The first Newspoll of the new year is out, and it’s not pretty reading for Labor supporters. The ALP is on a primary vote of 32%, with The Greens on 14% and the Coalition on 44%, resolving into a two party preferred vote of 52-48 in the Coalition’s favour.
As William Bowe notes at The Poll Bludger, the flood levy has majority support among the poll’s respondents.
So why is Labor still in such a poor position?
Peter Brent thinks it’s down to Julia Gillard’s authority (or lack thereof). He observes that a lot of other people have pinged the PM’s “demeanour”.
Yet, as we’ve noted here before, the social science evidence suggests that leadership is not the only determinant of voting intention. That has support in the literature, interestingly, from Peter Van Onselen.
To my mind, Lenore Taylor is probably onto something, in arguing that It’s (Not) All Julia:
But do her critics really contend that Kevin Rudd had a winning rhetorical style for all those months that his popularity was soaring over 60 per cent but his syntax was so tortured he may as well have been talking in Mandarin? When they coo about John Howard’s ”folksy warmth”, do they not remember his awful awkwardness during the early days of his prime ministership, before he got used to the authority of office, before we got used to him, before he earned the nation’s respect, when everyone still referred to him as ”little Johnnie” and columnists spilled hundreds of words analysing his eyebrows and the way his shoulder twitched when he got nervous?
If Labor’s problems were really about the leader’s acting ability, about how she delivers a speech, or waves her hands, or wears a pant suit, they would be relatively easily fixed.
What is slowly dawning on strategists is that their problem is bigger and more profound. That it wouldn’t be fixed if they roped in Meryl Streep to lead them to the next election. That it can’t be remedied by a quick trip to NIDA or even by another night of the long knives to install someone with rounder vowels or more convincing elocution.
The apparent ease with which the Rudd government abandoned articles of policy faith, like its emissions trading scheme, began a process that saw voters lose faith in Labor. Not just the leader. The party.
The disillusionment was compounded by the shocking brutality with which the party dispatched Rudd, and by the consequence that Gillard was unable to go to an election boasting about the things Labor did do right during its first term, allowing Tony Abbott to step into the void and define Labor exclusively by the things it did wrong.
Voters questioned Labor’s competence. Not just its leader’s competence. The party’s ability to govern.
Then Labor failed to achieve the authority of a clear election victory, instead scraping back with the profound problem of lacking a majority in both houses of Parliament.
Gillard was obviously no bystander as these calamities unfolded, and her ”real Julia” gaffe and risible ”people’s assembly” and cash for clunkers climate policies during the election campaign compounded the damage.
But what senior figures are realising is how seriously the party’s moral authority has been eroded, and how knifing Kevin didn’t fix it.
Labor is bleeding to the Left and the Greens are the recipients. This will be long term because they feel if they move too far to the Left they will lose the ‘aspirationals’.
They need to make decisions and stick with them, regardless of whether they’re popular, or not. Currently, they’re seen as believing in nothing. Sticking with the levy is a start and we can now see that people are coming around to that idea. They need desperately to get a price on carbon up, so that the failure of Rudd walking away from it is erased. The electorate doesn’t need to agree with every decision, but it needs to respect those decisions.
Shorten/Combet mustn’t have their shit in one sock just yet.
I think they cede far too much ground the the Abbott and the Libs. They lack confidence and it shows. People dont believe in them because they dont appear to believe in themselves.
Rudd didnt have this particualr problem, and I suspect its to do with bad blood, bad faith and the faint hint of a suspect mandate, all compounded by truly dreadful poll-chasing that doesnt even have the virtue of working for them. She still looks like the Acting PM, as if Kev’s just gone overseas again.
You know who’s likeable and a good leader: Gillard on the floor of parliament. I dont want to rehash the “acting” theme of recent weeks but she and her team need to wake up to one thing thats I certainly felt way before the floods: that slow, “caring” robot voice is APPALLINGLY PATRONISING. Not reassuring. Not ‘caring’. Not calm and stable. Its CONDESCENDING. As Williamson says, its as if she’s addressing a high school class, and a dull-witted one at that.
Get the mongrel out – the one that goes Abbott in question time. Thats much more the go, and it’d have to easier anyway, as Im sure thats her natural voice.
@1 – Fine, yep, going on the front foot with the flood levy is good, I agree. It’s decisive, and they’re finally seen to be actually doing something speedily, and without apologising for it.
Taylor could have added a whole range of additional cave ins – ie the Mining Tax, and issues where action was promised, and then just evaporated. Playing hardball with the states over health funding is probably another good look, even if the media insists on mischaracterising it as “tearing up Rudd’s health plan”.
Yes, Lefty E’s got it right. Also, as I said on another thread, they’ve got to stop reading The Australian and trying to second guess what the media reaction is going to be to everything. You’re never going to please those idiots, so just ignore them.
There was an interesting article by Peter Hartcher, analysing the dreadful 2010 election campaign in the SMH on the weekend. Apparently US ‘experts’ were imported who took focus group polling to new levels of idiocy and pissed off the people who largely responsible for the success of the Kevin07 campaign.
Seems that they have learnt nothing from the abject failures of the last elections.
See I want to defend Rudd’s tortured syntax – like George Bush’s otherwise dissimilar syntax it allowed him to repeat slogans with some degree of plausible justification. Gillard’s legible communication just exposes the repetition of her phrases.
Can’t improve on what everyone else has already said!
1) People are reading too much into a single figure. This isn’t news, Labor’s primary has been hovering around the low-mid 30s since September and they haven’t been ahead on TPP for even longer.
There hasn’t been much variation because not a lot politically has happened since a cabinet was formed. The QLD disaster boost appears to have all gone to Anna Bligh, fair enough.
2) The poor numbers are the result of the hollowness of Labor and Gillard’s failure to find a leadership style. It’s easy to descend into triviality on this but there is a definate shortage of PM-ly authority there and I think it has more to do with things like her cringeworthy statement on foreign policy than pantsuits. The parliament isn’t going to let her be a classic take-charge PM but she’s got to be seen to be getting things done – reading to kids in the classroom doesn’t count.
Similarly, Labor is still trying to run within a Howard-era, ‘please everybody’ style, unwilling to break the existing political dynamic and sell its own message. The flood levy is a perfect example – it’s the product of fear of looking weak on deficits when the floods were a prime political opportunity to abandon that shibboleth.
There is not going to be any political prize in 2013 for going into surplus as the public don’t care about deficits (they think they do, but it’s a placeholder for general economic anxiety) when jobs, healthcare, the environment and national security are on the line. Labor is pleasing nobody with the levy but pandering to a deep insecurity of their own. They can’t make 2011 a year of major reforms by doing that. They have to take short term political pain and take genuine risks. The Australian public may not reward them for it but they can’t win 2013 any other way.
If any government needed to adopt St Gough’s crash-through-or-crash approach, it is this one. It is time for fewer focus groups, and more “Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!”
Of course, this is not without its risks. And it might end up full speed ahead to bad policy. But it’s better than the slow political death their current strategy is getting them.
They also need to stop caring about reelection until early 2013. Just govern.
I couldnt care less about this poll or any other right now. Utterly meaningless. Just get some more acheivements under the belt, and for Gawd’s sake take Phoney on.
Lefty E has it right. Labor is suffering from a crisis of confidence, which began from the moment Rudd – under orders from the party’s timid Right – blinked over Abbott’s ascension. It’s the lack of or complete absence of any courage in their convictions (assuming they HAVE any convictins) that has created a power vaccuum that Abbott continues to exploit.
The pundits forget what a wave of optimism was created by the end of Howard and the beginning of what was expected (even by the likes of Paul Kelly in The Australian) as a long Rudd era. The country was looking for action on climate change and the end of divisiveness over boat people and the apology to Aborigines. There was a sense, too, of a new more progressive international agenda with the disastrous Bush era coming to an end.
Why Labor choked so early in this piece, particularly when they were riding so high in the polls, is a great mystery. Maybe they were just too long in opposition and never embraced their own legitimacy.
One feels they have cooked their own goose.
I should have added they need to start ignoring much of the media, particularly that unrepresentative rag The Australian. The media has got the political temperature repeatedly wrong in recent years. And politicians and their minders who sit around watching Insiders on Sunday morning need to get out and talk to real people.
Is it just that they don’t believe themselves.
This is where I disagree with Lefty E @ 3. Rudd had this problem too. It started when he backed down on climate change and got into this dreadful habit of agreeing with every criticism made about Labor, instead of being on the offensive. Look at the ‘pink batts’ scheme, for instance.
Gillard was actually much better at defending the BER. But, even the myth that this was a total rort and failure has gained creedence cf: Mitchell’s horrendous interview with Gillard the other week in which he just assumed there’s been a huge amount of waste.
The job is governing with policies that are recognisably Labor’s and serve to define and delineate Labor. This can’t be too hard, with such a rightist opposition.
Allowing human dignity to refugees and asylum seekers and giving the climate change spectre the respect due (the ‘Y2K bug’ was taken far more seriously!!!) – these are fundamental to establishing the identity of 21st century Australian Labor. Of course such policies will be attacked, So defend them as the better policies! Because that is what they will be, by any thoughtful standard.
Tony Abbott is a subplot. It is mainly necessary, over time, to remind the electorate that Abbott is a conviction politician with highly odious convictions, a bully, and someone who is hopeless at providing detail for his attention grabbing schemes. ‘Tony Abbott PM’ needs to be synonymous with ‘Mark Latham PM’.
Fine @13, both Rudd and Gillard were advised by the same people. That’s the problem. These were NSW right people, who succeeded for years under Carr of managing the news cycle. That’s all it was about. You had to have an announceable every single day.
That might work with state politics, but in the federal arena you get found out – because it’s not all about making the buses run on time but about big picture economics, foreign affairs, defence and the national identify. You have to have some kind of vision and your policies have to reflect that. Even Howard, as much as he hated the rhetoric of visions and grand schemes, had a discernible Big Agenda.
Rudd had one too, for a while, but then the second guessers and media “strategists” took charge. And that was his undoing. The wonder is that Gillard kept that going. I would sack the lot of them and just start governing. The media are going to hate them anyway, but they might win some grudging respect from the electorate if they actually get a few things done.
While the Labor Party persists in being pseudo-Liberals I will vote Green
Im pretty happy to date that ALP problem to Rudd’s reversal over clmate change, yes. I gather ther were some 4 or 5 people in the room that day. One was knifed, one resigned – the others run the show now.
Sadly, in other words, that’s the same people we’re talking about right now – they ARE ‘the problem that started with Rudd’.
Mr Denmore @11: ” Labor is suffering from a crisis of confidence, which began from the moment Rudd – under orders from the party’s timid Right – blinked over Abbott’s ascension.”
I’d go further and say the Crisis began in about 2001. Prior to that the ALP was on cruise control, but they knew they were the ALP – the centre-right technocrats who at least looked like they knew what they were doing.
Once the Tampa business happened, they completely went to pieces. They were (and are) internally spilt on the big questions around refugees, and for a variety of reasons they lurched towards trying to get as close to Howard as possible and so elected Latham. After the spectacular disaster that was the 2004 election, it became clear that their political and electoral judgement had also gone missing.
Rudd kind of papered over that with his one-man band, aided by the implosion of the Howard government. But the ALP itself still didn’t know what it stood for or how to present itself. And since the 2010 election it still doesn’t. It’s a vacuum at its centre and Abbot is rushing to fill it, not because of any particular appeal on his part, but because that’s what happens with vacuums.
d
Incidentally Mr Denmore loved your post on The Failed Estate liking Q&A to a modern day Punch and Judy show. So true!
And the people who are the problem that started with their advice to Rudd appeared to have learnt nothing since. Just remember if you ignore the media it loses its power.
@18 – I wonder if it wasn’t a bit earlier, Darryl.
I always thought 2001 was about the last point at which Labor could have undone some of the serious damage Howard did to Australian institutions and discourse. The fact that Beazley sorta sensed this, with the GST Rollback, was ironic because I don’t think the ALP had much idea about where they might have taken the country otherwise, after they rushed on the bandwagon of presuming Keating’s agenda was too damaging/hard.
I’d also thoroughly agree with the fact that the biggest tragedy was the failure to sustain the hopes that did accompany Rudd’s election.
It’s useful to cry “full steam ahead” if and only if you know which way is forward and you want to go there.
Any comparison with Gough is odious for the ALP because they don’t appear to have any worthwhile reform agenda.
The ALP is run by fixers whose chief ambition is to enjoy the perquisites of office. Gough was capable of crashing through because he stood at the front of a broad range of strongly held and powerfully organised civil groups who wanted change and who were prepared to work for it. Apart from Green consciousness, which the ALP has gone out of its way to alienate, nothing of the sort exists in the anomic political culture of 2011 Australia.
The alternative model was that of Keating, who subverted the democratic constitution of the ALP in order to drive through his vision. Keating achieved major reforms, but at a severe cost to the traditions and the credibility of the ALP.
Right now, having recognised that a new Gough is an impossible dream, I’d settle for a new Keating.
But we won’t get a new Keating, because no one in the ALP leadership today has much vision at all.
Mr Denmore @ 15.
If the Federal ALP and PM are being advised by the people from the right, and those people advised the NSW Government, then why would you expect an outcome any different from the one you are getting in NSW?
If the ALP federally even wants to survive, they need to ditch that mob.
Frankly, I wonder if the ALP in NSW will actually gain any seats in the upcoming election.
Thats right Adrian – and I remember folks here at LP, partic Mark, noting that Rudd’s MO in the 2007 election of ignoring the media barrow-pushers and talking straight to the punters was working a treat.
Somewhere its all went wrong and now they’re reactive flotsam flapping the media waves again.
(…Sometimes I think Rudd became a control freak because he realised how effin’ useless everyone else around him was.)
Federal ALP has exhausted its program of reform in the public’s mind. Old vibrant debates of socialism vs capitalism now seem quaint to many. New issues regards climate and post-US power are more pressing. ALP has nothing to say here.
