Tony Abbott trotted out the line on Q&A tonight that the ALP is scared of Malcolm Turnbull, hence the attack on him. This meme – which I think originated with the claims that the government were trembling in their collective boots at the spectre of Peter Costello becoming Opposition Leader – is dumb. It was hardly worth going after Brendan Nelson – he did a good enough job on himself. But what politicians do is attack their opponents. It’s hardly rocket science.
So what’s Labor up to? A lot of it has to do with Turnbull’s persona. As Kim observed the other day, Turnbull won’t be anywhere near as well known among the general public as he is among political junkies. When there’s so much attention on him, you get in quick to define his persona. The line has already morphed – from rich dude to out of touch Eastern suburbs silvertail who represents, you know, latte sippers and Sydney Morning Herald readers. Which, after all, he does. “Vaucluse”, “Point Piper”, and “Western suburbs” (by way of contrast) are words carrying huge symbolic weight. It’s a tie in with the “right to drive a Porsche” jibes and will be a better fit with Turnbull than with truckin’ Brendan.
Turnbull’s possibly doing himself no favours by talking about himself so much, a point that a conga line of Ministers have made. It’s the downside of having to define yourself. To the degree that Turnbull does have an image as egotistical and arrogant, he reinforces that by dwelling on his own qualities. And the press does part of the job for the ALP by writing about him in terms of his stellar intellect, heroic qualities, his temper and “inability to tolerate fools”, blah blah. If there’s one image that Australian voters don’t like, it’s of someone with tickets on themselves and a sense of entitlement. Just ask Peter Costello.
Thirdly, while the press may have been suggesting Turbull is some sort of “crazy brave” choice and will provide sparks and excitement, that’s probably a negative. An objective look at most of his public presentation since becoming a Parliamentarian belies that. It must be a reflection of his private behaviour – just as Rudd’s known to “Insiders” as having a temper, but has a very carefully crafted public self-presentation as almost respectful and gentle in disposition towards his interlocutors. So the “truth” doesn’t matter in communications terms. What Labor is doing is again playing on the media story and goading Turnbull – particularly in Parliament – to actually lose his temper. While the press gallery might be writing admiringly about Turnbull’s poise in question time, what the government is trying to do is to rile him. Then the deal is sealed. Hubris can be gamed.
All this is quite similar to how the Liberals tried to game Rudd last year. It didn’t work then because of Rudd’s incredible self-discipline, and because he didn’t appear to be a media tart. It may well work with Turnbull.
The Labor attack on Rudd will have been focus grouped. Any political machine worth its salt does research on possible opponents. There’s a lot of discipline and strategy and cohesive themes in Labor’s assault, which (among other things) suggests it’s a game plan which has just been taken off the shelf, and isn’t some sort of frightened reaction. There’s actually been some very clever politics from the Labor side over the last couple of days. It doesn’t appear to have been noticed by the press gallery, who are lost in their own “media narrative”. To the degree that there is now a contest, Labor is ready. They’ve hardly had to play politics at all since the election, because Nelson was doomed from the start. Now they do. But don’t forget these dudes and dudettes threw out a government which was supposed to be unassailable with a very large swing indeed. They’re not political amateurs.
Yes, Virginia, there is a strategy.
“The Labor attack on Rudd will have been focus grouped…it’s a game plan which has just been taken off the shelf, and isn’t some sort of frightened reaction”…
Now that’s what I call a scoop. Who’d-a thought they had it in them?
I totally agree Mark – I saw a watershed in the last two days, and it was this: the ALP boldly recaptured the ‘anti-elite’ ground in the vast culture war that is majoritarian politics in the wide brown.
Smug old Turnbull is a very talented guy – the problem is he knows it. And his “My old man rented a flat once” schtick was utterly misjudged.
Frankly, if he’d said “I, MALCOLM am born to rule you fucking plebs!” It would have made him less vulnerable than wandering haplessly onto the poppy-cutting field like that, asking to play “who dun it tougher” game.
Dont forget: for all his faults, Howard was *genuinely* a complete dag with no style. It was hard to pin him as the lickspittle social climbing ex-Methodst twat he was, as he was so transparently not bunyip aristocracy.
danny, mate, you read it first here. Who was it who said that if more of the press gallery did its job, the blogosphere would be out of one?
I don’t think Turnbull’s weakness is wealth. He worked pretty hard to get it and in certain circles that’s stopped being a sin. If he’d been born to a wealthy family it’d be much harder to shake.
