As Mark foreshadowed, Julia Gillard used her policy launch today to tie together many of the initiatives announced during the campaign into a coherent narrative – promising both security in the present, and a transformative vision of the future. The Prime Minister sought to draw a contrast between Labor’s desire to build on the foundations of a strong economy and Tony Abbott’s backwards looking agenda. Gillard argued that the Coalition was the true threat to the economy, pointing to the Opposition leader’s billion dollar a day spendathon during the campaign.
Key themes were education and health. Gillard again emphasised her personal story, and that of her family, reinforcing her belief in the dignity of work. She said she didn’t want kids to be “robbed of the prospects of the future”. Her rhetoric was inclusive, seeking to unify the national community under the banner of “each of us prospering, all of us prospering”. She highlighted a promised lift in Family Tax Benefit by $4000 for teenagers 16 years and older which was tied into both assisting with the costs of living and an emphasis on work, skills and training.
The Prime Minister also, rather cleverly I thought, used the contrast between Labor’s NBN rollout and Abbott’s failure to get it. In health, as well as tying Abbott’s record as Health Minister into present difficulties accessing GPs and emergency care, she promised a Medicare rebate for internet consultations in outer suburban, regional and remote areas. The example given was of someone recovering from an operation who needed follow up consultations with a specialist. Similarly, the 24 hour GP hotline would encompass online consultations from July 2012. Emphasising the theme of frugality, this was the sole major spending initiative announced in the speech.
The NBN, then, was the hinge for constructing a narrative of ideological distinction between the Coalition and Labor.
So, Julia Gillard weaved together values, both personal and collective, into a choice between fear and the Coalition and a confident Australia moving into the future under Labor. Health, education, everyday life and the economy were all articulated into one pitch. It was a confident performance, speaking off the cuff from notes, and articulating a cogent reason to re-elect the government.
Update: Here’s the text of the speech.
Elsewhere: Grog’s Gamut.
They should have positioned it like this from Day One, instead of running scared or caving at every Lib soundbite and thought bubble.
Of course, to do so would have meant repudiating all the reasons for getting rid of Rudd beyond “he’s an arsehole and we didn’t like him”, which they’ve now done anyway, I note. Idiots.
Gillard’s performance today was genuine and flawless. Game over.
Very nice summary Kim. You are miles ahead of the media response and my bet far more informative than what they will come up with in hours of time.
Nothing on the environment, huh. If Australia were to be heading in to a Pakistan summer then most of the above would add to zilch. Global warming has its own transformative vision of the future.
Patrick, perhaps she’s right- we had to get all this other crap the Tories kept digging up and trying to way lay us with through the system, before the right moment for Gillard to present her alternative, to keep it fresh in voters mind in the home straight leading to pol before the Tories coud undermine it, too, with more rot.
@2 – Thanks, joe2!
@4 – Nope, BilB, but campaign launches aren’t really policy speeches any more. Back in the day, they used to be something akin to the British parties’ manifestos where what the party intended to do in every area of policy was spelled out. Now, they’re much more about highlighting key themes, and setting the shape for the remainder of the campaign.
No autocue. Julia was genuinely and triumphantly Julia.
Labor are home and hosed.
Living ex-leaders of the Liberal Party can now field their own basketball team in a Sydney local league. John Hewson could jump centre and Abbott would make a useful point guard.
Howard would probably spend quality time on the pine.
Kim’s summary suggests to me the speech of an opposition leader rather than a government (I’m aware this is not an original insight). I sometimes wonder if the Libs still have some kind of psychological ascendancy over Labor. On any objective analysis, the opposition has been an utter shambles since 2007 on both the policy and leadership fronts, but you wouldn’t know it from listening to the government.
Sounds all smartypants and hoity-toity to me.
But seriously, what I mean to say is, that’s a positive agenda, and I welcome it, but having read the first several pages of the Herald Sun today, I wonder what relevance this sort of actual vision thing has for that small number of people in marginal seats in Queensland or NSW or wherever that think that the most important thing in this election is Australia’s debt burden and massive illegal immigrant (their label not mine) problem.
Oh and as BilB notes, so what’s this thing about the environment? That’s not a priority? Which planet are we living on?
But Annabel Crabb interviewed by Chris Ulhmann said that it was lacklustre, uninspiring and a few other adjectives, blah blah blah. Oh how I am over journalists interviewing other journalists. There should be a law against it.
I hope you are right Katz. And I really hope Mr Tennis doesn’t get up in Bennelong.
‘Which planet are we living on?’
Planet too scared to frighten marginal seat voters with talk of reality. Keep your 4 wheel drives, air conditioning units, coal fired power stations etc etc – it’ll all be OK if you vote for us moving forward.
Yes it’ll be a strange future without a habitable planet.
@8 – Ken, I think to some degree that’s true, but not for Gillard herself, but for some of the more anodyne nervous nellies in the party. Her speech didn’t come across that way to me watching it – I’m just trying to pick out key themes rather than provide a comprehensive report but she did dwell a lot on what Labor had done in government, relate that back to the work of past ALP governments, and generally adopted a very confident (but not cocky) tone.
“a very confident (but not cocky) tone.”
As opposed to a cocky Tone.
adrian, I had the misfortune of stumbling across Annabel Crabb’s tweets during the speech. Not inspiring.
Annabel Crabb spent more time discussing the production values than what was actually being said. She disappoints me pretty regularly these days.
@1 – patrickg, there’s no question they tied themselves in knots with an early election, and a really dumb campaign strategy before they changed tack. If it’s all right on the night, though, this may not look like a bad idea – to pull together all the smaller announcements and wrap them up in a cogent and cohesive pitch in the last week.
I agree with your assessment Kim, but as a campaign – or any kind of PR strategy, it’s incredibly fraught; you only get a few shots at the end to get it right, and if your schtick slides off the wall it’s all over.
Mind you, if they were risk averse, they never would have rumbled Rudd in the first place, I think, despite assessments to the contrary. That was the biggest gamble of the entire campaign, and it nearly sunk them, too.
I have reflected many times in the last month, how this election would look if Turnbull was still opposition leader. I think Labor are bloody lucky he got shafted.
@17 – on the other hand, Patrickg, if Turnbull were still opposition leader, presumably the ETS would have been passed, and we really would be in a different place. It’s hard to construct a counter-factual where Turnbull survived as leader but led a united party.