Conservatives, like cockroaches, will survive. They always represent those who refuse to face the certainty of change and who prefer the fake certainty of “eternal values”.
Progressives, however, exhaust themselves. Their movements are based on responding to the current context, and the Labor Movement simply isn’t at the centre of attention anymore. Hence why a new Left party is picking up steam. The strange death of ALP Australia… Labor will persist, as a rump, but their last PM is fast approaching, methinks…
Gillard and the Labor Party’s reputation will be redeemed by around 80% IF they prove themselves to be really tough, hardball negotiators with the States over health and education.
Redemption of the disillusioned voters will jump to 90% if the tough line is maintained with carbon poluters over the carbon tax, and expect close to 100% redemption if Labor can mount a clever and humerous counter charge to the expected advertising blitz with miners over a rigorous resourse rental tax.
Work boldly with the Greens and independants to gain success in your legislative program, proving your capacity to govern. Show us you have vision and values at your party conference and we will once again have a party we can believe in.
Daryl Rosin above writes a good deal of sense, but as hostile as I am to the ALP, it would be wrong to focus on drivers endogenous to the ALP.
Howard’s policies consciously focused on turning outer suburbia into hostage voters via the medium of the mortgage. So spending up big on FHOS and soft tax treatment of housing made it possible for Howard to act like the political equivalent of a loan shark at several removes. Every political twist and turn became refracted through the prism of “Howard’s battlers” who were seen as the most grievable and authentic of political voices — perhaps even more authentic than farmers. If the mortgage belt were unhappy then the policy was wrong — simple as that. A “barbecue stopper” for Howard was a spike in petrol prices, and so indexation of GST on petrol was done. This seemed like crazy stuff at the time, but it kept them in their cars,listening to shock jock talkback and fearful of the ALP agenda on carbon pricing. It focussed their fears on the ALP and on questions that the ALP was vulnerable on — interest rates, economic management and anything that would prejudice property prices and thus the great Aussie dream. It elevated populism to the position of orthodoxy.
The ALP was/is rotten to the core, and it is little wonder that after a fit of the vapours they began drinking from the same bottle as Howard.
The problem I often see with left-of-centre analysis of the ALp is that the initial presumption — that the ALP has some organic reason to support the interests of working people — goes unquestioned and is held up in contrast with the reality in practice that their policies have had very little to do with the interests of working people in more than 60 years. They are in their political behaviour and personnel, not greatly different from the LNP. While they certainly take greater care to pay lip service, once in a while, to non-conservative opinion, by avoiding spitting on it officially in words, in deed they treat left-liberals as hostages. In a perverse way, being weak on their right gives them two kinds of advantage. They can pitch at rightwingers directly, winning votes from the LNP, but if this fails and left-liberals think the ALP could lose, they have to hold their noses and vote ALP as the lesser evil. The ALP couldn’t do that if left-liberals largely refused to play.
Admittedly, compulsory preferential voting helps that process.
If you’re at all wondering what the ALP stands for these days just have a look at the front page of today’s AFR. Welfare “reform”. John Winston would be proud.
The interesting thing about the polls was that all the coalition had gained zilch from the flow of primary votes away from Labor. This makes the assumptions used to calculate the 2PP rather suspect.
It pains me to give the enemy any assistance but the real problem is that the ALP is more scared of losing Government than losing it’s principles. I can understand the mindset given the long time spent in opposition. If the Federal Coalition take a leaf from the Victorin Liberals’ play book and put the Greens last in all contests then the Greens are actually their biggest threat to holding power. Given the scarring from the years in opposition because of the DLP split I can understand why the ALP is all over the shop on environmental policies – they want to stop leakage to the Greens without moving too far left for the swinging voters. I just don’t think they can do both, especially now that human caused global climate change is no longer a war winner in the electorate. The Greens will keep threatening to hold their breath until they go blue unless the ALP plays ball, yet the ball is a slobbery manky one that most in the electorate don’t want. Lie with dogs and you’ll get fleas.
Once the Greens have the Balance of Power in the Senate they will make or break the ALP’s chances at the next election. If they behave like they did on the CPRS and the ALP gives them what they want, then the ALP is toast. If the ALP doesn’t give them what they want and the Greens remain intransigent then the ALP is toast as they will be unable to deliver much Legislatively or in policy outcomes and appear ineffective. The only path that the ALP might recover from is if the Greens have the political nouse to allow the ALP to not get the swinging voters further offside. I doubt the Greens see it that way as they are idealogues first, politicians second. The Greens cost Rudd his PMship, the ALP it’s CPRS and Turnbull his party leadership – this may all have equaled an increase in the Green vote, but has hamstrung the ALP and given the Mad Monk a bees dick’s miss on being PM and another swing at the Pinata.
I know being in Government is what it is all about, but right now I would much prefer to have Tony’s hand than Julia’s at the next election.
Labor have jettisoned every value they ever possessed in the last ten years and are clones of the LNP. Gillard is a gutless wonder who smacks of insincerity and obviously doesn’t believe in anything any more apart from whatever the next focus group insists is important. It is a terrible situation for the electorate when the choice becomes the least worst option, I can only hope that the Greens will continue to pick up the votes that Labor is bleeding in their quest to be just like the lying rodent et al.
That’s if the ALP don’t bypass the Greens altogether and get the Coalition onside (see welfare “reforms”). Which of course is why people are deserting the ALP in droves, they’ve moved too far to the Right. Why vote for the party pretending to be a centre-right party when you can vote for the real thing in the Libs?
You as a right-winger want them to keep going even further to the Right funnily enough so does Tony Abbott and he’s been playing the ALP like fiddle dragging them to the Right from the moment he became Opposition Leader.
“The disillusionment was compounded by the shocking brutality with which the party dispatched Rudd, and by the consequence that Gillard was unable to go to an election boasting about the things Labor did do right during its first term, allowing Tony Abbott to step into the void and define Labor exclusively by the things it did wrong.”
Of course at the time we were supposed to believe that Rudd was so vile that this was the only way we could save the FPLP from certain defeat. I for one thought that the risk of a medium to longer term downside far out weighed any purported short term gain. The risk of looking like bastards, the risk of setting a dangerous precedent, the risk of making Abbott look like a credible alternative. Watching politics can be frustrating at times …
Ask Gillard what she believes in and she’ll blather on about the redemptive power of work or education to transform our lives.
Yes it’s inspiring stuff redolent of the rodent, and I can’t understand why more people aren’t buying it.
One of the biggest con jobs in recent Australian political history. And all the more apparent in retrospect.
The only path that the ALP might recover from is if the Greens have the political nouse to allow the ALP to not get the swinging voters further offside. I doubt the Greens see it that way as they are idealogues first, politicians second.
Not at all. The Greens will obstruct because they are politicians. The modus operandi will be: block everything because it doesn’t go far enough; blame the Government for not getting anything done; portray themselves as the only party that can get things done; harvest votes on the Left.
A faint hope:
When the new Senate sits ALP will start to bloody do something because Dr. No will have had his big rubber ‘NO!’ stamp taken off him.
The current quiesence is because Dr. No won’t allow anything to happen anyway as he has the Senate numbers to make non-ideas a reality. Everytime ‘NO! wins Dr. No wins as it is once again proven that the ALP is a do-nothing government.
Since Dr. No can only speak against stuff, not doing stuff makes Dr. No quiet. So the govt. drifts, but more quietly than if Dr. No was stamping NO! on things.
So Dr. No is winning at the moment. but by less than if he were noisier.
When the Senate changes, Dr. No will be saying NO! but it won’t have any effect. Non-ideas will be moribund. So he will be the do-nothing.
Razor get’s most of it right with:
Except that the real fear when selling out your principles is selling out at too cheap a price.
Er, isn’t the real problem with the ALP that it spent 1983-96 attacking its core working class support base through the Accord? When was the last federal government of any colour that managed to slash real wages by 12 percent through conscious, systematic national policy implementation?
No wonder Gillard can’t get traction lately, all she seems to be able to promise these days is another wave of austerity. An inspiring “reform agenda” indeed.
Neoliberalism FTW and all that.
A profile of Gillard is the subject of tonight’s Four Corners programme.
Dr Tad @ 38, “…isn’t the real problem with the ALP that it spent 1983-96 attacking its core working class support base through the Accord?”.
Yes, yes! And add to that things like the sale of the C’wealth Bank etc., and it’s been a race to the right for the ALP ever since.
It will take a lot to convince me that the destruction of the ALP as a ‘working-class, sometimes progressive party’ didn’t begin with Hawke/Keating.
Mar @20 “I always thought 2001 was about the last point at which Labor could have undone some of the serious damage Howard did to Australian institutions and discourse.”
The Tampa business also resulted in the ALP doing terrible damage to the national psyche. Our national character is such that when the ALP and the Coalition both agree on a big issue, the entire country gets on board. The ALP’s support for Howard’s actions changed Australia for the worse and we’ve never recovered. I mean, Jeebus, it’s 10 years later and “stop the boats” is *still* a working election slogan.
“Howard’s Battlers” was a neat bit of rhetoric from Michael Kroger in 1996. They didn’t actually exist, but it was a nice frame that screwed with the ALP’s head. I don’t have a memorable pithy name for the former ALP voters that moved to Howard after 2001, but they were a monster created by the ALP’s own actions and the ALP remains hypnotised by them.
d
Cultural/political superstructure and economic substructure seldom immediately reflect each other. Lag effects cloud immediate perception.
However, structurally, since the 1970s Australia has de-industrialised. And juridically, the legal rights of unions and unionised workers have eroded since the 1980s.
The term “Howard’s Battlers” was a clever and opportunistic way of framing a real structural phenomenon — the rise of the contractor and sub-contractor in the stead of unionised blue-collar employees. No longer are these folks and their families concerned with the interests of unions because they are not unionised. Their greatest investment, their greatest material possession and their greatest source of financial worry is their residence. Howard tapped into that brilliantly. The ALP, archetypal a labourist party, still has not found a way to do the same.
These folks live in marginal seats. They are the most important political demographic in the country. ATM most of them see no reason to support the ALP.
And ATM the ALP has little to offer them besides transparently insincere pandering by Julia Gillard.
@40 and 38
I’d say that conditions outside of the country forced the government into reform (to use a euphemism) and the subsequent changes in the workforce meant that they didn’t have a core working class constituency anymore. Not making the changes wouldn’t necessarily preserved the “working classes” and wouldn’t have helped the economy.
Of course the ALP by that stage wasn’t the party of Chifley anyway. Remember that all the “latte sipping lefties” had taken over by then. Of course as someone said they were all pissed of with the lack of spine on Tampa. So the last hurrah was Kevin ’07 and his plan in the top pocket to make everyone feel green and healthly and not stodgy and and not following some fossil in a tracksuit. Of course that didn’t go to well either. And now we’re down to a party that looks schizoid, paranoid, passionless and vulnerable. FFS can someone take charge!
The question in my mind is what accounts for the 44% for the mostly ignorant and spiteful rubbish that is the coalition?
OK, the ALP are crap and losing out, probably for many of the reasons raised… but how could anyone percieve that other mob would be more worthwhile to take a chance with? Let alone be any less mendacious and mercenary in their attempts to retain power?
And things like this just help to give the ALP an image of not really giving a tinkers cuss about us true believers. Kate Ellis takes up with the execrable David Penberthy. The dude is Animal from the Muppets from the nose up http://images.mylot.com/userImages/images/postphotos/1605017.jpg.
http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/adelaide-gossip-with-matt-gilbertson/story-e6frea6u-1225996663814?source=cmailer
Patrickb,
Worse than that in my opinion is Nick Bolkus (SA Progressive Business) starting up a “business consultancy company” with the likes of Alexander Downer and former Liberal Party adviser Iain Smith (Mr Stott-Despoja).
http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/south-australia/invisible-faces-put-890000-into-alp/story-e6frea83-1225998329477
These days the ALP are just a slightly different version of the Libs. Like two factions of the same party really.
That would be Nick Bolkus, former leading light of his party’s left wing.
It’s all LOL.
BTW, I think Ellis and Pendo make a lovely couple.
@46,
I’m not sure a Downer trumps a Penbo. We need a ruling here.
Good healthy discussion. Just wondering if the title should be “who” rather than “what” is responsible…etc.
‘It’s (Not) All Julia’ True Kim but Morticia Mogadon Metronome is driving the clunker to the assembly. I I & I.
On the back of the greater Snowtown makeover: Changi! Mateship! red hot talking rot from the not Footscray full forward. Gladwrap Julia, clingy.
Be careful with the levy/tax question; pure motherhood. See possums’s graph: the chocolate factory & the box of smarties; all for a party promised box of p*ssant smarties in 12/13. Superior eco managers…
So the Monk goes for it. Add yasi; slash/defer more! Eg. the monopoly kill switch er sorry the NBN. (Apologies to our Egyptian friends)
Perhaps Arbib could crawl in the back door @ Julian’s Gab Central and plead again for the services of those 21 August 2010 winners Flunky Hunky & Dory…
Alas. Lying, blonde & red…the rodents march on…
Good to see ‘slightly tampa’ get a workout again.
Does this gnashing of teeth, about Labor being out of tune with its working class base since way-back-when, acknowledge that the workforce has changed one helluva lot since then? What an amazing coincidence that real wage growth decline has coincided with women becoming a much greater part of the workforce! Women’s pay being what it is, relative to men’s.
Bill Ludwig and Joe de Bruyn are probably the most traditionally working class (in the’traditional’ Labor sense) members of Labor’s National Executive. I bet they have always fought so very very hard for women’s wages.
Hope they tear strips off Kate, btw. Who does she think she is having a boyfriend of her own choosing, that impertinent filly with her windswept mane?
Patrickb, you merely rehearse the mainstream pro-capitalist argument in favour of the “reforms” of the 1980s, tied (I think, I wasn’t sure whether you were being sarcastic) to the usual denunciation of latte-sippers.
The problem is not the changing shape and composition of the working class — a dynamic reality that comes from the way capitalism is always restructuring itself in the process of capital accumulation — but that workers of all types got shafted (one of the miracles of national wage deals embodied in the formative Accord years).
