So, what happens if the Opposition, and their media echo chambers, tried every Howardian trick in the book, and nothing worked?
Possum explains the significance of the latest polling numbers:
With the phone poll average in the sidebar now showing 109 seats going to Labor were the latest round of phone polls repeated at an election, there must be some pretty nervous Coalition marginal and not so marginal seat holders.
Look back at the tactics of the Opposition over the last few months where every card from the Howard era was played. Rising Interest Rates…. tick. Labor’s debt…. tick. Boat People….. tick.
It’s like that episode of the Simpsons where Lisa tests the difference in learning capability between a hamster and Bart. Sure the cupcake is electrified, sure every time he tries to grab it he gets shocked – after a few tries even a hamster would learn – but Bart keeps grabbing away time and time again, hoping that this time he won’t be zapped. Hoping this time it will be different.
When you change governments you change the country – as Keating said, but the national zeitgeist also changes with it and pulling these old cards out from the Oppo benches is a roadmap to failure.
Meanwhile, Essential Research finds 66% of respondents rating the Rudd government’s performance in handling the Global Financial Crisis as good or excellent. But over at The Australian, they’re banging on about the Liberal leadership, and declaiming:
…debt and deficit are now a concern of most Australians…
Oh. Really?
Elsewhere: Bernard Keane.
Elsewhere: Bernard Keane.
There is a developing massive cognative dissonance between the ideology of the mass media [Murdoch in particular] and the perception of the Australian public leading to a growing irrelvance of the media propagandists to the political process in this country which can only bode well for democracy.
Long may it prosper and the gap widen.
Seen the leaked internal memo from the Advertiser?
Cited by Crikey and Peter Martin.
Good Simpsons comparison!
Look, I know it must be hard for the conservatives, but don’t any of them pay attention to history?
Yes, Howard himself just scraped back in 1998, but the odds were always pretty short on a first term government getting returned.
Then the world’s economies went bat-crazy. Labor largely took the Treasury’s advice. The Coalition spent a lot of time opposing much of it. Lo and behold, it got through and ended up working better than just about everywhere in the developed world. And, in a nutshell, the Government comes out looking like they’ve got it right, and the Opposition got it wrong.
But what gets me is that, even in the face of this, they keep on, as Mark says, trying to take the electrified cupcake.
At what point do they calm down and start taking a longer-term, more selective, and more strategic approach to opposition? Will they have to lose in 2013 as well?
This is why I think the sudden push by Murdoch for the ‘free’ non commmercial media to stop competing with them as the traditional kingmakers seem to have lost their midas touch.
After all look at what happened? Rudd and Obama got in despite all those dead tree editorials.
I think it is interesting that Paul Howes, of the AWU, no lefty he, came out for processing the Tamil asylum seekers here explicitly on the basis of sticking a knife into the Tampa doctrine.
Now, I’m loathe to give kudos to someone who opposes CO2 mitigation or backs Israel’s occupation of Palestine, but it looks as if I might have to … damn!
Seriously, well done him, on this issue at least.
Mark – your link to my piece is borked. There’s a superfluous br/ attached to the end in html. Wondering why I had all these 404s
Fixed now, I think, Poss!
Seems to me that the real victory for Labor has been to make the Opposition the story. The result is that the Liberal Party cannibalises itself, causing a vicious cycle of bad poll results, infighting, discord, bad poll results, infighting, discord, etc ad infinitum. No one will admit to supporting (nor will they vote for) a party that can’t govern itself.
And now it seems they are doing this in Victoria as they dump on Baillieu … they’ve just celebrated the tenth year in opposition.
You touch on an interesting point, Fran.
A kind of right-wing political correctness descended on the country during the Howard years. Howard was very skilful in suggesting that those who disagreed with him were outside the mainstream. The PM always has the biggest megaphone and his opponents settled on the strategy of not rising to take his bait. And so the impression was given that there was no opposition to his policies outside the inner-city “elites”.
Interesting, I haven’t heard the word un-Australian thrown around in the media since Howard left us.
And we’ve only had two Christmases since Howard went, but I’ve noticed that in those two Christmases there’s been no stories in the media about a PC war on Christmas. You know the kind of story – a school or shopping centre wouldn’t have a nativity scence or something and this would be blamed on oversensitivity to Muslims or some other group. Howard would always pop up for a soundbite on the six o’clock news, expressing his outrage. Call me cynical, but I wonder if Howard’s dirty tricks unit wasn’t combing the country for these kinds of PC-gone-mad stories for Howard to comment on.
..I meant nativity scene.
Ginja 2 11,
Of course they were.
Being sucked into the rhetoric and issues of the Republican right was always a big mistake for the Libs (and for Murdoch too). What’s good politics (and in Murdoch’s case business) in the US aint so here. They only got away with it for so long because the Rodent was a master tactician. But he should have forbidden all his troops from reading US blogs.