Let’s get Gillard over the line Saturday, with a Green Senate BOP, and then hammer them for all we’ve got on climate action.
Hopefully after the election we can all consider how our BARKINGLY INSANE climate inaction policies have come to be considered in any way ‘pragmatic’, ‘rational’ or ‘sensible’.
They aren’t. Buddy, can you spare a paradigm?
They are also very lucky that Rudd decided to chip in and campaign for them. There would be very few recently knifed ex-PMs who would be so forgiving and magnanimous.
how this election would look if Turnbull was still opposition leader.
If Turnbull was still opposition leader the CPRS would now be law and Rudd would still be PM.
Thinking about Gillard v Turnbull is like thinking about the universe before the Big Bang. It doesn’t make any sense.
However, we do know that Labor was a country mile in front in the polls when Turnbull was opposition leader.
Exactly, Lefty E. Maybe the Greens can even win an ACT Senate spot and then the Senate will change almost immediately.
I only say about 30 seconds of it, when Gillard was tieing herself into the immigrant narrative, of hard work and opportunity in a new country. It’s interesting that she consistently represents herself in this way, when there’s other stories she could tell about herself. I guess it’s a combination of the authentic and what is seen to be electorally appealing.
I don’t why you would think it was an opposition speech, Ken. Except that you haven’t got over your disappointment and you’re just always looking for a reason to be negative about Gillard.
Interesting to note that they chose a small room, in a venue – Brisbane Convention and Exhibition Centre – that has a lot of large rooms. Also launching on a Monday suggests that the focus is going to be on truckloads of negative advertising over the next few days. Far fewer jokes than the Liberals launch as well, which I think is smart.
Strikes me that patrickg is contantly drawn to ‘should haves’ and ‘what ifs’. Life unfolds and there aint no changin it, lad.
Great Speech considering no auto cue. disappointed on nothing on climate change or a carbon tax
For me Gillard’s best moment was her response to Abbot’s mindless meme of ‘removing waste’, when she highlighted the wasted lives of those who would have been hit by the GFC if Labor hadnt acted decisively to support the economy. A brilliant line which she could have been linked more directly to the threat to jobs posed by a future Abbot government.
LeftyE – I’m still hoping for the Greens to pick up a few lower house seats and force Labor into a minority government
“Far fewer jokes than the Liberals launch as well, which I think is smart.”
So true in the Liberal case and compounded by the large number in the audience.
As I said at the Cafe:
Superb speeches by both Hawke & Gillard. And usual steady performance by Swanny…just like his performance in handling the economy.
Ignore the cynical, smart-arse & too oft negative commentary from Annabel Crabb on ABC 24 that typifies the kind of cynicism & distortions we expect from so much of the mainstream media that has infected part of the populace today…I found both Gillard & Hawke’s speeches passionate, well-timed & inspirational…
Gillard got so many necessary Labor achievement points & Labor vs Coalition comparisons across in a generally positive, heartfelt, articulate and forward think speech…managing to thread much of her election announcements together w/ previous policy in order to show direction, vision…and why we need to continue to “move forward” w/ a Labor government.
I was very impressed.
And as the “warm-up act” Bob Hawke once again showed why so many put their trust in him & his government for years…he’s quite a down-to-earth, fck’n funny bloke who sure knows how to work a crowd…and get the message across to an audience. Good stuff.
N’
Kim, excellent summary. You should have Crabb’s spot.
N’
As others have noted, nothing at all on the environment or climate change. Bob Brown has just said that this omission was a “deliberate mistake.”
On education, Gillard is still promising to reward “good” teachers, but nothing on identifying and helping disadvantaged schools. Looking forward to confrontations with the Teachers’ Union after the election.
Having said all that, the Labor launch was miles ahead of the Tories (thanks Hawkie for that epithet), so Labor should win the election comfortably.
I look forward to the Greens-Labor negotiations immediately after Gillard is sworn in.
@31 –
You mustn’t have been listening carefully, silkworm. She specifically alluded to the funds allocated for assistance to schools identified as disadvantaged.
@30 – Thanks, nasking! But I have no desire to own an iPad!
I look forward to the Greens-Labor negotiations immediately after Gillard is sworn in.
Don’t hold your breath. The pressure from the business community on the Liberals to do a deal with Labor on climate change before the new Senate takes its place (July 1 2011) will be immense. If the Libs are in chastened mode, they might just do it.
LeftyE @19:
Quite right. However, it will be important to not leave the running to Green parliamentarians. The meeja and Labor’s spinnmeisters will be attempting to minimise the seriousness of climate change as much as possible and it will therefore be tactically very important to not leave those Green parliamentarians exposed and vulnerable. They will need ongoing support designed to reinforce in the heads of other citizens that there is major political will within the community for significant change.
Yes, Kim, I must have missed that. Thanks for pointing that out. Still, the rewarding of “good” teachers poses a problem. Helping the top end of teaching conflicts with helping the bottom end. If Gillard attempts to push for rewarding “good” teachers and there is resistance in the community to this, the Greens may be able to block this in the Senate.
“Helping the top end of teaching conflicts with helping the bottom end.”
How? What makes you think helping one end is mutually exclusive with helping the other? You can’t just make statements like that, as if they’re assumed fact, without any evidence to support your assertion.
Agree akn, and Chris @27 – its not entirely out of the question. Some interesting polls from Tas suggest the Lib vote has collapsed so much in Hobart the Greens will be coming 2nd – then anyhting could happen…
My guess is bandt will get there in melbourne. But the fact is ALP will secure a majority much more easily than the MSM is suggesting.
“Gillard’s performance today was genuine and flawless. Game over
I agree. It was sensational.
Very interesting re Tasmania. So the Northerners will have a lot to thank us Southerners come Saturday night. An AFL/NRL divide?
adrian @ 21. Rudd was doubly impressive doing this knowing that people would still attribute negative motives to his campaigning.
Maybe in years to come Rudd will be seen as a great politician, one who stepped down when he had to and one who helped his party despite how he was treated.
I can’t think of another similar figure in Australian politics.
I would like to disagree about Bob Hawke. I like the bloke, and he is still the most successful Labor Prime Minister and Labor hero, but I thought he rambled a bit and talked too much of what he did. Yes, I know that the idea was to show that Labor has a track record in economic reform etc. but I think his speech went on for too long.
