On the Crikey website, Christian Kerr asks cheekily:
Queenslanders are in the news – Kevin Rudd, Peter Beattie – so let’s use a Queensland simile for current events in Canberra. Remember Russell Cooper?
Thought not. The Queensland Nats drafted him in at the last moment to replace Mike Ahern, the bloke who’d replaced Joh, as the shadow of Fitzgerald loomed large over their 1989 election hopes. It didn’t work.
Labor won. And Kevin Rudd got a new job. That’s a pretty irresistible simile. Who will be Canberra’s answer to Russell Cooper?
The answer is almost certainly no one. To a significant degree, the Howard leadership meltdown has been a media creation. Urgers from the Murdoch press, and journos with an eye to a scoop, and their own agendas, are as much responsible for it as the “soundings” by Downer Paul Kelly writes about in The Australian today.
Matt Price appeared to be suggesting on Lateline that the Kelly piece would be some sort of bomb lobbed into the Liberal party room later this morning. Maybe. We wait on events. But Andrew Bolt was almost certainly right – Howard has stared down every last panicking Minister and not a single one of them has the ticker to take him on. The rats are finding that the gangplanks have been drawn up, and the captain of the ship will determine who gets to leave it and under what circumstances.
Remember Ian Macphee? He was a small l Fraser Minister – noted for his support for a centralised arbitration system and for a liberal immigration policy. Like most of the small l Liberals, he was blasted out of Parliament by John Howard Mark I (with more than a little assistance from Peter Costello).
After Howard took the reins of power again, servility became the order of the day, and with a tiny number of exceptions, the Liberal parliamentary party are the crew of a ship of fools, habituated to clinging to the Great Helmsman confident in their belief he can steer them clear of choppy waters. Now that they’re doubting his seamanship, they have no idea how to row their leaky boat themselves.
The Tampa of the 2007 election is the Good Ship Howard. But no one is going to turn it around. It’s going to crash on the Ruddy shoals of shifting fortune.
The Liberal Party of 2007 is John Howard’s creature. There’s no one left with the courage to take on their creator. So we all get to watch the ship sink along with its captain. One way or another, he’s taking them down with them. That holds whether or not he’s dynamited out. That should come as no surprise to anyone.
<img src="http://larvatusprodeo.net/wp-content/uploads/2007/09/demeter.jpg"
Comments continued from the thread on Phil’s earlier post, which was getting a tad long:
http://larvatusprodeo.net/2007/09/11/howard-deathwatch/#comment-402323
Howard will be gone tomorrow?The real movers and shakers in the Party,pissing it up in the Melbourne/Sydney clubs, have decided. They will be telling the underlings of the party in no un-certain terms what to do.
Costello will make his move, they will want Howard to go out with some faux dignity.He has served the faceless tools that really run the party, beyond all expectations, time to go..He has served his purpose, he is expendable.
Who are these movers and shakers, Gaz?
There’s no powerful President of the Party. The corporate funding taps are already running dry. Dolly and the rest of them have had a go and failed. There are no Liberal Premiers – remember Peter Beattie was instrumental in blasting Latham out. The Liberal Party is, for all intents and purposes, John Howard.
I watched several of the morning newses yesterday and the ABC’s was the most informative. I got the impression that it was Mal Brough and Kevin Andrews who were calling for Howard to step down. This is a little odd because these two are the worst performing ministers of recent weeks. They could be feeling betrayed by Howard for letting them take the flak over the failed Haneef affair and the invasion of the NT, when it was Howard who masterminded both affairs the first place.
I disagree Mark. The Australian Liberal Party is run by the merchant bankers,C.E.O.s of company’s like Rio Tinto BHP Billiton etc,and most importantly the right wing forth estate.They in the end decide who will govern Australia.And they are ruthless in winning at all cost.This is and never will be about a “Party”It is about an ideology.I don’t believe for a nano second Downer has that much influence,he is one of the”Patsy’s just like Howard.
If the media had treated Howard with the same contempt it had for Whitlam,he would have had his marching orders a long time ago.
Wiki’s entry on MacPhee.
What role did Costello play, Mark?
It’s actually fascinating watching this debacle and realising that Howard has absolutely nothing to lose in staring down any naysayers within his own party. At best he’s headed into retirement soon anyway whether he wins or loses the election. So risking everything for one last hurrah is probably worth it. As I’ve said before, if the Lib tower comes tumbling down I bet that it’s Costello that the Blue Believers blame for it and not Howard.
Who knows, silkworm? The other story is that The Minister for Merchant Banking was behind it, thinking he could discredit Costello then pick up the pieces after the election.
