One of the strange things about watching Tony Abbott on Q&A the other night is that he doesn’t actually appear to be a quick thinker. Any sort of question sees him raise his eyes to heaven in search of inspiration.
The man may have degrees from Sydney and Oxford, but intellectual laziness appears to define him.
Even half an hour’s briefing on broadband would have seen him avoid clangers like “high fibre” and understand basic concepts like peak speed. A basic level of curiosity would have told him that the fact that the people who are using Blackberrys, iPhones and Android phones – apparently he’s noticed this in cafes – are not an advertisement for wifi but more than often a source of frustration, as download speeds are slow and coverage patchy.
But perhaps he’s invoking a Catholic saint whose name I can’t remember from high school – a very useful one for passing exams who imparts “infused grace” when you haven’t actually studied.
Or perhaps, in more inclusive new agey fashion, he’s channelling.
Yesterday, he told us at the National Press Club that he channels both Peter Costello and Noel Pearson.
The latter in reference to the latest carrot/stick unemployment and workforce participation measure, which is not particularly Pearsonesque, I’d have thought, because similar stuff has been on the books since Paul Keating’s Working Nation.
But Pearson’s name works like a mantra apparently, sprinkling the stardust on Paul Kelly, who’s in raptures this morning.
Let’s not worry that – as with one of the bipartisan areas identified on Q&A – welfare quarantining, there’s only shoddy evaluation evidence that it has the intended effect, and rigorous research in the Medical Journal of Australia that it’s worse than useless.
Beating up on the unemployed isn’t “evidence based policy”.
And the elephant in the room, since we’re talking workforce participation, is immigration policy, where a “sustainable Australia” has implications for skills and labour market supply. I’m not taking a position on that in this post, but I’m just sayin’…
But, in this election, “the battle of ideas” is apparently a faith based one.
Yes, Kim, we need more than “a wing and a prayer” when it comes to governemt and politics.
As for Pearson, he is loved by righties all about, because he represents the key to developers accessing aboriginal resources using the excuse that the indigenes wanted this themselves. Beads and mirrors, encouraged by crack down on aboriginal welfare amd social policy in general to make the privatisation of their resources more palatable to them.
Noel Pearson.
Whenever I think of him, I think of his spiritual brother, Christopher..
Blah, blah blah, Tony Abbott isn’t a techie.
Labor’s communications minister is Stephen Conroy.
Stephen Conroy!
The “high fibre” will ensure if not speed, at least regularity.
There is actually a (as yet not confirmed) Patron Saint for the internet. He is Saint Isidore.
Stephen Conroy might be a socially conservative Labor Right hack, but unlike Abbott he seems to be able to find time to read a brief.
Saint Jude Thaddeus is the patron saint of desperate cases and lost causes, Kim?
So Tone wants to channel a guy who spent years in Howard’s shadow and would not take the party’s leadership when the electorate cleared the way for him?
That’s a laugh.
That Abbott struggles to come up with a quick response under direct questioning on TV doesn’t mean he’s intellectually lazy. It may just mean he is slow, so to speak. I’ve known plenty of very intelligent, very slow thinkers. Quick thought and deep thought aren’t the same thing.
8# “Quick thought and deep thought aren’t the same thing”.
Could this be the reason the public are sceptical of him?
Come on skip, he knows what the questions are going to be.
He shouldn’t need to think about a response on the spot to most of them, he should have already done the homework to at least provide a half sensible answer.
He is intellectualy lazy. He may well be very intelligent but he isn’t smart.
He makes Howard look like an intellectual giant.
I mean, that said, I also think he is pretty stupid.
Wonder if Tony is indeed cognitively impaired from one too many rounds in the ring…
I agree with skip, there is too much emphasis on snappy or entertaining answers. For deep thinking why would anyone look to politicians anyway – unless one is looking for deep thinking on rat cunning.
Abbott is sharp as a tack- I can’t believe you are all taken un by the act he is putting on.