Malcolm’s real weakness is his temper. If he loses it in public, he’s ruined. I’m sure a lot of people have told him that by now, since last year’s foot stamping over the enviro types going after him in Wentworth.
Yeah, but Jacques, the wealth thing was only step #1. Piss him off, keep him talking about himself. Get it out there so people know, if they didn’t. Step #2 is “he hangs out with toffs and top end of town types on the Riviera and in Vaucluse”. That’s a much more telling political thrust. Hence the line they’ve all been echoing today – it’s not his wealth, but who he represents. Big Business. Top end of town. Latte sippers. Etc.
It’s a fast changing communications strategy, and “aspirational Australians won’t…” is responding to yesterday’s message, which was only the building block.
You’re right about point two though!
All PM aspirants have super-sized egos and we’re more or less used to that.
However Turnbull’s vulnerability on this score is more acute – as becoming PM looks more like a box-ticking exercise for him. Married very well/amassed more dosh than could spend in ten lifetimes/moves in the creamiest of circles…
Mmm, what’s next.
(Forgot to mention the cardboard box in middle of street to rented flat achievement)
The right response to questions about one’s background would be to say something like “I would rather talk about the genuine problems people out in the elecorate are facing”, or something very similar.
However, a lot of people like talking about themselves, and among the people who don’t like talking about themselves, few enter politics. Turnbull, most likely, enjoys talking up his rented flat background. A lot of people rent flats in Toorak as well, for all those Melbourne people who don’t get Sydney class geography.
In Victoria, the Libs have a similar problem with “Ted the Toff from Toorak”, despite the fact he went to school with the Premier and former Deputy Premier at Melbourne Grammar.
(For disclosure reasons, I would like to inform all who read this blog that I went to Elwood High.)
It shouldn’t be hard to paint Turnbull as an out-of-touch Point Piper toff. Even in his (ahem) impoverished childhood he lived in Vaucluse and Rose Bay. Now the flats he and is father were living in might well have been dingy, a lot of them around there are, but it’s still the Eastern Suburbs. We’re not talking about Macquarie Fields or Inala here.
And where was Turnbull when Nelson called the vote? Holidaying in Milan, as one does.
At the last NSW the Labor Party very successfully portrayed Liberal leader Peter Debnam, who was the member for Vaucluse, in these out-of-touch terms. And he was a much harder target to pin this on than Turnbull.
Will it work? Time will tell. One thing is (nearly) for sure. There is no way Turnbull can put together a coalition of lower middle class battlers to vote for him, the way Howard did.
Problem is, in his response to this class war against Malcolm last night on the 7.30 Report, Rudd looked almost as tricky as Ratty. Not a good look.
How crazy it all is.
Mal/Pip finally got the job and the first thing he did was mouth off about living in a mean rental flat and generally being humble.
Sounds like they hardly ever resided there anyway.
Wasn’t he boarding at various exclusive public schools while his dad spent most of the time out of town pub brokering? – not exactly an unprofitable business area.
Having come out with the violin background score it is apparently Labor picking on the self made man.
Red Kerry made a monkey of Rudd last night. Most of Kerry’s questions were designed to make a point, not elicit an answer.
O’Brien: “But don’t you think you’ve overreacted to this in your rush to land a punch on [Turnbull] and damage his economic credibility?”
Rudd’s answer was to compare himself to Howard, and how his response to Turnbull yesterday was just as reasonable as Howard’s would have been?
WTF?
Holiday in Italia
So you been to private school
For a year or two
And you know you’ve seen it all
In Daddy’s car
Think’in you’ll go far
Back east your type don’t crawl
Play ethnicky jazz
To parade your snazz
On your five grand stereo
Braggin’ that you know
How the Niggers feel cold
And the slums got so much soul
Its time to taste what you most fear
Right guard uglies will not help you here
Better brace yourself, my dear
Its a holiday in Australia
Its tough, kid, but its life
Its a holiday in Australia
Don’t forget to pack yr trophy wife
You’re a star-belly snitch
You suck like a leech
You want everyone to act like you
Kiss ass while you bitch
So you can get rich
But your boss gets richer off you
Well you’ll work harder
With a US gun in your back
For a bowl of gold a day
Slave for soldiers
Till you starve the local lizards
Before your head is skewered on a stake
Now you can go where people are one
Now you can go where they get things done
What you need, my son.
Is a holiday in Australia
Where Packers dress in black
A holiday in Australia
Where you’ll kiss ass or crack
Branch stack, branch stack, branch stack, etc.
And its a holiday in Australia
Where you’ll do what you’re told
A holiday in Australia
Where the slums got so much soul
Frankly, if he’d said “I, MALCOLM am born to rule you fucking plebs!”
