get us talking about Whitlam - that is a sterile discussion though it would serve to illustrate your point about the Right tangled up in history, fighting about issues which are no more than the smashed sticks of some Blitzkrieged town.
Didn’t the Hawke government run a blitzkrieg too? I know they were tangled up in a “don’t run on change because they will say you are Whitlam2″ line, which was embodied in Hawke’s healing and inclusion rhetoric. But I think his first six months had deregulation of the banks etc etc…
Yeah, whatever Rudd achieves reform wise he will be very careful not to appear economically irresponsible. Indeed, he may very well succeed in painting the Libs as having spent their way to hell and plunged us into inflation/sub-prime/environmental disaster/ chronic food shortage etc. etc.
I keep on feeling what we might have in Rudd is a Whitlam who won’t make mistakes. But I can’t quite believe it. Long may he be coated in Teflon.
JWH is the author of all our problems. Well, at the moment I’m willing to believe it.
Though as a Socialist I just wish Rudd would bring in strong price control forcing the price of rent, food and petrol way down.
I know that will make economists, big business and bankers groan. Tough. Its the humane thing to do.
Sooner or later Rudd will face a capitalist strike anyway.
Probably the silliest aspect of the Kultkämpfer sour grapes re Rudd’s “Symbolism” is that saner members of the Coalition wanted Howard to do what Rudd has done - live in the Lodge, sign Kyoto, say “Sorry”, appoint a female Governor-general - but the stubborn old blighter wouldn’t. Instead of booting him on the grounds that his refusal to do so was against the best interests of his Party (and regular polling was showing just how strongly the electorate wanted the government to make those symbolic gestures), they pandered to the PM; leaving the popular ground to the (then) ALP Opposition & its leader to claim.
The next silliest aspect is that the Liberals are publicly sledging Rudd for doing (a) what many are publicly claiming they wanted Howard to do (b) what he was elected to do. Just what the voting public think of this hypocrisy - and just how much they wanted these so-called symbolic steps to be taken - are clearly shown in opinion polls.
Kulturkampf - the whole stupid, state-down forced (and ultimately failed) cultural as well as political and religious unification “wars” ought to have died with the war-mongering Prussian martinet who let the German militaristic genie out of the bottle c150 years ago - Otto von Bismarck. Not that the Kulturkamf didn’t achieve great things for other countries! By the time Bismarck died, he’d managed to populate SE Qld & the Darling Downs, SA’s Barossa Valley, other Oz areas (as well as tracts of the Americas, Africa etc) with refugees from his Kulturkampf.
Ironic, though, that Peter Hatcher would use Anzac Day to discuss it!
The other self defeating argument about Rudd’s ’symbols’ goes that they are an easy and obvious populist option.
If they are easy, why didn’t Howard do them?
If they are obvious, why didn’t Howard do them?
If they are popular, why didn’t Howard do them?
Or did Howard only take actions which were hard, obscure and unpopular?
I’m curious as to who you define as “opponents”.
I think Rudd has gone for the big symbolic and empty actions to shut up the loony left who are after all, more dangerous and potential derailers to Rudd than they ever would or could be to Howard. How can they complain now?
Paul - price controls have never worked and only does further damage to the economy. I have a flat that I rent out and I assure you rent control will only discourage investment in this sector. It’s not quite the economic bonanza that the left often seems to think it is. It wouldn’t just make big business and bankers groan, everyone would suffer as investment shifted away from price controlled sectors to freer ones. There would be shortages everywhere. Is this what you want?
Yep, as the very socialist economist Assar Lindbeck once conceded, rent control is second only to carpet bombing in effectiveness in destroying housing.
On the kulturkampf, I think it matters much less to most of the punters than the belligerents on either side think. It’ll be economics that makes or breaks this government, and on that I’m fairly pessimistic - I think international conditions will make them unlucky.
As I’ve said elsewhere, I reckon the Libs best strategery would be to be very small-l liberal on social issues (Rudd’s government has a lot of small-c social conservatives in it which is preventing it properly exploiting the political space here) while running a pretty pure free-market (not crony capitalist) economic agenda. The latter will make it easy to exploit any economic woes.
I’m going to take up the price control question on Barista. [link] or maybe here, if the link works.
Slightly of topic, my apologies.
To state the bleedin’ obvious, Conservatives don’t like change. They want to conserve and protect the structures and rituals with which they are familiar and comfortable.
