Abbott's (grey) army
March 8th, 2010 by Mark Bahnisch | Published in Polls, Sociology | 59 Comments
Via Possum, a couple of interesting charts to ponder.
These graphs below the fold show the movement in the net approval rating of Kevin Rudd and the Opposition Leader (Turnbull, then Abbott) over the last six months. As Possum notes, the youngest demographic is most disinclined to change their positive view of Rudd or their negative view of the Liberal leader, and the oldest demographic most inclined.
So, what’s going on here?
For a start, the ‘Gen Y sees through Kevin Rudd’s spin’ narrative is clearly wrong.
The over 55′s still wear budgie smugglers don’t they?
Thanks Mark. While age-related disparities in support for a given PM/Oppo leader are hardly unusual, I wonder whether the disparity with Abbott is wider than comparable Oppo leaders of times past? And whether the standard grey-Liberal skew is more marked now than in the past? That would represent a significant change on the status quo which naturally produces some age-related discrepancies.
Another thought: Old-age pensions just went up $29.40 per fortnight with indexation. I wonder whether we’ll see any effects in opinion polls when the larger pension cheques start hitting bank accounts?
Of course, this is what was behind the beat-up on Garrett.
Oldies see him as a wild, threatening skinhead type.
The Lying Nutter Party put out a scare campaign in Queensland last year (and probably in other states as well) contending that the Rudd Government had removed allowances from pensioners, whereas in fact they had rolled the various allowances into one and increased the payment.
Perhaps it’s possible that the pensioners haven’t quite figured out yet that they got a pay increase? Personally I believe that Labor should aggessively counter-attack when lies of such magnitude are put about.
@2 – Mercurius, what’s interesting is that Rudd had gained stronger approval from the 55+ demographic, and it’s now falling away. So, while I haven’t looked at comparative data, it’s more of a return to a baseline, I’d suspect. What’s also very interesting, as Possum suggests, is the youngest demographic bucking the trend.
@5 – Hmm, Mark. Well I’d still like to unpack for a moment just what is behind the “Kevin Rudd’s spin” meme (like John Howard didn’t?). It’s as ubiquitous as it is vacuous.
I literally no longer understand what people mean when they say a politician is ‘spinning’ an answer, or is being ‘politically correct’. The terms are so over-used and are so often associated with hyper-partisan critique that they have attained a special kind of profound meaninglessness. They seem to me just like phrasal placeholders, one step above ‘umm’ or ‘ahh’ in semantic load.
Since LP contributors span the entire age spectrum, I’d like to ask any of our more, err, experienced readers whether there’s a visceral reaction to suddenly having to deal with a PM who was in short-pants when you graduated high school? Although that day is a few decades hence for me as yet, I hope, I can anticipate a certain frisson of beffudlement will occur when I wake up one day to find the national leader was watching Play School while I was on my honeymoon.
Anyway, do readers recall any dramatic chipmunk moments when, after a lifetime of the PM being a reassuringly senior presence, suddenly finding the PM to be an insufferable hipster?
Agree with Chris Grealy – Labor really should more aggressively respond to the lies being put about, and defend their work and achievements more ferociously – there’s a great deal to be shouting proudly from the rooftops about.This is an age old problem of the non-hard right – they don’t seem to know how to deal with blatant lying and bias. Perhaps they think that things like truth, integrity and genuine committed good work would be self-evident, but that’s not always true and the others know that if you tell a lie loud enough and often enough, people will believe it. Meanwhile the Liberal Party has been destroyed by ideological conservative troglodytes and their “me too” hangers-on now busily working through the playbook of the US radical right; and Labor supporters out in Punter-Land are frothing at the mouth with frustration. The non-conservative groupings in this country need the GET SOME DOG!!!!!!
Speaking as one some years older than both Abbott and Rudd, I observe that far from feeling threatened by any alleged hipness on their parts, I am somewhat amused by how square and conventional they are and am provoked to smile wryly at their transparently inadequate attempts to appear to be otherwise.
But then again, I find myself thinking similar thoughts more frequently while remarking to myself how much I pity people who failed to be in the last throes of adolescence and the first flights of adulthood during the late 1960s and early 1970s.
