The raw ingredients of the right wing media narrative du jour have been stewing for all to see in a curious potage in the columns of The Australian over the last few days. That narrative? Take a pinch of “Rudd is symbolism and spin” (originally coined by one John Winston Howard), add a dollop of Nelsonian petrol populism, throw in Ute Man, and you’ve got a recipe for self-delusion - that Peter Costello will not ride into the sunset of international finance but rather rise again to lead the conservative forces back to their rightful place in the sun, their brief winter of Ruddian discontent dispell’d by glorious… something.
Former Labor Senator John Black, among whose exercises in psephological tea leaf reading was the prediction that Peter Beattie and Labor would crash and burn in the 2006 Queensland election, has redeemed his own subsequent prediction that Kevin Rudd and Labor would romp it home in Gippsland, by seizing on some leaked National Party polling reported by Glenn Milne. Ute Man has spoken.
So you can forget using the present national opinion polls of voting intention as a means of projecting the next by-election result.
Well, yeah, you can, because Labor isn’t running in Mayo, and probably won’t in Lyne. But, wait, there’s more:
And if Nelson goes and the international economy is unchanged by 2010, then it’s game on for the next general election.
Game on? A touch of the Landeryous you might say?
The good former AWU Senator from Queensland has divined the secret ingredient in the punditariat’s recipe book. Leadership. Enter the stream of consciousness wizard of the op/ed pages, Malcolm Colless:
A move by Costello would certainly provide a circuit breaker to the seemingly endless, counter-productive bickering between Nelson and Turnbull. It would also dispel the perception that Costello has no stomach for the hard task of leading the Liberals out of Opposition, a view reinforced by his decision to duck the leadership mantle after the Coalition’s election defeat last November.
Spot the tautology, but anyway.
So what do we have here? Labor’s support is soft (heard that before?), and pulling a Liberal leader rabbit-like out of a hat will restore the natural order of things, already heralded by the good folk of Gippsland.
Never mind the fact that - regardless of Gippsland’s idiosyncracies as a contest - extrapolating from by-elections to general elections has always been a dangerous exercise. Never mind the fact that the Costello for Saviour polling - “revealed” by The Australian on Saturday - is meaningless. And never mind the fact that leadership and the words Peter Costello have never been exactly synonymous. Forget the lack of correlation between Preferred Prime Minister numbers and party vote, and the relatively minor contribution of leadership to voting intentions.
Still, it’s entertaining to watch the cooks in the kitchen. Even if you’re not fond of rabbit stew.
Elsewhere: Andrew Elder also posts on Black’s and Colless’ weird musings.
Update: [by Kim] Possum deals with the cruddiness of the interpretation of the Costello polling at some length.
Nobody yet knows what Hamlet, ahem, Costello will do, least of all Costello.
But the columns Mark has cited show just how little “access” those writers now have to the people who are in government. Since the only people who return their phone calls are the ex-government, they’re forced to waffle on about the Hungry Ghosts of the opposition instead.
And with nothing else better to do, it looks like the Oz columnists have appointed themselves as The Voice Of Ute Man. I was worried that Ute Man had passed back into legend among the mist-covered hills, but it’s nice to see he lives on in the pages of The Oz.
Prediction: the results of the Mayo by-election will be ascribed to the electoral influence of the Bunyips and the Drop Bears.
Costello? Surely it’s Christopher Pyne. He’s young - so he can challenge Rudd on that; has the intellect, he has been prepared by some of the best in the business; carries a heavy presence of command - much more than mere gravitas. He’s a powerbroker, so he knows how to wield power on a daily basis; has the patience to get the job done with shining skills for high achievement (note: even after leaving the Ministry the people are still ageing). He has the looks, he’s camera ready, and even has the orator’s voice.
Liberal Party 2011 and beyond, nay, Australia and the world - wait until he gets unleashed on the international stage - it’s Christopher Pyne.
Thanks Robert, it’s been a long time since I’ve laughed this much.
