Putting a terrible week behind him where he lost a Minister and Brisbaneâs infrastructure problems were highlighted by an out of commission freeway, Peter Beattie has come up with a policy initiative to get back on the front foot.
Beattie is promising an investment of half a billion dollars in a fast broadband PPP infrastructure scheme for South East Queensland. Beattie will leverage the new network on the back of the existing state controlled power lines.
Beattieâs politics 2.0 move is an interesting one for a number of reasons. For his political purposes, it highlights the incompetence of the Federal government in delivering infrastructure and fostering innovation led economic growth. It also marks out a point of differentiation from the widely unpopular Telstra privatisation.
But Beattieâs initiative is also indicative of how an emboldened Labor Party is playing the political game.
The Democrats in America are targetting Bush on what is supposed to be the GOPâs home turf â national security. Howard is scrambling to stay ahead of the Republican twists and turns on Iraq, as elite as well as popular opinion deserts the âstay the courseâ? line. In Parliament last week, Beazley demonstrated he can play on this turf as well, with the added bonus of climate change thrown in, leaving the Government scrambling to look proactive, and resorting to Howardâs tried and true bundles of cash method.
Over a longer period of time, Howard has also been attacking Labor on its own ground. The âculture warsâ?, the Maoists in the schools and âvaluesâ? are all attempts to undermine Labor strengths in education and immigration.
The current dynamic of politics raises the interesting spectre of a complete role reversal from the 2004 poll. While Mark Latham ignored the economy and prioritised value-driven politics, present indications are that Howard will be avoiding talking about interest rates and IR while distracting voters with nationalism and national security. The clear and present danger for Howard is if Beazley proves he can successfully capture the defence/security turf. We live in interesting political times indeed.
I can’t see how Beattie is going to make this work. Is this to be a PPP? Or what? Badly needed, but how?
The Labor Party should attack on National Security but as Rudd has demonstrated on at least two occassions, they need better ‘spin’. A need to be less prolix.
Howard doesn’t have the policy but he has the pejorative slogan ‘cut and run’. It resonates.
Labor must develop more one liners eg ‘Saddam’s biggest bagman’.
wpd is on the money. Labor is making hits but they badly need to work on their language. Tim at Surfdom brought this up on the weekend.
As a serious question, does Labor have people working with Rudd and Beazley on the language they are using? The government is falling back on some easily killable arguments but Labor is replying with overtly complex language.
A PPP I think, wpd, though there’s precious little detail at this stage.
Ruddy isn’t a bad communicator – the problem he has I think is that he doesn’t measure it to the audience that well – ie general public vs. foreign policy community.
The Beazer, well, hmmm…
I agree, Ruddy is normally pretty good. I’ve noticed it takes him a while to simplify his answers. He answers questions in the way that you would hope a foreign minister would, with subtlety, unfortunately this often translates to uncertainty to the general public. Like Tim was pointing out at Surfdom, they should be more prepared for questions like “what happens to Iraq if Australia pulls out?” cause that’s what they are going to get asked. Rudd’s language on this has been less than clear, because what happens in Iraq is less than clear, but you can give simple replies to this question.
Rudd is an excellent communicator for those ‘in the know’. But winning elections isn’t about communicating with ‘elites’, to use the rodent’s pejorative language. Rather it is about winning the ‘hearts’ and ‘minds’ of the average ‘punter’.
Politics, to some extent at least, is above evoking simplistic, emotional responses to complex issues. Howard does this very well, with a little (lots) help from Textor/Crosby.
The Rodent has been very lucky that the ‘war against terrorism’ in Iraq hasn’t produced any significant numbers of Australian casualities. If there was a ‘disaster’ (and I am not hoping for that) the dynamic(s) would change very quickly.
The Labor reaction should be swift and brutal.
The folly of Iraq needs to be rammed home.
The ‘immorality’ of the Rodent’s ‘political’ position ought to be attacked without restraint.
I’d love to see more ( free? ) hot-spots over our cities. It’s plain that the net favours democratic and libertarian socialism over the various fascism’s on offer and the better reach the net gets the better for everyone.
I don’t know much about the technical aspects of power-lines Vs other ways and means but the main thing is the big foot-print.
‘ The excellent is the enemy of the good’ here I feel.
The Alternative Liberal Party is slowly getting jiggy with the net and so they are slowly picking up the tools they need to deconstruct the opposition.
This is a really good news story because the net is our best terrain and our sharpest weapon.
‘ Brisbane Indymedia? We don’ need no steenkin’ Brissie Indymedia!’
Beatties action on this has the potential to be brilliant, both in terms of the infrastructure it will develop and the political impact it will have in demonstrating what a total mess the Coalition has made of telecommunications through its Telstra folly.
I have something of a private fantasy in which nationwide State Labor Governments get together to effectively deal the Federal Liberal Government out of important policy areas, which the coalition has a history of stuffing up – effectively rendering them surplus to the debate.
This broadband internet idea, if established nationwide, would be a great place to start!
Saddam’s gone. Overreliance on that line won’t work. A Four Corners job showing where Saddam’s money is now, whether collecting interest in a Swiss bank or funding carbombers, would negate Howard’s rationale for Iraq: we didn’t fund the Turks before Gallipoli, nor did we subsidise the Japanese bombing of Darwin (the pig iron Menzies sent them had been long used up before then, and Menzies’ career postwar puts the lie to any idea that AWB is a silver bullet against Howard).
Beazley’s role as a defence policy guru is overrated. He was a Cold War warrior as Defence Minister with little evidence of fresh thinking since 1991. That said, in a party dominated by people whose only involvement in defence issues was to oppose the Vietnam war I suppose he’s the one-eyed man among the blind.
Labor may have a chance in emphasising the need for regional engagement, a kind of Australia First imagery mixed with fuzzy-wuzzy angels etc., along with a bit of historical finessing of the cutting and running message. The only way to attack Howard’s dimunition of human rights is on the pragmatic level – they don’t work – which ties it in to the security credentials. This would be much more effective the level of outrage about our traditional liberties under attack. The left don’t do reactionary stick-in-the-mud well and should leave that tactic to the monarchists.
Mind you, I’m not sure such a job by Four Corners would get past the current board.