For only those who were in that blessed condition can legitimately claim today to have enjoyed Talleyrand’s famous “douceur de vie”.
At least one of us 55+ voters thinks Abbott is a fantastic Leader of the Opposition, and hopes he’ll stay in the job for the foreseeable future. Unfortunately, I don’t think he’ll last past the next election, but with any luck they’ll replace him with Wilson Tuckey (or maybe Minchin will do a Gorton and move to the Lower House).
Is it any wonder Tone is only attracting the elderly when he makes comments like this (from the transcript of last nights 60 Minutes puff-piece):
LIZ HAYES: Homosexuality? How do you feel about that?
TONY ABBOTT: I’d probably I feel a bit threatened…
LIZ HAYES: I’m not asking if it’s a personal choice of yours.
TONY ABBOTT: ..as so many people.
LIZ HAYES: When you say ‘threatened’?
TONY ABBOTT: Again, Liz, look, it’s a fact of life and I try to treat people as people and not put them in pigeonholes.
Sounds like classic gaybasher reasoning to me – “But officer I had to beat him to a pulp, he looked twice at me and threatened my sexuality”.
Katz, if you remember it you weren’t there. :)
That’s a myth, Paul – I remember most of it quite clearly (although I concede some of the bits I remember were internal rather than external).
Pretty much the same opinion as Katz @7, DI (NR) @8, and I’m from the same demographic (Chinese year of the Rat).
I find most politicians nowadays to be insufferably boring “beige square” types trying to outdo each other in the mediocrity stakes,or fanatical right wing idealogues seeking to implement fascism by “any other name”.
Oh, for Paul – I was there, and I remember …..well mostly…..well some…
Particularly stuff like Clear Light, Curved Air, Pink Floyd, Alan Ginsburg, and the Moratoriums against the Vietnam fiasco.
8-D
I’ll tell you what “spin” means, as when a Coalition member says “Oh that’s just more spin from Kevin Rudd”.
They are aiming for the Homer Simpson-type demographic, who lack the attention span for following a detailed argument. Just call anything “spin” and this group can sigh with collective relief and say “Well, there you go. I don’t need to think about it anymore because he said it’s spin.”
As one of those many who took part with delight in the social revolution of the late 1960s to mid 1970s (we were a bit slow here), while I’m concerned a bit about Rudd’s moral conservatism, its pretty clear to me that he’s still in the mould of Labor Governments dedicated to looking after the worker and the poor and underpriviledged. He’s even trying to do something about the homeless. Sure, I’d love him to be a hell of a lot more socialist, but the ALP hasn’t quite recovered from the spiv era of Hawke or Keating yet. They’re the blokes who put out the light on the hill. Rudd has to work with what he’s got.
Now, as for voting for Abbott, when I was very, very, young, and extremely wet behind the ears, the kind of wet behind the ears you are when you’re brought up in a protective Catholic family, the first time I voted I did vote Liberal once, by accident.Soon after I was radicalised and realised what I’d done. I’ve never forgiven myself. I’m all right, Jack, I’m an old aged pensioner, presumably one of the untouchables, but I don’t want a government that’s going to hammer the poor, the disabled, the unemployed, refugees,and women, and doesn’t believe the planet is going to hell in a handbasket and won’t do anything about it.
Unless we’re going to bring back Gough, Rudd will have to do. As I’ve said before, even the worst Labor Government is better than the best Liberal Government, and this Liabor Government isn’t the worst. I reserve that dishonour for Hawkie.
I was a precocious child and early adolescent in the late ’60s and early ’70s and I had the good fortune to share a bedroom with an older brother who was of conscriptable age, who was exempt due to various medical frailties, but whose peer group included Nashos, conscientious objectors and those who were lucky their number didn’t come up, so I got to be told all about the Vietnam War and the moratorium by my brother and his friends (with the aid of Pete Seeger and the early Bob Dylan).