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Probably would’ve worked. We mostly think that anyway.
We should not forget that Howard gets lots of respect around Australia. Rudd referencing him is not a negative to many as it is to the lefties. And Rudd’s reference was not in the positive sense in any case but to highlight the pressures and more demanding standard of performance an Opposition leader faces – Turnbull is in the kitchen now. Rudd put up a fairly solid performance.
Blind Freddy could see that Turnbull would be leading the Libs sooner rather than later, so the fact that there is a well-thought-out ALP game plan is hardly surprising. What I find surprising is Turnbull’s history. According to Wikipedia, he walked straight from his Rhodes Scholarship to the Bar in 1980, the following year tried to get preselection for Wentworth, and in 1983, after three years in the workforce, became General Counsel for Consolidated Press. In 1986 he founded his own law firm, then an investment banking firm the following year. That’s a pretty stunning trajectory. It’s one thing to be bright; it’s another thing to become Kerry Packer’s lawyer at age 29. Thing is, if success has come so easily and consistently, how will he handle failure? Which is why my bet is that we will see MT’s head explode.
Turnbull’s first policy gambit was a dud. He made an offer to the government of bipartisanship across a range of issues (except the Republic), but he left his side’s defences open for Rudd’s team to score an easy try. Rudd simply replied that if Turnbull wanted to be bipartisan, he should simply tell the Liberal senators not to block the government’s budget initiatives on the alcopops tax and Fuelwatch. Turnbull lamely complained that this request was just rhetoric, but it was very plain that Turnbull’s offer of bipartisanship had been exposed as the real rhetoric. The real question now is, what is Turnbull’s game plan from here?
Worked a treat in 1975, even if most of you are too young to remember.
Goodness PC. I’ve always thought of you as a fiesty, bright-eyed twenty-something.
You cannot possibly be so old and rheumy-eyed as I am as to remember the beginning of the bleak years of John Malcolm Fraser.
Tell me it ain’t so.
I would if I could, GregM. (NB eyes not yet rheumy. But give me time.)
It’s nice to know that I at least sound young at heart, but the truth is I heard of the Dismissal on the midday news on the car radio of the friend who picked me up after the English III exam, on just another perfect blue and gold day in Adelaide. As you can see, I remember it as if it were yesterday.
Ah! Yes, PC, those halcyon days when the average wage was $400/week and life wasn’t meant to be easy.
I remember it very distinctly too. I was in Grade 3 and our teacher told us. She wasn’t happy.
Turnbull won’t suffer because of his money. Rather, if things get bleak that will be a plus. Meanwhile, it attracts attention, is a speaking point around the beers or cups of tea, yet doesn’t jerk the voter to put them off. And it will pass.
Turnbull will eventually get Rudd angry. Around about then the crunch between the two will be fought on policy – which is bloody good stuff and about time. I see it evolving as a battle between two good minds as to what is actually better for the country – with Rudd being the political player as strategy, and Turnbull dissecting that. Turnbull is at this time the perfect Opposition leader. What he puts forward as alternative one can only guess as being something he can “sell” ie, something he believes in – for two reasons, the first being that his skills come to the fore when presenting a case, the second is that if he’s done for if it’s a sham (he’ll be picked).
As an alternative PM? That’s the question. As Opp Leader he definitely has Labor concerned, not only for the reasons above but for the ability to connect with people, something we haven’t seen much of. So Labor will be aware of Turnbull as a force in Opposition, as what we know as a “credible alternative PM” from there, but will people boot Rudd to go Turnbull (given LNP cohesion)? Dunno. Punters may enjoy Turnbull as the keeper of the goods, from Opposition.
Consider, also, Turnbull on the international scene. We may not give it much attention, but Rudd, for the expenses and criticism, is kicking it to bits internationally. Can Turnbull meet that? Two things are against him: Rudd has the jump start becoming greater by the year, and Turnbull is viewed as local. He’s not regarded as an international player, so that’s one thing he has to develop to gain office and he’s starting from absolute scratch.
At the end of the day, we’re lucky to have him. The OO carry-on doesn’t hurt so much, in the above perspective. If the Libs were at their cohesive collaborating worst, we’d be in trouble in this regard. But while they pissant on, the punters get a clear shot at viewing Turnbull, regardless or full.
Latham exploded for just the same reason Malcolm might: he had this vision of himself as climbing the ladder, ever upwards, an unstoppable force who surmounted all the obstacles thrown at him.