I have my own theory on Gippsland, and it goes something like this…
Gippsland has been a reliable National electorate for 80+ years. In the 2007 election the vote swung to Labor (though not enough to lose the Nats the seat). In the 2008 by-election, it swung back to its normal National position.
The irregularity here is not, as promulgated by pro-Coalition commentators, the swing away from Labor in the by-election. The irregularity was the swing to Labor in the general election.
In asking why these traditional National voters swung briefly to Labor, I theorise that WorkChoices and “getting rid of Howard” were the issues. Along with, possibly, climate change.
Once those objectives had been realised (Howard and WorkChoices gone), Gippslanders felt reassured to revert to their stock-standard, cookie-cutter, National-voting pattern at the by-election.
If that is the case, I don’t see much comfort for the Coalition in Gippsland’s by-election result. Labor can’t lose what they never had, if you get my drift…
I think Costello would be an excellent choice for leader. And so does Rudd, Gillard and Swan.
Talk about clutching at straws.
Oh we may jest, Víðarr, but this guy knows he’s the leader whose time will soon come. Even his name screams ambition!
We are all getting ahead of ourselves a little bit. The opposition needs to keep its head down and do the hard work, and not get distracted by visions of a great, natural return to the government benches in 2010.
There has been a narrowing of the polls, and I think this is a fair reflection of what the populace are thinking. But all it really represents is the end of the uber-honeymoon period. It’s still about 55-45, and that would be a 2% swing to the government at an election, and would deliver the ALP another 12 seats, and a 40 seat majority.
Many in the media want to see what Costello would do in leadership, because they were robbed of seeing it earlier by Costello himself. He was not prepared to do what one must do to become leader of his party. What makes you think he is prepared now to do what he needs to do when the job is much less attractive?
Oh, sh*t, why don’t they just bring back John Howard?
Not serious, guys.
Carn’t vote for Costello - he’s got no stones and spends too much time sleepin on the job. Joe Hockey, now I can vote for that.
Are you avuncular, Ute Man?
Rabbit stew? More like a shit sandwich, Mark.
Peter $weetie wants to be asked. He wants to be “drafted”. He wants the adoration to become so urgent that his colleagues plead that he stroll down nonchalantly from his eyrie up in the back bench, to assume the mantle. He wants greatness to be demanded of him.
He is not a thruster. He will wield neither a stiletto nor a sword.
Kim Beazley was a Scholarship Boy, very pleased with his own nous (and possibly with more reason than the ineffable Barry Jones). Peter $weetie is a narcissist; akin to Andrew of the Peacock Throne, the Colt from Kooyong, only ever School Vice Captain at Scotch College.
My feeling is that $weetie’s need to be asked, and his general attitude, will mean they never will ask him. Meanwhile other Coalition frontbenchers & backbenchers will do the hard yards in Opposition.
I don’t know how anyone can take John Black seriously. He was wrong about Queensland in 2006, he was wrong about Gippsland and he predicted that Labor would need 53% of the 2PP to win federally in 2007.
His analogy to the Lindsay by-election is ridiculous. Clearly the electorate resented being forced back to the polls by the ALP over what it saw as a technicality. A more accurate analogy is to the by-elections in the first year of the Whitlam and Hawke Govts. These all swung to the co-alition by between 1% and 7% yet both Govts. won re-election. While Gippsland sits near the top of these swings it is simply impossible to read national implications into a single electorate while discounting the national opinion polls.
Even Andrew Bolt said on ‘The Insiders’ that the less Costello speaks and is seen the more popular he gets.
Costello was always more popular with the gallery than hte punter. Politics is a blood sports and he doesn’t have what it takes. His nickname should be ‘Hamlet’, except he’s not that interesting.
Which is going to be a problem for the sales of his book, too! No doubt anything remotely juicy will be run in the papers in advance. Can there really be a huge market outside journos for the memoirs of $weetie?