I disapprove of Rudd’s wedge tactics on the ETS because I think using it as a wedge has badly compromised the policy outcomes. But I have to admit that it’s worked just beautifully in its own terms – he spotted the weakness (see first para) and attacked it. Just as Costello consciously modelled his style on Keating’s, so I think Rudd has modelled his on Howard’s. While Rudd is there the coalition can expect a long time in the wilderness.
The focus on debt is totemic. It doesn’t have to make sense (okay, that it’s been attempted & is failing is a good argument for saying the Coalition leadership will eventually ask themselves, “Does this make sense?”)
I would love to know if there was ever any detailed market research done on the famous debt truck, before or after it took to the road. Bet you $100 most rusted-on Liberals thought the debt being referenced had been run up on the taxpayers’ slate, that it was all the result of Labor’s budget deficits, not all Australia’s trade & finance relationship with the rest of the world.
Reflexive conservative values, free of any data—reminds me of Don Watson writing that his tory parents were convinced that the Great Depression in Australia was caused by the unions.
Where are the crippling superstitions on the Labor side? That’s a serious question. Ignore disputes between the ALP and the Greens; what big issue really dogs the way Labor formulates & tries to sell policy to the swing voter? I think this goes beyond one side having the luxury of being in office and t’other side being in the wilderness—it’s more than just a ‘tactics’ problem for the side currently in the wilderness.
(I remember reading this blog’s comments in the lead up to the federal election. Some were convinced that opposing individual work contract laws was a sign of being out of touch with majority opinion. Somehow I don’t think Rudd & Gillard are sweating that now when they look at the marginal seats.)
This is off topic (or maybe not?), but besides Andrew Bolt, you know who else used to be a Melbourne MSM columnist interested in pushing ‘war on Christmas’ BS?
The Sunday Age’s Terry Lane.
I suppose pointing that out is no less irrelevant than mentioning the ‘Israeli occupation of Palestine’ as if it’s some litmus test for people who wish to oppose reaction in Oz, circa 2009…
Ginja writes: “Interesting, I haven’t heard the word un-Australian thrown around in the media since Howard left us.”
But check this one out: “There has been a group of individuals in balaclavas that have run through a group of students and assaulted them in an unprovoked way and there is nothing, I think, that is more un-Victorian than that – it just offends all of our values in this state,” Mr Brumby said.”
from the Herald sun, http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/breaking-news/mt-waverly-muck-up-attack-student-severely-concussed/story-e6frf7kf-1225788664993
wtf is “un-Victorian”? Suggestions, please? (bear in mind this is a trick question. I come from NSW.
Classic Brumby @16. It was just recently on his visit to the Queen Liz that he spouted some rubbish about her being “a role model to all women”.
Don Watson loves him ’cause he constantly breaks world records for the most weasel words strung together in three lines.
Yes I was going to mention the un-Victorian thing. In NSW OTOH we love an unprovoked baseball bat run-through.
Un-Victorian simply means that you have failed to identify a football team to refer to in the first person plural. This excludes you from all reasonable connection or commerce with Victorians.
The Liberals are a one-trick pony – a trick that consisted of Howard and Howardism. With Howard in his political coffin and his mean-spirited extreme capitalism rejected by the electorate and partly blamed for the GFC, they’re left with only a surly attitude and fear & smear. All poisonous vapour, and nothing concrete going for them. Even their heavily-hyped economic “credentials” are in smouldering ruins at their feet.
It’s been known for decades that they don’t ‘do’ opposition well. Even in my wildest dreams I never dared hope it would be this disastrous for them.
Looks like Howard was right after all – the coalition is nothing without him?
Succession planning score = …????
Paul Burns: I mean that Liberal staffers were the ones actually planting the stories, taking the stories to A Current Affair etc. for the sole purpose of Howard commenting on them.
There’s been a definite drop-off in the number of race-based PC outrage stories in the media. It’s a shame that some enterprising journo doesn’t dig into all the media manipulation around race that took place under the Libs – the racist pamphlet episode in Lindsay was only the tip of the iceberg.
For instance, Channel 9 News last night had a story on how much refugees were costing taxpayers. They had obviously been fed the story whole by the Coalition – it just happened to mention that refugees were eligible for certain benefits that were stripped away under Howard (the squillions wasted in Nauru didn’t rate a mention). Now, who else but the Coalition would keep note of that? I doubt the Ron Burgundies at Channel 9 are experts in refugee policy.
But this stuff was subject to the law of diminishing returns years before Howard’s defeat. What makes people think it’ll be any more effective for Turnbull? While Tampa won the Libs the 2001 election, it still didn’t deliver an overwhelming victory.
Why don’t we have independent UN-operated refugee camps?