I too am on the wrong side of 50 (just) and constantly find myself at odds with my cohort, as depicted in the media. Who ARE these reactionaries and fearful white multitudes who listen to Alan Jones? Certainly not the people who used to (and still do) listen to Iggy Pop and the Velvet Underground and Elvis Costello…
We all voted Labor/Labour (if you’re a Kiwi like me), we bonged our way through the ’70s and we reluctantly embraced the economic rationalism of the ’80s. I don’t know what you call us – late baby boomers or the forgotten generation, but we’re roughly the same age as Rudd and Obama.
We started leaving school during the oil shock, were coming out of university in the early ’80s recession and got whacked again by the early ’90s downturn.
From my perspective, the most fuddy duddy of conservatives are actually the thrusting young Liberals in their 20s at one end and the the generation above mine (the 60-70 year olds).
We in betweeners never stopped having natural sympathies for the left.
With the help of a few private polaroid photos and some very becoming snaps of me taken by ASIO lensmen now available thanks to FOI, I’ve been able to piece together the broad outlines of that period of my life.
CMMC raises a more interesting general point. That the current meme — “Kevin Rudd = “spin and fluff no substance” — really is the perfect one for the age of convenient on your phone, predigested dumbed down news content.
Almost inevitably, every policy, no matter how complex or far reaching, will be condensed to a form in which it cannot possible be anything but a slogan, which makes spin a very easy charge to make. It is also very well suited to all those who either lack the priocessing ability ofr the interest to think about policy in a systematic way and as CMMC points out, want to feel other than stupid or lazy when doing so.
Once public policy gets nuked then the search is on for stuff that is apparently tangible and authentic — guys in lost in the desert dressed in nothing but budgie smugglers riding a quad bike and policies that seem to promise a solution tomorrow so we can stop all this painful thinking. We get politics responding to our feelings, including our prejudices rather than the information processing parts of our minds.
From the POV of the non-incumbents (or lazy incumbents) this is perfect, but that means about a 10,000 people benefit and everyone else is doomed to have serious buyers’ remorse, at least until the next flashy new authentic thing hoves into view.
“it’s all spin” is the public policy analog of convenience food. It ready now all the time, heavily flavoured, cheap, momentarily satisfying but ultimately not good for your health.
I was watching Lee Sales interviewing Mark Arbib and Julie Bishop the other night and the poor woman was reduced to playing pass the parcel with the slogan de jour.
Will there be another layer bureaucracy in the health system? How can you manage hospitals if you can’t run insulation?
Really, I wonder why they bother with interveiwers when an Elizabeth app could do the job as well.
i too am one of the more seasoned types and i’ve been furiously trying to forget a lot of the above mentioned years.unfortunately it’s mosty what i had for breakfast that i succeed in forgetting.many of my peers and friends not so mature(in years)read and listen to shock jock types and buy into their constant message of indignant outrage aimed at “the gumint” and won’t someone do something.some previously convinced that climate change is real are now sitting on the fence.they seem to me to be fearfull and threatened by the speed of change and unable to absorb it like they did in the past and many were fairly free wheeling types.maybe the current faction in control of the libs evoke a more secure time in the past for them.
I think climate change denialism plays a big part of this; if you look at the demographics on disbelief it’s exactly the same cohort leading the charge.
You should have used same scale in both graphs. The points I get from the graph is that while he approval ratings are moving closer together, I would still rather be Kevin than Tony. The oldies clearly love Tony more who is espousing more traditional values. But outside that demographic, Kevin is killing Tony by embarrassing margins.
After thinking Tony was a joke when he started, and despite cringing at some of his policies, he has obvious potential to knock off Kevin if he can refine his clumsy policy starts. He is a better communicator by far.
Mind you, the best politician in Australia at the moment in terms of intelligence, wit, policy understanding and communication skills is the Powerfox herself, Julia Gillard. If Tony could challenge Kevin enough to open the door for Julia, he would have done a great service to the country.
Two words, no, four: Don Dunstan’s pink pants.
AN @ 22,
Hope they’re in the National Museum or the South Australian Museum. In a few years we can put Abbott’s budgie snugglers in one. A very few, I hope.