Julia Gilliard was accomplished and confident. The fact that she did most of the speech without notes etc. made her delivery very smooth and direct. I thought that the fact that she would like to inspire herself to Curin and Obama but is not pretentious enough to see herself like them and the ‘Yes we will’ thing I thought it was a nice note to finish on.
Crikey’s Bernard Keane found Julia’s launch ‘flat, uninspiring’ with just a ‘smidge of vision’.
Adrian @ 21 and tssk @ 41 the contrast between Rudd’s behaviour and that of an ex-leader masquerading as a Channel 9 journalist has been poignant.
I know Gough is too frail to make it these days but was Keating there?
Rebekka, the greatest determining factor in a child’s school performance is the education and wealth of the parents. By rewarding the “best” teachers, you are actually rewarding the already wealthy.
“Prior engagement” Ken, notified the party of such some time ago.
Possibly a diplomatic one.
Never mind, he did his bit last election, I don’t like Keating but some of his stuff last election was gold.
Silkwork at #45
“..the greatest determining factor in a child’s school performance is the education and wealth of the parents. By rewarding the “best” teachers, you are actually rewarding the already wealthy.”
Yes.
Thank you Kim for that excellent summary. Sounds as though Gillard was dignified and stateswoman-like as opposed to the Comedy channel dreck offered up at the LIEberal opening.
Made them look spiteful, vindictive and very negative. But that’s all they’ve ever been and since they lost government, they’re 10x worse, afaic.
tssk @41, I agree with your assessment of Rudd. I thought his resignation speech was dignified and I admired his courage in taking his place on the back bench, despite how he must have felt.
He is a team player and a Labor man in the best sense of the word, imo. He would not betray Labor’s chances in the lead-up to an election by white-anting.
All the disgusting spite and bile directed at him by Dolly and the other LIEberal scum bags said far more about their character than Rudd.
They’d all worked too hard to get elected and get this country through the GFC.
ie – no gaffes; no shock surprises; no news value. Media types are out of touch. It’s all about them and their bylines.
I’d just like to add Jane that Rudd also got up to campaign just after having surgery. I had a similar op a few years ago and with keyhole surgery they tell you that it’s minor pre-surgery and that you might want a week off and then tell you the truth after (here you go sir, enjoy your morphine.)
The sustained pain was incredible and I was amazed he could walk and talk let alone show such dignity.
And any keyboard warrior that says that such surgery is dead easy and as painful as scraping your knee they’er talking out their…
(Oh and just to add, what spite from Dolly after Rudd gave him a plum job. If Rudd was such a c*** why accept the post? This coming from a mob that believes it’s a cardinal sin to say anything nasty about your employer should they mistreat you.)
Tssk @ 51 I believe Downer is a person who would hate Rudd even more for being in his debt. To be fair, Rudd didn’t actually give him the job although he would surely have given it the nod. Downer’s on UN welfare as a kind of bonsai Tony Blair.
The thing I disliked most about Rudd PM was his giving (or (acquiescing in) plum jobs for Downer, Nelson etc.
Political enemies exist to be executed (metaphorically, of course), not given sinecures.
@ silkworm “Rebekka, the greatest determining factor in a child’s school performance is the education and wealth of the parents. By rewarding the “best” teachers, you are actually rewarding the already wealthy.”
1. that depends how you measure “best”.
2. that doesn’t explain the logic (if any) behind the statement you made previously that “Helping the top end of teaching conflicts with helping the bottom end.”
Remember the Downer/Costello ‘dream-team’ when Downer couldnt cut the mustard as opposition leader – a perfect symbol of the wasted space which history will recall as the Howard era.
tssk @50 & 51, couldn’t agree more. A man I worked with had a gall bladder attack and had to have it removed. He said he didn’t know pain like that existed. Ditto from a woman who’d had several kids.
I was amazed at Rudd’s resilience, too. I expected him to collapse, knowing how much pain he must have been in. My admiration of the man increased 100 fold.
What else would you expect from Dolly and the rest of those silver-spoon, bite-the-hand-that-feeds-you, right-to-rule wastes of space? A greedy, grasping ingrate, imo.
Terminate his contract and let someone who deserves it have the job.
He should be in a dungeon hanging from his heels. And a dose of starvation rations wouldn’t do the bugger any harm, either!
Yeah. People who wonder why the UN appears dysfunctional from time to time might like to ponder the way that democracies send the most redundant humans to work for the UN. That’s why. WTF will that nincompoop achieve at the UN.
It was precisely Rudd’s attempt to move on from this kind of pointless divisiveness that made him look like a new kind of Australian politician. Turnbull appears to be cut from the same cloth and so does Gillard, and I hope all three of them are around in Australian politics long enough to make it a new norm. The sooner the traditional adversarial dinosaurs and other assorted haters die out (metaphorically, of course), the better.
Gillard’s performance today was genuine and flawless.
Bernard Keane claims “The only new announcement centred on a new, $400m proposal to exploit the health benefits of online consultation”.
He is not the only one to completely overlook the very significant new promise to dramatically increase family payments for teenagers.
Kim picked it up straight away but ABC and other stations have shown again their incapacity to comprehend clear cut information by also stating there was only one new policy announced.
joe2 @ 60 – I thought that was announced last week, or is this something in addition to that?
Downer’s capacity for mischief and malice must have been all too clear to Rudd, perhaps he was hoping that at least in a post out of the country much of the time that would be dampened somewhat. Imagine him here with Michael Kroger et al buying to the political debate all the time.
They are a particularly unpleasant lot of people, aren’t they? Julie, Bronwyn, Costello, Downer, Mirabella, Minchin and Robb. None of them have any joie de vivre. No wonder John Hewson, a much happier character, has cut and run, carving his own niche on the public scene.
Sometimes I’ve wanted Labor people to bite back as viciously as the Libs dish it out but it’s not just playing their game by their rules it’s also personally soul destroying. Clever quips which turn their insults back on them seem to work well, and Julia’s very quick off the mark with that sort of thing. Meanwhile she and Swan can smile along with Pliberseck, Smith, Roxon, Tony Burke and the rest
even if (perish the thought!) in opposition.
To be fair, Brendan Nelson seems to have the good manners and good grace to keep whatever opinions he has to himself.
