Christian Kerr picks up on a theme I’ve been pushing:
On Tuesday, Wayne Swan told a gathering of business leaders that the Government was “taking the politics out of budgets”—which is shorthand for marginalising the Opposition.
Labor is taking a managerialist approach that observers have noticed means proposing problems to be solved, not battles to be fought, and creating a construct of consensus around solutions.
Styling government as practical problem-solving makes it easy to depict Oppositions as carping, negative or obsessed by ideology.
As I’ve previously said, whether or not the attempt to transfer the successful Bracks/Brumby/Beattie/Bligh model to federal governance (and to make it about governance and not politics) will work is a moot question at this point. But I don’t think Kerr is right to say that “politicking, rather than policy detail” is the way to go for the Libs. In general terms, maybe, but not with the risible fuel excise promise. I think he wrongly assumes that this sort of politicking will be successful, and there’s no evidence of that so far. Some of the qualitative polling I’ve seen suggests the “working families” didn’t expect an instant fix on cost of living pressures, and one way you could read Kevin Rudd’s victory is as a victory for “long term solutions” over political magic wands. Whether the “long term solutions” work is of course another matter entirely, but I think a lot of the voters Brendan Nelson is targeting are a lot cannier about all of this than he thinks.
That’s before we even get to the credibility problems that the messengers have – regardless of the message being delivered. Dennis Shanahan may think that Malcolm Turnbull’s address to the press club was a “special triumph over his handicaps” (!) but if anyone outside the closed circle of the political class watched the thing, or took anything away from it from the soundbites on the news other than Turnbull trying to square the circle, I’ll eat my hat.
the opposition organ spinning furiously in their favour might give them a leg up on the populism, but i suspect the entertainment from the internal divisions in the party are overriding all else.
Turnbull’s probably lucky only political junkies were paying attention to his speech:
http://www.newmatilda.com/2008/05/22/foot-shooters-party
My guess is that (apart from Workchoices) a clear advantage held by Labor during 2007, was not just that it was campaigning on “the future” (which may quite possibly have been vague and spin-soaked), but that it proposed long-term plans, long-term fact-finding, etc. For example on greenhouse, infrastructure building, renovation of the health system, inproving Federal-State relations, improving education at all levels, improving outcomes for indigenous Australians, etc
IMHO the public appreciates that
1) years of neglect may take years to repair
2) infrastructure can take years to plan and build, including hospital renovations and schools
3) indigenous disadvantage will be reduced only by a concerted and multi-faceted program
4) reducing greenhouse emissions can be done but will be achieved by a mosaic of separate and complementary actions
IMHO the public is willing to be patient and has ALWAYS been unimpressed by bickering, pomposity, foolishness and fratricide amongst the political classes.
…. but it’s only MHO,
I may well be wrong.
Just let me know, will youse? Ta.
I think that’s right, Ambi, and I think Nelson/Turnbull haven’t understood why people got sick of the Howard politics of the quick fix – nothing ever got fixed because it was always such a short term horizon.
Using “Brumby” and “governance” in the same sentence without a negative? Especially with the assault on academic freedom hinted at by the Mees (a public transport policy academic at Melbourne Uni) scandal?
Ambigulous/Kim – I think you’re being quite optimistic about the general public.
I think the majority want the infrastructure problems fixed by the next election with no rise in taxes (at least for them, for others its fine). Wrt to global warming they want it fixed but without any significant cost increases for them – if people cared enough to pay, we’d have a much bigger uptake of the various green power schemes and incandescent lightbulbs wouldn’t be for sale not because they’re being banned but because there was no demand for them.
I watched the Turnbull speech & Q&A after. Apart from doing over the ALP (which presumably is what he was there for)I thought Malcolm’s main aim was to distance himself from Bumbles in preparation for a doing over of said Bumbles in the future.