Mark, I’ll be picking up a copy of Tip’s autobiography from the remaindered pile, if at all.
Costello’s probably a lot warmer and better humoured in person, and no doubt the gallery and those who enjoy that side of him would like that to be more widely shared. It could be said Costello was pretty much forced to take on the louder role to offset the numbness of the geezer, but that doesn’t pay acceptance of the snirky stuff though it might have helped bring it on. It invites something of a pause to consider whether Costello was forced to box himself in, in public image, against the terrible numbdumb.
Re the book - given enough juice, we’ll see Costello on various comfy shows, kicking back with it, to allow a wider image portrayed. Whether some are waiting for that, before a ‘move’ [if[ is reconsidered, and whether Milne et al are attempting a bit of a lead up to such occasion, has a little bit of float. The book thing may be used to reform not only a public view of Costello but may add a new dimension to the Liberal agenda - upon which the national conversation is changed re the Libs and something may grow from that.
For whatever it may be worth, too, in terms of marketing - how terms have public impact - “Costello” is a weak word which briefly shoots out a proposition then squanders it in whirly self-implosion to end up with a vacant hole. At best it’s wishy washy. Note the immediate difference in image when his colleagues/friends refer to him as Peter.
Coupled with past (non) action, the Costello brand, then, is entrenched, requiring something extraordinary to remake it. If Costello does have a grand vision (he’s intimated something like that) for the Liberal way, it is possible, but that then begs the question: what media ground would he get to entrench that? And Turnbull? Pyne?
No, this all leads to whim. It’s really just silly. The Lib’s answer doesn’t lie in their infatuation with the quick fix.
Didn’t someone say that $weetie’s book wasn’t going to contain anything “surprising” (where DID I hear that, was it the publishers?) which implied he was baling out on whipping Howard for fear of upsetting his apologists/cheer squad and risk ruining his chances of a run for the leadership?
It’s amazing how much Costello’s support, amongst the media, depends on good performances at the dispatch box. (Not so much ‘good’ as ‘juvenile’, but in any case…) It’s thought that if he somehow squeaks back into the Liberal leadership he’ll sweep away the Rudd government with Question Time charades.
What utter nonsense. NO ONE but the media cares about Question Time. Costello’s ramblings weren’t so much interpreted by the public as ’strength of character’ as ‘what an utter tit.’ Costello, especially against Sunrise Rudd, would be electoral public, for the simple yet strangely unreported reason that his public persona is of an unbearable smartarse.
And he’d only get to ask questions, not answer them!
Re the juice, Costello can’t belt up Howard without looking a dill, since he hasn’t acted. And a decade in power is hard to attack.
However, he can by implication belt up Howard by proclaiming a vision splendid markedly different from Howard’s, and write it down to “a host of other factors” which stopped them coming to be. If any media traction exists, this will be it, especially in light of the headless chook thing. But again it’s folly, for how can such a vision disregard his killer position on IR?
Bring on the empty horses.
“Bring on the empty horses.”
Headless?
Bring on the new messiah
wherever he may roam
shiver and say the words
to every lie you’ve heard
Apt, innit?
Mark #21
And get shredded by Gillard, Wong, Rudd, Swann, Tanner, Albanese etc etc? Or will he only ask wussy questions of Ministers in uncontroversial portfolios?
Costello is “past history”. He’s $Sweets & Workchoices - Thatcher era policies - and “finishing what Keating started” fiscal policy . His head isn’t in the e-commerce, e-media, diffused citizen-journalism, YouTube, carbon-trading, Girl Power century. Nor, as far as I can identify, is his Party. And the commentariat promoting his candidacy have their heads in the same time-space - except the ones who still use words like “Communist”, “Stalinist”, “Soviet”, who haven’t yet come to grips with 1991.
Where are the Libs version of Gen X savvy “Go girl” champs Julia G, Penny W, Nicola R.? A few Lib blokes - Chris P, Greg H and popular Joe H - might relate to Gens X & Y, but the Bishops don’t, Julie is the only “visible” woman in Nelson’s Shadow Cabinet, and Amanda V had far more of what it takes to appeal.