Gaz, I don’t buy that. The leadership of big business is more disengaged from politics than it was in the past. They certainly couldn’t get Howard to enact their tax agenda, and WorkChoices coincided with his one ideological obsession. The “right wing fourth estate” are certainly trying to determine who governs Australia, but they’re internally divided and trying it on, I think.
Thanks for the link, skribe. I had a feeling that was how you spelled Macphee’s name but was misled by the ABC’s website!
Costello was a prominent member of the New Right faction in Victoria – along with Michael Kroger – who performed a lot of the preselection executions of the “wets”.
If it’s not there already, we’ll get the blame game for the loss starting before the election. That happened with the Qld Libs and Nats. When it breaks out, you know they’re absolutely dead in the water.
Wo ist Wenck??!!
Oh dear. Janet’s already written the obituary. http://blogs.theaustralian.news.com.au/janetalbrechtsen/index.php/theaustralian/comments/the_man_of_steel_and_the_iron_lady/
But hang on a minute, he’s not dead yet is he? Oh, it seems he’s a zombie!
It certainly is a strange place, this 21st Century.
Totally roflated by that line!
She roolly, roolly, roolly, totally loves him Gummo. That’s why, you know, he has to die. Or something.
And this from the Shmerald, headed ‘Howard Will Fight To The Death’ http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/pm-will-fight-to-the-death/2007/09/11/1189276719661.html
Shorter Downer: ‘He’s a dead duck. We’re fu**ed’.
I can’t wait to see how the GG spins this after tomorrow and the inevitable declarations that ‘we’re all 100% rock-solid behind the PM’.
Still, the Liberal Party election advertising should be a thing of joy and wonder to behold.
…and this being 21C, I have exclusive preview video of John and Janette at today’s partei meeting http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xTcSPtEncmA&mode=related&search=
Scary stuff – Bolter was coming perilously close to making sense last night on Lateline.
A few chickens coming home to roost:
“I will stay as long as my party wants me”
“disunity is death”
So by his own stated measures Howard should go but of course he won’t. Looks like another (maybe final) nail in his coffin. If the good ship Howard goes down (as appears likely), the rats will at least all be on message about their “unqualified support ” for a loser.
â??I will stay as long as my party wants meâ?? isn’t actually the promise. that’s the non-core version.
“I will stay as long as Janette and I decide that the party wants me” is the core version.
Kamerad, setzte bitte Betrieb „Clausewitz“ in Effekt sofort.
Honey Bunny Hyacinth.
Sounds like some tag team wrestlerette fallen on hard times, CK.
‘No ticket no start!’ Oops. I mean, ‘No ticker no start’ Unless he’s drafted Co$$ie is going to do precisely nothing. They are all shackled to the ‘Greatest Leader this country has ever known’.There’s no dragging him out the back for the swift chop, he’s making them do it in front of everybody, if they dare, and they don’t yet. But there’s always next week’s Newspoll, and a bit more background briefing of Rupes team should see them tank suffiently for someone loopy in the Party room to put it forward. I am enjoying this, but must stop now. Got some more campaigning to do. That Rudd vote is ‘soft’ you know.
Source.
The Gospel, According to St Janet the Evangelist
Shorter Albrechtsen: Ratty is the Son of God who should be crucified so that the Gates of Paradise shalt be upened unto ye uncircumcised ingrates.
Amen.
(I prefer the Life of Brian version of the Good Book meself.)
Over sixty year ago a leader of a country decided that he was the country and if he was going down so was the country, it did. The suffering in that country was immense.
Howard seems to have the same attitude to the Liberal party.
I remember Ian Macphee, Mark, but it’s not clear why you dragged him in here. Macphee was horrified by the sort of labour reforms Hawke was bringing in, let alone the subsequent Keating reforms or AWAs. Macphee was the last remnant of the nostalgic clubby approach to politics that Gaz believes is a living and breathing presence in our national life.
He may well be pleased to see Howard and Costello on the ropes, but if Macphee is hoping to lead a reversal of the globalist marklet-style reforms of the past twenty years he’s kidding himself (with the possible exception of an immigration program that isn’t quite so schizophrenic about free movements of goods and people).
I recall Russell Cooper alright. Mainly for they way he stood up Quentin Dempster properly on the 7:30 report.
Other than that he was a workaday representative for his constituents. He didn’t have the despicable sell-out-my-country ambitiousness for higher office which many politicians have. He wasn’t a career politician, and he wasn’t there for glory.
If only there were more made from that mould.
My memory could be wrong, but wasn’t Kroger behind the push to replace some of the Victorian Liberal MPs in the late 80s?
Yes, Sacha, as I said in a comment.
Andrew E, what I’m pointing to is that Howard has been destroying independent thought in the Liberal Party for two decades. Now they’re reaping what he’s sown. Macphee is just an example of the purge that Howard orchestrated or cheered on in the 80s.