Latham didn’t have the resilience to deal with defeat. It wasn’t part of the script.
The only set back I can see in Malcolm’s career was losing the referendum on the Republic. I wonder how he dealt with that – it would tell us a lot about what might happen if the trajectory stalls.
Isn’t it interesting that the last three Liberal Party bigshots were all once ‘moderate’ ALP.
Costello, Nelson and now Turnbull.
Howard now appears to be the last of his tribe. ( Thank fuck!)
But Turdbull is going to face the same diabolical bind that did for Costello and Nelson. How do you ‘ Do-a-UK-Cameron’ or turn a Conservative party into a Pink-and-fluffy sort of neo-Labor alternative party?
Turdbull is never going to get the Uglies to trust him as far as I can see. Until and unless he wins. And on past form for these situations he will never win.
AND he’s already wrong-footed himself and some picadors are already hanging down from his bleeding shoulders as he snorts and bellows.
Labor can, and will do-him-slowly, without a worry in the world about his sawn-off horns.
This Bull is shortly to be hamburger – mark my words – the only interesting question now is who will take over from this delusional wanker.
You know there’s a spill on within the Liberal Party when the whisper goes around – usually from someone like Tony Abbott – that the Labor Party is shit-scared of the contender. You show me a disastrous Liberal leader of the past twenty years (pick any one, plenty to choose from), and I’ll show you someone touted as a Labor bogey. It takes a great deal of self delusion to maintain a losing streak, and the Labor-is-scared-of-X meme is one of the most effective.
When Tony Abbott starts claiming that Labor is scared of him (despite the fact that both Julia Gillard and Nicola “That’s Bullshit” Roxon owe their places in Cabinet after having bested him), you’ll know he’s gunning for the leadership himself. After his failure at keeping the NSW Right together last week, however, I doubt this will happen soon.
Having tickets on himself didn’t stop Bob Hawke becoming PM, and that fact alone won’t stop Turnbull. The Liberals could see Hawke coming too, fat lot of good it did them. The wealth thing will only be an issue if Turnbull throws the switch to exclusivity. Howard wanted to create an environment where ordinary voters could at least feel wealthy, with McMansions andpolished granite benchtops and a boat in the garage. The Liberals’ nostalgia for Howard and Costello is motivated by a desire to recapture that image for themselves. Mark’s crack about “Vaucluse” and “Western Suburbs” doesn’t explain why the Liberals could win seats like Lindsay, Hasluck, Bonner etc., and why they may well do so again.
There will always be wealthy people in Australia, and the first party that makes people feel that the only people who need to be wealthy are those who already are is the party guaranteed to lose the next election – and keep losing elections, until they cut that crap out.
Yeah, Turnbull has a temper – so did Hawke and Keating. So did all Prime Ministers. Could I suggest that following the Coalition’s strategy of throwing away government is not particularly smart?
Let me take the last two paragraphs of Mark’s piece and, with a few words changed, looks like he’s been channelling Dennis Shanahan:
It’s got it all: there’s the snark at the MSM, the blind faith in the Very Clever People in the backroom, the insinuation that people who are worried about how Labor will handle Turnbull are naive.
Labor has to get some runs on the board. I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again: Labor had the most favourable political conditions ever, and it blew them.
Yeah, worked so well for Brendan Nelson. You have to get past this idea that the Libs are somehow obliged to be hopeless. The Libs were all upset that Labor didn’t fumble and bumble as they’d come to expect from Beazley, and it’s equally silly to see the same supposition in reverse.
If Turnbull doesn’t want to be portrayed that way, he won’t be. He learned his lesson from dismissing the 0.25% rate rise late last year. He’s come through setbacks over his merchant bank, the fact that his legal career went nowhere after Spycatcher, losing Liberal preselection for the state seat of Mosman in 1984, and since 1999 he’s had to eat a lot of shit to have the Liberal Party hand him one of their crown jewels.
If you assume those measures are wildly popular, it probably was a dud. However, if you assume that all governments whinge when the Senate fiddles around the edges of its legislation, Rudd was just insisting that bipartisanship means agreeing with the government. Again, this assumption that the party that set the “bipartisan” trap for Kim Beazley wants to throw itself into it themselves.
I agree – the best since Menzies and Evatt. Start taking Turnbull seriously folks.
Turnbull needs an Eddie Ward.
But seriously, I agree with Andrew E. If Turnbull plays it right, he’s a real threat to Labor. This probably won’t mean Rudd is a one term government,unless there’s a real economic disaster the capos can’t or won’t fix, because its more profitable in the long run not to. As I think I said before, it goes too much against established historical trends. Rudd can probably only lose if he introduces some kind of Wotkchoices Mark 111. Bruce lost his seat with Mark 1, Howard with Mark 11. It ain’t going to happen.