If he wins just watch how quickly he changes.
skip@8: that’s always possible I suppose. But he’s had more than a year for any thoughts on to percolate through and there’s no sign of them yet. I’m inclined to wait and see what comes out before I get too excited about him as prime minister. The idea of a faith-based government is pretty scary to me and that’s what Abbott seems to be most enthusiastic about (and has form on).
In a battle of ideas, Abbott comes to the arena unarmed.
Slogans, on the other hand, he’s stocked up to the eyeballs with.
‘Hollow’ doesn’t come close to doing him justice.
I’m a slow thinker… anyway, methinks Tony Abbott is too arrogant to pray to St. Jude. He actually thinks he’s going to win. What is worse, he thinks the Australian people are fools. Otherwise he wouldn’t have served up the pap he has as an election csampaign/policy/policies. On Saturday I am confident he’ll find out we’re not.
Skip, generally when I’m slow to answer questions it’s because the answer I’d give off the cuff would offend or annoy those to whom it is directed.
Not only chanelling Costello and Pearson but worse still chanelling the lying rodent who would appear to be advising mista rabbitt on a daily basis.
“We’ll end the past, repay the best, stop the new fax and stop the bowels….”
Is that what you said Mr Rabbit?
His responses clearly show not just a lack of effort in reading the briefs, but a lack of effort in drilling for the scenario. I think he doesn’t even bother doing practice runs, but just thinks he can wing it on the night. If he did a bit of preparation with a sharp staffer, he might be able to think past slogans when he has to come up with answers on the spot.
Which is another aspect of the media’s approach to him that I find astounding. This man wants to be PM, but he can’t show the electorate the respect of doing a few hours’ preparatory work for important interviews or debates. If an ALP leader turned up to the podium unprepared, you can guarantee that the media would be tearing them a new arsehole. It’s a remarkably easy ride he’s being given.
Everyone has identified the “respect” meme.
Now he’s finally got round to releasing costings, offhand, take it or leave it, a few days out from the election.
Howardism all over again.
Abbott’s channelling Murdoch I reckon…no wonder he was so keen on this forum.
“People’s Forum” my ar*e…
The banners that have taken over the Bronco’s Club like a Nuremberg Rally read “Courier Mail”.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/61/Bundesarchiv_Bild_183-2004-0312-507,_N%C3%BCrnberg,_Reichsparteitag,_Rede_Adolf_Hitler.jpg
Fancy Murdoch’s empire being allowed to dominate a democratic election. Like hand up polly’s butts.
Welcome to The Murdochracy. The real MACHINE.
N’
Actually, robbo@19, I reckon you’re spot on. You must remember how, whenever Howard was lying or bullshitting (ie, whenever there were sounds coming out of his mouth), he’d be slightly breathless towards the end of each sentence, as though he had to get it out without drawing breath. Abbott’s adopted the same delivery.
Skip, generally when I’m slow to answer questions it’s because the answer I’d give off the cuff would offend or annoy those to whom it is directed.
I wish Tony would take a leaf out of your book. He has been way too accident prone – which doesn’t sit well in an alternative PM. I did a sales course once long ago which actually recommended a mental “count to five” before responding to a question to be sure that you understood what the question was about, and to give time to formulate an appropriate response.
PeterTB, I suppose my point being that he’s either hyper-cautious or he’s afraid his gut answers would be electorally unacceptable.
For some reason, I lean towards the second explanation.
I think slippery Tones, as dodgy costings are to about to be announced by stuntmen Hooky and Rob, is channelling the invisable man. Things sure are in a state over at Born to Rule Party H.Q. as can be seen.
Except, PeterTB, given that it’s his job to be able to answer questions coherently on policy and you would hope he was paying attention when policy was developed and was aware of the background to the various policy options, the arguments about each, matters of cost-benefit, technical and schedule feasibility, organisational impacts, the various interest groups and their factions and so forth that by the time he had a finished policy on something he could answer off the top of his head.