I tried to post on Janet A’s “Dear John” entry the other day, saying how it sounded like she was breaking up with him. “It’s not you, John – it’s us. We’ve moved on. There’s someone else – his name is Kevin”. It got rejected.
Her posts are increasingly reading like Mills and Boon letters, and I noted today but it will probably get rejected as well.
I think it’s missing the point to blame Howard for the mess the party will be in soon. I think it’s Costello’s lilly-liver that’s to blame. PMs don’t wander off from Government when they get a bit bored – they’re pushed, one way or another. It was up to Costello to make it happen, and he sat around doing nothing and complaining occassionally to the press.
Report on Ch. 9 this morning that Wilson Tuckey was going to move for aeadership spill at today’s Lib. partry meeting, quickly changed to he was going to give everybody in the party room a good talking to. And that after Abbott was assuring viewers that everyone was 100% behind JWH. Even the Packer Puppets were confused.
Shadesof the Howard-Peacock era. Back then, Howard was reported to be very paranoid, going around accusing everyone of trying to bring him down, even those that weren’t. Will JWH lose it yet again?
Strange times, strange times. As referred to earlier, Possum Pollytics has the cons & neo-libs in a dreadful bind. What to do, other than panic?
Not much really – there is no one to act the part of the Libs Mr Rudd, no shining knight of untainted generational change. Howard still has fatherly gravitas to an electorate extremely attached to high levels of personal debt. & though the ALP is now chasing down the seats on 10% margins, I’m still wondering if Howard wont pop out a Get Out of Jail card from god knows where. As per Tampa. Another tide of panic through the markets courtesy of sub-prime nastiness in the banking sector (& the unknown depths of exposure among private equity) & Howard’s Father of the Marshalsea persona may have electoral resonsance.
Janet & Co are in a funk – they do not want Howard’s legacy swept away in an electoral landslide, invalidating 11 years of neo-liberal economic policy & sheer mean spiritedness. & nor do they want to be tainted by the embarrassment of Howard losing his own seat. Oh dear what to do – he’s the Man of Steel, the decisive leader, the not afraid to take chances chap – cant walk away now. & yet he’d be very very aware he’s probably cactus. To go down with the ship or strike for the shore? So many sharks, so little time…
Yes, Bernice. We must all unlike JWH, keep a hold on reality here. It is some time to go before the election, and Howard could, if he’s not too rattled, pull an extraordinary rebbit out of the hat. He’d definitely be looking for one.
But I like to agree with Insiders a couple of weeks ago. When JWH pulls a rabbit out of the hat, the electorate goes, “Oh, look, another rabbit.”
Albrechtsen nails her colours to the staff, and channels Thomas Hobbes:
So much for the ideal of popular sovereignty.
So much for the tradition of common law.
Memo to Janet: this is the 21st century, not the 17th century.
What sort of conservative confesses ignorance of the principle of common law?
The employment by NewsCorp of this person is a studied insult to the intelligence of Australians.
Sacha, Kroger and Costello were close political allies and personal friends.
Mark, I was in the Liberal Party when this was happening: I just think that you used a poor example. Immigration aside, Macphee had run out of ideas in terms of governing Australia in the 1980s let alone since. He was an anachronism then and has nothing to offer the Liberal Party going forward.
Robert Hill and Phillip Ruddock were friends and allies of Macphee’s, and they chose to stay and to curb their views. It worked for them career-wise, notwithstanding any niggling Mark 8:36 style questions.
Moderates in the Liberal Party have been able to point to a proud track record of social reform that is often credited to the Labor Party. After Howard, it is no longer possible to do this. Moderate liberals have to go too far back in order to establish themselves as part of their party’s fabric, and the idea of encouraging young moderates to re-establish this post-Howard is a difficult feat to say the least, probably too difficult for the moderate rump that remains.
Ironically, Howard is demonstrating how vulnerable a monoculture can be. The future of the Liberal Party depends upon its ability to foster a variety of perspectives (dare I say it, a multiculture?) without appearing to be a rabble.
Mind you, this is hardly the place for going on about the future of the Liberal Party.
Katz,
I thought the people’s representatives made the laws and the judges decided if they were legal according to the constitution.
If a judge is considering a criminal or commercial matter then they may have to interpret regulations and use prior cases to understand accepted precedents.
Readers more educated on this stuff please comment.
Because conservatives believe that power ought to move downwards towards our people… it means believing that our people, not judges, ought to make law.
Fixed that for you Ms Albrechtsen
This doesn’t explain Howard’s centralism, and it also assumes that the elites will dispense power when they jolly well please. Judges are members of the elite and in determining cases they are in fact applying general statutes to specific situations.