For example, all signatories to the international agreements on refugees could pay proportionally to maintain operation of the camps. If boat people are picked up anywhere, then they are sent to the UN camp for processing.
The processing would probably take ages, since the UN is not exactly Speedy Gonzales in its deliberations. This might discourage the non-genuine cases.
Genuine refugees would just be glad to escape persecution. Economic refugees, who were simply wanting entry to another country by the back door, might not be so enthusiastic about a UN solution. A UN solution might self-select for the genuine cases?
The other advantage of a UN solution would be that individual governments would not be subject to threats of hunger strikes, etc, if the “refugees” don’t get their demands met. The UN could tell their charges that either they behave themselves in a civilised fashion while in the camp, or they will be sent home to fend for themselves.
Ginja @ 23,
You might have already noted this or somebody else might have. Tampa without 9/11 wouldn’t have woreked. look at the way the Lobs and RWDB media have not, repeat not been able to connect Tamils with the GWOT or its equivalent. They tried through the hunger strike, but they failed. I think the Libs have given up on that one, but no doubt there’s some slime beavering away in the deepest and dankest of News Limited oubliettes ready to pounce if the opportunity arises.
Yeah good point Paul, and the Tamils pretty much invented suicide bombing.
But everyone knows how sus the Sri lankan Govt is.
BTW Oubliette seems to be word of the week. Too many people watch the abc.
Jules @ 25,
Perhaps the Tamil Tigers invented suicide bombing, I don’t know, but Tamil Tiger does not equal Tamil, in the same way thatr Muslim does not equal Terrorist.
39 Steps were good, weren’t it?
“Tampa without 9/11 wouldn’t have woreked. look at the way the Lobs and RWDB media have not, repeat not been able to connect Tamils with the GWOT or its equivalent. They tried through the hunger strike, but they failed. I think the Libs have given up on that one,….”
Wilson Tuckey to the rescue Paul Burns.
“There were “narrow odds” that terrorists were aboard vessels being intercepted, Mr Tuckey said on Thursday.”
http://www.watoday.com.au/breaking-news-national/scrap-tuckey-preselection-support-pm-20091022-ha8b.html
joe2 @ 28,
Do you think he reads LP? I wouldn’t want to be giving him ideas.
Now K.rudd is putting Turnbull on the spot to repudiate him. Could go anywhere from here.
Any day Wilson Tuckey is in the news as a spokesperson for the Coalition is a good day.
Joe Hockey and his party’s supporters in the press are desperate to give the impression that Wilson is at the fruity end of the party. In truth, Tuckey’s views are the views of most Coalition MPs. Look at climate change. The Oz did a survey of Lib MPs on the ETS and, surprise, surprise, far from Tuckey being out on limb, Tuckey’s view is the majority view in the Liberal caucus.
The Liberal Party is the Wilson “Iron-bar” Tuckey Party. No amount of spin can alter that.
Elise @ 24 – “Genuine refugees would just be glad to escape persecution. Economic refugees, who were simply wanting entry to another country by the back door, might not be so enthusiastic about a UN solution. A UN solution might self-select for the genuine cases?
The other advantage of a UN solution would be that individual governments would not be subject to threats of hunger strikes, etc, if the “refugees” don’t get their demands met. The UN could tell their charges that either they behave themselves in a civilised fashion while in the camp, or they will be sent home to fend for themselves.”
According to “Hungry Beast” on the ABC last night, the amount of time the average refugee spends in a camp is 17 years. Is that enough of test for you, Elise?
Where is home to a teenager born in a refugee camp, who has never known anything other than that camp?…do you think calling such a person a naughty boy and threatening to send them ‘home’ is really going to be a useful approach? More to the point, how well to you think people who have ‘passed’ such a test will integrate into their destination country?
We should not be expressing surprise that some people choose to try the alternatives to get to our [and other] countries, the real surprise to me is how few attempt it.
Yeah fair enough, paul, the tamil tigers may have invented suicide bombing, (tho that doesn’t make them evil necessarily. Imagine how desperate you would have to be to contemplate such a move, at least in the 20th century.)
It was good, I missed big ben tho.
Somebody on Facebook is threatening to kill Berlesconi. Well, several somebodies, actually. Undertstandably, Berlesconi and the Italian police4 are a bit miffed, given modern Italy’s recent history (1970s-1980s)of political assassinations originating in verbal threats.
FB @31: “Is that enough of test for you, Elise?”
Don’t be daft FB. I think 17 years is far too long, if that really is the correct figure.
I must be delinquent with my googling skills, because a permutation of refugee/camp/internment/years/17 years, etc did not yield a definative statement that the AVERAGE refugee internment was 17 years. There was ONE case where some family spent that long, in a refugee camp in Nepal.
TV journalists are a bit prone to sensationalism to wind people up. They may have “fudged” the numbers. It would not be the first time.