To blame the attacks on external conditions is a distraction. The enrichment of capital over labour has proceeded apace for so long now (see graphs here) that it is hard to make the case that the neoliberal era represents anything other than what David Harvey says it is: a restoration of capitalist class power.
Part of the problem has been lousy policy thinking. Think cash for clunkers at $400/tonne CO2. How the hell could you launch a climate action policy without working out the price per tonne emission reduction?
Perhaps it is time someone asked what the price rise per tonne emission reduction will be for the carbon price proposal? The answer is a bloody lot more than it is for the smarter alternatives.
Gillard knifed Rudd telling Australia that she was better. That is what it amounted to. Instead of being better she has been manifestly worse.
The fact that she was a worse leader became apparent to the public almost immediately through Labor’s worsening polls ever since.
Gillard fails the most basic requirement to be leader, to be in the position for the benefit of Australians. None doubted that Keating, Howard, Hawke had of care and concern for Australia as their guiding principal and passion(though Howard learnt how to fake it).
What is happening with Gillard is a reflection of the reality of her taking the position. She didn’t pursue it or want it because the welfare of Australians was her foremost concern. Much of the public have subconsciously perceived this and over time find it hard to continue to support her and give her the benefit of the doubt as many did initially.
Guys, its simple. The media (especially the Oz and the regrettably, the ABC) is doing everything in its power to undermine Gillard and promote Abbott (did ya see 4 Corners tonight?). The promotion of some of the stuff he comes out with as a serious contribution to the national debate is laughable.
The people arent buying it entirely though, as Abbots failure to launch in the polls indicates.
Yes, yes and more.
There was a time when voters were able to distinguish between state and federal policy and voted accordingly. Now, federal labor has moved more visibly into areas like education and public housing and has done so in ways that demonstrate a heavy handed incompetence one usually associates with the states.
Take education: I don’t know of too many teachers who support the publication of NAPLAN tables or the 200 hundred million thrown at the chaplaincy program — its lousy policy.
In my little village in the southern highlands, eight 2 story public housing units of unbelievable ugliness tower over the streetscape. There was no public consultation ;council guidelines were ignored and there was no access to the courts.
The widening of the M5 at Campbelltown is still not finished.Ten kilometers has taken more than 3 years. At that rate it would take 300 years to go all the way to Melbourne. It should have been finished a week before the last election. Labor would have on the seat of Macarthur if they had.
I’m bloody cranky. The failure to price carbon may have started it but it is Labor’s education policy that has really provoked anger in our household.
@52,
I was being sarcastic with regard to the frothy coffee. I see some justifiable angst in your rejection of the external neo-classical economic forces acting on the Australian economy from the ’70s onwards. However the rest of what you have written has an air of resignation, perhaps not the zeitgeist we need to revitalize the progressive politics in Australia.
I don’t see much championing of an industrial utopia in the near future, least of all from the ALP. The problem lies within the structure of the progressive political institution itself.
Basically in the 80s, someone opened up the Overton Window to the right and all the Anglosphere political parties flew through it blinded by the money. Now the money’s gone out and they’re battering and fluttering against the glass with the electorate now on the other side saying “No, don’t open it, they’ll all get in again.”
Julia was profiled on 4 Corners tonight. One part of me sort of admires her, the other more dominant part can’t bring itself to trust her, gets the impression that she’ll say whatever to win votes. When, for insatnce, the topic is asylum seekers this comes through strongly. I think, fear, Abbott is within striking distance, he’ll crawl nto office.
While the basic ‘narrative’ of why Labor did so bad (in the post, Taylor’s and in comments) in the election feels right to me (and certainly reflected my own personal perspective on the Rudd/Gillard Government) is it actually evident in the results? I know you are all based in Queensland, but the ALP got a record (or near record) vote in SA, Vic, Tas and it did ok in NSW. Does this means that Qlders really care about principles or leadership? Has the Qld feeling swept into other states as well? Why was the vote so high in SA, Vic and Tas and not in Qld and WA? These are the questions I would like answered, and the ‘narrative’ no matter how right it feels just doesn’t seem to cut it…
Patrickb @57
I’m only resigned about the ALP’s ability to revitalise itself as a genuinely progressive force (if it ever was one). I am wary that, especially in opposition, it may succeed in appearing to do so while maintaining its core commitment to the interests of national capital over labour.
The more interesting (and hopeful) question for me is how we see oppositional forces outside the neoliberal paradigm taking shape and asking what politics they need to avoid repeating the nightmare history of the ALP.
It seems to me that once we accept the argument that the ALP did — that the health of capital (external or internal) — is our first concern, then we are destined to feel resigned to the destructive effect of apparently impersonal economic forces that in reality systematically benefit a small minority.
After watching 4 Corners last night, it made me wonder what is the point of Gillard – fiscal responsibility, commitment to the US overseas adventures, fudging on the issue of global warming, etc. No mention though of what Gillard has called her greatest achievement, the MySchool website.
I did love the old declaration of a commitment to socialism and the maiden speech about the inequality in education opportunity and funding. I also loved the supporting cast – the likes of that Labor giant Laurie Ferguson and the great self-promotor, Paul Howes, who did not in any way appear to be embarrassed that he was a message boy for the US Embassy.
I was listening to Radio National this am and they [whoever] were talking about the ‘fairness’ of the flood levy.
The fella [whoever] made a comment that the levy could be perceived as going the same way as the inefficient and wasteful BER and insulation programmes.
My point is that it was presented as a given fact that these 2 programmes were to be perceived as negatives for the [ALP] government.
To be assumed.
No doubt about it.
Such was the presentation of these programmes to the public by the opposition media and the COALition that it has been engraved in stone that they were ‘inefficient and wasteful’.
Whatever the reality really was/is irrelevant.
This is the principal problem the ALP, and anything outside the corporate paradigm for that matter, faces.
Media distortion.
Oh yes, the 4 Corners episode last night. I briefly I flicked over in time to see 4 Corners show Gillard tediously drop dated euphemisms for homosexuality to the laughter and approval of the both sides of the house before a cutting to Wong arguing that Gillard is an astonishing parlimentary performer. I could have taken this to be a witty summary of the modern Labor Party – but then they moved on to Howe, filmed from what can only be known as the unflattering Jabba angle – and decided that the ABC was just being cruel.
That’s very true, hannah’s dad, it’s become accepted fact.
But part of the reason it’s become so accepted is because Labor spokespeople rarely challenge it.
adrian
Yep, its a spiral of fear and powerless, perceived or real is debatable [re the powerlessness I mean] ,within a context of overwhelming distortion.
For my sins I was heavily involved in the ’07 election and a major revelation for me was the realization as to the depth of the fear within the ALP had in upsetting in any way the media.
It was personal and organizational and visceral.
They were, still are, scared.
With good reason to some degree of course.
What to do?
Silence seems to be the safest option.
But it aint IMO.
Katz@21,
Carbon Pricing
Mining Tax
Water Reform
Health Reform
That would seem to be enough reform to be going on with. Whether or not it is “worthwhile” is a matter of opinion.
Labor’s problems are that it seems unsure whether it really wants to undertake these reforms and voters are unsure whether it is anyway capable of doing so.
Was Rudd kicked out because he wanted these reforms, or because he didn’t, or because he wasn’t capable? I’m still unclear and I would imagine many others are.
We get a lot of mixed messages from Labor. It’s confusing, so confusing that I can’t give them my primary vote and it’s an agony to decide whether or not they get preferenced before the Liberals*.
A kinder polity, a welcoming Australia that wants an off-shore solution for refugees. If a regional processing centre is such a fantastic idea then there is no good reason it could not be on Australian shores, but instead the Hansen/Howard model is embraced wholeheartedly.
Afghanis being sent home to a ‘safe’ Afghanistan, well if it’s so safe why are Australian troops dying there?
A review of the marriage act after we’ve see J Gillard excoriate ( I think it was C Pyne but not sure) for mincing, not being macho, for liking Abba not Cold Chisel, for being a poodle…. all dog whistle stuff that slanders and stereotypes same-sex attracted men. Am I supposed to believe she has any commitment to equality before the law?
Talking up the notion that Labor wants to fight climate change, but dumping policies at the first excuse.
*I’m an ex-member of the ALP, it’s the only party I’ve ever joined and been active in. When it came to the crunch last federal election I looked at my local Labor member and her record of dealing with issues I’d raised with her, looked at the vote from the previous election. I ended up deciding that for the house of Reps on a tactical level it made far more sense for a left voter in my electorate to vote Green then Liberal.
It was a gut-wrenching decision, 30 years of brand/party loyalty has evaporated, but not because I shifted to the right but because I perceive the ALP has. Labor can console themselves with a preference from me in the Senate.
Katz:
I+U:
Glad you agree with me I+U.
Dr Tad @ 52
your response to Patrickb
‘The problem is not the changing shape and composition of the working class — a dynamic reality that comes from the way capitalism is always restructuring itself in the process of capital accumulation — but that workers of all types got shafted.’
Yes, fair enough, but I can’t quite digest that ‘to blame the attacks on external conditions is a distraction.’ This to me would seem to downgrade the Marxian and Marxist project of making change happen. One part of the underclass is more fettered than the rest of it, broadly speaking, and that fettering is both across all classes and within classes, and the same restraint persists through the series of class struggles – it seems to me that this must be more than just a distraction.
I’m no expert on Marxism, so I’m interested to know your view on what counts as being beyond distraction in the context of a class struggle. How do you view ,eg, gender and race inequalities, and sexism and racism in a Marxist perspective?
I think this is within the OP, there being a range of opinion here around what is pretty much a two party preferred poll, as to whether or not the electorate is restive, ‘disillusioned’, and why or why not.
Katz,
Fair enough. If Labor really hasn’t decided on its reform agenda, then it needs to make up its mind quick. On the other hand, it is possible that it has decided, but is either incapable of conveying that decisiveness or prefers (for tactical reasons) to portray ambivalence.
So many uncertainties.
I+U, I suspect your second reason is more likely to be correct, unfortunately.
It is consistent with careerism and enjoying the perquisites of office.
Theyll be enjoying the perquisites for a lot less time if they dont pick up their act.
Its almost to the point where the australian people might even consider giving Abbott the nod, ie, the point of near-terminal ennui.
I agree LE.
However, I sense that Labor thinks it is in Zugswang. The party believes that any move it makes will be to its disadvantage.
And if the party confines itself to the options it believes to be the only ones available to it, it will lose and it will have achieved nothing.
In light of the wreckage of the Liberal Party in the aftermath of the Howard collapse — Nelson (remember him?), Turnbull, Grech, Abbott’s wafer-thin leadership victory, it is almost unbelievable how quickly the fortunes of the two major parties have reversed.
Yeats:
I wonder whether it would be completely silly to speculate that someone in the Labor Right brains trust is advocating a strategy of inertia until the next election in the expectation that very right-wing Liberal/Coalition State governments in the big eastern states will by 2013 have frightened the punters back into the Labor fold federally?
Very apt Katz.
Can I write the ALPs lines for them: “Tony’s good at saying no, but what are his positive idea for Australia’s future?”
Here’s the mongrel Albo variant ending “..aside from his parental leave levy idea, that is. Aside from being a policy-free zone, he’s a complete hypocrite.”.
On a non-speculative note, I recently had the chance to discuss the national political scene with an ALP Left activist who was until recently a prominent trade union figure. He put it to me that within ALP (including ALP Left) circles there is a view that, far from Federal Labor losing support because it was not progressive enough or resolute enough on issues such as climate change, it suffered for pursuing progressive policies for which it didn’t get enough credit from left constituencies. He didn’t agree with this analysis himself, but he did stress that it has a fair degree of support within the ALP and that left responses to the current political situation need to take account of the fact that Labor people are thinking this way.
Anita @70
The external stuff I was referring to was the international economic circumstances, which were really about the re-emergence of capitalist crisis after the uniquely stable long post-WWII boom. Those circumstances meant that to restore profitability the business elites and the state launched a class offensive against workers, but also an offensive to roll back the gains of the social movements of the 1960s and 70s (or at least incorporate their demands for liberation into “safe” market-based identity politics).
The reason I see it as a “distraction” is that “international competitiveness” was the ideological cover for what was a domestic project of tipping the balance of class forces back in favour of capital. In every country workers were asked/told/forced to tighten their belts because of the “international situation” — the problem can’t have been overseas to every country. The fact is that Australia’s ruling elites had a domestic crisis of capital accumulation from the early 1970s and I’m not into the Left seeing it as our problem to solve in capital’s interests.
I’m not sure I quite get your question about various forms of oppression and how they relate to official politics, however. Would you be able to put it another way?
That’d be the pathology of denial at work in the minds of those ALP wonks, Paul.
Australia has compulsory voting. All of those progressives have to vote for someone. Who have they been voting for and where has their effective preferential vote gone? Certainly not to the Libs.
It’s scary if that thesis has any credibility at all in the ALP.
Paul
Yep, Ive heard that from similar, and of course right wing sources among ALPers.
I put it down to rationalisation, excuse making for not pursuing progressive stuff solidly or vigorously enough.
Carbon tax, same sex equality just to give 2 examples.
And to fear.
The rhetoric about climate change hit a brick wall very noticeably early in ’08 when the govt. was confronted by the naked power of the greenhouse mafia and the government visibly chickened out and the right went all jittery and platitudinous.
Now the right can either blame themselves for chickening out or …..
hannah’s dad @ 66. That makes perfect sense, which is why they need to completely ignore the media and in particular The Australian and the ABC.
It’ll never happen of course.
It’s true the ALP has to take the hostility and misrepresentation by the Murdoch press for granted, and it’s often not going to find itself too happy with the ABC either. This government is never going to find it as easy as Howard did to frame the parameters of a debate.
But given the importance of agenda-setting to both policy outcomes and political prospects, they hafta keep trying. I agree they need to focus far more on carrying through issues even if they’re unpopular. It is far, far worse to fail in doing something unpopular than to succeed in it, because once it’s achieved the debate moves on – you’ll leave an impression of achievement and the very doing of it will shift the debate anyway. Think “GST” and “mining tax” for contrasting examples.