This is the ALP 1952-68 revisited: “back-to-the-future”, ratbag right, faction-brawls & all, with no Gough in sight yet.
You’re right DeeCee, and they’re still acting as though they’re running the show, with the tedious, pontificating, waffling style perfected by Howard, that assumed that everybody was listening to you by virtue of the fact that you were in power.
Well you aren’t, and people aren’t going to listen unless you have something interesting to say, and said in a vaguely appealing way.
BlackMage nailed it: Costello, the parliamentary performer is ‘…not so much ‘good’ as ‘juvenile’.
I’ve never been able to understand how anyone thought him funny, let alone witty. He always wanted to outdo Keating: better Treasurer -not; better speaker -not;better suits - not that either. Remember when he savaged that poor bloke from Tassie and sent him into a mental breakdown with his bullying so-called ‘just joking’ namecalling?
Why doesn’t he do something useful for a change. Help his brother over at World Vision or something along those lines.
Elsewhere: Andrew Elder also posts on Black’s and Colless’ weird musings.
This happened to the CLP in the NT. Or rather, it didn’t. They too saw it as a fluke and assumed they’d be swept back to power when the voters came to the senses, the poor dears.
Well, that’s where all this delusion about how they’d be streets ahead in the polls if only they had a different leader comes from, Jacques. Plus their belief that people actually care about all their internal crap, or that it’s of world-shaking importance.
In fairness, that’s a human trait. If your life is the party then it seems natural to you that the party affects everything else.
You can see the same thing at work in any sales department, school of sociology, charity or street gang.
The problem for politicians is to be outward-facing professionals. That is hardest of all for newly minted oppositions. The coalition federally is talking and acting a lot like the CLP did after 2001. And if they’re not careful, the voters will do to them what they can’t do themselves: clean house.
Say that to me face sometime.
Har har. Me mate used to make jokes last year he didn’t half make me cack. He reckoned avunculur was Hockey’s nickname he got from his dad:
“Avunculur change der chaneel we votch da foodaball”
“Avunculur come here vor a clip round da ear joey”
Me missus reckons me mate ate too much perkins paste as a kid but he is a funny bugger.
In the space oof several hours Bumbles has managed to hint he might step down for Costello and, a short time later, assure us he will lead the Libs to the next election.
You sure see some weird things on TV.
(And Channel 9 is going to do a 13 episode prequel ro Underbelly to air next year. Just sayin’.)
It’s what’s happened to every Coalition parliamentary party since NSW in 1995. Jeff Kennett is still scratching his head.
…More blah,blah, blah from Bahnisch.
Tell you what, the Coalition’s budget bounce from last year is coming any day now. And it’s just a matter of time before the public react negatively to the Brian Burke affir and the fact that Rudd visited a strip club once (how disgusting). Then memories will turn to Howard’s statesmanlike appearances last year with the popular George Bush and Rudd will be completely finished.
…The public will demand he step down immediately and give the keys to the lodge back to Howard. Then the nightmare will be over.
“If Peter decides he is going to continue his political career, and serve the people of Higgins, and indeed the Liberal cause, I can assure you he will be on the frontbench with a bullet,” Dr Nelson said.”
Bumbles Nelson clearly has plans to shoot $weetie if he stays around. That is, if he can get his foot out of his mouth to do it.
“The public will demand he step down immediately and give the keys to the
lodgeKirribilli House back to Howard”You should know Janette isn’t interested in the lodge.
Update: [by Kim] Possum deals with the cruddiness of the interpretation of the Costello polling at some length.
Re Possum’s analysis - it simply goes to prove, in or out of office, the Coalition and its supporters can’t stop lying.
Joe 2 at 35 - one thing we can say is that Bumbles (who is that masked man?) doesn’t fire bullets with his tongue!