Don’t blame Janet for her wooly thinking. Conservative thought in Australia and the US is dominated by intellectual refugees from the far left: neocons are old Stalinists. Look at the Hegelian historical determinism surrounding pro-Iraq war rhetoric, and the utopian rhetoric of libertarian economics is eerily similar to that of “pure Marxism” once all the reactionaries have been dealt with. Marxism is a nightmare from which both the far left and far right are trying to awake, and with that in mind let’s leave Janet to her fitful tossing and turning.
Common Law
The money sentence:
What has happened to the teaching of Civics?
That’s only a part of what they do.
Such a misunderstanding is dangerously inaccurate.
PhIl
Not ‘We will decide…’ nor ‘I’ even but Janette & Janet: THe Janetalia I suppse…
Katz, the Wiki link helps , thanks.
As the link article states there is considerable difficulty once regulatory , statutory, constitutional and common laws are all working together.
As a product of a science based education civics rated exactly nowhere . Alongside languages , history ,the arts and literature.
The analysis of Howard is confusing – he is criticised for over centralising by his political opponents but they seem to be the party that favours the centralisation of decision making.
It doesn’t seem to be a discussion about politics any longer – it is just about personalities and as such is debased.
A return to a plurality of ideas in the governing party is to be welcomed.
Andrew E, I picked Macphee because Costello was directly involved in his preselection loss. I’m not pushing a barrow for him or his ideas – merely pointing out that he had some which were opposed to the Howard conservative hegemony. I’m more interested in the suppression of dissent in the Liberal Party and their transformation into the weak pack of cowards they now are – all the eggs are in Howard’s basket and now that his support is collapsing, they’re incapable of action.
As to the Deakinite political tradition in Australia, it’s almost dead. It has no political home now – particularly since the Democrats have all but disappeared. It survives in legal circles – think Julian Burnside – and in the columns of The Age. But it’s very weak indeed and a decade of Howardian culture wars have almost killed it off. No one should be sanguine about Rudd inheriting the mantle. There’s enough authoritarianism in the Labor Party to go round, and there always has been.
Paul Burns,
You’ve been looking at cartoons, haven’t you?
Janet represents the Turnbull camp. Turnbull represents the Merchant Bankers Gaz was talking about, and they seem to have lined up with the Costello camp and Uncle Rupert to agree that a change is needed. But Howard STILL clings on!
Methinks he doth fear the cold outside the door, when sundry enquiries may well be opened into his criminal activities.
I’ve been wondering recently if Costello has basically given up on the leadership and has just been trying to take Howard down as some act of petty revenge, Inside the tent pissing in, so to speak.
Anyone else find it curious that the day before the APEC Leaders’ Meeting that the PM asks the Foreign Minister of Australia to do the numbers for him in his own Cabinet? I presume he had nothing else on that weekend and nobody else he (thought he) could trust.
For some reason I have moved on from Hitler bunker imagery to the opening scene of Apocalypse Now except the helicopters and ceiling fans are replaced by whining document shredders (with The Doors “The End” playing in the background IIRC).
“Mistah Kurtz, he dead!”
The shorter version of Janet Albrechtsen’s philosophy:
Anyone know how long the Cabinet Meeting of Doom is expected to last?
Paul Kelly points out that no one’s had the guts to ask Howard if his party still wants him to lead.
Howard survives unscathed is the word.
The meeting’s over and no challenge.
the Liberals only hope is to elect someone like Petro G as leader but of course that would never happen because there’s nothing liberal about the Liberal party at all – zip
Brian thanks and yes.
BBB – on ET and Brereton – I doubt very much if Labor hadn’t changed its policy whether a) Howard would have written to Habibie asking for the plebiscite and b) whether he would have intervened in the wake of the carnage. I know hypothetical history is fatuous, but it’s hard to imagine the circumstances for either of these events if the bipartisan pro-’integration’ consensus had remained intact.
SATP – I well recall the same Cooper/Dempster interview as you, but with a completely contrary analysis. My memory has Cooper making a complete fool of himself by being unable to answer the same question that Bjelke-Petersen had foundered on at Fitzgerald – what is meant by the separation of powers? I agree that Cooper was not primarily motivated by ego and also that he redeemed himself somewhat by his political suicide-bomber act over parliamentary travel rorts – however his decision as Premeier to grant (note: grant, not sell) freehold over huge tracts of Queensland to rapacious individuals like George Quaid was one of the more egregious acts of maladministration in Queensland history.
According to Albrecthson’s definition of conservatism, she would have been on the side of the insurgents in the French revolution, not with Burke.
Their complaint was the laws were coming not from ‘the people’, but from a corrupt absolute monarchy, an inbred feudal aristrocracy and a rapacious Roman Catholic church.