What a first class flop the Labor launch was. For starters there was less than 350 members turn up. She didnt mention climate change. She announced an internet/health policy that is basically already available. She heaped praise on her nephew and neice and lauded their education forgetting the fact that both went through their education under the Howard Govt. And dreamt up a new slogan which is now being used against her by the opposition e.g “Yes we we will get more debt / deficit / boats etc” There is no way that this was a success. Take the blinkers off people…..
Hi Kim,
“articulating ‘a’ cogent reason to re-elect the government”
And that ‘a’ would be? Ken @ 8 puts it mildly.
So let’s get this straight: the govt. has lost it’s way; ahem; the navigator shoots the pilot etc…the greatest moral blah blah is blah blahed…
But I guess the bot.doc.pinkbatts redirected to the Conroy helpline will win the day…just don’t punch in sore p….
Some sense on the nbn here…
http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/stories/s2983739.htm
PS I really meant to comment on Julia’s performance today and to second Monica @ 59. She is a wonderful combination of intellect, common sense, political nous and personal warmth. She is a gem, the genuine article, and once returned in her own right looks set to be one of our greatest PM’s.
@60 and 61 – Bernard’s not at fault, I am! It was indeed announced earlier, on 2 August:
http://www.alp.org.au/federal-government/news/gillard-labor-government-supports-families-with-te/
I’ll correct the post!
Update: Here’s the text of the speech.
Fair go Patricia WA. The speech was OK except it neglected to mention the most important issue of our times.
Also if Gillard can’t win against the most incompetent opposition ever, with a stellar economy (comparatively) and the man she knifed campaigning for her, then what does that say about her and the ALP.
I mean, how many advantages does she need?
There has been a lot of criticism, nay even jokes, about the use and overuse of the ALP slogan ‘moving forward’.
Yeah, fair enough I suppose in some ways, I don’t like slogans because they are usually meaningless.
But I thought this one had some meaning and should have resonated with its audience, including people here, better.
Perhaps a case of not having ‘eyes to see and ears to hear’?
Because the alternative to the ALP government is a party of yesterday’s men, men who would clearly send us backwards to the dark ages of the Howard decade.
Men [yes I know there is a token woman or two] who have no vision for the future of Australia.
No concept of the need for and desirability of a national broadband system.
No understanding, as shown by numerous outrageous comments by their leader, of the diminished role women are expected to play in our society still having to conform to outdated ideology.
No sympathy or empathy with the non-priveliged sector of our community, complaing about how difficult it is to live and way above ordinary incomes and still advocating tax cuts for the rich as the cure to all social problems.
Still advocating a heartless xenophobia because it worked years ago.
And so on, as contrasted by Kim in her resume of a leader, and a party, which despite all its faults, and it has plenty, dares from the opening of this campaign even from the first days of its tenure in government, to “promise … a transformative vision of the future”.
I thought ‘moving forward’ succinctly epitomised that and provided a strong contrast with the bleakness of the COALition.
Well hannah’s dad @ 70 I’m afraid I see ‘moving forward’ as the kind of slogan you adopt to divert attention from the fact you’re actually not going anywhere. There’s not much point in having well-worn arguments yet again but ‘a transformative vision of the future’? Doesn’t sound like any Labor Party I know … the one I’m familiar with is mainly concerned with announcing endless grand schemes that never actually amount to much, while busily pandering to narrow sectional interests.
When the ALP announces that it intends to withdraw troops from the Middle East, review the US alliance, repeal Howard’s surveillance and guilt-by-association laws, abolish the ABCC, introduce sweeping tax reform, revitalise the ABC, re-introduce death duties, and most importantly of all, implement some serious policies to reverse the ecological damage we are wreaking on our country – then I might see some evidence of ‘transformative vision’. All I see now is a bunch of professional politicians trying to keep their jobs and/or get promoted.
Kim @67 well how about that. Apology to Bernard. I just had not seen that promise and it is one that would make quite a difference to us even if it is more than a year away, if implemented.
@72 – joe2, maybe we weren’t the only ones who missed it the first time around, and that may be why JG highlighted it today.
Ah you’re cynical and pessimistic Ken.
Not wrong of course, the issues you mention are the sort that I alluded to with ‘a party, which despite all its faults, and it has plenty,” but when we look at the ‘other mob’ then the ALP still has something going for it by comparison.
At least it has some potential.
Spot on h’s d, what a slimy, smelly, pile of rotting offal this tory crew are.
Hannah’s dad – the contrast between moving forwards and going backwards is made fairly effectively in a lot of the campaign literature I’ve been seeing. It might well have attracted a lot of ridicule, but I doubt there’s a single vaguely aware person in the country who didn’t hear the slogan. Something to build on.
Um, I’ve just read the speech and I don’t get the enthusiasm. This is not social democracy, but technocratic liberalism of the sort Tony Blair excelled in, with lots of accent on the “hard work” that makes you a proper member of our society. Like JG. The unemployed need to “step up” after all (this sounds even worse than “a hand up not a handout” of the Clinton era). And market mechanisms (including bonuses for performers) are to become the norm in education, health and goodness knows where else in the public service.
The other issue that needs to be called is how the NBN, a large-scale state capitalist project using a PPP model and clearly mostly aimed at keeping Australian capitalism competitive, has now been grasped as a sign that there is still a traditional social democratic heart beating in the ALP. “Nation-building” is something any government can do. Addressing class inequality (to be contrasted with Gillard’s tepid and potentially draconian “social inclusion” agenda) is something else altogether. It is an insipid and hollow social democracy that sets its sights so low.
Sorry to be grumpy. Thank goodness I have the Greens to vote for.
Vote for them on Saturday, fight them on Sunday, Tad
The PM’s speech:
This was the little gem that caught my eye (3rd last para):
“we will recognise the first Australians in our Constition.
Oops: Constitution
It was the greatest moral challenge of this generation not the next. To suggest delay was equivalent to denial and to delay action was complete political cowardice. Yet it doesn’t even rate a mention today. What we have as evidenced by the events of the past six months and highlighted today is the utter contempt the leadership of the labor party have for people who genuinely wanted action for climate change. I feel sorry for lefty E and the others who think that things will change after the election..they won’t The focus groups of disinterested voters in the marginals of western Sydney are more worried about rising electricity costs. Arbib and the others always reckon that the green votes come back to labor and so no ETS. Just a lot of more hot air and bigger touchy feely focus groups sorry citizens assemblies
I will not vote for a party that has forgotten how to lead and fight for what is right. I will not vote for these people who treat us with such contempt. Oh and by the way….. The light on the hill is now that of the beach house.. The one you get for when you work for a developer mate after leaving parliament after a factional deal……the old party ain’t what it used to be
What Martin said, Dr Tad. I’m not holding up JG as a social democratic beacon. But what was offered today was a cogent alternative to Howard redux.