This is not a “left versus right” thing. If you think you need to go all neoliberal then do that, but above all do what you say you’re going to do.
@82 – There was a long article in the “Media and Marketing” section of The Australian yesterday bemoaning how Julia Gillard had taken to pointing out to journos at her press conferences that their paper was an anti-government rag, and how this was terribly distressing to these proud professionals, etc, etc.
I think DD has it broadly right. The issue is less whether the ALP is pursuing too progressive or conservative agenda as it is the electorate losing confidence in the ALP’s ability to outline and then deliver on an agenda at all. The current period reminds me quite a bit of the drift in the ALP prior to Kevin becoming leader. Policy wise, the party was just all over the shop, with each election bringing a new set of policies only tangentially related to the set presented at the previous one. The strength of Kevin’s early leadership was that he outlined a simple but powerful message that had policy substance, combined with a delivery that made people feel confident that the party could deliver. That momentum continued into the first 18 months of Kevin’s leadership as the party felt as though it had the Coalition completely covered. But then Labor lost its balls on climate change policy and then, on more or less everything else. It feels like a crisis of confidence to me and the electorate can sense the drift. While media spin hasn’t helped (and Julia’s weaknesses as a public communicator), it is Labor’s failure to seize the initiative and make full use of the benefits of incumbency that is their biggest problem.
Well the problem is that the ALP’s fear is so great that they are behind the general public in many of their attitudes.
Its not just a matter of pursuing unpopular policies but of maintaining popular ones.
The two I mentioned above for example.
With both climate change and same sex equality the polls have shown that the general public is strongly in favour of [apparent, expected] ALP policy but in each case the ALP chickened out when faced with the political power of the minority groups.
A strong approach to climate change was running about 70% in favour in the polls in the early days, it has only weakened since.
There are probably other examples.
So after chickening out the ALP appear weak, confused, unprincipled etc..
Can’t win.
There needs to be a lot more straight talking, simple explanations …”the media is biased” for example, as Kim mentions above, there has been some, straight after the election Julia and Wayne had a couple of shots and I got all optimistic but there has never been a concerted consistent constant refain to that effect.
Shouldn’t be too hard really given the low status of journos with the public and it wouldn’t be too hard to present Murdoch and Fairfax in an unpleasant light.
And the greenhouse mafia, the big mineral fellas are easy targets, or should be.
Nup, I’m afraid its habit.
They, the ALP, have been on the shitty end of the stick for so long they simply don’t know how to grab the stick and put it to a better use than its present employ.
Sad really, particularly for Australia and Australians.
Geez Derrida,
If the government cannot get out into the community either via the internet, twitter, and/or the union movement on just about any issue, then I have to feel zero sympathy.
Yes, the coalition (a wholly owned subsidiary of News Ltd) is getting a good go in the Oz and other Murdoch papers, but the government has a lot of tools at its disposal if it wishes to use them. Advertise on Google ffs. Get into Faecesbook or wahtever. It is not as if people now rely entirely on mainstream media to get their information…and if the circulation figures for the News (very)Limited publications are any guide, that trend is accelerating.
Paul Norton – but will Vic and NSW have frighteningly right-wing Liberal governments? A big danger is that you will have moderate, reasonably business-like Liberal governments that seem to get things done. As someone who voted ALP for the first 25 years of my voting life, before going Green, I have to say that, so far, I prefer the current Liberal government in W.A. to the previous ALP one.
One of the most obvious and important signs that the federal ALP is not in anyway a left-wing government is that they won’t do anything about Tax reform, when nearly everbody thinks the current situation is mad.
Health should be another plus for them, but who knows anyone who thinks that what the government is doing will lead to significant improvement? Maybe in the eastern states you see Roxon out arguing or even explaining, what these ‘reforms’ are, but she has been hopeless at winning any W.A. voters over.
Not that I’ve noticed from Queensland, Russell.
IMO Gillard’s statement that the Rudd health funding model is just some sort of arcane argument over money and organisation, and that “the community” wants to see a doctor or a nurse when they need one, while true in some respects, is very unhelpful, because it’s funding models, etc. which determine whether you can or can’t!
Exactly right, Hannah’s dad – the worst part of the whole farce was that the ALP bottled over POPULAR policies.
They then lost that popularity by doing so.
I mean, seriously, WTF? What can you do about cowardice like that?
The really depressing thing for me is that I find myself, for the first time ever, not actually caring about Federal Labor’s poor polling. I decided long ago that if I lived in NSW, I’d have no hesitation in voting Liberal (for the first time in my life) purely to send NSW Labor the strongest message I could. It’s not difficult at all, once you accept that the powers behind NSW Labor don’t have any inkling of Labor values, in the traditional sense, and would have joined the Liberals if they thought they would have been welcome.
But some time in the past 12 months or so I’ve started to feel similarly about Federal Labor. Why on earth would I lend my support to an organisation that allows Mark Arbib a position of infuence?
Or has Tony Abbott as a leader, Snorky.
Touche, Paul. Hobson’s choice indeed.
I&U@67
Labor don’t want these reforms enough to fight for them. That eliminates the last two options.
Does anyone, who voted Green, think a Green party government would be good for Australia?
Or were all those Green votes, just aimed at sending a message to Labor( or Lib/Nat for that matter) to indicate certain policy directions they feel should be perused ?
I’ll put my hand up, Craigy. I reckon a Green govt couldn’t possibly be less competent than either of the current choices. At least we’d have sensible policies on the environment and humane ones for the reffos.
The ALP is in a death spiral at the moment. Having given the Oz and the mining companies what they wanted (“here’s Kevin’s head on a platter…will you be nice to us now?”) they now face the two things that will polish them off.
Lack of confidence to follow their original mandate.
And more importantly
Lack of exposure to the things they do right. The ALP could cure cancer tomorrow and it would either be mis-reported, under-reported or misrepresented.
They can no longer govern.
Abbott will be PM by the end of March easy.
Has anybody considered the possibility that this is a outlier poll?
It’s been around 51-49/50-50 for a while now.
Oh and one addition. All the Liberals have to do once they’re back in power is do a little bit of electoral reform.
Two things.
Give voters a choice by making voting non-compulsory.
Have elections on either a Monday or Tuesday.
That would hammer a stake through the left politically.
Craigy – where the Greens are or have been in official or unofficial coaitions of government, they don’t seem to try to do anything too extreme. So I suppose that if they ever get big enough and close enough to forming government, they would not be a scary prospect.
I don’t agree that the ALP are in a “death spiral” tssk. I reckon once Gillard has a few days in parliament to do her thing…and policies & programs are communicated and adjusted in a more focused & efficient way (I’m beginning to see signs already)…then the ALP should pick up a bit.
It’s not surprising that the majors are suffering in popularity considering the addition of more progressive democratic thinking expressed by way of blogs, twitter, youtube & so on.
The Greens & Indies are bound to benefit.
I do agree Kim w/ much Lenore Taylor says.
I reckon Abbott is in big trouble…the rot has set in.
My perspective:
Tony Abbott stuff-ups: A Pattern of Behaviour
http://cafewhispers.wordpress.com/2011/02/08/tony-abbott-stuff-ups-a-pattern-of-behaviour/
Keep up the good work Kim & useful links & quotes.
N’
That a big call Dave. But if you think that way , then i respect you for voicing it .
I , personally, think the greens would fail in some portfolios
Defence, Finance and Foreign affairs could trouble them
Craigy@94 …
That’s an impossible counterfactual since one is not imminent. One could only make a judgement on that if it were in serious prospect, and that would imply far more resources, a wider talent pool and in all likelihood substantially different policies in at least some areas.
I suspect most were an attempt to force the ALP to adopt at least the most significant parts of the Greens’ agenda. In some cases, the votes would have come from disaffected ALP lefts or socially liberal Liberals, which may support to the claim above.
“”"which may support to the claim above.”"”
It wasn’t a claim, fran, it was a ?.
Craigy I also think a Green government would be good for Australia. But I actually agree with a lot of the policies which are held up to ridicule, unlike the failed articles of faith of the majors (eg the war on drugs, trickle down).
But I do worry over the extremes to which vested interests would go to destabilise a genuinely green government. A Green government which got a fair go would be a good thing – evidence based policies rather than tired old dogma! But a lot of people have a lot invested in the old stupidities (both money and face), that’s why they’re so hard to get past, and why it’s naive to expect the Greens to get a fair go.
And Abbott described the death of a soldier in Afghanistan as”shit happens” when he visited the troops. Nicely covered up by the meejah, finally revealed by ch7 it would appear,just mentioned on 7.30 report when Hockey was being interviewed. Faarck, this is beyond bullshit, this neanderthal is getting away with murder and the media is complicit in covering up the ever increasing evidence of his unsuitability for the role of PM.
And we still don’t have any choices when it comes to the best worst option.
You have to feel sorry for Abbott, the one time he tells the truth he gets in trouble.
The politician whisperer would disapprove of these mixed media signals.
“Has anybody considered the possibility that this is a outlier poll?”
Most certainly. Much of the commentary here of gloom and doom would be reasonable if these figures came up for the next two polls. I believe many were excluded from this sample because of various serious weather events around the country.
And Tony on the ropes/nose is so far not reflected.
“Does anyone, who voted Green, think a Green party government would be good for Australia?”
The Greens are in government in Tas and ACT, Craigy.
Sky hasnt fallen in.
So, yes, I do. The question remains whether anyone who voted for the majors thinks they’d be good for Australia.
lefty e@109
I’m working through the Greens policies from their w/site now.
I’ll get back to ya when i’m done.
So far it looks expensive ,
Hmm.
Greens governing Oz.
Presumes a few things as pre-conditions but lets ignore them OK?
So what if the Greens had a controlling influence over Oz politics in the last 10 years [again presuming any political party can actually achieve such] what might be different to today?
Some of these perhaps:
Carbon tax, significant reduction in carbon emissions by Oz with an enhanced world reputation as a result.
Increased renewable electricity production and associated stuff.
With increased employment as a result.
Better public transport.
Out of Iraq and Afghanistan again enhancing world reputation.
Increased foreign aid.
Greater emphasis on public education and public healthcare.
No NT indigenous invasion.
A Murray than is more viable than the present cess channel.
No bloody great racist brouhaha over refugees.
Something like that.
Sounds good to me.
Robbo @105. According to the SMH Ch 7 were engaged in a three month freedom of information battle to get this. Which means two things.
1. The Federal ALP fought hard to protect Abbott from the release of this. (Can you imagine what would have happened had the other lot been in charge? It would have been released everywher.
And of course if 1. is correct then…
2. This still ends up being the ALP’s fault.
Q.E.D.
And people talk about Rudd ‘snapping.’
As expensive as the major parties policies of doing nothing on climate change, Craigy? Dont forget to factor that in. Check the latest bills.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/
Check it out.
The alternative [at the moment] to Gillard.
tssk @96:
Can I put some money on that? The way he’s going he’ll be lucky to be Opposition Leader.
Well i read them
And if ALL the green policies were adopted alphabetically over the next five years, i’d probably starve around year three.If i’m lucky and prepare NOW.No need to worry about AGW.
Having said that, Some policies are sensible and needed, and will be introduced in time.By someone. Hopefully .
Just watched Abbott footage and reply.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bDzGmuXKQ1I&feature=player_embedded
He was obviously comforting a soldier that was feeling bad. the way men do.
But he showed amazing restraint in not punching that reporter.He wanted to.
Jeebus, that Abbott footage is weird, is he having a seizure? If it freaked him out that much why didn’t he just say “end of interview” and turn on his heel? I think most people would have agreed that it was taken out of context. But the 30 seconds of quivering is quite disturbing.
I don’t think there was anything particularly bad about Abbott saying “shit happens”. It was a clumsy, blokey thing to do. But, it irks me that Gillard has received so mch criticism for her ‘woodenness’, when this joker is around.
But, where he has stuffed up royally is in the interview, which is bizarre. Politicians just don’t stand up around seemingly shaking with rage, when a reporter asks him a question. Again, Gillard has to cop much worse shit, personal shit, than this all the time.
Gillard was anything but wooden in Parliament today. Channel 7 juxtaposed the two stories, much to Gillard’s advantage. However, there will be the usual talking points that it was all crocodile tears. All I can say to that, is that it’s odd that last week she was poor enough actor to look stiff and wooden and suddenly she’s gained great acting chops and givse a wonderful imitation of a person in distress.
Fine – yep. The ABC managed to downplay the “has been criticised for being wooden” angle, but Joe Hockey was smuggling in the “confected” slur on the 7.30 Report.
Abbott’s response was rather bizarre. The thing is an obvious beatup, but it is weird that as a professional pollie he couldn’t think of anything to say.
Apparently Tony Abbott is a ‘real human being’. He just does a good impression of a goose.
Well there is, apparently, a little bit more to it than the spinners are granting.
The conversation, according to the reporter, the context that is, is that Abbott was trying to gain fodder for his political line that the troops were not being given adequate material for the war.
The generals put the kibosh on that. They were not happy with the suggestion that the troops were under supplied.
[That didn't stop Abbott and mates from continuing to pursue that line when he returned to Oz even after being so informed.]
That conversation led to his remark, I suppose [I'm guessing], as an alternative explanation for the death of the soldier seeing his politically motivated explanation was not accepted by the military..
The interview has been edited.
There was insufficient time to show the full extent of Abbott’s non responsive head nodding.
It actually lasted for 1 minute 20 seconds and was edited down to 24 secs.
The thing is an obvious beatup, but it is weird that as a professional pollie he couldn’t think of anything to say.
IO got the impression he could think of plenty of things to say and was putting all his strength into not saying them. Which is, let’s face it, an improvement. And if that performance represents an improvement …
Also, do not hit ‘Submit Comment’ before editing. (Which is sort of what I was saying up there.)
tssk@112
“According to the SMH Ch 7 were engaged in a three month freedom of information battle to get this.”