Mr Denmore @17, must agree. I am just the other side of 50 (48) on Thursday. Not a baby boomer not genX. My parents have always been Liberal(national) supporters and my Mum is always sending me those horrid e-mails about the scary lefties (anti-obama/refugees/immigrants etc). But they aren’t uncaring folks. Must be fear of change.
54 and I hate Abbott, but the pseuds won – here in The New Christendom we now think the 1960s were about spy movies and Led Zeppelin – here in New Australasia the left is now the last tick box on a focus group survey and the only work available on the Centrelink jobs “interactive touch screen” is in marketing. If you wore flares hang your head in shame for the end of the world is nigh, and all we are doing is arguing about the number of paperclips in the stationary cupboard and who gets to go to Officeworks this week.
Eric, is it true that John Paul Jones was in a band before Them Crooked Vultures?
Well if Abbott’s approval is improving amongst the 55+s then the easiest thing to do is leak the Liberal Party Health platform, more private hospitals, no funding fir public hospitals, erode Medicare. Add in support for increasing the aged pension, draconian application of work for dole and more tax breaks for SMSFs and Tony should lose his gloss.
The LP over 55 cohort are aging hippies who really can’t fathom what Tony’s appeal is.
Not sure why those other oldies haven’t swung to the Greens but here are a few guesses:
It may be easier to understand if the polls separated us genuine oldies are lumped in with those young fools that made such a hash (sorry for the pun) of the late 60′s. The polls should differentiate between those above and below 65. The two groups have different concerns.
The pre-retirement group has reached the stage when their minds are turning to building up their savings for retirement. So they will be concerned about threats to this process. Being seen to be reducing the value of their Telstra shares isn’t smart. Peter Costello was particularly kind to this age group and the general low tax approach of the conservative has to be an attraction.
The +65 group has different concerns. The better off will be concerned about anything that threatens the value of the assets they are depending on to give them a reasonable life.
The not so well off will also be critical of the failure of the government to do more about the supply of aged accommodation and public health. Those on part pensions will also be critical of the way the welfare and health card clawback stops them from benefiting much from any work they do. The whole welfare system is very unfriendly to people with the sort of spikey income you get from casual work and micro business’s. A friend of ours says she loses over 2/3 of anything she earns to clawback and tax.
What she hates even more is the hassle of suddenly having to deal with the complicated government systems. Teacher friends struggle with the forms, strange language, different interpretations every time they visit Centerlink etc. So one wonders what happens to people who aren’t all that good at dealing with authority go through and how much of their rights they miss.
If Labor wants to to win us oldies they need to start understanding what issues concern us. Above all, they need to understand that adding yet another complication is not going to help the oldie vote.
54 in a month’s time. Ditto what Kats said @8 (sorry – key not working!). I remember being struck by how conservative in both dress and views Wayne Swan and what was then the Bright Young Thing brigade were at the Breakfast Creek ALP HQ back in the early 80s. They haven’t changed, and neither have my views about them. A few years before that, the ALP heavies spent most of their time trying to prevent the Vietnam and anti-Joh protest movement doing anything that looked like direct action – urging people not to sit down, and not to attempt a street march (illegal under a Joh-Terry Lewis ukase). It reminds me of the Chaser lads’ ironic protest chant ‘Whaddawe want? Gradual change. Whendawewannit? In due course…’
Hal9000, in his autobiography Tom Uren endorses your view of Queensland Labor in the period of the street march bans, and states that the two people who stood out as exceptions were the late George Georges (no surprise) and Terry Mackenroth (which did surprise me). What’s your take on this?
“I don’t know what you call us – late baby boomers or the forgotten generation,…”
The Squeeze generation…stuffed between the X’ers and the BabyBommers…
billie maybe you mean increasing the age for the pension? I was in the army late 50s early 60s and drove trucks Sydney Perth for a couple of years after before driving local [Adelaide] eventually my own. My Grandmother called Liberal supporters “two-bob millionaires” and that’s how I’ve seen that demographic ever since.
My 6yrs in the army and time in Malaya taught me to be very wary of the popular yellow peril, domino bullshit that saw many of my mates stick around for Vietnam. I can still spot a “two-bob millionaire” a mile off.