I imagine going into an election having my policy wonks play devil’s advocate and wearing various interest group hats and firing questions at me, and coming up with what I reckon the best responses were.
I see him as either lazy or not really interested (or perhaps both) unless he really is as dull as he seems. Perhaps he thinks he only has to turn up, repeat the slogans and expect angst and ignorance to do his work for him.
I know that if it were my job to get a major party elected I’d see that stuff not so much as a chore as a stimulating mental challenge — a lot more fun than riding a bike or surfing or running as pleasant as those things might be in small doses.
I think you will see Julia do “count to ten” tonight, which goes like “That’s a very good question and I thank you for that question and let me say …”
The answer is formulated mentally while using the verbal preliminaries, so the question starts to get answered about 10 seconds after the talking has started.
If the polls are at all reliable, Abbott has done an astonishing job of making the opposition a credible threat (well I’m astonished, anyway). He would be crazy to change anything about his style now.
Abbott is a Lib and for most of his political career he has, like the rest of the COALition, never been subjected to the pressure of interrogation with reference to statements and policy.
They, and he, coasted along saying and doing almost anything they liked safe and secure there would be no or little media consequences.
In the last election we saw multiple examples of this both by the party and Abbott individually.
Howard as a matter of course announced policy via the shock jocks without subjecting himself to the slightly less benign press conference option.
Major policy was written ‘on the back of an envelope’ and announced with due media fanfare and minimal criticism.
Examples include:
- the water policy which was not given to the then tame Treasury to look at the numbers [Treasury was asked at the last moment to'run your eye over this']. And the water numbers in that document just did not add up and many of the ‘savings’ were sheer fantasy.
But it escaped the criticism it warranted, Turnbull at the time did the current Abbott trick of walking out on press conferences when the going started to look tough.
-the NT/invasion/intervention was a knee jerk response and cynical ploy to be seen to be doing ‘something’ to garner desperately needed votes.
It was essentially uncosted and Crown Law was forced to point out that at least one element of it was illegal and so it was, quietly, dropped.
Again the media hysterically praised it without analysis or criticism, the Murdoch rag in my state had a giant headline
“Think of the children!!!’
It is a pattern that has been relentlessly pursued in the last 3 years.
The COALitions line on GFC and climate change, just to take 2 major examples, are fatuous.
The thread below on the ‘Infographic” is a, well graphic, illustration of the stupidity of the COALition/Abbott claims.
The COALition and Abbott have never needed to have facts, logic or ethics on their side.
They have been able to succeed without such.
The trend continues.
The trouble there HD is that you do not acknowledge the courageous and forward thinking policies of the Howard government which were subjected to incredible scrutiny. I am thinking of gun regulation, Timor intervention, GST and reform of the waterfront. The latter two attracted cynical opposition and disinformation from Labor.
As to the NT intervention, well maybe there was a political motive, but I actually think that it was more the genuine intent of Mal Brough to make a difference. It was after all a dangerous move politically, knowing that all the usual suspects would be out and about screaming “racist”, and not really knowing what its reception with the general public would be.
Perhaps he thinks he only has to turn up, repeat the slogans and expect angst and ignorance to do his work for him.
Perhaps, but note that this approach is essentially the strategy that Labor adopted in the first weeks of the Gillard prime ministership.
“There just aren’t enough people wanting to go from a particular place to a particular destination at a particular time to justify any vehicle larger than a car and cars need roads.”
Goddam. If Abbott wasn’t an economics graduate and a former journalist I might think that sentence was taken completely out of context, but goddam, that is just rubbish on so many levels.
(Seriously, has every bus company in the People’s Republic of NSW always been a publicly owned, soviet-style example of inefficiency and the crushing of the individual spirit? I live in an area of Melbourne where the local buses proudly carry advertisements of how they’ve been a successful private enterprise since the interwar period.