Though one thing continues to puzzle me, it appears the same people, who oppose the agenda Rudd is setting, are quite comfortable with the change in structure and symbols of their firms and understand the need for renewal and transformation of their companies to ensure continued growth. Why don’t they perceive the same benefit in the social and governance environments? Is it because of their acceptance of change with the economic sphere they require the other spheres to remain stable?
I don’t know the answers - just asking the questions.
Actually styx, its not bleeding obvious. In the social sphere progressives obviously support the right of individuals to make their own decisions. However in the commercial or economic field many if not most progressives are highly uncomfortable with Capitalism. Its dynamism scares the shit out of them and they are forever trying to lock down the existing pattern with price controls, tariffs, industry policy and so on. In this sphere progressives often resent individual choices and are forever insisting on changing peoples behavior for there own good. Markets - ie the free buying and selling decisions of millions of individual parcipitants are abhorred and there are forever calls to ‘fix them’. This site is chock full of this sort of thinking and it is dreadfully, drearily conservative.
The Federal government has now powers to introduce any sort of price control, In 1948 Chifley’s Labor Government lost a referendum to give it such powers…it had used the Wartime Powers in the 2nd World War to do so…it controlled pices/rent/food/and most things,but this power was ended after the war.
The referendum was defeated. In the 198o’ies Hawke sought similar powers..and was againt rebuffed.
No Government would think to do so now…and I don’t know how petrol price could be controlled in the uinternational market
Better get ready for pertol at $3 a litre/$6 a litre/$10 a litre..goodbye the age of oil!!.
Terrific post and comments.
Let’s let this hang a moment:
Modern video editing might provide a visual example of governments changing at the hands of voters. Thinking of the video transition here. Pick any type of transition you like; what happens is the once-prevailing state of play recedes in time, and the new one takes over.
Where that is interesting regarding change of government is that the once-prevailing state of play actually creates in significant part the next scene. What prevailed becomes a backdrop. It is crucial in helping to clarify and define. A new contender cannot be a chance until that backdrop has formed. Of course it’s up to the newbie to get it right, but that backdrop - that it has formed, and the way it has formed - is essential for change to take place.
Voters, in their own way, see, hear, feel or intuit this. They may do so of their own accord, or as response to the influences around them.
It helps to see a government congealing as a backdrop, against which the new scene takes place. From that we can deduce what will live on, and what doesn’t have to.
At this time, Rudd is still playing against the backdrop of the previous regime.
The transition hasn’t as yet fully taken place.
Everything he does and says is regarded at some level by the electorate according to what was once the way. This is the normal way of things, and mention of Whitlam here is just as apposite today to enlighten the process, and what is very different this time around is that we don’t really know who Rudd is.
So in effect we have an unknown - and a powerfully driven one at that - in an as yet unformed government.
There are many good quotes in the post above, but coming back to the early one as remarked at the top of this comment, part of the reason why Rudd’s actions are viewed as symbolic is because we don’t really know him. And because he’s unknown, and because he’s operating still against a congealed, nay, cemented-stone backdrop, he can act swiftly here, there, and there again, dipping in and out, flighty and flaring as he likes, without real (political or otherwise - and that’s not necessarily a bad thing) consequence.
This is not to say what he’s doing is flippant. But the way he can play it right now is quite unusual. He can lay waste to past misdeed, past ideas, past constrictions. He can build castles. He can do all of this while suffering no consequence electorally or for others, building ideas to be cemented or discarded with equal ease, all the while gaining information from response, to put in place later what can - should he get it right, politically and for others - be enacted.
Come the budget, and that transition will have effectively taken place. You’ll be seeing the Rudd Government as that.
If that is true, then you’ll also see the Liberals.. well, you won’t see them. They’ll have receded in effect completely. Without policy background - in that new age, just a month or two away - and without leadership substance to carry the day when their cupboard is bare, you’ll have a ‘Simon Crean’ carping is all. Nothing is more vague and useless than a carping opposition for the sake of carp, and nothing vanishes more swiftly in the public regard. (But the aftertaste lingers!)
In this context Rudd has an incredible opportunity. We’ve seen how quickly the electorate can willfully disconnect, once they feel their bases have been covered - whether they actually are or not.
Rudd was brilliant from day one in quieting the suburbs. To his minions:- “work 15 hour days, through weekends and Christmas, visit upon the homeless, visit upon the schools, insinuate into the hearts and minds, for we have hit the ground running and we are in the business of looking after what you wanted”.
While it’s now phase three (two being the overseas tour), and still unformed, so many doors have been opened - symbolic? be careful with that - for extreme political ascension.
This includes the wiping or dissolving away of the old scene ‘culture wars’.