Rabbit Redux?
Noooooooooooooooooooooooo.
The dead-end job could be right, but.
Kim, you must have some sympathy for Ken’l, Dr Tad and others?
HD describe one of them as “cynical and pessimistic” and I think I understand why.
You, too are intelligent and educated- you must understand their feelings?
Kim, is a “cogent” alternative good enough? What if it is a bad “cogent” alternative? Hawke and Keating had a much better argument for economic rationalism than Peacock, Howard and Hewson, but does that make it enough?
I get why people vote ALP and I get why many on the Left won’t vote for the Greens (I wrote a whole Overland essay on the strengths and limitations of the Greens, in particular their lack of a class orientation). But Gillard’s speech summarised little more than a liberal economic agenda tied up with some kind of faux-communitarian approach to social issues.
If cogency and a “narrative”, no matter how debased their content, are enough, then we’re not asking much.
But cynical and pessimistic? The question is “about what?” Certainly not the fact that well over one million people are going to vote to the ALP’s Left.
Obviously the answer is yes, Paul. I’m voting Green this time, as I’ve said before.
Dr Tad, our comments crossed. If the choice is social liberalism vs. reactionary populist and right dirigisme it’s still a choice. I’m happy JG has articulated that choice. But my first preference this year is going to The Greens.
Have the critics of Labor here asked themselves exactly what the Coalition agenda be if Abbot is elected on Saturday?
So far Abbot has been able to avoid saying anything about his actual agenda. But, as a Howard acolyte, you can virtually garauntee a return to free market dogmas is a fairly sure bet.
This doesnt just mean the possibility of changes in workplace relations. As Dr Tad says, nation-building may well be something any government can do,but the fact is, despite ten years in Government, Howard did virutally nothing in this regard. Why? Because it also requires a vision that goes beyond the myopic ideology of ‘the free market always does it best’. By contrast, Labor HAS invested in nation-building on a massive scale and will continue to do so. Like his free-market mentor Abbot, on the other hand, is proposing a windback of such endeavours.
Similarly, he will rescind the mining tax. Why? Because its bad for the market.
On the question of addressing climate change, the only certainty is that absolutely nothing will happen under an Abbot government because Abbot thinks it will corrupt the economy. Or am I wrong? If I remember rightly in the last election the Howard Government was pushing the nuclear industry as a realistic alternative to a carbon tax regime. Again we havent heard anything about this but the Liberal Mate from the nuclear lobby, Ziggy Swi-whatever, is sitting there ready to go if given the green light.
A lot is at stake on Saturday, but not all of it has been brought to the light of day by a long shot.
‘Cynical and pessimistic’ was not meant to be a put down, sorry if it came over as such.
I have more than just sympathy and empathy for those who find the ALP wanting, its a process I went through some years ago and have since given my active support to the Greens for precisely those reasons outlined above by Ken, Paul, Dr Tad and others here.
@89 – there is no doubt that the Alp is more predisposed to public investments and that a Rabbit government would be much more reactionary than the way the Libs are currently portraying themselves.
Election slogans are never deep, but Moving Forward was about as asinine as they come and reflected the total lack of imagination on the part of the strategists in the ALP.
‘Real Action’ wasn’t much better, but at least it was positioned in response to a perceived problem – namely Rudd’s knack for commissioning inquiries and then doing nothing.
The vaccuity of the Labor campaign slogan was even more remarkable given they had such a strong story to tell on the economy and their handling of the GFC.
But they spend most of the campaign either fighting internal battles or choosing to fight on the Opposition’s preferred battleground of boats and fear-driven issues.
I just find it incredible that the party wasn’t better able to communicate to people the comparative success of Australia compared with the utter mess in Europe and the US.
I don’t know whether they always planned to shift the focus onto the economy, Mr Denmore, at this stage of the game, but I do think that bringing KRudd back on board was a necessary condition for selling that message, which I think is now being conveyed much more sharply and more convincingly.
Elsewhere: Grog’s Gamut.
The GFC phase I is probably over but which party has addressed to looming problem of sovereign debt problems which may emerge as the economies of the US and Europe slow to possibly recession like conditions?
Let’s just all close our eyes and hope things go on as they are currently.
re Mr Denmore’s comment – why are we worried about comparing our economy with those in far off Europe- especially with such dissimilar economies as the heavily indebted Spain, Iceland or Ireland?
We should be comparing ourselves with the economies of the Asia Pacific area.Our performance then is typical of the area- not a testament to the supposedly profound economic insight of the ALP.
The utter mess in the US and elsewhere shows they lacked our financial institution prudential regulation which is the combined work of many past governments.
Adrian @ 69 – I wasn’t suggesting that J.G. has the election done and dusted, and that victory was down to her. I was commenting on her performance today and to my growing opinion of her as a very substantial person.
Your comment that if Gillard can’t win against the most incompetent opposition everetc. also doesn’t really address my view that if she wins she will be a great PM. I don’t doubt that an ALP victory will be the result of a team effort, including Rudd, but she has against her the same forces on the right in the media and the wider world encompassing more than Murdoch and the mining companies which were determined to bring Rudd down and equally determined to promote that most incompetent
opposition.
Mr Denmore,
Another aspect of “moving forward”, I think, is that it resonates with that modern cliche: “moving on”.
We needed closure so that we could move on
Often said after a private tragedy or a public catastrophe. By a grieving, hurting, bereaved, still-stunned and tearful person.
Now why should the similarity between the slogan and the cliche be unnerving?
Because a few weeks ago we had the equivalent of a public mugging of a prominent Australian, followed swiftly by his very public “execution”. Metaphorically speaking.
A bolt from the blue, all the more astounding because his mates had seemed so disciplined and united in his cause.
Many Australians saw this as a public catastrophe; certainly it was widely broadcast and some folk felt personal pain over it.
***
I’m not saying that Julia Gillard will a poor PM, by the way; only commenting on the slogan.
I think this has been a very low-grade election contest.