Now to the populism – I don’t think the petrol excise cut will work – not at 5c anyway. People are too well aware it will quickly swallowed up by further rises in fuel cost. Especially after today’s $1.62 p/litre, to go higher next week. Hell, even I know that, and I don’t drive a car.
As to the pensions – that one is biting and will bite, especially with both 9 & 7 pushing it the way they are. These guys are out to prove the power of television, esp. morning television. And even though I’d like my DSP to go up, their tactics still make me spew. This is one Rudd can’t put off, I reckon.
But as for the broader populism, it won’t work: people have had enough of short termism under Howard. For a while, anyway.
Rudd will need to pray a few Lab state governments fall over before his second term. It shouldnt be forgotten the part the states play in deliberately blurring the lines between state and federal responsabilities.
Much of the hospitals,water,indigenous,infrastructure etc are state business. They have ben able to use the Federal Libs as a stalking horse for (some) of their failures. It will be interesting to see who gets thrown under the bus first next time they try to blame the Feds for State failures.
Youse iz right vere, ambigulous!
1. Yesterday on OzForums http://www.ozforums.com.au/viewtopic.php?id=3113&p=5 in response to fred’s post #109 on pensioners at a local meeting during Campaign07 expressing a preference for Nation Building activities, I did get more than a bit carried away on Nation Building #120 (even quoted Essex Evans’s poem on the topic), and what it meant to live for decades with Nation Building governments, only to watch the most recent ones step back from it, and do nothing as infrastructure crumbled – hence Essex Evans’s poem, which most people over 50 remember learning at school!
All of the pre-election polls indicated that voters wanted the government to spend its money on education, health, transport, water & “climate change” infrastructure – in short, voters wanted the return of Nation Building Governments.
2. I also posted, in response to the budget (?LP ?ABC) about listening to it & Swann’s Press Club speech, mentally ticking off StratManagement / TQM / World’s Best Practice criteria. I was watching an updated version of Rudd/ Swann as Queenslanders knew them from the 90s; the blokes who ran their major briefs as top business managers do: identify a problem, research it, formulate a policy based on research, set up project management committees with guidelines reflecting “World’s Best Practice (inc defined goals, ways to measure achievement & report back) – joking that Rudd & Swann must be after a World’s Best Practice in Government Award.
There’s a very clear government message in that approach:
Managing Australia’s “One trillion dollar economy” is not something the government should do “by the seat of its pants”; but as one would run a “One trillion dollar business” in a way that would get it a WBP Award
just as there is a very clear message that Nation Building Government is back in town!
Paul Burns wrote: As to the pensions – that one is biting and will bite, especially with both 9 & 7 pushing it the way they are. These guys are out to prove the power of television, esp. morning television. And even though I’d like my DSP to go up, their tactics still make me spew. This is one Rudd can’t put off, I reckon.
It certainly has been a humungous media beat-up, Paul! But it has a very limited life.
Within the next few weeks, certainly before 30 June, each OAP will receive notification of (a) their $500pp bonus (b) the quarterly Utilities Allowance of $125 “for singles or $62.50 for each eligible member of a couple” (wording from my Centrelink notification – 20 February 2008, of the March Quarter) and of the quarterly telephone allowance. We will receive a total of $1,158.00 (not counted as part of Income for tax purposes), in addition to our usual fortnightly pensions and any other usual quarterly allowances. That quarterly $125 ($500 annually) is up from $107 in 2007. In addition, the telephone allowance now includes an extra allowance for Internet users.
Once those notifications arrive, the OAP campaign will be hard to sustain when ALP pollies and others are waving statements. $1,158 extra cash in hand per couple ($658 per single) doesn’t go over all that well with Jan & Joe Public struggling to pay a mortgage & living on far less a week.
The earlier (Feb/March) pension beat-up died almost as soon as notifications arrived. One bloke was quoted in the Courier Mail (pic & all) as saying he’d just received “an insulting” $11-something per ?week increase in his pension, raising a great deal of ire from people suffering mortgage stress. My local newspaper printed letters from irate OAPensioners, quoting from their letters; stating that they would have nothing with the pressure groups beating up the story, and asking (a bit sarcastically, in some cases) why there was no such beat-up in 2007.