Speaking as someone who’s been FOI’d himself, the process is actually much less political and more bureaucratic than you’d think. Three months is not that long in FOI terms. Often a lotta legal and privacy stuff to be checked out by a usually under-resourced and overworked FOI unit.
“The Federal ALP fought hard to protect Abbott from the release of this.”
Why?!??. How??!?
“This still ends up being the ALP’s fault.”
Why? Tony said it, not them. What next? Gough can’t swim?
Yeah, it’s now a beat up about a beat up.
@124
I think he was involved in some sort of staring contest. You know, he was thinking, “Let’s see how much dead air this prawn can put up with”. Now it’s an interesting challenge but he should watch a few episodes of The (UK) Office to get the excruciating feeling that comes from watching someone say nothing on TV. Abbott was in the right on this occasion but his Idish inner bloke overcame his political ego and I don’t think that’s a good look for the alternative PM.
“But he showed amazing restraint in not punching that reporter.He wanted to.”
Actually he showed that he really wanted to punch that reporter. All pollies often feel like that. But most of them never let it show. If he can’t handle that kind of minor situation that crops all up the time in his line of work, then one does wonder how he’s going to handle the really stressful stuff.
Russell @ 87, coming late to this post I still can’t let your comment pass with a response.
In what way is WA’s state government under Barnett moderate?
They’ve grown the state’s prison population by 23 percent in 18 months, introduced mandatory sentencing and stop and search laws. They are compulsorily acquiring aboriginal land in the Kimberly for a gas hub. They are pursuing privatization of public hospital support services e.g. halving payouts to victims of child abuse in state care and cancelling state funding of pauper funerals. Haven’t you noticed the fifty percent increase in electricity charges? To say nothing of the cancellation of around $300 in education subsidies for families with kids in high school.
Perhaps you don’t have kids, are not likely to get sick, weren’t a victim of child abuse, not likely to be stopped and searched ending up in a state prison, and certainly not likely to die a pauper. As a greenie you may think that electricity charges should be high. But surely you’d agree with Bob Brown that Barnett’s plan to ignore the wishes of the Kimberly Land Council is very problematical?
I think Gillard’s grief and distress in Parliament today was absolutely genuine.
But I also think, as an unintended consequence, Abbott is stuffed from hereon in.
Only time will tell.
A few more displays of quivering rage (I think tonight’s is the second, but I can’t remember when the first occurred) and he’s absolutely cactus.
That footage of Abbott rocking back and forth seemingly ready to say something Tony Abbott would say but trying to think what new & improved OL Tony Abbott should say is for mine a worse look than the Latham handshake. He looks like he didn’t know what to do.
PB at #129
“few more displays of quivering rage (I think tonight’s is the second, but I can’t remember when the first occurred) and he’s absolutely cactus.”
I reckon its about the fifth such I can recall Paul.
Not in order:
1. The ‘look’, a la Julie Bishop, Abbott gave Tony Jones at the end of the ‘Lateline’ when Jones asked him if he had met Pell recently.
2. More or less ditto when Kerry O’Brien cornered Abbott about changing his stories, the infamous ‘if it aint written down it ain’t true’ scenario.
Once again its the ‘look’ at the end of the show.
3. During the fit up done by the Chasers when they confronted Abbott with his personal debt numbers. Abbott went into “er,er er, er ….” incoherent mode.
And was visibly not amused.
4. When he verballed the “4 Corners” reporter when she dared to ask him about the $11 Billion ‘black hole’ in the COALition election promises after the Treasury and the Independents found out about the ‘hole’.
Standard bully boy stuff.
5. This one.
The bloke has form.
No, it was a stupid, thoughtless, half-arsed poseur thing for a democratic leader to say to military personnel in the field.
There’s no point me even bringing up “can you imagine if Rudd, Faulkner, or Smith had been captured saying that?” I honestly don’t believe any one can imagine any of them saying that, and I don’t have to even mention the possibility of Gillard saying it.
That’s the reason for Abbott’s near stroke today. He wasn’t upset at any hurt he mignt have caused the late soldier’s family, he was horrified that he’d been caught breaking precedent (set by Menzies who was the first Liberal leader to visit frontline diggers!) by dishonouring the principle of civilian oversight, separation of powers, etc, all so he could have a bad B-movie moment in front of the boys in uniform.
Ultimately this man’s lack of internal censor is going to be the thing that gets Gillard Labor a majority at the next election, though I realise that’s a pretty lame thing to hold up at this point. It’s not much of a positive when it comes to the PM’s current inability to turn expectations around.
I was warming up this morning for some material to kick Abbott around with when I saw the footage this morning.
Make no mistake I loathe Abbott. As a (former) Catholic in my eyes he’s one of ‘those’ Catholics. A far right winger always ready to kick someone when they’re down.
So I was surprised when I saw the comments in context. I don’t think he was being insensitive. I think the soldiers he talked to were clearly not offended. This is a gotcha moment taken out of context.
So instead of feeling glee that yet again the true face of Abbott was revealed I felt sad. Sad most of all because the poor widow of the deceased has been pulled into this. This isn’t like his Burnie Banton or Queensland comments. There was no public interest to be served by replaying this piece.
The media have hardly covered themselves in glory recently but this takes the cake. This obsession with personality politics has to stop.
Let’s talk about the issues.
(Oh and Nabakov , I was running my previous comment through the ABC patented ‘whatever the issue it’s the ALP’s fault spin-o-matic.’)
I think the father of the soldier has Tony properly summed up. All this ‘protect little Tony’ stuff is repulsive, tssk.
I knew you would try it on.
blockquote>He described Mr Abbott as thoughtless, ignorant and uncaring. “It just shows how good he is, or isn’t. I’m not going to let it bother me, but it just shows he’s not very thoughtful. He doesn’t care too much.”
http://www.smh.com.au/national/dead-diggers-father-sickened-by-abbott-gaffe-20110208-1alq1.html
HD’s list @131 should be sent to every media organisation. A montage of Abbott stares would be a hoot.
Clearly Abbott struggles to stay within the confines of the media image confected by his handlers. Gillard’s hurried search for the “real Julia Gillard” demonstrates that Abbott is by no means the only pollie who experiences that difficulty.
The interviewer who quizzed Abbott about the context of his original remark asked a valid question that had been invited by Abbott’s attempt at self-exculpation.
Abbott’s response was that of a man who was in danger of becoming himself, but thought better of it.
For the sake of power, it seems, Abbott preferred to continue to live a lie.
“Abbott’s response was that of a man who was in danger of becoming himself, but thought better of it.”
Indeed, a camera focused directly on his fists would have given the little creep away completely.
Some of the commentary this morning referring to this as a misjudged attempt at “boys will be boys” solidarity with the military men is, I think, spot on. (eta) But is the idea that it’s a misjudgement a valid excuse? It’s a pattern of Abbott’s, these tone-deaf reinforcements of his own machismo.
Surely such anxiety to gain the approval of manly men is an obvious weakness when it provokes him to place macho faux-stoicism in front of men he will probably never meet again before the dignified compassion expected of a potential national leader. For a start, which attitude do you think the military men in question would actually respect more, let alone the particular soldier’s family?
Some people are going to look at this particular misjudgement in isolation and think it’s just a little gaffe. Others are going to look at the pattern of anxious approval-seeking and wonder what other fundamental leadership aspects it might provoke him to set aside in future.
Don’t know why so many here are trying to excuse poor Tony’s grossly insensitive remark, the ABC is doing a good enough job on its own.
The ALP has now to go hard on the ‘Liberal’s Mark Latham’ line against Abbott, simply because it’s true and it will resonate.
And as for it being a ‘clumsy, blockey’ thing to do, I as a ‘bloke’ could quite easily be offended by the inference that gross insensitivity is a male characteristic.
Imagine the outrage if someone had claimed that Gillard’s tears in Parliament were a ‘weak, girly thing to do’.
Joe, I hadn’t heard the comments from the father yet.
This isn’t about protecting Tony. I don’t give a rats arse how bad he looks. His comments about Burnie Banton alone should have barred him from ever holding any sort of office. He made his political career being Howard’s attack dog and that in itself shows he’s unsuitability.
What I’m more worried about is the family being dragged in to protect Tony. When I heard the Libs talk about how the widow herself wasn’t offended I thought to myself what an unfair spot for her to be put in. Of course she would say she wasn’t offended. She probably wants to be left alone.
And now the media is going to be chasing her and her family for comments And if they aren’t to the liking of the political right wing commentators they’ll be ripped to shreds.
Watch on the right wing comments sites as every right wing idiot with a keyboard goes the father for those remarks. (While at the same time talking about the respect monopoly only they have for the military.)
As for me I don’t give a toss for what Abbott says or doesn’t say. I’m more interested in the track record of how the government of the day treats it’s soldiers. The Howard government didn’t have the best track record of dealing with widows back in 2003 if I remember rightly.
Forget the shit happens comment. Back in 2003 the widow of a Federal politician was entitled to a pension of $50k a year. A war widow however gets an ‘amazing’ $13K tax free. Has that changed at all? If not why not? If our soldiers are so treasured and among the best of us, how does their treatment stack up when they come back especially when they are injured? What happens to those left behind?
That’s what the media should be looking into, not some stupid cast off line. We all know Abbott is a dick. We all know if it had been someone in the ALP who’d uttered that phrase they’d be toast.
We should be demanding the media do their job and cover these sorts of issues. If I want celebrity I’ll read Who.
I wrote above:
There’s now interviews with family friends saying that Abbott was properly compassionate at the funeral, so this bit of dialogue with the soldiers isn’t important.
But this is precisely my point: of course he was appropriately compassionate at the funeral, with all those ritual expectations. But at the moment when he should have had a proper empathic human reaction, when first learning of the death of another human being, he thought it was more important to minimise it in order to look emotionally tough, and he thought this was the most appropriate response to display to men who could imagine themselves dying in exactly the same way.
Is it a “gotcha” media beatup at one level? Of course. It’s nonetheless revealing, and what it reveals is not pretty.
Adrian @138. Someone has sort of gone there.
http://blogs.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/andrewbolt/index.php/dailytelegraph/comments/column_gillard_cries_when_she_needed_the_tears_most/
Bolt has a bet each way on this.
Even he admits that if she had not cried she would have been dammed though.
“That’s what the media should be looking into, not some stupid cast off line.”
You just want to go off on a protective sidetrack. The blokes own father is perceptive enough to see his so called “cast off line” for what it is while you just want to discard it.
Tony and his like have a callous regard for the souls they send to war and he has been sprung showing that he could not give a damn.
We can agree to disagree Joe on the first point. If it weren’t for the family being dragged into this I’d be more than happy with this unveiling of Abbott.
On the second though I am in complete agreement. The Howard government has form just like the Bush government in being happy to use the military as a shield from any and all criticism and then in not giving a damn about the welfare of them and their families later.
To be fair, my outrage at Tony Abbott over such a remark is very limited compared to my sustained outrage at both major parties for their Afghanistan policy, which is basically to have the Australian army over there and get shot at to keep the Americans happy.
The reason why the Americans are still there is partisan politics – in essence, to avoid giving the Republicans a line of political attack against Obama.
From a realpolitik point of view, maybe that makes sense. But I reckon even Tony Abbott must wince at having to mix with soldiers dying in Afghanistan in a war whose only point is US domestic politics.
I reckon I’d find it difficult to avoid putting my foot in it in such circumstances.
Tssk, the line that the family should be ‘thought of first’ is now being spun by the Liberals, amongst other bad attempts, to hose this down.
The fact is, the tv station had to fight to get this footage because Tony was caught showing exactly how he does not really care for their feelings at all. Why else would they struggle so hard for it not to be shown?
@ 138 Adrian, I think the difference is that being ‘blokey’ is seen as positive within our culture and being ‘girly’ is so much a negative.
But, I take your point and I probably was being uncharacteristically charitable about Abbott. Don’t know what came over me.
Abbott was trying so hard not to punch that journo out. It’s also interesting that Latham was lambasted for his aggression, but Abbott is seen as being ‘authentic’.
I hope this plays really badly for him and please spare me the “think of the family” line.
The Mad Monk was channelling Donald Rumsfeld. I wonder whether his American interlocutors appreciated his attempt to speak what he clearly imagined to be the American idiom of martial macho.
I don’t have a (major) problem with what Abbott said in Afghanistan. He was being a dick, trying to play soldiers. I still do have a problem with how he dealt with it back home. He wasn’t ‘ambushed’ and the words weren’t used ‘out of context’, he’s simply not the full deal, he’s not fit to be PM.
“Abbott was trying so hard not to punch that journo out. It’s also interesting that Latham was lambasted for his aggression, but Abbott is seen as being ‘authentic’.”
I have heard on local abc radio, probably liberal goons, congratulating Tony on his tremendous ‘self control’ on not punching out the journalist.
re 140: It’s time for some David Marr-like amateur psycho speculation.
I bet than when Abbott was at school he tried, unsuccessfully, to join the tough crowd by impressing them with tough talk (“shit happens”.)
Rejected and dejected he took up boxing at university to show that he really was a tough man. He has carried this need throughout his career and life, hence his public persona (as revealed, for example, at his debate with Nicola Roxon during the ’07 campaign and his fitness freakery.
I wonder how Tony would feel about random drug testing of politicians including for anabolic steroids?
Joe of course the Liberals would run that line. If you want to watch for hypocrisy watch for commentators running that line and then in the same breath criticising same family members for being insulted. It will happen.
As for not punching out the journalist. Interesting that some almost wish he had. I’ve seen other politicians do much better under more pressure.
Tones got it easy compared to when Lathan chased Julia down for his interview.
Part of me wishes he had taken a swing. Not because of some wish fulfilment of seeing Tones getting punchy (which I think some young Libs would be quite excited by.)
More because it would unmask him in front of everyone.
And I’d forgotten about the 2007 thing. As has most of the media in their rush to remake him as politics Top Bloke.
Pure Posion gets it right. This is what I’ve been trying clumsily to say.
http://blogs.crikey.com.au/purepoison/2011/02/09/national-media-betray-tony/#more-8889
(Bit emphasised in bold.)
