The bipartisan approach to indigenous affairs is Rudd’s way of neutralising Nelson on the issue. The way bipartisanship should work is the government proposes a policy, and if the opposition thinks it’s a good idea, it offers support.

Megalogenis writes as if the media has no role in what and when and how Rudd sweats or more importantly is seen to be sweating and so ends up being as insubstantial as Nelson. The media decide on our behalf whether we think Rudd is sweating the small stuff or not. He has been “bogged down” because its been leading the news for days and not the other way round.

Yes, I sometimes get the impression that many in the Mainstream Media consider our vote to be a proxy taken care of by them - effectively “deciding on our behalf”.

Ed from The Australian today writes:

“politics, like nature, abhors a vacuum. Where one exists, it can be either be filled by extraneous issues or by reform agendas backed by a convincing narrative.”

Yet it is often the Media that’s so rapid at competing with the Government to fill the vacuum with this extraneous stuff, often by interpreting what the politician has said in a way removed from its intended context.

This happened only last weekend in the United States when Hillary Clinton mentioned the assassination of Bobby Kennedy in 1968 as part of stating her case for staying in the running for the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination.

Having been listening to the liberal-left radio talk shows streaming over the Internet this week, I get the impression that the liberal media presenters are very keen to ensure that Hillary Clinton “sweats the small stuff” by seizing on her Kennedy comment, having already clearly decided on behalf of their audience that Barack Obama is the preferred Democratic candidate. It is only a handful of talkback listeners who phone in and provide any kind of counterpoint.

Much to his credit, Barack Obama didn’t attempt to take advantage of the Media inflamed outrage over Clinton’s comments, stating that “When you are campaigning for as many months as Senator Clinton and I have …sometimes you get careless.”

What Obama says here should remind us that the Media often only provides us with an abstract of the person we may at some point vote for or against. An important historical example of this was when the Bulletin’s front page in 1989 branded then Opposition Leader John Howard as “Mr. 18 Percent” due to poor opinion polls of him at the time.

And because the Media tends to treat our vote as a proxy in support of their preferences, perhaps some Media people might fail to treat as principle that the individual’s vote at Election Time is about Social Justice rather than Politics. Politics is what happens in between ballots, not at the actual ballot box (except maybe in places like Zimbabwe, where elections are only allowed by the ruling Government for show, not for tell).

Consequently, there are times when the Media does keep the Government on the backfoot in setting the agenda and this can then potentially put us on the backfoot in making an informed voting decision.

But before Prime Minister Kevin Rudd gets too worried about the Media’s influence, nobody should quickly forget the “questionable” job many of our Mainstream Media professionals did in trying to read and influence the voting intentions of the public last year, leading up to the Federal Election.

My understanding is that the Mainstream Media generally underestimated Kevin Rudd’s ability to challenge John Howard and then gave too much credit to Kevin Rudd for winning the election (in my view, John Howard had already started losing the election from mid-2005).

The Media journalists play a vital role in exposing issues objectively, but a less vital role in arguing those issues with the objective of influencing opinion.

From Justin

And Guido@ 51, i reckon Rudd might well come out of this quite well. Despite the media spin, he looks mighty like the bloke standing up for a pre-election policy commitment despite some departmental advice. I believe he has a good chance of selling this, looking decisive and making the opposition look like the obstructionists they are.

And that, given past history, “is not a good look” for the torys.

The ensuing beat-up shows how ridiculously unaware journalists are in Canberra […]

Had to larf at this bit o’ hyperbole in Brisbane’s Curious Smell today by “national political correspondent” Clinton Porteous:

“There must now be serious questions asked about the the long-term future of the Rudd Labor Government unless there is a change of direction. If things keep going like they have this week, then Labor is in danger of losing the next election.”

Strewth! A bit of manufactured blather on petrol prices and a couple of PO’d public servants and this bloke is ready to declare Mr 70% dead as a dodo. Methinks I might hang on to this column and see how Mr Porteous’ predications work out.

Nice spin on the 8:1 - well done.
I take your point on the 4 requiring analysis, but are you suggesting that it wasn’t done?
Your POV is based upon the negative - that the cabinet has got it wrong and therefore your analysis is leading to why or how they might be wrong.
I guess mine is tending to the positive - that the cabinet has followed a process and made a decision for good reasons. The fact that 4 departments were ‘overruled’ is just so common that I find no cause to suggest that this in any way insinuates a mistake has been made. The ensuing beat-up shows how ridiculously unaware journalists are in Canberra (or the alternative - there’s more bias than you can poke a stick at).
Actually a lot more than 4 departments were against the proposal initially, but you’ll have to wait 30 years to see the whole story.

But further to another point I made earlier, this is from today’s Crikey:

“The week in which a bright vision of a post-politics world of long-term objectives fearlessly pursued vanished under a steaming pile of freshly dumped populism?”

So Rudd represents a bright vision of a post-politics world of long term objectives fearlessly pursued? How did you get that idea?

In my mind Rudd is another politician (not necessarily an entirely bad thing), who wanted to be PM really, really badly, and now will do the government thing roughly adherent to his general world view and political ideology. He seems to like things done his way. He seems an improvement on Keating because his head isn’t completely in the clouds, and he seems to consider a working day something more considerable than 11am-3pm. He has also probably learnt all the lessons of Beattie & Bracks, while the Opposition haven’t been learning the lessons of Springborg, Chikarovski (sic) & Doyle.