And that - the extremeness of it - is the real cause for reflection, if not concern or worry.
What is brilliantly inspiring about Government Rudd, when it truly forms and goes forward, is that world events will make it or break it, before our countryfolk do. Rather than eleven years of internally-unchecked mayhem, Government Rudd will be called to account by the world itself. Inspiring? Because it just may - at least culturally - do something very valuable indeed.
Good post, Mercurius.
The debate about “symbolism” is yet another legacy of Howard’s animus against Keating, and his tactics and strategy with the “culture wars”. All governments use symbolism to make points and create political capital. Howard did too. The idiocy of dichotomising symbolism and pragmatism or practicality is itself symbolic - it’s a particular lens through which to scrutinise politics which John Howard wanted as a frame. It’s an indictment of the collective wisdom of the Parliamentary press corps that they’re not capable of escaping yet another tedious set of stale dichotomies. A bit of a historical perspective might be useful. Did Fraser eschew symbolism? Did Gorton? Did Menzies? Did Billy Hughes?
And interesting comments, Robert.
Discussions about rent controls etc. are a bit of a furphy in this context, as is the alleged opposition of “the left” (particularly if that is meant to include the ALP) to the “dynamism of capitalism”.
What we’re actually seeing happen is a collapse of some of the narratives about state control over the domestic economy, as David alludes at #1. This is a contrast to the dirigisme and laziness of the Howard/Costello years, where a basically do nothing economic policy (except wrt labour markets) was somehow spun into a wonderful economy that the Libs had created. The debate at the moment on the business pages about inflation targeting, and the increased awareness that any Australian state institutions - Reserve Bank or government - are unable to influence factors which are shifting in the configuration of the global economy is symptomatic of this. The voters are actually way out in front of the commentariat here, I’d argue, and Rudd’s message is tailored to them - we’ll try to do our utmost to buffer you from the shifting sands of world economic factors, and in order to compete, we have to get smart. A whole lot of diversionary rhetoric will go precisely nowhere in what is a very new context for the Australian political debate.
Yes.
It will be interesting to see where this thread goes, or more importantly what it uncovers.
Symbolism as a governing tool, as commonly used. Symbolism as illusion, misread, for what is really unknown. Symbolism as has grown, in respect of an ‘economy’ (not ‘the economy’ for that is a red herring as much as it is thrashed into a sort of mad clarity otherwise), and how that bespeaks or attempts as much the daily bread.
And for LP, that knocked-out articles [and would it be faced at smh: for his seminal moments otherwise, Hartcher got it so wrong about Howard] get that second look.
“….. the decision to move the primary prime ministerial residence from Kirribilli House back to the Lodge.
Rudd carried out each of these acts, not to accomplish a material change in itself but chiefly as an emblem of something else.”
Hartcher worked pretty hard to stretch his argument, there.
It’s pretty funny when you think about it. Rudds’ physical body will be in Canberra, predominantly, rather than Sydney. That is a material change. It just so happens that is where the P.M. was meant to reside.
If he decided to sell Kirribilli House it would become “symbolic” and a bloody good idea, as well.
If Rudd sold Kirribilli House, Janet would probably get John W. H. to buy it.
Do you reckon the advance on his memoirs would be that big? He’d have to go all undignified and get into a p*ssing contest with $weetie!
Well, it’d be fun to watch. But, um, I would have thought power walking around Milson’s Point in a daggy tracksuit was already pretty undignified? Especially since he stole the idea from that dangerous US Democrat Bill Clinton.
They shouldn’t sell Kirribili House, it should stay in Commonwealth ownership but should be opened to the public on a time-share basis: three days stay (holday) per working family, selected randomly from all the hundreds of thousands of Australians who do unpaid work that benefits the community; as a salute and small thank-you. With airfares to/from Sydney paid by the Govt.
ummmm just a thought
*holiday*
the volunteers I had in mind were such as volunteer firefighters, trained first aid persons, carers of disabled people, carers of elderly, volunteers in opp shops, etc with emphasis on community safety, poor and homeless, addicted, elderly folk, Aboriginal unemployed, etc
yeah, bloody do-gooders, but those who do rather than those who only speak.
The lottery aspect should match Aussie traditions [as someone on a recent Republican thread said alottery for Pres would
]
Well, the Republic won’t go away as an issue for the commentariat to talk about because it won’t be implemented. That bar is too high to jump over.
If the symbolic roadblocks are out of the way for Rudd to “really act”, then I eagerly await his action. If it is stuff like re-establishing ATSIC, then all of us who didn’t vote for him will be proven correct.