Elise, you could have just googled ‘hungry beast’, watched the report entitled ‘8-bit immigration’ and at the end they would have told you where they got the figures, as well as explaining that they had got the most up-to-date figures available from UNHCR, as well as from various govt and non-government agencies.
It’s shocking enough that we may wish it to be untrue, but why would you think they are trying to wind people up with made-up data? It doesn’t seem unreasonable with millions and millions of refugees world-wide, and only small percentage of them being resettled every year, that 17 years is the average time spent in limbo.
BTW: gawd forbid that some journalists actually go out and find out the figures and condense them into information that people can understand, even if they contradict our own prejudgments. The “I can’t find it on Google, so it can’t be true, and therefore I can presume the journos are shit-stirring”, conclusion you come to is kind of bewildering.
I just did a google search and, ‘daft’ I might be, but I found many references to the 17 years statistic.
You can find it in the a leaflet produced by Caritas, available in PDF form called “Refugee Myths and Realities”.
You can find it mentioned in this interview with Tom Clark from the centre for refugee studies: http://www.pwrdf.org/stories/all-stories/stories/?no_cache=1&tx_ttnewstt_news=535
Other links mention that it is 17 years, having increased from 9 years in 1993.
fb @35: “BTW: gawd forbid that some journalists actually go out and find out the figures…”
I know they bloody fudge numbers you twerp. I was interviewed for a documentary and had to argue vigorously to make them take out a gross (doubling) exaggeration. ABC journos, no less. They argued at length that it would “sound more impressive” and “noone would know”, etc.
“ABC journos, no less”
Certainly not more. ABC journos, News Ltd journos…You pick the difference.
fb @36, your link didn’t seem to go to any interview with Tom Clark.
A quote of statistics from 1993 is somewhat out of date, wouldn’t you say?
Furthermore, you are blending “refugees” who are not seeking asylum, but simply trying to avoid a war zone, with processing of asylum seekers.
Obviously, for some of the long running conflicts in Africa, people are effectively refugees for years, because the meatheads back home won’t bury their hatchets. That has nothing to do with Australia’s processing of asylum seekers.
Here is what Oxfam has to say about the statistics for Australia:
“During 2005-2006, 14 144 visas for protection in Australia were granted to persons fleeing persecution or conflict in their home country. Ninety per cent (12 758) of the total visas were granted to refugee applicants who have applied offshore. These applicants have either been referred to Australia’s resettlement programme by the UNHCR (6022 people), or have been proposed by family members or organisations in Australia under the Special Humanitarian Programme (6736 people). The remaining 10 per cent of visas granted were granted to asylum seekers who applied for protection after arriving on Australia’s shores (1386).
Australia ranks 28th in the world in terms of its sharing of the global burden of refugee protection. In the Asia-Pacific region Australia accepts fewer refugees than China (301,041), India (139,283), Nepal (126,436) and Thailand (117,053).
However, in terms of permanently resettling refugees, Australia is now the second highest resettlement country in the world, behind the United States.”
I’ll try the link again:
http://www.pwrdf.org/stories/all-stories/stories/?no_cache=1&tx_ttnewstt_news=535
Elise, in response to your suggestion that we should see if ‘genuine’ refugees would self-select by having the UN run camps, I explained that camps already exist and that people are in those camps, on average, for 17 years. The number of 9 million from 1993 is not out of date…it was given to offer a comparison between then, and now. Got it? The length of time has increased to 17 years, from 9 years in 1993. From those camps, Australia is one of the countries that accepts refugees once there status has been verified by the United Nations….you see, the “Elise Solution” already exists.
So far you have called me daft and a twerp, your obvious contempt for me and what I have to say is one thing, but I’m not the one in need of an education about the difference between a refugee and an asylum seeker. I know the difference, I’m saying that people seek asylum because of the failings of the refugee resettlement programs, your suggestion however reinvents the refugee program and sees long waits as desirable to weed out the ones who aren’t ‘genuine’ refugees.
Obviously, for some of the long running conflicts in Africa, people are effectively refugees for years, because the meatheads back home won’t bury their hatchets. That has nothing to do with Australia’s processing of asylum seekers.
The conflict in Sri Lanka is long running too. There are camps housing refugees from that conflict. I’m simply saying that the “Elise Solution” is far from being a solution to the problem of asylum seekers, but rather it is a contributing factor as to why people choose the alternative.
BTW: Did you look at the report on the Hungrybeast?…because those terrible journos you mentioned also quoted the statistics about being the second highest resettlement country [per capita] that you have quoted above. So which is it? …are they pot stirring, or presenting reliable factual information?
I don’t know why that link wont work, I’ll try this:
http://www.pwrdf.org/stories/refugees-and-migrants-stories/
If you scroll down to the item “talking about refugees”, from June 8th, 2009, the interview is there.