It would seem that all those elements are currently evident in Howard’s own ‘ancien regime’, with Howard and Janette as Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, once fawming courtiers in cabinet and the media as the aristocracy and Macquarie Bank and the rest of corporate Australia as the Catholic church.
As happened in France, many of the aristocrats have now broken away, while the Church (as always seeing upon which side its bread is buttered) have sought a new champion in Monsieur Turnbull.
Howard and Janette now remain alone, shuttered in Tuileries (Kirribilli) awaiting the executioner’s knock.
Yes, Janet, the people make the law.
“Anyone else find it curious that the day before the APEC Leaders’ Meeting that the PM asks the Foreign Minister of Australia to do the numbers for him in his own Cabinet?”
A standard, devious, business-like, normal rodent power game, if you think about it, Is. Give the officers a little loyalty test, while pretending to be ‘reasonably’ looking at the damaging poll figures. Meanwhile, go hobnobbing with ones equals at APEC, knowing that you have set them on a project that they would have gone about, behind your back, anyway.
Party over, now make them feel like turds for not making the right decision and force them to recite in unison…. “Oh yes master, you are really the great one.”
I commented on Pollbludger yesterday that a full 75% of the Liberal party room have never experienced a general election loss, and
ifwhen they do go on to lose the election it is likely that there will be at most a dozen lower house liberal MPS with any experience of opposition.It is no surprise that they don’t know how to handle this current situation, and it will be intersting to see how long it takes them to find their feet in opposition. The election is going to get ugly for the Liberals – but it might get even uglier next year.
Thus, politically homeless.
The Liberals absolutely must see Howard through to the end. They came to office under Howard, everything that the government ever did and failed to do is down to Howard, and it is incumbent upon them to push Howard until his bankruptcy can no longer be hidden. If he retires, he’ll always be able to claim that he coulda/woulda/shoulda won.
The 1996 election was the stake through Keating’s heart that invalidates any of the projection onto others of blame for his loss (similarly, I’d argue, the December 1975 election absolves Kerr, but that’s just me being provocative for the moment). Howard can only be stopped by a general election loss. The defeat of John Howard at a general election is the only way of demonstrating both that his style of government has failed, and what sort of country we are.
Who, in this little parable, do you see as playing the role of Antoine de Saint-Just, Mr Denmore?
Matt Price in blog comments after his own article today points out that Paul Kelly says that a majority of Cabinet told Downer last week that Howard should leave and that no one has denied that. The media and Labor must not let that fact get buried now that the Libs have decided to close ranks.
Some of Jeffrey Dahmer’s victims escaped momentarily from the fridge!
Amazingly, they appear to have climbed back in again!
Co-dependency is a truly tragic and almost incurable condition.
Mr Denmore,
Loved the French Revolution analogy.
Ghandi,
The rabbit Joke was told by Barry Cassidy on Insiders a few weeks ago. Loved the cartoon, which I hadn’t seen.
Howard’s criminal activity. I’m intrigued. Please do tell.
I know the story about why Marie Antoinette didn’t really wanr to live in Canbera, but that was hardly criminal of Ratty. In fact it almost made him seem human.
Was there really something behind that peculiar Four Corners question about corruption before the last Federal election?
Pleasse, please, do tell.
Costello Press Conference is on ABC online now.
Peter Costello has just demonstrated that he is unworthy to be a state leader. At a time when his party is facing certain annihilation and the current party leader is to lose his endorsement by even his electorate as well as the country as a whole, Costello failed to rise to meet the challenge. He clearly does not know how to perform the process of leadership and is destined to be a back room boy with his entire future being in opposition.
Christian Kerr in Crikey:
http://www.crikey.com.au/Politics/20070912-Nothing-happened-in-Canberra-this-morning-Beckett-on-the-Hill.html
I find recent criticism of Costello a little weird. Whether or not he rates Howard’s chances of victory highly, he knows they are better than his own. Since when was ‘leadership’ a synonym of ‘egotistical stupidity’?
BBB
Paul Burns,
Shhh!! It’s a secret!
Costello’s admission that he didn’t even know these meetings were taking place says it all, doesn’t it? Presumably he has been saying nothing for days because the doesn’t know WTF is going on. Leadership potential? I think not! And yet Howard is still hinting that he might hand over power to this shallow excuse for a man.
Also, I am intrigued by Howard’s comment that he is not calling an election yet because there is “a bit more legislation” to get through. As I understand it, once he calls an election he cannot push any new laws through the House and Senate. So I’m wondering if he is going to try to control the election debate with some very wedge-y new talking points? Is that what all the Howard and Downer talk of “ideas” is all about?
Did the Democrats vote plummet in recent years mainly because they had a leadership stalemate and tore at each other in public for months? Discuss.