From Wikipedia
Baby Boomer cohort #1[citation needed] (born from 1946 to 1954)
Boomer cohort #2 – “Generation Jones,” born 1955-1965
Memorable events: Watergate, Nixon resigns, the cold war, the oil embargo, raging inflation, Disco, gasoline shortages
Key characteristics: less optimistic, pragmatic, general cynicism
Generation X cohort (born from 1965 to 1980)
Memorable events: Challenger explosion, Iran-Contra, Reaganomics, AIDS, Star Wars, MTV, the home computer, safe sex, divorce, single parent families, end of cold war-fall of berlin wall, desert storm
Key characteristics: quest for emotional security, independent, informality, entrepreneurial
Katz@18: “some very becoming snaps of me taken by ASIO lensmen now available thanks to FOI”
Indeed: the ASIO File Opening Party might become the New 21′st, but it may be just a Qld thing, what with the JBP regime providing a platform on which so many were able to build a presence.
Unfortunately, with their shredding on the 24/11/1989, the supersize-me potential of access to one’s Special Branch Files has , in most, but not all, cases has been lost. Maybe.
Yes, Hal 5000, back in the day we “political bikies pack-raping democracy” were a bit of an embarrassment to the ALP types whose most important value of all was 50% plus one vote.
I continue to be amazed at how much Whitlam changed during his brief and turbulent time in government.
At the time of the dismissal I was living O/S. A non-Australian friend of mine rang me to tell me that there was rioting in the streets in Australia.
That picture of Australia just didn’t figure, though the occasion might have been an opportunity lost for radical change.
Never forget that it was Hawkie who wielded all his considerable clout to ensure that no general strike or anything of the kind broke out on 11/11/75.
Probably prudent, but at that moment the unruly left blinked blindly, turned up its heels and died.
Thus the beige inherited the earth.
But it’s a beige country, Katz. Whitlam was unfortunately an aberration, Keating also to a lesser extent.
The media likes beige, and will tolerate no other colours.
the beige made sure beige no longer exists..these days it’s called: Oatmeal.
No one talks about Gen X anymore. It is all Gen Y and Boomers. We want our share, now.
Razor, us Gen Xers apparently don’t read the paper, can’t tweet, eschew facebook and apparently can’t be sold anything via conventional means, so ignoring us is the best bet.
Every time I hear Abbott, I think he can’t possibly stoop any lower or say anything stupider, but he manages it. What sort of shite-tastic word is “uncomfortable” anway? What sort of weasel phrase is it when you are “uncomfortable” with homosexuals? Are they stealing the padding in his bicycle knicks or something? What the hell is it really supposed to mean other than being a good old fashioned dog whistle, only much, much rustier this time.
Paul @31- total rubbish re Mackenroth, AFAIK. Terry was a creature of the Old Guard ousted by federal intervention in 1980, but then reinvented himself as a reformer to stay in the winners’ circle. During the dark days of Joh, among the politicians, George Georges was a leading light who was always among the first to be arrested, with supporting roles being played by Manfred Cross, Bryant Burns, Anne Warner and Jim Fouras. Some of the union leaders who had clout in the ALP were prominent, particularly the old Waterside Workers and the Missos. Wayne Goss was among the Labor Lawyers who helped organise bail, although not particularly prominent. The fruits of the official Labor strategy were harvested with the piss-poor organisation of the 1985 power dispute, when the Old Guard-aligned ETU found itself reliant on the very same social and political groups they’d spent their careers crushing, and were abandoned by their supposed allies.
Kats @36 – yes, the longer I live the more I’m drawn to Malcolm Fraser, who in 1975 I regarded as first cousin to the Antichrist. Whitlam’s refusal to acknowledge error (in reality criminal error) over his greenlighting of the East Timor invasion is unforgivable. It is always forgotten that there were actually two Whitlam governments – 1972-74 and then, post double dissolution, 1974-75. All the significant reforms were artifacts of the first government, albeit some legislation was completed and implemented in the second. Mind you, it’s also usually forgotten that Fraser actually implemented some of the Whitlam reforms, most notably the Racial Discrimination Act. I think a lot of the anguish we all suffered with the Dismissal stemmed from the total rejectionism displayed by the Tories during the first period – a strategy now being attempted by the Abbott leadership against a blue-tinged beige administration. There were also hangovers from the Split, given the prominent role played by the DLP in blocking reform measures. It’s fun, if futile, to imagine what would have happened if Whitlam had succeeded in the Don’s Party election of 1969, when the malapportioned election boundaries kept Gorton in office. Those three years of economic boomtime were, in terms of public policy, wasted.