Yep. That was the same trip on which he had a little play with the Great Big Guns while the cameras rolled. I think part of the tone-deafness (heh) is that he thinks all men are the same as him and will therefore relate positively, and he doesn’t know or care what women think. (Brownie points to Julie Bishop for trying to talk him out of the international aid cut, BTW, whatever her motives may have been. Is that the first time — that we know of — she’s ever crossed him? Wonder how he reacted then.)
Adrian #138 — all blokes are men, but not all men are blokes. Also, what Fine said.
The best bit is in the PS:
“maybe the lesson here is, live by the crappy national media, die by the crappy national media?”
Yes Fine @ 146 fair enough, it’s just that it’s one of many parts of our culture that I don’t like, which is probably why I reacted.
Adrian, Abbott is always a fine exemplar of many parts of our culture which we can agree to dislike. Ignorance, bullying, unthinking machoness… But, he’s so often seen as a Top Bloke. Worrying, isn’t it?
@tssk, I suspect there is something to Jeremy’s interpretation, that Abbott could have been attempting to be sympathetic and supportive rather then just doing the macho thing. It still strikes me as a ham-fistedly insensitive way to word it – what might work as shorthand amongst comrades in arms sounds odd, very odd, coming from one of the suits who sends them into danger.
“Ignorance, bullying, unthinking machoness… But, he’s so often seen as a Top Bloke. Worrying, isn’t it?”
More worrying is people like Jeremy Sear jumping in to defend his type and make excuses That always happens for Tony for some strange reason that goes with this territory. To respond to someone’s death as ‘shit happening’ cannot be seen as anything but callous.
And Michelle Grattan knows better than the father of the dead soldier, as well. More Poor Tony!
http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/politics/cuts-always-a-risk-remark-forgivable-20110208-1almu.html
The ch 7 reporter who conducted the interview has rebutted the “ambush” claim. He says that he briefed TA’s minders 2.5 hours before the interview on what would be presented, gave them transcripts of what had been recorded and specifically told them he would be asking about the “shit happens” quote.
It appears his spinners gave TA the defence of claiming it was “out of context”. Tony probably thought that would do and he could then scarper. When challenged about how it was out of context as the allegation was not about being uncaring it was about dismissing so easily the claim that American support was not available when it should have been. Tony was flummoxed, didn’t have a pre prepared answer. The wheels were grinding slowly & his reflex was to punch the guy out, but he knew that would not be a good look.
The audacity of Andrew Robb is truly amazing when he claims that Tony is the victim and should be apologised to. That old line well used by these guys, if you are going to tell a lie make it a big one.
Gee Trevor the Ch.7 reporter really bent over backwards to make it as easy as possibly for Tony didn’t he?
I want to go back to the Gillard debate, Gillard being ‘wooden’, then crying in Parliament.
What happened is pretty clear now, I think. Gillard was touring the floods and cyclone areas. As national leader, she felt she had to keep her emotions together while she was doing that. (And I’m sure she cried with some survivors, but you won’t get the MSM showing that, will you? It was Get Gillard Week.)
Then she went into Parliament and the horrendous experiences she saw and was told about just hit her, all that built up emotion she’d been feeling, and she cried.
Now, to put this in a more generalised context. Aside from the fact that probably many people on LP went through the natural disasters in Qld/Vic,the horror of which Gillard shared with you, in ordinary life we’re faced with great tragedies, and every body is at some time in their life, you can’t escape it.
When we’re in the midst of that tragedy, we can’t just break down and cry and end up a quivering heap in the corner. Because, when we’re faced with tragedy, we almost always have things to do connected with the consequence of the tragedy that we must, stress, must keep ourselves together for. Once those things are done, then we can grieve, fall apart,etc.
I think everybody in Australia with any ordinary life experience will understand why Gillard appeared ‘wooden’ at the time of the crisis, and why she could finally let it all go in Parliament yesterday. She had done most of the things she had to do to deal with the catastrophe on a Federal level. Yesterday was the day she could finally grieve, and as PM she HAS to grieve for us all. Its a horrible part of the job, but it is also absolutely genuine.
Accusations of crocodile tears are insensitive rubbish.
Perhaps now might be a good time to throw back in the mincer an article I read several yaers ago in The Bulletin (~2006?). It related a story when Tony Abbott was a cub journo on the magazine after returning from England as a Rhody. He attending a usual weekly piss-up of journos, got extremely drunk and at one point had to be restrained from dragging outside and belting up a fellow journo who’d expressed support for a womens right to choose. That journo was “muscles” Bob Carr. I have heard nothing more of this incident in any of Abbott’s profile’s despite it appearing in a ‘serious’ mag only several years ago. Other than what I read I have no idea if it’s true or not but “I know’s what I read!!”. Is it true, did it happen?
Tigtog, your comments above, starting @ 137 are spot on, and express my feelings very well. As someone who was in the military for over 20 years, I’ve often wondered why it is that conservative pollies such as Howard and Abbott who so obviously delight in the camaraderie of soldiers and relish the opportunity to play with their toys never saw fit to voluntarily sign up themselves, so they could fulfil their own obvious fantasies. Howard in particular, who still believes his support of Australia’s involvement in Vietnam was right, was just the right age to volunteer during the 60s.
snorky @ 165,
I’ve often thought that if we had a law that stated the first people to go into the armed forces and be sent to the most dangerous battle zones were the fighting age children of all the politicians in Parliament who decided on the war, we’d have a lot less wars, but thats getting way off thread.
The last word should go to the wido of the deceased.
http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/national/tony-abbotts-lost-for-words/story-e6freuzr-1226002479861
Why is that tssk? It might just as easily go to his dad. You do not fool anyone Mr Watercooler.
Did the soldier’s widow ask Abbott to explain what was the context, and did Abbott glare at her as if he wanted to hit her?
If not, that is at least the second time that Abbott has failed to explain the context it was “in”.
Crikey, your concern troll act is getting mighty tiresome tssk.
This whole affair could down to be elements within the Liberals using their media mates to help rid themselves of poor Tony. Then when they elect whoever the same media mates will be singing his or her praises just as they did with Abbott and Tuurnbul before him.
No Joe, there are loads of other things to go Abbott on. His past performances. His policies. Even the anti flood levy donation thing.
Not this way though. If we follow this path we’re going to end up with the family dragged onto each and every current affairs show. The only winners here following this path Joe2 is the media.
This takes the cake and the meat tray , I reckon.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2011/02/09/3134111.htm?section=justin
They were fine with the reporting when Latham was going Julia though weren’t they? I was almost completely convinced that the media was completely anti left and anti ALP. Now I’m wondering if they aren’t just lazy.
I accept that Tony was not being dismissive of the death of this soldier. He was trying to use blokes language in a blokes environment, not like woosy shielas who wouldn’t know how to fucking swear. That is the context but he cant really say it.
However watching Tony and the Libs complain about being taken out of context is perplexing. He is the master of attacking a comment in narrow focus then talking over the top if the target tries to explain the context. Then banging on about it with the cheerleaders close behind. Generally in the safe knowledge that the audience have no interest in being informed so why bore them with details.
I frankly think Abbott is gone: he wont lead the Libs to the next election. he’s a one-trick pony with no policy abilty, the indies cant stand him, and he’s just too bloody weird, too often.
It wont happen overnight, but it will happen. The Libs will take him out back quietly before 2013.
Maybe soldiers getting killed so the two major parties can keep those Afghani asylum seekers out of the country is non-core shit happening.
“I accept that Tony was not being dismissive of the death of this soldier.”
Why are so many rushing to his defense and explaining for him? It is almost as if some people need to say x, before they make a comment, because it is too scary to imagine he could be such an insensitive bastard.
He has form ffs! Why try and protect someone who thinks seriously about cutting aid to Africa, money for Indonesian schools and was one of a team screaming to send our troops anywhere the Americans would ask? He most likely even thinks torture is a terrific idea.
And why not accept that the dad of the lost soldier might just be picking something up about this nong?
Oh and I forgot. He even thinks that building up the liberal party coffers is more important than homes for flood victims.
Abbott in 2005, after John Brogden’s suicide attempt:
‘Mr Abbott apparently [said], in relation to a proposed health measure: “If we did that we would be as dead as the former NSW Liberal leader’s political prospects.”
‘The next day, Mr Abbott reportedly told the Kenthurst Liberal branch: “I just want to make it clear I have never told an inappropriate joke, I have never pinched a woman on the backside and I never make inappropriate gestures to women.”‘
‘Asked if he thought the remarks were inappropriate, he replied: “Lots of people say lots of things.”‘
http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/abbott-under-fire-over-brogden-remarks/2005/09/04/1125772395887.html
@177
“Why are so many rushing to his defense and explaining for him”
I’m not defending him but I think it’s evident from the “context” that he was fishing for a quote from the military to support he and Johnson’s bizarre idea of bringing tanks into the field and that the soldier’s death was in part due to the military being under resourced. When it became evident that he wasn’t going to get any support for that idea the “shit” comment was just his brain unloading that tactic. You might even speculate that it was a “note to self” although that’s drawing a fairly long bow.
One consequence of all the attention to Mr. Rabbit’s remarks is that people are being distracted from Cory Bernardi’s barking mad comments about TEH HALAL MEAT.
Joe2 said:
Doubtless, he is an insensitive character (I’ll pass on trading on the moral virtue of having married parents). The question is whether this is an example of it. I see little reason to suppose that it was. When you look at the footage, it seems he was in the mode of finishing off the sentence/thought of the previous speaker by using the a concise vernacular variant of the idea “even with the best will in the world, you can’t control everything”. In context, the discussion had been about whether the army had sufficiently supported/resourced the troops and if you’ll recall, at that stage Abbott had been whispering that perhaps the boffins were out of touch with the needs of the troops on the ground, so this was him accepting the broad claim of the commanders and thus making something of an implicitly embarrassing concession. It’s impluasible to think that he could have been describing casualties of war at that point as overheads of policy.
Not liking or respecting someone is not sufficient reason to misrepresent them. You don’t harm their credibility when you do that. You harm your own.
The more salient issue here is that Abbott hasd been in campaign mode since he ghot the gig as opposition leader. Every word has had to be on message. The relentless pressure of the news cycle and the dumbed down gotcha modality for which his party are especially responsible have made all parties into the biological equivalents of ventriloquists’ dummies. The conflict is about who is more authentic and who connects and who is alienating this or that demographic rather than any substantive matter.
So this is really blowback. When the fruits of Abbott’s own preferred modality with its maudlin reverence for the soldiery manifested, he simply had no useful answer. He pleaded that Riley(sp?) should not have been in the business of creating “a media circus” and yet the circus had been playing for more than a year with him as one of the key clowns. When Riley challenged him he had no packaged answer to go to and the thought that he would blurt out something catastrophic while at the same time feeling outraged by the unfairness of the question left him shaking and mute. Shaking his head and inviting Riley to revisit the footage might have been the best course, but of course, he is not quick on his feet.
Most bizarrely, Abbott should have known this was coming for at least 3 months. Why he hadn’t workshopped an answer is not clear.
@ Fran – perhaps he was in shock that the media had turned on him this time?
I quote someone called Phil @Crikey, Fran.
You read and excuse Tony if you wish but I would never give this creep a context break. The death of a soldier is not just shit happening, whichever way you look at it.
Joe2. We all know what would have happened if Julia had said those words. She wouldn’t be PM anymore. Yes there’s a double standard at work here. I’m with Fran on this one. Past form at other times does not make him guilty this time no matter how much we might be tempted to ignore that.
“I’m with Fran on this one.”
Am I supposed to care?
Mindy @183 Good point. Very rare for his assertions to be challenged. He clearly is uncomfortable when they are, either speechless or blurts out nonsense if no pre packaged morsel is available.
@181
That is seriously dangerous stupid. Bernardi is a crank alright. Of course the comments on the story must be giving LNP strategists great joy.
Sorry for offending you Joe2.
So you should be tssk. I can’t go near a water cooler without retching.
I know none of you read Andrew Bolt’s blog so just read this:
“The dead soldier’s father, Ian MacKinney, then joins us. In the Fairfax papers he’s quoted saying Abbott’s comment was ‘’out of line’’, insensitive and made him ‘’feel sick’’. He seems to have had second thoughts since. He now says that while the comment was insensitive, it was “general” and not directed at his son’s death, and Channel 7’s report has done nobody any good”
As an ex-serving soldiers with mates currently deployed in Afghanistan I would just like to thank Tssk for his input to this thread. I know he is no shill for Abbott.
There have been three times in my life where I have been incandescent with rage and would have punched out the person but have always, fortunately. been prevented by circumstnce from doing so. I maybe wrong but I think Tony was very close to that and I commend him on holding himself together.
When did Riley stop beating his wife?
As for Abbotts “form” – what Roxon said was bullshit and Bernie Banton was pulling a stunt.
Nice shiny lure Razor. Is that a Nils master?
Have to disagree with you Razor with both the Roxon and Banton things. Latham got axed for a handshake yet Abbott can be ruder to Roxon and still survive.
And while Joe2 and I argue about whether or not Abbott was taken out of context with the soldiers I think most reasonable people would agree that what he said about Bernie Banton was an act of bastardry.
Not only insulting a dying man but being gutless in doing it.
Be very scared Corey Bernardi! It’s happening already.
http://www.shermankuek.net/2008/12/halal_toilet.php
Tssk – Not really interested whether he is pure of heart or not but don’t you think Mr Banton was trying to get a political message across? i.e. pulling a stunt.
I have hopes, this time, that News will finally publish my comment.
Razor you are almost as grubby as Tony.
Banton went to an arranged meeting that Abbott ditched.
What was Bernie suppossed to do. Not look sick?
When my asthma flares up even getting from one room to the other is a heroic effort. Bernie was suffering more than that.
And let’s remember, what was Bernies asking for?
According to wiki he was
So to be non political what should he have done Razor? Send Grant Kenny as his proxy?
How is getting a political message across pulling a stunt?