Could a much larger (and governing) Federal party do the same to itself, or will the Liberal & National MPs be smarter?
The Democrats’ only future is with small-l liberal voters, yer doctors’ wives, yer wets. They tried flirting with the ferals and fat lot of good it did them. Ditto the Liberal Party.
The Liberals have just crested the roller coaster and are starting to notice that things are getting interesting, not the least of which is that they are about to go off the rails.
NB: I have moved that last para to the other thread (to keep Mark happy).
SHOCK BREAKING NEWS!!!
PM tells party he’s stepping down
… in, umm, … Japan. Heh.
Well, that one has been coming for a long time too.
The sort of ignoramous that confuses market preferences with soveriegn democracy, and subsidiarity with a lot of small businesses.
The sort of person for whom the ‘individual’ is self constituting in both theory and practice, and who would be hard pressed to give an historial account of any actually existing market. That’s what passes for ‘conservative’ thinking in the commercial press, and in the circles that think Howard is a political genius and Costello an economic genius. In other words someone who proves week after week, that Australian ‘conservatism’ is nothing more than an aggregation of ambitious and lightly talented provincial wannabees, desperately trying to sound like the people who really matter, who live and work far away, across the Pacific Ocean, and whose views actaully do have real world consequences for people, places and things, and who have actually read something that other than The Wealth of Nations and The Road to Serfdom.
Does she really have a PhD in Law?
I smell a rat. Nah, not him; another one.
I suspect the ‘leadership challenge’ is just another Howard stunt. This time to convince the gullible that he is in full command of his party and still has all his powers. Note Downer’s tiresome repetition of his admiration for Howard’s energy.
There’s another factor is this, too. I have been regularly surprised over the past six months that everytime I think Rudd is having a bad week the ALP polls get better and everytime I think Howard is having a bad week the LNP polls get better. Could be it’s the old maxim: any publicity is good publicity. And of course, while this piece of political theatre has been happening, Rudd and the ALP have been starved of media oxygen.
I’m still worried.
Ghandi,
Oh, you mean Howard’s war crimes? I know about them. I have a mate who had to go to court because he tried to serve an arrest warrant on Ruddock for war crimes. He’s got Howard, Nelson, Downer on his list too but he hasn’t got to them yet. Though he will. He will. Keep an eye on Howard on one of his morning walks.
Does anybody else think Howard looks a bit grey under the gills, or something, with all this leadership hassle. Guess he wasn’t pacing nervously before Bush arrived, when Bush was late, waiting to take orders, after all. He was waiting for the result of Lexy’s straw poll of Cabinet! Any leaks yet of what actually went on in there? Is Wilson Tuckey still alive or did Howard have him drowned in the Parliamentary toilets before the meeting?
Jenny, now might be the perfect time for Howard to give us a sneek-peek at his post-election plans. As you imply, Rudd isn’t setting the media agenda anymore. Having apparently stared-down the party room, he can move to meaningfully engaging with the public on policy, something he has failed to do for a while now. Did someone say ‘circuit-breaker’? No, that would be a little too kind…
BBB
Textbook tactics for Labor are to sit back while their opponent self-destructs. Anyone who thinks that this sort of “media attention” is positive should take a cold shower.
And if it’s a stunt, it couldn’t have been a dumber one.
I think there’s still a residual belief that Howard is some sort of Machiaevellian genius. It’s obvious that none of his colleagues believe it any more. As I said in the post, the only Tampa this year is the Good Ship Liberal Party sinking.
And no, I don’t know what a ‘sneek-peak’ is.
BBB
Katz
I would love to see your wits on the common law against those of Dr. Albrechtsen.
According to Darryl Mason, it seems Janet briefed Howard’s Office and others about her column.
http://theorstrahyun.blogspot.com/2007/09/howard-hugging-columnist-warned-prime.html
I have to agree with Mark, the idea that any of the leadership brouhaha will have some sort of net benefit for the Libs is off the mark.
Fark. I’ve been hoping all day for news that the PM was on the way to visit the GG but nothing. Bugger.
And next Monday, there’ll be another bad poll, and another round of denials. And another, and another …
don’t be too worried, jenny. there’s that other maxim: sometimes less is more.
Ambigulous,
That depends on what is causing the Coalition’s problem. Is it the party, or the leader? There is only one Coalition voice, and that is Howard’s. There is only one Coalition opinion, and that is Howard’s. I think that it will be proven that it is the Soloist who is being chucked out, not the Choir. A change of tune could make all the difference.
Mark:
Ian McPhee for Prime Minister? No? That’s a pity. Well, Howard has “toughed it out” and frightened the parliamentarians in his party into submission. They are easily frightened.