There is absolutley no doubt that we will all move forward, as Australians. tempes fugit
I hope you’re right Patricia WA, but I don’t have high hopes for her based on her performance thus far.
I thought the “yes we will” thing was a real clanger. I cringed. Same dill who thought of “MoFo” must have hacked that one up. Urrgh.
Otherwise – on track for victory.
Adrian – there was a post on LP not long ago (Keane vs Rundle?) on whether or not we deserved our politics. Clearly you think we deserve better than Julia Gillard. But how can you/we alter the limits to politics that seem to imprison Gillard and everyone else in the ALP?
Ken mentioned re-introducing death duties. How would that go for an election policy? That seems so far outside the realms of possibility now, that to even discuss it seems pointless.
There was a good article by Bill McKibben today at Climate Spectator. Lately I’ve read other frustrated activists say the same thing – that we have to organise outside of the parties in ways so persistent and powerful that they will have to take up our positions.
I don’t know where that organising is going to come from – I left the ACF because of their support for the ETS. Somewhere in there is also a contradiction between what we want to happen, and what we are actually prepared to do. I’ve raised the point before that hardly anyone pays for Green power.
Take obesity as an example: we have the same situation as climate change, with all our experts saying this is a future crisis, only this time it is exactly we in Australia who need to act – we can forget about the rest of the world acting first! – yet we don’t seem able to help ourselves at all. Even when we see the problem of obesity in front of us (so to speak), we seem helpless to remedy it. What hope for addressing climate change?
People probably think they have heard “moving forward” a lot over the last month. My impression is that Gillard dropped it after the first week, when on one occasion she actually used it three times in one sentence.
Hawke was good on the past record of Labor. Inheriting a deficit of $50 billion in today’s terms from the Fraser government was new to me.
Gillard built on this and revived the “moving forward” right at the end, linking it with “the light on the hill” and “yes, we can”. As delivered (I listened on NewsRadio) it was quite impressive:
And then repeating “yes we will” as she recapped the whole program, finishing with “Yes we will move forward together.”
You can look down your nose at it and think it trite, but in the context of the occasion, as rhetoric, I think it worked. I’d like to hear what someone who studies political rhetoric thinks about it.
Without an autocue – awesome!
It sounds like a well-thought out speech from that quote, Brian.
Gillard’s joked a few times lately that, yes, she knows that people find campaign slogans a bit tacky, we all do, etc, but the important thing is the sentiments and emotions that inspire them.
She’s used “confidence” and “optimism” alongside many times now, but “yes, we will” adds the necessary resolve.
Note that she’s also very effectively stolen the Rabbit campaign line, which was “We will…”, but used it positively (“yes”, instead of “stop”) and inclusively (“together”) with the public, as opposed to “Direct Action: We will…” etc, which is only a statement of what he and his party would do for us.
“Together, we will stop the boats!”: I’d like to see the 21C nation-building plan that could ever refer to!
And good roundup, Kim, btw!
Russel says:
With which I canot agree more heartily. This is not a position that requires an argument in support of it. You either know how deep the rot is within western democracies or you haven’t been paying attention.
It’s probably indicative of how low our expectations have sunk that a speech that doesn’t mention global warming, foreign affairs or indigenous Australians, is somehow seen as a triumph.
A word map published in the SMH shows that the most repeated word in the speech was ‘work’. How inspiring!
Similarly, on the other side of politics any extended appearance by Abbott is considered a triumph if he doesn’t implode.
Meanwhile we have a debate about a debate.
Yes, Russell and akn, yet still we invest hope in our so called leaders to provide the sort of transformative change required.
It is obvious that this hope is misplaced, as the kind of change required is beyond the capacity of an individual or the political system that supports them.
Ahem:
Among other things this is quoted in the post to which Kim links at #94.
Well I do find it inspiring, actually. I hate lazy bastards and passengers, having carried a few in my time. And I’m not sure how you square away your apparent contempt for work with your loyal devotion to that admirable workaholic Kevin Rudd, Adrian, but I suppose nobody’s being very logical at the moment.
There is something for everyone in that speech if you look hard enough. How about this:
?
Not bad for a Labor PM
Probably needed a little footnote saying “except if you’re a mining company”.
Not sure how she can make the claim about recognising first Australians in the constitution. Won’t we need to have a referendum over that?
Oh and ABC Adelaide radio had a bit this morning on how she wasn’t really copying Obama, but Hilary Clinton with the “yes, we will”.
Actually Chris, for the life of me, I do not get how mining companies can be said to be paying tax when all that is being asked of them is that they pay a tiny bit more for stuff that belongs to all of us that they are just digging out of the ground.
Adrian @ 105, ‘work’ tends to be regarded as a necessary evil in Australia, where priority number one is enjoying life (which in itself is no bad thing, as remarked by peace studies guru Johan Galtung). But work itself has personal transformative power. Just consider those who are born into families where no-one has ever worked.
“Just consider those who are born into families where no-one has ever worked.”
Yeh Brian, the born to rule party is full of them.
Brian, I love hard work. I could watch others performing it,for hours.
Yes, you only ever get the richest experience of all; a sense of accomplishment, when you get down and dirty and work thru something necessary to be done.
The essence is likely in the overcoming of the initial uurrkk factor, later when things are underway work can be good fun, like learning to ride a pushbike and finally not falling off.
Sorry, am spinning off today, still have the sense of the Stiglitz letter at Quiggin percolating away, like cold bubbly mineral water.
Pavlov’s Cat: ‘…but I suppose nobody’s being very logical at the moment.’
You can say that again. Stating that I don’t find hard work inspiring as the central theme of a policy speech is not the same as having ‘apparent contempt for work’. Trust you can see that.
Can’t quite see what Kevin Rudd’s got to do with it, or the fact that you’ve ‘carried a few lazy bastards in your time’, but there you go. Not that it has any relevance but FYI, I found KR’s apparent workaholic nature one of his less attractive attributes.
And really, if you think I have shown ‘loyal devotion’ to KR, you really should recalabrate your hyperbole metre. I think it needs a service.
Obviously I was referring to climate change etc in a policy sense, as in actually doing things in the next term, since a campaign speech is normally an outline of policies for the next term. My mistake for missing the part on recognising the indigenous Australians in the constitution, but this is hardly a policy and without elaboration it is difficult to say what it means and how it will be enacted.