Mercurius @ 6. Euphemisms from you? ‘our more, err, experienced readers’! If it were anyone but you I’d accuse you of ageism. ‘Older’ is what you meant, isn’t it? Well as an older person I’m happy to give you some feedback.
As one who long feared growing older
I have opened up an ‘Aging’ folder
Which shows maturer women and their men
Definitely defy past trends.
They no longer seem to moulder
Like burnt out fires becoming colder.
On climate change I see them rage
On many a reader letters page.
On AGW they seethe and smoulder.
Their responsibility they shoulder
To leave a legacy of cleaner air.
Any less they know just isn’t fair.
Then there are those even bolder.
Some like me old lefty soldiers.
You know the sort who never dies
Yet will not fade away and stays
Ruddy red praying for an ETS that flies.
I dont buy it. Over 55s have been around too long to fall for a huckster like Shabbott. Expect to see Megalogenis’ “credibility gap” widen in this dempographic as the election closes.
Ive said it before, and Ill say it again: when the pressure of an election is on, Abbott will fall to pieces, be revealed as the extremist maniac he is, and test the LNP base vote for us.
What exactly is spin? I’ve always interpreted it as populist, poll-driven, targeted and mantra like messaging. Yes, it’s probably a cheap shot, but it doesn’t make it untrue. In my opinion the accusation doesn’t suggest that a person is lacking substance necessarily, but that they are choosing to stay “on message”, rather offering policy explanations.
My main criticism of Mr Rudd’s communication style is over his inability to promote a pro-active climate plan. Now, he either chose not to because he’s not convinced of the issue himself, or he is a lousy communicator who, on that issue, chose spin over substance. Although that does nothing to explain why he’s losing popularity with the demographic that also has the highest skepticism. hmm.
I was reading a COTA [Council of the Aging] newsletter at my Mum’s place this weekend, and I wouldn’t discount the possibility that some older citizens don’t like being treated like a national liability, which some may have interpreted some of Mr Rudd’s recent speeches on our aging population as.
As I mentioned, Hal 9000, I was absent from Australia during Whitlam’s second term.
I recall the Coalition’s rejectionism between 1973 and 1974. Frankly, I didn’t expect anything else. We applauded Whitlam for crashing through, eschewing as he did the paralysis that overtook Scullin in the face of a hostile Senate in 1929.
The Joint Sitting provision of the Australian Constitution enabled Whitlam to ram through his reforms without needing to compromise. It is impossible to imagine Rudd using this nuclear option, despite all his huffing and puffing. Indeed, Rudd’s huffing and puffing replaces action.
Abbott knows that Rudd is all piss’n'vinegar.
The Tories’ rejectionism handed Whitlam an historic triumph, whose benefits we still enjoy.
My anguishing came in two parts:
1. A sense of outrage that the Australian constitution could be manipulated for anti-democratic ends.
2. An even deeper sense of outrage when I learned a bit and discovered that the Australian constitution is deeply anti-democratic and that Whitlam, supposedly a lawyer, did not understand that in 1975.
Labor governments with any guts should take heed of the Whitlam example.
What is the point of occupying the crease for decades and doing nothing?
The Joint Sitting provision is a fine vehicle for rapid and major reform. To achieve major reform (for example ETS) at the cost of losing government at the next election seems to me to be a fair price for a reformist government to pay in return for permanent improvements in public administration.
C’mon Kev, show some guts. Don’t be the Scullin of the 21st century!