Razor, as a matter of interest, (a.) what are your opinions on civilians trying to ape military lingo to the faces of soldiers, and, a bit more seriously, (b.) have you given any thought to the correct manner by which officers and their civilian superiors should interact in official briefing situations? (And please don’t try to tell me the leader of the Opposition isn’t superior to ADF people, or that he wasn’t being briefed in that video clip. Just because Abbott isn’t in office it doesn’t mean his party doesn’t have a lot of oversight power thanks to the hung parliament and the regular senate committee powers.)
I actually don’t think him saying ‘shit’ is a hanging offence, but I’m gobsmacked that he wouldn’t just issue a statement retracting it as being A Wrong Thing To Do. There is no ‘me and the boys in uniform were just shooting the breeze here’ defence.
And there’s also the little thing where service personnel shouldn’t be given any hint that it’s acceptable for them to return bad language to MPs. Them not being able to say ‘shit’ or ‘fuck’ or ‘cunt’ to the member for Warringah would be military law, I imagine.
Poor badly done by tones refuses the opportunity to put things right by talking to the ABC, and instead rushes into the studio to give that beacon of impartiality the parrott,AKA allan jones, his version of the events. No doubt with no mention that his office was indeed forewarned about the content of this interview.
I am so bloody tired of the excuses being rolled out time after time to protect this truly awful piece of human detrius.We all know that if the person who uttered these incredibly insensitive comments had come from the ALP the likes of jones and all the other wingnuts would have been a collective howling for blood.
Bloody hypocrites
Me, Im going to try the Abbott ‘full-minute stare and nod’ next time some student asks me a question I cant answer.
Lefty E.
I suppose Abbott could have told the reporter to come back after he (Abbott) had gone to the Parliamentary Library and looked it up.
Good Library at the Parlt. I’ve been told by friends who’ve worked as researchers there. I mean, Abbott coulda found the answer to anything.
I’m a little concerned how the act of death-staring itself has been having aspersions being cast on it lately. It is very good for silencing small children and should not be entirely discounted the way it has been of late by Abbott and Julie Bishop, when it becomes politically unpalatable.
The reason Tory lite (the ALP) is finished as a political force is because they have spent so long sucking up to Alan Jones’s tiny (at least by Australia’s standard) audience who have not and will not ever vote for them, that they have lost track of what they stand for.
It started under Keating who reintroduced student fees, sold the Commonwealth bank for 3 months profit (major banks only get one Keating in their life and the Commonwealth bank have had theirs) and establishing concentration camps in the desert for refugees.
These actions were those Howard could only dream of doing under Fraser, and when he carried on with this far right wing agenda the ALP could hardly complain as Howard just told them at every point, “we’re only doing what you’re doing just we’re doing it in spades”.
Now we have torylite passing consorting laws that allow them to ban any organisation they want, anti-terrorism laws that allows them to burst into your house in the middle of the night so that you can disappear and crotch sniffing dogs on our streets for our ‘safety’. These are not the actions of a democratic party and they won’t be missed when they are gone.
@200 Nickws
(a.) what are your opinions on civilians trying to ape military lingo to the faces of soldiers?
Depends on if they can pull it off without looking like a try hard. My opinion on the comment in question by Abbott was that it was entirely accurate and he didn’t look like a try hard.
(b.) have you given any thought to the correct manner by which officers and their civilian superiors should interact in official briefing situations?
Once again – depends. If in a formal briefing situation in Canberra then profanity is inappropriate. In a firebase talking face to face with soldiers where incoming could occur at any time then profanity has it’s place and in this specific comment shit did happen. They weren’t having high tea.
As a Troop Leader I had some soldiers who did not appear to understnad what you were saying unless it was liberally scattered with profanity.
I once had a medical consultation where the Orthopeadic surgeon turned to me after viewing the X-Ray of the eight pieces of my collar-bone (cyclist v car), in front of a medical student, said “Jesus, you’ve fucked that up”. He didn’t know me from boo so to a more timid soul it would have been inappropriate but I didn’t mind (as i was grey with pain).
I’ve had a couple of face to faces with Davied Johnston in his capacity as Shadow and used a string of profanities to get the seriousness of my message across. Seemed to work, but there weren’t any cameras there.
As for the comment about civilian superiors – a member of the Opposition is not a superior as they are not in the chain of command. I would argue that unless they are the Minister for Defence (or Parl sec etc.) or the PM then they aren’t superior either but there is a strong argument for Ministers as members of Cabinet are possibly superiors. That said, all Members of Parliament and their Staff should be afforded the appropriate level of defference.
Oh, come off it, Razor! Abbott did look (and sound) like a try-hard. I’m still surprised they let him anywhere near a real gun on tht little jaunt. I’m not sure I’d even have let him on the range if I’d been responsible for it, as he has no idea about basic safety.
“These are not the actions of a democratic party and they won’t be missed when they are gone.”
Yes, worrierqueen@205, I can ‘ardly wait for Tory heavy(the coalition). If I had sadly lost one leg, I might as well go all the way and have the other chopped off as well.
And Tory Tony looks like just the kind of man to wield a hardly noticeable axe. Brilliant position, pal!
Seems like there is a royal brawl going on in the Coalition and they are upset it got in the papers. (which I suppose means the ABC won’t cover it until everybody else does, to cover their arses.)
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/national/was-one-nation-behind-abbotts-cuts/story-e6frf7l6-1226003311099
And I was under the ‘orrible misapprenension that that pack of racists called One Nation never had any influence in the Liberal Party; that in fact Big Tony had destroyed them single-handedly. Just shows how you can be deceived.
All this negative coverage of the coalition is so UNFAIR!
Dont they realise Abbott needs the full assistance of every major media outlet to remain competitive?
I can assure you these media outlets will pay once the LNP resumes its rightful place at the helm.
joe2 says: @208
you do know there are more than 2 parties you can vote for in Austraia don’t you?
And if the only choices are creeping fascism under Labor and galloping fascism under the tories, over time there is no choice.
The Libs are really in the shit now. It seems Phoney’s low-rent Hansonite dog-whistling is undermining Bishop’s (understandable) desire to retain some shred of credibility in foreign policy circles:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2011/02/10/3135022.htm
Cut one of the few effective anti-extremism programs? Is Tony completely stupid?
And now Bishop’s pissed off and not taking it anymore! http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/bishop-breaks-ranks-on-same-sex-marriage/story-fn59niix-1226003262760
Crikey, what did the abbott say to the bishop?
Can you imagine Abbott and Bishop exchanging Death Stares in the party room?
So, glad Julie has an open mind when comes to a conscience vote about gay marriage. Does this mean she’s carefully working out which way the wind is blowing on this one?
This is from the Greg Sheridan article that sent Jules off into a fury. Hard to understand why.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/opinion/two-bad-blunders-ruin-one-very-brave-decision/story-e6frg6zo-1226002485193
See, you know the ALP is being gutless when it is outflanked and less progressive on the same sex equality issue by, of all people, Julie Bishop.
From the OO article:
“..Ms Bishop has been conducting an online poll through her website, which shows overwhelming support for gay marriage ..”
Julie can, apparently, maybe, see political capital in acknowledging such.
Ms Bishop has been conducting an online poll through her website
Online polls are meaningless.
It’s just so extraordinarily hard to keep up with open minded liberals these days h.d. Cory is working on the threat of segregated Muslim toilets as we speak.
Patricia WA asked me two questions back at @128:
“In what way is WA’s state government under Barnett moderate?”
Compared to the previous state Liberal government or the Howard government, we haven’t seen any extreme industrial relations changes, or major reductions to programs the left favours.
“But surely you’d agree with Bob Brown that Barnett’s plan to ignore the wishes of the Kimberly Land Council is very problematical?”
I could be wrong, but the last I read, the Kimberley Land Council was in agreement with the government. Other groups up there don’t agree.
Patricia, all your other points are answerable, but broadly the answers would support the comments in the first part of this thread – about the ALP’s lack of direction: they’re still talking about community, but their agenda is neoliberal. So people see them as not ‘genuine’, compared to Abbott’s genuineness.
The ALP was all in favour of PPPs – probably the last major building they opened, the new District Court building was a PPP, with the private company running the custodial, security and other ‘services’ for the next 20 years. When the ALP now tries to criticise the Libs for outsourcing or privatising, the answer is to point to the ‘successful’ models that the ALP had established.
The W.A. libs have been genuine – they say they believe in smaller government, encouraging business, being tough on crime, and they set about implementing their policies. You mention more people being in gaol – here’s something from Hansard recently by the very impressive Liberal Attorney-General:
“There has been a reduction of 12.7 per cent in overall reported crime based on the statistics that
the police have been regularly using… when we talk about statistics, there is a tendency to
get lost and not realise the individual impact. Of the seven categories, burglaries are down 11 per cent—that is
2,797 fewer burglaries this financial year than last financial year. Burglaries on non-dwellings—things like
businesses—are down 27 per cent, which is 3,176 fewer victims this financial year than last. Property damage is
down 12.7 per cent, which is 5,392 fewer instances of property damage… Sexual assault is down 23 per cent, which is 541 fewer
recent sexual assaults… This is the first time in seven years that public assaults have decreased according to measurable statistics, which is a remarkable
achievement.”
So what is the ALP going to use as a slogan at the next election – “we will release more criminals from gaol!”. They, of course, had their own, similar, stop-and-search Bill before Parliament when they lost office.
I don’t agree with the Liberal philosophy of smaller government, but it’s a relief to have an honest government in power – they don’t do strange things with money, they don’t spin and promise but then do the opposite, and they don’t seem to have a seriously corrupted party.
Patricia, here’s one question for you – what did the recent, farcical leadership challenge by Ben Wyatt tell you about the state ALP?
Ted Bailleau certainly isn’t scaring the horses. The worst thing he’s done is let a few cows wander around a national park.
Hannah’s Dad @ 217:
Malcolm Turnbull’s been doing the same thing.
It looks like every Federal MHR will be conducting a similar poll of their electorate at some time in 2011.
You have not been concentrating, Sam@221. Liberals hate public transport more than Labor and will use any excuse to kill needed projects.
http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/blowout-puts-rail-project-in-doubt-20110203-1afgx.html?from=age_sb
Sam at #218 pointed out that online polls are useless [except of course for spin reasons] particularly if they have been Pharyngulated or Young-Libed.
But Possum reported on three polls that looked at the same sex marriage question in late 2010.
http://blogs.crikey.com.au/pollytics/2010/12/06/public-opinion-on-same-sex-marriage/
Galaxy 62% favour
33% against
Nielsen 57% favour
37% against
ER 50% favour
37% against
That’s pretty solid support.
I think we are all in furious agreement, hannah’s dad, about the popularity of same sex marriage amongst the majority of the population. To suggest, however, that the Liberals, as a group, are outflanking an also slack Labor party is plain crazy.
Apart from Julie, Chrissy and Mal who seem to be a bit progressiveon that issue, who else is there?
Hannah’s Dad – for some completely inexpicable, self-nullifying and deeply dysfunctional reason, the ALP are only concerned about those segments of the voting popualation who will NEVER vote for them.
And they say NO to same-sex marriage. So that’s that.
I thought they were in the same position as the Liberals with a few backbenchers running around saying they would like to support it but similarly not prepared to defy the party line or hoping for a conscience vote. If that were the case the number of coalition backbenchers supporting it would be miniscule compared to a labor free vote. The outflanking stuff just does not wash.
Gee joe2 I didn’t realize I was plain crazy, I thought I was special crazy.
My point is that things have come to a pretty pass when the ALP rejects action on such a simple open and shut action, despite its strong popularity with the public and some, at least, of t’other mob can be ahead of them.
I presume that t’other mob are tarred with the same brush when it comes to agreeing with and/or being fearful of the religious right which is why I only named one of t’other mob, Julie Bishop, as apparently, flirting with same sex marriage [no innuendo intended].
If we are looking for some progressive policy and action in Oz both these mobs are duds.
Julie’s mob more so than Julia’s.
Normally.
You crazy? na, just the suggestion of progressives in the liberal party.
The opposition is getting absolutely hammered in question time today. Gillard and Rudd are reciting all the critical leaks from the Lib backbench and Bishop.
What an absurd policy stance theyve taken.
Lefty E @109 said,
The Greens are in government in Tas and ACT, Craigy.
Sky hasnt fallen in.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/premier-lara-giddings-sorry-as-tasmania-flags-big-spending-cuts-after-mid-year-financial-report/story-fn59niix-1226003758450
The sky just fell in for 2300 Tasmanians.
To watch the various newses tonight, you wouldn’t realise the Opposition was being hammered. Nor would you realise it on Google News, which is all about the Senate with Xenophon and The Fielding Moron’s aid, passing a bill to fund regional student allowances.
Craigy, how precisely is the GFC is the Tas Greens fault?
I wasnt expecting much, but somehow you still managed to disappoint.
Lefty E
“”"The mid-year report shows state revenues falling by $300 million due to a decline in GST receipts and state taxes due to a slump in consumer demand linked to the global financial crisis.”"”
OK. The GFC was global. How many Public servants are the other states going to sack? Quite justifiably according to you.
“”"Craigy, how precisely is the GFC is the Tas Greens fault?”"”
Of course it wasn’t, silly.
“”"I wasnt expecting much, but somehow you still managed to disappoint.”"”
If i had a dollar for every time i heard that.
Another win for Colin Barnett, and another poke in the eye for Rudd/Roxon. Still, at least Gillard appears to be pragmatic and capable of negotiation – a good move.
The Policy change by Gillard/Roxon just shows what low regard the Federal ALP has for WA voters. But once the Vics, a bastion for the Federal ALP, starts to kick up a stink, then they start to pay attention.
Razor, I think it’s more that they felt they could deal with one arsehole, but two (with a potential third one in NSW) would just make a sensible compromise too difficult.
The problem with gay marriage is that the majority of Australians might be for it but 100% of those against it are against it. And you can bet your bottom dollar that if either side tried to pass it the tabloids would scream representing those readers. (It’s political correctness gone mad! I didn’t fight three world wars and win two world cups so that people who loved each other could get married! etc etc)
So right, David @237, more shit happens when the number of arsholes increases. It’s the Tony law of crap.