It may gall us ‘lovvies’ (which I am a member) but I have to agree with Andrew Landeryou that the Henson statements by Rudd may benefit him electorally more than if he sided with us.

but abstention would be acceptable

Glenn, with your piece on the arts festival in Sale, you have done for political commentary what Sam Newman has done for sports commentary.

He’s having a little rest.
How about you, Glenn?

ah, men!

And thou shalt go forth across the rooves and into the eaves of the enemy, and shalt liberate Newspoll from the pestilence of Dennis

Having had a few chats with ‘ordinary’ people - not pseph heads or political junkies - what is happening is that they’re being educated about the politics of petrol pricing.

They can tell you why the Doc’s 5 cents exise cut is a crock. They can tell you why removing 3.8 cents from the GST take causes problems. They understand that FuelWatch may not stifle prices but will provide transparency.

Rudd is a great educator. At party conferences, I’ve noticed that his speeches go too long - but when you look at why, it’s because he doesn’t just want to tell people what he’s doing, he wants them to understand why as well.

By letting the debate about petrol run, he has achieved the following:

(i) hardly anyone’s talking about Brendan’s price cut on petrol - and if they do they mention that it’s uncosted.
(ii) people understand that removing the ‘tax on a tax’ is the simple mantra they’ve chanted until now.
(iii) he’s distracted interest from some of the real nasties in the budget.

As for the public service statements - the kind of public servant who had the access to leak a Cabinet document earns more than Rudd does (in multiples). Are they working as hard as he is? If not, what are they whinging about?

Rudd didn’t clean out the ps when he took office. He’s letting it clean out itself, by putting pressure on to make things happen; those who want to make things happen will be happy to go the hard yards, those who want to work in a sheltered workshop will start looking elsewhere.

He’s cleverer than you think (even if you already think he’s clever).

I read Possum’s words, but I wasn’t aware at the time that they were the book after the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke & John.

One point I can agree with at the moment is the eight versus one argument, because it appears as though I am the lone voice at the moment. You can join the dots on that one.

Don’t the concerns of four departments deserve some sort of analysis and further digging? The ACCC isn’t a government department. Departments like their status and their access - I know this because this fact is reinforced to me daily.

I don’t for a second accuse the department heads of anything - I would suggest it is the slightly lower downs who are getting aggrieved about this sort of thing.

Anyway, I’m off to continue thinking for myself and proving you all incorrect.

It was a big story. Not only front page news with spill-over to an inside page, but then a full Milne op-ed piece which repeated all the sleaziest bits.

I was amazed parts of it appeared in the Opposition Organ: verbal pornography. Hypocrites! But it read like a campaigning piece: “you cannot vote Labor, you conservative rural voters: look at the degeneracy I’ve uncovered!” ….. slime, sleaze, innuendo.

Milne is missing one of the bigger local issues: threatened relocatioon of the old Traralgon Post Office. Liberal, ALP etc have all jumped to the defence of the dear old building, including Mr Rudd.

cheerio

Rampant hypocrisy about work/life balance is nothing new in the Public Service. There was a book of interviews with heads of departments in the public service released not too long ago in which almost every person interviewed banged on about how important work-life balance was … before going on to brag about how they worked 12 hour days.

A friend of mine who used to work coordinating a “whole of government work/family balance strategy” quite when she found that the demands of Ministers and managers for work on work/family balance were completely incompatible with having kids and doing that job. You know - “the Minister needs this briefing note on family friendly work schedules his desk first thing” and “I have to pick my kids up from school”.

Rudd’s is a prat if he thinks that a ‘newer gentler’ regime will tame the Liberal palukas that were parachuted into the federal PS down to levels well below SES equivalent.

Sack one, educate thousands. Forget investigations, just move a Departmental Head (from one of the offending Departments), sideways into the annex and instruct them to count paper clips. KPI = silence from everybody else on any matter bound for Cabinet discussion. Otherwise, goodbye annex, hello, golf handicap improvement strategy.

Hard work? Get used to it. Enforecable work and family balance provisions are there for people who have no choices. Senior managers and people who work in organisations where chewing s*it is part of the daily grind, can find another job, where the demnds are less, or the rewards higher, or both. I have little or no sympathy for very senior public servants, who are on contracts and whose rewards look prety goood from here.

The fact is your fact is correct.
The fact is your fact is the wrong fact.
The fact is the cabinet decided the ACCC was more convincing than 4 departments.
The fact is we will shortly find out who is right and who is wrong.

Reproducing MSM and Liberal Party talking points without the slightest intellectual analysis is a bad, bad idea.

As to your first paragraph - it shows a lack of perspective understanding of the advice process. If you had the ego you’re suggesting as a departmental secretary you wouldn’t last long or be very successful in getting your ideas implemented.
You need to be a bit tougher than a 6 year old.

I suppose that bitterness, at their lost favourite, at the hands of the electorate, has given way to wanting Howards’ chosen public servants to run the show instead.

If you can’t stop the inner screaming, the only solution is to channel Strapping Young Lad. The perfect antidote to the calm smarm of the Ruddster.