“Grumpy old men. When you get to old age people tend to become less tolerant, more racist, xenophobic bigoted, support harsh measures, like black and white and not grey. They are less likely to be caring of others not them and have a stuff them attitude. No data for that though. But I can see a higher % than the norm of grumpy old men being keen Liberal supporters as harshness, selfishness, racism, bigotry, xenophobia tend to be the characteristics associated with them both.”
So said Thomas Paine over at Possumland. Defend yourself!
“Labor governments with any guts should take heed of the Whitlam example.”
They are Katz. Malcolm Fraser was on the radio, the other day, sharing that some of the first phone calls he made, after Kerr informed him of his plans for a Whitlam dismissal, were to Rupert Murdoch and Kerry Packer.
You need to at least establish that you have a right to play on the pitch and Rudd has, so far, been standing there just 2 years facing just about as much shite that Whitlam ever did.
If the Libs were able to have blocked supply again, by now, they would have. Instead, they are throwing every dirty tactic they can find at Rudd, with help from just about all the media, and somehow he is still standing. Give the bloke a go. He has bucketloads of guts and smarts.
Katz
Whitlam, a QC would have known exactly what the literal constitution said. He figured the conventions of the day were sufficient to allow him to do what he needed.
It’s worth keeping in mind that “Whitlam the radical” was conservative myth-making, which at 15 years of age in 1973, I bought into. He was an intelligent, intellectual egotistical middle of the road guy thrust into turbulent times amidst people who were desperate to rebuild the country after years of drift. And he only just defeated Cairns for the leadership.
It doesn’t work like that Joe2.
Any government must face the fact that their electoral popularity tends to decay over time.
A Tory party wins if it doesn’t lose. Their self-appointed role is to prevent, delay, or blunt change.
A reformist government must conquer both its own inertia and opposition stonewalling.
In the mechanism of the joint sitting the founding fathers have provided an extraordinarily potent circuit-breaker that gives the initiative to reformers unlike any other constitution that I know of.
Rudd has chosen not to use this circuit breaker so far. His time is running out.
I’m over 50 (over 55 in fact) and I too find myself totally at odds with the majority of voters may age – you know the ones who get counted in opinion polls. I have never voted Liberal in my life and never will. I don’t always vote straight ALP but I totally reject the LNP and everything it stands for, now and always. Looking at the poll results as Possum sets them out I find myself in the minority every time.
joe2 @ 47,
That’s them. Not us. Different generation.
In that case, Whitlam should have known that a GG can do more or less what he likes.
Yet in choosing Kerr GG, Whitlam chose a dodgy egomaniac with pretensions of historical significance. Egomania and unlimited power make an explosive, unstable, and dangerous mixture.
Whitlam should have chosen some chinless, Pommy remittance man with a ridiculous double-barrelled name.
Silly old Gough.
Yes, but he was paying off the right of the party for their support Katz.
In that case Whitlam substituted a small problem for a huge one.
Well we know that with hindsight, but at the time he appointed Kerr, he probably never gave it a second thought. Let’s face it, the last time it happened was the other side of the Statute of Westminster and the War and at state level. he wasn’t thinking about deferral of supply at that stage. And until Milner died it couldn’t have happened. It couldn’t have happened if Lionel Murphy hadn’t gone to the High Court when he did.
Not sure what rehashing the Whitlam days has got to do with explaining the +55 yearning for a conservative government.
I’m sure that’s true. However as the events you mentioned ripened, the possibility of a vice-regal coup emerged and then loomed. So it is incorrect to imply that Whitlam’s state of knowledge when he nominated Kerr was identical to his state of knowledge as the crisis deepened. However, in the face of this knowledge it is quite possible that Whitlam’s state of mind with regard to Kerr did not change.
Importantly however, as I recall, more than one person went to Whitlam to express concerns about Kerr. Like Cassandra, their warnings went unheeded.
Whitlam could have called the palace and had Kerr’s commission rescinded. But he didn’t.
And indeed, Whitlam could have instructed the ALP members in the Lower House to withdraw the supply bills the passing of which was the basis for Fraser’s commission. Then Kerr would have had no basis for keeping Fraser. He’d have had no option but the half-senate election option Whitlam had canvassed.