One has to ask, (a) “Why do the media not print the truth?” (b) “Who stands to gain most by the beat-up?” Hint; not OAPs!
Say, Ambigulous: no disrespect or anything, but instead of it being your humble opinion (with which I have no disagreement) why can’t it just be your ordinary, run of the mill opinion? It’s just that saying that it’s your ‘humble’ opinion three times in the same post doesn’t seem very humble. I don’t think it should be humble. Just tell us what you really think, without being humble…
Dashed orf a letter to the editor to the Advertiser and Australian yesterday providing figures for the increases in OAPs and eligibility changes to carer allowances.
To my surprise, it was printed in the Advertiser among a clutch of whinging letters claiming OAPs were ignored, forgotten or didn’t get their bribe or all three, but unsurprisingly not in the Australian where there was a raft of “outraged” whingers. Seems the Australian feels it hasn’t milked this beat-up for all it’s worth, as yet.
However, I think the government should go on the attack on this one. Although pensioners know their utilities allowance has been increased well over fourfold and they’ve been given an internet provider allowance, (letters of advice were sent on 20 March), they’re remaining silent for whatever reason.
So unless the government puts a stop to the bullshit immediately, the public perception will always be that the Rudd government is mean and uncaring towards OAPs and carers.
Mark -
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What was so particularly successful about Steve Bracks’ governance? Seems to me any claims re his good governance are to be augmented with the same pich of salt used to indulge Howard’s claim to
benefiting from Hawkeating’s reformsgreat economic management.Sorry, Dave and Adrien, to clarify, I meant successful in political terms. I have a lot of reservations about the managerialist model of governance in practice.
Indeed.
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Carr, Bracks and Beattie. Brilliant politicans. Rule while the sun shines. Split before the wheels fall off.
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Bet Howard’s kicking himself he didn’t pick up on that one.
Whether you opt for populism or policy I suppose depends on how you define your role as an Opposition.
The present Opposition seems to think that its role is to dominate the media cycle, and that as long as they’re doing this, they’re on the right track.
If this is your ultimate aim, however, the disconnect between column inches and votes gets ignored.
Pauline Hanson still pulls a lot of press every time she puts her head above the parapet, but politically it gets her nowhere.
I would have thought that an Opposition would prefer to be seen as an alternative government – a smooth, efficient, consistent operation that doesn’t draw attention to itself unless it’s demonstrating what a good job it’s doing.%
It takes a lot more discipline, admittedly, and it’s easy to feel -if the column inches aren’t there – that you’re invisible. But the background picture you create is, that when the government stumbles, there’s a safe, dependable pair of hands ready to take over.
Labor played this game well in the early days of Opposition and reaped a 51% 2PP result at the next election. Wrong seats, of course, but the extent of that result should not go unappreciated – after the ‘96 wipeout, they shouldn’t have even come close.
Who?
Thanks Dee Cee. Thanks Andos: look, my attitude is, what would I know? I’m only guessing what my fellow citizens think about these matters. I don’t claim that Rudd’s election was due to a yearning for nation-building. It may have been mainly revulsion at Workchoices and getting sick of the Howard/Costello Cold War. Or not.
I seriously think some of us might adopt a new blogging abbreviation: WTFWIK?B to preface comments.
What The F*** Would I Know? But …….
any takers?
Good point, mckenzie.
Helps prop up their diminished egos, poor darlings.
And I don’t think they’d be able to do any policy work if they tried! But they should try to learn.
I liked this from the Oz editorial this morning…..THE obsession that many in the media have with leadership tensions at the top of the federal Opposition shows how easily distracted they are from the political main game…..
Don’t they read their own paper? It has led the charge on the ins and outs of opposition shenanigans. I agree with Rod Cameron…