Motherhood statements on these and other issues might satisfy you that something will actually be done, but it seems completely meaningless to me in the context of this election.
Brian@110. Just another myth that we like to believe about ourselves. Studies have shown that Australians work longer hours than just about any other OECD country.
And of course work has transformative power, it’s just rather more complex than having the benefits of hard work as the centerpiece of an election campaign launch.
Heh joe2 @111!
Absolutely, Kim, 93.
A government where personality precedes principle is not even an anarchic rabble.
Brian @ 110 your observations about Australian attitudes to work are from another era. The number one priority for most Australians now is a high income, which can only be achieved by means of paid employment now the magic of free 20% per annum capital gains has been wiped from property and equity markets.
For many Australians, regrettably IMHO, ‘enjoying life’ consists of consuming things bought with their high salaries.
joe2 @ 109 – yea I was just being pedantic.
It wasn’t obvious at all. You said ‘didn’t mention’, which is a quite damaging inaccuracy.
Again, not at all, I was responding to something that seemed to me wilful inaccuracy, not making any claims about intention.
“Hawke was good on the past record of Labor. Inheriting a deficit of $50 billion in today’s terms from the Fraser government was new to me.”
Hawke was also good on asylum seekers – tbhiough the whole BS discourse back in the Tories face and dint buy in 1%.
I wish he’d been in charge when we needed to act of climate change – he’s not afraid to set agendas – unlike the dispiriting focus-group bum-sniffers of modern Labor.
Anyway… onward to victory etc! Here’s hoping the Greens Senate BOP send a few volts through our near-dead political culture.
Amen, bro.
Lefty E said:
yairss … I recall him as an enabler of John Laws, the guy who went after the BLF, did the wage-slashing Accord, did Gulf War 1 … Clearly a trendsetter …
Also Gordon below frankilin, Antarctic protection, Fran – my point was not about ideology but differing attitude towards the idea of leadership was quite different.
SHOCK Scoop Gaffe Cat-debagger! Gillard uses TEH NOTEZ!
http://www.theage.com.au/federal-election/the-hidden-truth-behind-the-pms-impromptu-speech-20100817-127hr.html
Well Pavlov’s Cat, my sincere apologies for ‘wilful, and quite damaging inaccuracies’ and the fact that I thought something was obvious and you didn’t.
LeftyE – the claim is that it wasn’t just notes, but pre-written, “word for word”. The media is just upset because they were briefed beforehand that it would be a off-the-cuff/unscripted speech and so thats what they reported.
Chris@125 – if that’s the case it’s fair comment.
Ah yes, Obama is useless without a teleprompter! Sarah Palin wrote cheat notes on her hand!! Trust our MSM to look across the water for a model of how to keep us informed and alert to the truly important issues.
BTW I didn’t watch the speech but it ought to have been bleedin’ obvious if Gillard was reading from typed sheets on the lectern, as alleged. I’ve yet to meet anyone who can read from a hidden document without having to look at it from time to time.
Well Ken, this is the election campaign that you’re having when you are not having an election campaign.
Honestly, nobody is interested apart from political tragics like us, so we have debates about debates and articles about notes and whatever fluff the media thinks we want to know about.
Ken @ 128 – after I saw Annabel Crabbs twitters about it yesterday I was looking out during the news reports to see if she did look down. I didn’t see anything, but I suspect its probably just because she memorized it and the speech was there “just in case”.
But the ALP were clearly looking to push this, as they say, as a “from the heart speech” and they got a big positive response from the twittersphere from this aspect. I don’t think its a story that many people will be interested in. Many people would be aware that politicians normally have their speeches written for them and there are much bigger porkies told during an election campaign than whether or not someone had a pre-written speech.
Speaking off the cuff from notes. Quality Larvatus. QUALITY.
In a strict sense, the claim that the speech was made without an autocue was correct. And obvious.
Whether that implied “without notes” was another matter. I think many speakers try to practically memorise an important speech.
I have a nice speech story about a certain W.A. ex-minister. This minister was to read a speech at the end of a fairly long evening of events, dinner etc.
He started off, reaading, reading …. and after a while even he noted a lot of shuffling and muttering from the audience. Finished reading and sat down to almost no applause. Afterwards he asked his minder why he got such a lousy reception. The minder replied “Just because you were given two copies of the speech didn’t mean you had to read them both”.
Up to 1949,and possibly beyond, Australian politicians were expected to be able to speak without notes, both at public meetings and in Parliament, though the surviving evidence suggests they used prepared speeches on radio (eg Menzies.) In the 1946-49 Parliament Jack Lang castigated Chifley at least once for speaking from notes and accused him of behaving in an unparliamentary fashion for doing so. Most of Chifley’s speeches were off the cuff though. As Treasurer he was renowned for, and freely admitted to, making up figures in his H of R speeches, and putting in the correct ones later when he revised his Hansard proofs. Nobody thought it at all odd. This tradition of ex tempore speech making from our pollies has long passed. Hence the amazemewnt and respect and plaudits for Gillard’s astonishing performance at the Labor launch. Politicians just don’t do it that way anymore, though once such oratory (if you can call Gillard’s speech that) was an expected professional skill.
Jeez, you edumacated guys on LP. I had never heard of “dirigisme” before. I thought it would mean over-inflated, as with a dirigible.
From en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dirigisme
•Dirigisme (from the French) (in English also “dirigism” although by the OED both spellings are used) is an economic term designating an economy where the government exerts strong directive influence.
…often with substantial, but not all, of the characteristics of a centrally planned economy
Lifelong education, that’s what I’ve signed up to on this blog
…not to mention lifting my game at Scrabble…
@ 123: That link is not to notes, but a word-for-word full printed speech photographed repsoing on her lectern.
I struggle with the concept of a political party so riddled with snakes-in-the-grass that it feels it is improving it’s image by attempting to deceive the public about speech notes
Hate to say it but SATP’s got a point.
Also if the MSM decide to make this minor issue into something else entirely it could be quite damaging at this stage.
134, I guess a variation on the theme would be the title “dirigent” for conductor of a symphony or philharmonic orchestra, or possibly a film director.
I didn’t see that link. The point about old time pollies still stands though.
And it could now be a big mistake. Deceit kike this won’t go down well with the voters (if they get to hear about it/ so what do we do? Blame Hawkie and Hayden? (Reckon they’d be pretty pissed off to.)