No matter how much noise and dust is raised, from here on, the Liberal Party as such is dead. Even if they actually do “win”? the next election [whenever that is allowed to happen] the party is dead, stone-cold dead. So, the most important question in Australian politics right now is not which party will win the next election …. but …. which parties will pick up which the flotsam of the shipwrecked Liberal Party?
My guess [today] is that the brightest, the wealthiest and most influential members and supporters will go to the Australian Labor Party; there is much to attract them nowadays; the ALP is now virtually socialism-free and definitely more business-friendly than is the Coalition. Family First Party will pick up a few to whom other superlatives can be applied
L-O-L. It is unlikely that more than a handful will go to the Nationals, a party that would have faded away but for former Premier Beattie’s forced shire amalgamations; the reaction to which is only a last gasp anyway. The Greens are too prejudiced and narrowly-focused to attract many ex-Liberals. The Australian Democrats, despite having had some excellent parliamentarians over the years, has been back on course for too short a time for it to be an alternative home for thousands of ex-Liberals just yet. A New Liberal Party, the rump of the defunct party will emerge and it may even have a few sitting members too …. but it will be far too busy squabbling over the assets and whatever of the old Liberal Party to attract many of the rich-and-powerful. Even a new Business Party [Enterprise Party? Aspirational Party? Whatever the name] will have to prove itself over time before attracting really solid support.
Howard has indeed made his place in Australian History, the poor bastard.
I totally agree with Andrew E. While many moderates are sympathetic to Ian McPheee’s social policies, he was really very much a dinosaur in terms of economic policy. I think his deselection was a good move for the party.
In terms of Howard and the moderates, I really struggle to see actual evidence of this eternal meme “Howard is killing the moderates/ dissenting voices”. Sure, Howard himself is not a moderate. But has Petro been thrown out of the party for speaking up? How about Heffo going in to the NSW state exec pro Marise. Was Malcolm Turnbull stopped from speaking about taxation policy early in this term?
This all seems like a furphy to me. The real reason the moderates are on the decline is pissweak leadership and organisational rigour. Brogden was the best hope for quite a while and he stuffed that up all by himself. The moderates really have themselves to blame for not being determined or articulate enough.
You can’t blame Howard every problem in the Liberal party!
Hal9000: Cooper did indeed not answer the question. But he certainly stood up Dempster (who was noted for his extreme sassy heart on the sleeve bias against coalition politicians)
In that interview Cooper turned the tables and stood over him. Dempster (for the first time) was not game to get sassy until Cooper was safely out of the studio.
The ship is sinking…JWH beats the women and children into the lifeboats..Look the’re in the water…Were they thrown in ..Then MJ the GG to the rescue…Uncertain scope of reserve powers. Argentina Chile anybody.
Graham Bell,
The Liberal Party is not dead. The Liberal party is bigger than John Howard.
These drama-rama statements are really ignorant. I seem to remember people saying federal Labor was finished after Latham lost. Now look at things!
Antonio
And I recall a headline after a Gough defeat (1975?) asking “Is Labor Finished?” One decade’s newspaper is the next decade’s garden mulch.
I do not think the problem is that he does not have the ticker. It is simply because he has never had the numbers. At the end of the day, the only thing that count in politics is the numbers.
More trouble for Gary Hardgrave.
http://www.news.com.au/perthnow/story/0,21598,22407046-5005361,00.html
It ain’t over until it is over.
I shan’t be dancing in the street over John Howards political demise until it happens.
Photo’s reveal the women and children weren’t thrown in the water they just went to water.
The truth is out there! Might I suggest the sequence of events went something like this.
Mr. 18% poll appears.Much crying, yelling and screaming among many Liberal Party Cabinet Ministers, of which, JWH hearts, but is busy with APEC. Tells Lexy he will get Bush and this Canadian PM to give Libs a plug for the election, but check out horses just in case they’re nervous. Horses are very nervous. Turnbull tells Lexy, “The little pr..k has got to go.” Lexy and Turnbull consult with nervous horses during APEC who say, We want him to go, but because he’s such a stubborn crazy bastard, he’ll probably refuse. Minchin says, So offer him a deal – You can stay on, so long as you promise to leave halfway through next term.By the way, has anybody said anything to Peter? No, I haven’t, says Lexy, he’s been ringing me but …’ So Minchin, Turnbull and Lexy put the deal to JWH. He agrees, but publicly says he’s not going anywhere. Next day, the Party meeting. Everybody agrees to the deal. Peter calls a press conference, starts behaving like future PM. Howard goes on 7.30 Report, admits he won’t serve full term if re-elected. Deal done.
Ehat do you all think?
SATP says
SATP is right. Dempster would have been aware that Cooper was somewhat bad-tempered. Some say prone to violence.