Hannah’s Dad @224 – Possum’s conclusions are extensively disputed in the comments to his piece that you link to. What is certainly clear from those comments (and Possum’s responses to them) is that all the three polls he uses were commissioned by activist pressure groups (GetUp!, Australian Marriage Equality, Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays), that they didn’t ask the same question as was put in the earlier polls to which Possum compares them to claim support for gay marriage going up, and that at least one was to all intents and purposes a straight-out push poll in the question it used.
I don’t have a dog in this fight, and I am certainly not arguing from this against (or for) gay marriage. I don’t have strong feeling either way, and neither I think do the vast majority of Australians (another reason to avoid drawing conclusions from polls on subjects like this, which in effect force respondents to take a black and white position on something they don’t really care about by virtue of the “yes/no” nature of the questioning).
I am merely saying be careful about blind belief in Possum, and certainly make you sure you read any commentary attached to his pieces. He is one of the champion, let’s-think-of-a-conclusion-and find-some-figures-to-back-it-up, cherry-pickers of our day.
Tony’s Death Stare was an act.
Trevor @161 demonstrates that Abbott knew in advance exactly what he would be asked and therefore had time to calculate his response.
So Abbott goes big on contempt for the reporter, aiming for big points on justified controlled rage at treasonous weasel-mouthed reporter who cannot understand Abbott’s deep love and respect for our boys spilling their blood defending democracy.
Its just a variant on wrapping oneself in the Flag during time of war etc etc.
Robb’s follow-up attacking the reporter aimed to reinforce the message.
Thankfully Abbott looked so stupid doing what he did he may have weirded out some swinging voters while only appealing to rusted ons.
Baraholka,
My impression was that Abbott weirded out the whole of Australia (apart from those of us who already knew.)
Sorry, Russell, I did check a few times before your comment and nothing was moving. Once it had dropped off the heavy traffic line I should have checked again.
I’ll give your response the consideration it deserves later this evening. Meanwhile I can respond to your final point
I don’t think it was a ‘farcical’ challenge. Ripper’s response when he survived was, if not farcical, very short sighted.
Ben Wyatt is a talented man and potential Premier material and surely is entitled to challenge a leader with woeful polls mid term and offer a chance for renewal. Certainly he and his supporters are offering new policy ideas which are not coming from their leadership. He apparently had the numbers and firm commitments to succeed until the 11th hour when some in a certain faction reneged. Probably what it says is that for them factional loyalty is stronger than party loyalty.
“Probably what it says is that for them factional loyalty is stronger than party loyalty.”
Or, looking after themselves (preselections) was more important than anything else. What do you think of former ALP Premier Dowding and former minister MacTiernan’s comments that it was a couple of union leaders (Dave Kelly of the Missos and Joe Bullock of the Shoppies) who decided that leadership non-contest?
@244 Highkly likely that it was those union leaders. Dowding and MacTiernan are straight shooters and don’t have a dog in the fight.
http://www.smh.com.au/national/landslide-happens-team-abbott-takes-electionwinning-lead-20110213-1as4p.html
Crap. Not an outlier by the looks of it and food for thought for the indpendents.
True, tssk. But the Libs have only just started to destabilise and its a long way to the next election unless the Independents go ga-ga. I’m sure we can rely on TA to keep messing it up. Gillard is a woeful public performer, but if she gets a few runs under her belt and doesn’t move too far to the right she’ll recover, unless they knife her first. I don’t think the latter will happen as I was under the impression that her staying PM was part of the deal with the Independents. Interesting times ahead.
“Gillard is a woeful public performer,…”
I just caught her on Jon Faine and that is far from my impression. She is also very strong in parliament but when it comes down to it, I prefer ‘performance’ not from a P.M. but movie stars.
Hi Russell. You’ve had me burning the midnight oil on this one! Not really, Monday evening I do watch TV, so I came to this late. It’s now 12.30 Making sure I was right on some stats and other details meant I didn’t get back to you sooner. I thought you were a Greenie and not likely to have much sympathy for the sort of things that have been happening here if you were really aware, so you seemed worth the time. Are you? A Greenie, I mean.
Labor Laws may not yet have been changed. This is not surprising since the Libs hold power in a hung parliament, supported by Brendan Grylls and the Nationals. It’s not a coalition, please note. But if Barnett gets a generous win in the next election, which he could if people continue complacently to accept, like you, that this is a ‘moderate’ government it’s wise to remember that Barnett hails from the Richard Court’s government. He was the first to introduce laws which were the model for Work Choices, in recent years vocally supported by Troy Buswell and other senior Liberals, who have never recanted their views. Nor is there much sympathy with strong union concern about ‘local content’ in the work force and their concern about ‘fly-in – fly-out’ workers who threaten reasonable work conditions and jobs for people in nearby towns and communities which are dying out.
The Kimberly Land Council are in favour of the hub gas development. It offers a revenue stream for them with employment and other benefits to their people. They are, however, vigorously opposed to Barnett’s plan for compulsory acquisition of their land, in direct contravention of the Native Title Act. Apart from Ken Wyatt, a federal Liberal MP, I don’t think there are other Aboriginal people in favor of that.
Infrastructure is something I’d be careful about commenting on re. the proportion funding via Public Private Partnerships but the ALP seems to have achieved far more than any Liberal government with infrastructure. Their last public opening was one of the many stations on the southern suburban rail which doubled the metropolitan rail network overnight during Labor’s tenure. What about the desalination plant, first of its kind in a metropolitan area in the world and has saved this state from a decade of drought. The second plant to be completed by Barnett I believe was already on the drawing board under Labor. And what about all new schools built under Labor, more than ever before in the State’s history. Another thing that comes to mind is the new Northbridge theatre of which I am sure you are a patron.
Crime has not decreased. That ‘very impressive Liberal Attorney General’ you speak of, has introduced mandatory sentencing, new stop and search laws, naming and shaming of juveniles. That claim, you refer to, recorded in Hansard, last year about low crime rates has been superceded by more recent figures. Violent crime has increased dramatically over the reporting period, i.e. since these new draconian measure have been in place. Barnett’s government spends over half a billion a year just running our over-crowded prisons and has allocated rather more than that to build more gaols to house the unprecedented growth in prisoner numbers, some 900 more i.e. a 23% growth in less than two years! We now have the highest imprisonment rate in the country, even higher than Victoria. We now exceed that state in the number of prisoners in our gaols. They are disproportionately Aboriginal or economically disadvantaged, and often with psychiatric conditions, imprisoned after being unable to pay fines after offending ‘at the lower end of the spectrum.’ Imagine that, Russell. Victoria has three times our population and we now have more of our citizens in prison than the ‘Underbelly’ state.
PB said:
I wonder about this. Give even the best performer an impossible brief and they will look abysmal — especially if you have a clear idea about what the brief should be and it’s not the one you’re getting.
It’s the substance that is wrong with Gillard/the ALP — not the style. If she had been proposing policies that people thought were both good and distinctively ALPish>, people would be praising her public performance. Instead, precisely because ALP supporters are disaffected, those who are tribal supporters of the LNP can make her “public performance” an issue and expect not to be shouted down by people from the centre-left/left. Indeed, if we were really enthusaistic about the substance of ALP we probably wouldn’t even be allowing “public performance” to ber a legitimate issue of debate. We’d be insisting that the right were a bunch of vacuous twits with nothing useful to say about public policy for ignoring her substance and focusing on her style.
That’s a bit tricky to do when her “substance” is nothing that should have raised an eyebrow with the Abbottistas had Howard been doing it.
Just stop immediately folding when Mr Auto-Oppose says “great big new”, and watch the ratings rise.
Nobody likes cowards.
@ Lefty E – you still have to rely on the media to report it, and not put a negative spin on it and you just can’t do that these days.
If Gillard or anyone in her government are goaded into expressing anything at all even remotely controversial these days they’re ‘losing it’ and headlined as having a ‘hissy fit.’
They seem to have made a team decision to stay positive, keep talking policy and programs and avoid giving Abbott and Co the opportunity to become even more shrill. Time is on their side if they can hold the government together until that Senate changeover in a few months.
Watching Gillard smilingly handle Heather Ewatt on the 7.30 Report with such consummate skill I marvelled as Ewatt looked more and more petty and labored (sorry, wrong word maybe)and wondered if less partisan viewers than myself could see that too. Rudd as Foreign Minister is perhaps not so beleaguered these days but he too did a great job on Lateline fending off Ali Moore’s snide probing for a negative angle to exploit. Both he and Gillard were generous to each other in their interviews. I hope, for both of them, that reflects some kind of rapprochement.
I’d like the ALP to insistently correct journalists when they start using Coalition descriptors to discuss policy with by using the phrases like the coalition noise machine or perhaps opposition whoopee cushion.
e.g.
Reporter: Is this the time to introduce a great big new tax?
ALP figure: Ah, very amusing Mark … I can see you’ve come across the opposition whoopee cushion. Putting aside the childish tomfoolery coming from the coalition noise machine … {explanation}
It’s very important that the ALP does not allow the opposition to frame the debate in their favour and makes explicit the propagandistic and contentious character of their discourse.
I don’t think Gillard is a woeful performer at all. Historically, she’s been an excellent performer. But, as other have pointed out above, she’s been prosecuting a case that pisses everyone off; in particular Labor supporters.
She needs to be clear, assertive and stick with decisions once they’ve been made, even when she cops solid opposition. She’s showing signs of doing this with the flood levy and the health deal. Not perfect policies, but “Red” Julia has never come from any sort of extreme Left position. She’s a dealmaker and a pragmatist. People saying that she’ll be knifed and replaced with Shorten forget that that would mean Labor probably wouldn’t be in government anymore.
I liked her line the other day that she was considering a tax on three word slogans, but she was worried it would send the Leader of the Opposition broke. A bit of humour doesn’t do any harm.
Hi Patricia,
Yes, I’ve voted Green since Jo Valentine’s days, so it’s from the left of you that I’m calling the Barnett government moderate.
Yes, it’s a concern that if the Libs increase their majority at the next election, they will be emboldened to pursue more extreme policies (like Howard and control of the Senate), but that’s not now. The ALP didn’t care for local content anymore than the Libs do.
The gas hub: the ALP government gave the indigenous groups time and money to come up with a site for the hub, which they didn’t. Had the ALP won the election they would almost certainly have chosen a site – everyone wants the hub, just not in their backyard. So once again, no difference. Do you really think that, after the Inpex debacle, the ALP would have lost this project, because along hundreds of kilometres of coastline, no site could be agreed on?
The point wasn’t infrastructure, it was privatisation, and the ALP finds it hard to criticise what the Libs are doing because they did it themselves. Whether it’s justice, health, education …. the Libs can point to the ALP record and say “We’re just continuing your good work”
Crime – I would like to see those later figures you refer to – where did you see them? My quote from Hansard was only 6 months ago. We know about the disproportionate rate of imprisonment for Aboriginals (and what’s changed there?), I would remind you of the horrific death of Mr Ward in the back of the clapped out prisoner transfer van – the vans that the ALP refused to upgrade.
I partly disagree Mindy – Rudd in 2007 circumvented the media a lot fo the time and spoke directly to the punters.
Media hated him for it. But worked a treat. He won the election.
It’s a lot easier to do while you are in opposition, LeftyE. More time on your hands to do crap tv and radio talk shows which is apparently where the majority hone their ignorance.
I think the media paid him back in spades Lefty E.
Agree govt is different: but their current media strategy is just awful, reactive, and worst of all, they blow over too quick.
Sticking it out – even through the tough media yelping times – means Phoney’s alternative policy has to be examined.
He wont pass that test! The problem is when they blow over it looks like Phoney must have had a point after all – whatever it was.
Frankly, I think it well nigh impossible to counter a continuous slurry of out and out bunkum. Today, for instance, a report was totally misrepresented by just about every section of the media. How the hell could they ever turn that around?
http://www.crikey.com.au/2011/02/15/wireless-obsession-gets-in-the-way-on-broadband/
Ministers really do have too much on their plate imo. It aint feasible to run a large department and run around speaking to every media moron who wants your ear. Maybe they could have a few up and coming backbenchers be junior ministers to cover the Tony’s tripe pushers or similar.
Hi Russell – let’s not debate this ad infinitum.
I don’t think the ALP have ever changed on the local content issue. Hansard should confirm that.
Hi Russell. I don’t think the ALP have ever changed from supporting the local content campaign. Check Hansard.
On the Hub my sense is that if Labor had won in 2008 the issue would have been settled fairly quickly with KLC without threatening compulsory land acquisition. With Barnett it’s dragged on for almost three years, and even now could go to the Supreme Court.
I don’t think Labor has ever gone in for the massive privatisation of services eg. schools and hospitals cleaning, prison management etc. which you now see with the Libs.
I have a particular interest in prisons. That somewhat premature claim by A.G. Christian Porter, last year, drew on figures which showed a decline in crime rates over the previous decade, and was a few months before the 2010 annual report of the WA Police where you’ll find plenty of stats on increasing imprisonment rates, crime etc. There’s plenty of info in the West too, even today there was a story about our having the highest rate of home burglaries in the country. I am an ALP member. You’ll find plenty of info at their site, particularly that of Paul Papalia who until recently was the Shadow Minister for Corrective Services. He has written a policy position paper for the Party which you’ll find there.
Jo Valentine looks in good shape in that recent Friends of the Earth picture. Goodnight.
Russell, I know I said we shouldn’t carry on this debate ad infinitum. I’m sure we have plenty of other topics on which we do agree.
Particularly on justice reinvestment. I’ve just been listening to Paul Papalia being interviewed by Peter Mares on the ABC’s
National Interest
I thought it was interesting to think of how productive one could still be in trying to change the state or national perspective on an important issue like this even from opposition, and even against mainstream opinion in one’s own party, it seems. Knowing how the Greens feel on this and that there are Liberal politicians across the country who agree too, perhaps it’s something worth encouraging.