Following from what Adrian wrote I actually think the word “work” isthe key to what Gillard is about in more than just the fact it was repeated a lot. It is a code word that speaks to two audiences in a way that is central to the Gillard project. These audiences are:
(1) Those who worry about unemployment and lack of opportunity to have a decent job. This is “work” in a traditional class sense, beloved of social democrats and those further to the Left. It indicates the goal of providing work to everyone as a socially (and individually) good thing.
(2) Those who worry a lot about those who “won’t” work… you know, “dole bludgers”, “layabouts”, the “undeserving poor”. This is “work” as understood in the “social inclusion” agenda, where if it is not accepted then punitive measures and social exclusion are the result. It is about separating the “good” people from the “bad” ones, like those unemployed people who just won’t “step up”.
This is the Gillard approach writ large: a rehash of the mutual obligation line taken under Howard. Rather than a right to work there is merely a responsibility to work. It underlines how far our main social democratic party has strayed from its traditional mission that it no longer even pretends to seek an equality agenda outside of some fine words in its manifesto.
Quite reactionary stuff.
That’s a good point about shifting the concept of work from a right to a responsibility, Dr_Tad.
It’s a bit “Arbeit mach frei”, isn’t it?
Dr Tad @141 Howard’s mutual responsibility was simply an incremental advance on Keating’s ‘job compact’. As with so many of their programs, Howard’s mob was doing no more than building on the foundations laid by 13 years of Labor governments.
Ken, I think you’re right that each government is is getting tougher than the previous one. I also agree that work has turned from a ‘right’ to a ‘responsibility’.
But I was on the dole for some time when Keating was PM and, as I remember, there was very little pressure on me to get a job and I spent very little time on having to comply with the various rules. Other peoples’ experience may be difference.
Fine, I acknowledge your experience but the question of compulsion to seek work is one that cannot be analysed purely at the individual level. The period of post-WWII “full employment” (in reality a negligible unemployment rate of around 2%) was a social reality that evaporated with the onset of economic crisis in the early 1970s. It seems pretty clear to me that the subsequent period of higher unemployment is due to less robust economic growth rather than a section of the population catching a “wilfully unemployed” virus, as some on the Right seem to imply with their attacks on the jobless.
Unemployment serves an important function under capitalism: to place competitive downward pressure on the wages and conditions of those who do have jobs. All schemes aimed at compulsion to work no matter what the job on offer, lower benefits, and work-for-the-dole are about maintaining that downward pressure rather than addressing the causes of higher unemployment. It is no coincidence that the neoliberal era, focused on restoring capitalism’s profit rates, has not only embraced this kind of punitive government intervention into people’s lives, but also created ideologies (e.g. of the “NAIRU”) that justify high rates of joblessness.
Similarly, the individual behaviours that lead to chronic unemployment tend to be treated as the individual unemployed worker’s responsibility, rather than being seen as products of social processes that alienate, demoralise and embitter a section of the (non-)working population. This is the kind of stuff that Left social democrats used to talk about before the authoritarian populism of the neoliberal era became de rigueur and silenced the legitimacy of the debate.
Oh good, comparison of JG to Hitler… I think we’ve now sunk as low as we possibly go.
I agree with you Dr. Tad. I’m pointing out that the element of compulsion has grown much stronger over the years. I think that’s probably factually correct and that in the Keating years compulsion, threats, pressure to take any job etc, weren’t nearly as strong.
I didn’t want a paying job at the time and was very busy working on unpaid art projects. The local CES (I don’t think it had been privatised) was very good at turning a blind eye to people who were actually happy to be in work other than paid employment. What they were like if you were desperate to work, I have no idea.
Still, it makes a change from the crap about her being a communist.
I’m out of the country at the moment and not up to speed with the detail of the campaign, but I get the impression Labor has run dead on Abbott’s promise to get rid of the dole for under 30s in favour of shipping them all to the iron ore mines. This raises the scary possibility that Labor is not altogether opposed to the idea.
Ken #150, I recall that in 2007 Labor ran dead on issues todo with the unemployed throughout the election campaign. Then, after they won the election, the Fairfax press ran a series of reports on the bastardry inflicted on Newstart recipients when Peter Boxall was Secretary of the relevant department, and Brendon O’Connor quietly softened the Mutual Obligation regime to eliminate some of the worst inequities.
Dr_Tad said:
macht actually … but no, I don’t think this is apt. It’s more an iteration of the Judeo-Christian work ethic, whereas the sign on the concentration camps was almost certainly maliciously ironic — the subjects were to be “worked” to death — i.e. ‘liberated‘ from life.
JG is appealing to the “get a job you bludger” crowd — who assert that this is the starting point for authenticity and self-worth, and so your claim that this appeal is reactionary is well-founded. Not all instantiations of reaction are expressions of a tilt at fascism or democidalism however.
Sorry that my sarcasm didn’t come through. JG is clearly not a Nazi (and neither is TA).
I’m not sure the slogan was originally intended as ironic, even though it later turned out to be once implementation of genocide was decided upon by the Nazis.
According to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arbeit_macht_frei its origin is as follows:
“The expression comes from the title of an 1873 novel by German philologist Lorenz Diefenbach, in which gamblers and fraudsters find the path to virtue through labour … The phrase was adopted in 1928 by the Weimar government as a slogan extolling the effects of their desired policy of large-scale public works programmes to end unemployment. It was continued in this usage by the NSDAP (Nazi Party) when it came to power in 1933.”
Let’s hope the current political malaise isn’t giving us a whiff of Weimar in the air…
When I hear the word Weimar I reach for my history books, to compare and contrast.
Yeah, the wonderful phrase got bad press when it was found hanging over Auschwitz gates. There is no doubt it rings the bell for politicians who want people to work on a chain gang for the dole. Helloo Eric Abetz, baybee… (it must in the blood) http://www.liberal.org.au/Issues/Community/Ideas/2010/Work-for-the-dole-12.aspx
Hey, don’t think Nazi camps, think Alec Guinness in Bridge Over River Kwai…
I am sick of the constant drumbeat of “bash a dole bludger” from both sides of the political divide. It started with the Fraser government covering their @rses when they started their reign of terror.
Far better politically to blame the poor devils you’ve robbed of their livelihood than admit the economy is contracting.
And it’s been ratcheted up a notch by each successive government in the hope they’ll all throw themselves off a convenient cliff and vanish completely!