Legend has it, that he killed the ‘house cow’ with the metal milking bucket after the cow had the temerity to kick it over.
SATP, of course, is a noted, insightful political pundit who in the not too distant past said that Pauline Hanson was finished with politics.
LOL.
Mmm, and there’s just so much dissent and free thought in Rudd’s ALP at the moment, just as there was in the governments of Carr, Beattie, etc. None of those State ALP regimes ever strove to centralise power in the office of the Premier, did they?
And from a friend of mine who’s a disillusioned ex-Green, I hear that Bob Brown runs his mob in much the same way. He speaks, Greens listen and obey.
Paul Burns,
The problem with that analysis is that Howard already made that deal, and then broke it.
Personally I am really baffled at his 7:30 report comments:
“Probably certainly”???
If he is really planning to leave, what was all this fuss about? Why didn’t he just hand over now and step down with dignity? No, the truth is that he has no plans whatsoever to step down. So why is he saying it?
Paul’s analysis seems obvious enough, but it doesn’t make sense to me.
OTOH what if the new deal (unbeknown to Smirky) involved Turnbull getting the nod? And what if there was now a pact among the cabinet to get out the knives if Howard’s still there in a year?
Still, they could have done that now… But only if they wanted Smirky, perhaps?
Sounds like a numbers game, but nobody knows the numbers except those who counted them.
NB: The fact that this meeting occurred without Smirky even knowing about it is highly significant. It means he does not have one single loyal supporter in the Cabinet, which suggests to me that he will never, ever become Leader.
Howard uses Costello intermittently, as a physician uses a prick, to lance the boil of leadership speculation.
He’s a wily old bastard is Howard. In one interview he simultaneously removes himself as “the [poll] problem”, kicks Costello in the stones and saddles up for a hairy death ride to the finish. I hate him, but you can’t help but admire the sheer bloody mindedness of the bugger. I’ll be very disappointed to hear in the post-PM memoirs that he did it all because he was scared of Jeanette though.
If Costello believes anything Howard says, he’s the goose we all think he is.
Shorter JHo: I’ll say anything, but I’m not going anywhere and when I do, you can be sure I won’t be backing $weetie.
Actually it’s Hartcher’s hypothesis that Ratty actually set this leadership challenge up himself. He pre-empted it before further bad polls would damage his standing and got everyone to give him their unequivocal support. So given the election is only a couple of months away, he probably thinks he’s got his bases covered to carry on as leader all the way to the hustings now. I often wonder what’s driving this horrible maniac and after watching him on the 7.30 Report tonight, I have to get all bemused at the sheer narcissm of the man. The reason why he is fighting to the very last man is just to protect his legendary status and because he’s basically addicted to the power of his public office AND also because he really believes he and only he can win it back for the Coalition. If he shows the Australian public that he still possesses that same old elan that served him so well in the past, they would vote for him again. Although the not ‘cutting and running’ stand on Iraq does not seem to be washing too well in the polls.
He speaks of the Australian public in terms of ‘if they are kind enough to vote for me again’ – kind enough? What is he going to do for this country apart from going one last victory lap and departing in a blaze of self-congratulatory glory by his own admission half-way into his posited next term. Bugger any plans for the future. Well I hope the Australian people give this self-deluded git the trouncing he so utterly deserves. Pass the sick-bucket puh-lease!!!!!!!!!!
Bolt calls this “disaster”, focusing on the unspecified “things” Howard still wants to do (why can’t he tell us what they are?) and his ever-diminishing chances of holding Bennelong (who’ll vote for a byelection?).
There is really only one logical explanation, isn’t there? Janet has bet the farm on a landslide Rudd victory and Howard is doing everything possible to ensure it happens.
Either that, or the old bastard is getting senile.
THINGS!
Every night I sit here by my window
Staring at Jeanette “You Know Who”
Watching her coveting Kirribilli
And thinking about the things I’m gunna do
(Thinking about things) like a war in Iraq
(Things) like a stab in the back
(Things) like havin’ Costello fried
(Yeah yeah) being trusted when I lied
(Things) like a broken vow
(Things) that we right now
Thinking about the things I’m gunna do
Power is all I have to cling to
And I have no friends worth talking to
When I’m not thinking of a-just how I’m gunna screw you
I’m lying about the things I’m gunna do
Hartcher’s a nong. He wasted 20 000 words in a Quarterly Essay claiming Howard couldn’t lose because of “economic management”. I wonder why anyone bothers with the punditariat and their tedious insider narratives any more.
Let’s redirect comments to Phil’s thread where there’s a post on JHo’s latest
form of wordsself-serving lies.http://larvatusprodeo.net/2007/09/12/the-honest-position-im-never-leaving/