Why does the leader of Australian conservatism not know of things like this?)
And a little OT: Noel Pearson’s credibility on the national stage has at least as much to do with Beattie as it does with the tories, right? I would’ve thought that’s one reason not to throw the baby out with the bath water.
Though of course when he writes for the OO, and in turn is fellated by the likes of Barry Cohen (“Pearson is Australia’s answer to Obama!”), then we have good reason to doubt there is anything worthwhile with the man from Cape York.
I know I’ve made this plea before but I do wish people would give some thought to how they use the word ‘policy’. Intervening in Timor wasn’t a policy. Changing gun laws wasn’t a policy. Nor were involvement in Patrick’s attempts to replace its workforce, the GST and and the military occupation of the NT under the valiant command of Capt. Brough.
These measures or initiatives might have been taken in accordance with various policies but they were not themselves policies. Indeed political discourse would be much more useful if it was actually couched in terms of the policy objectives that individual measures are supposed to be helping to achieve, as in making the tax base broader and more equitable (GST), breaking the power of trade unions (Patrick’s), and ummmm … (everything else, unless ‘expedient exploitation of events for partisan political advantage’ can be categorised as a policy objective).
PeterTB said:
Even if this is allowed, how exactly is this pertinent? It is clear that Gillard comes prepared and can think on her feet. Abbott seems at best unwilling to do the work accomplish this. That’s the point.
Ah the Libs are improving their technique.
From my comment above “… Turnbull at the time did the current Abbott trick of walking out on press conferences when the going started to look tough.”
They’ve gone one better today.
Not turn up at all.
37, are you kidding?
Tell us more.
What a bunch of cranky micks they are!
So, Abbot has at last confessed,
Not as the faithful would have guessed
To the revered Monsignor Pell.
Whom he knows would not take this well.
He’s announced he’s changed religion.
Through years acting as stool pigeon
He relieved the daily tedium
By studying to be a medium.
He’s found a new strong ritual
Channelling the spiritual.
An energy from his heroes
To Australia through him now goes.
Isn’t one known as a coward?
Not Tony’s idol, John Howard?
No, that other smirking fellow.
What’s-is-name, Peter Costello!
He will run the economy
Once Tony has autonomy?
Yes, these will be annointed saints
When he’s PM with no restraints.
He will change our democracy
To world’s first – mediacracy!
It is clear that Gillard comes prepared and can think on her feet.
Maybe – but she still spends a lot of time and effort avoiding answering directly, turning the question back into one about the Labor message of the day etc. Very tedious
In the case of Abbott, I think a part of the problem is that he likes to play with ideas, toss them around a bit, fly balloons etc. This looks bad in an alternative PM who does this in public when he needs to project decisiveness and leadership. I think he is getting better at the latter – but probably not quickly enough.
Half kidding apparently Paul, re the Libs not turning up to their accounting presser on time.
Originally scheduled for 3pm I understand the journos were still waiting at 4pm, cameras trained on empty chairs on an empty stage.
I believe they eventually turned up around 2 hours late.
I reckon the simplest summary of it comes from To Speak of Pebbles at Poll Bludger:
“Basically this is what it boils down too. Combine this with Tone running away from pressers, them refusing to do anything unless it is in a Liberal-comfortable environment (eg Town Hall) and avoiding a debate. This is an opposition of chickens who will run and hide under the first bit of pressure. Not the kind of people we want up at the top making the tough decisions!”
Apt.
PeterTB, I’d be gobsmacked if Abbott had had a new or original idea in the last 40 years.
HD, “an opposition of chickens” has you in mind of Thai cock fighting for a moment, and that leads to Abbott and budgies.
Back to 31, you have to pause for a sec and thinking of all those dirty little tricks over the years.
Too much of opus dei about that bird, which is not to deprecate any catholics reading, but I’d imagine catholics here would have more interest in robust people like Frank Brennan.