But, with Turnbull manning the guns Labor as a 2 term govt is a real possibility.
Unles, as several Lpers have observed, the RWDBs go gah-gah.
We’ll try.
Yer, “We’ll try.”
But,it would help if Mal gave up on the crappy Bren populist lines that made him such a joke.
Like a 10 cent cut on petrol prices that Turnbull new was a dog. It isn’t going to look good for him personally blocking the luxury car tax, either. And why not let Fuelwatch be given a chance to fail, if it is so bad? This baggage is tainting him with doc germs and making labor happy.
Most strange and petty, also, is the attack on Rudd for travelling, too much, when it is really important, as a new PM, to get out there and mix it.
Easier for Howard to win them than Turnbull, Andrew E, and that’s precisely the point. (And also the reason why WorkChoices was damaging beyond its actual effects – it represented the first real articulation of Howard’s image to big biz and the top end of town and lost him the white suburban working class vote he’d cannibalised).
Anyway, I take it you’re subscribing to the “leadership magic bullet theory” and/or the “Rudd’s weaknesses disguised by Nelson’s hopelessness theory”. The first is a furphy but the second may have some validity – if we see that Nelson had in fact been dragging down the party vote, which is a reasonable hypothesis on the basis of the polling.
Note also that I didn’t say that Labor had no reason to worry about Turnbull. You seem to be reading that into what I wrote, but it’s not there. My point was to suggest what they were trying to do with their line of attack, and that it hadn’t all been concocted on the run. If you think I’m chanelling Shanahan, so be it, but I don’t think the imbalanced “it’s all changed and all the momentum is…” stuff is there. In fact I’m trying to counter it.
Lets no forget its Turnbull who needs to establish who he is to the publiv – not Rudd. He’s the Prime Minister of Australia.
So far the polls haven’t shifted an iota, except the one which measures how arrogant the opposition leader is – that just went through the roof.
No, the only question mark is over Turnbull: will he make a fist of it, or simply implode under the wirght of contradicton – being a liberal in an illiberal party? He’s got Buckley’s of winning in 2010 either way. Let’s see if he’s got 2013 in him.
I was only 7 y.o., PC, but I remember the Dismissal as clear as day too. we were all yelling out the school bus “Whitlam got the sack!”. I remember an old lady watering her front lawn looking up, nodding and mouthing “I know!!” – sharing the incredulity with a bunch of kids.
We didn’t really know what it all meant, of course, being in grade 2: but Dad and his mates were angry…. very very angry.
Exactly the same here, lefty. Came home from school and was all excited because something “big” had happened.
Then saw my dad on the phone for the first time ever and Mum was really quiet. A very strange couple of days.
For a long time I thought fraser was a nasty word I hadn’t learnt to use properly….
Fraser, Kerr, and Senator Albert Field – the unelected Bjelke stooge Senator. All reviled figures at least until the 77 election.
The extra vote of Field meant the opposition could do more than block supply, they could move and pass motions to delay consideration of the budget. What a back room Tory cook-up the whole deal was!
Interesting footnote: the ALP nominee who Bjelke should have appointed was none other than Mal Colston.
“Opposition Leader Malcolm Turnbull says he has taken on board a message from voters that they think he’s arrogant.”
“I listen to all of that,” he said.
“I take it on board, I take criticisms on board.”
http://news.theage.com.au/national/turnbull-takes-in-arrogant-criticism-20080921-4kt9.html
What the fxck the friggin public plebs would know about fxcking anything, he would prefer to not comment on, at this stage.
Yes, I see he popped back from Tuscany just in time to call Rudd a ‘Prime tourist’.
I see Mals early acceptance pitch along these lines….
http://images.darkhorse.com/covers/14/14340.jpg
Somehow, I just don’t reckon the sympathy will last last that long in the current economic climate.
Which would require history to be made, of course, with no Federal Liberal Party leader being allowed to lead his party in two sucessive elections where the first was a loss.
Not only does Rudd kinda look like Richie Rich, but he’s a far better fit character-wise: Rudd also has all his money because of someone else’s hard work.
BBB
Anyone see yesterdays Sun-Herald?
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It featured Mr Turnbull having week-end coffee with Lucy and daughter (is that latte I see before me) al fresco outside a very trendy looking place. Malcolm’s flirting with the arty-farty people. And if this publication is, as is the legend, the preferred rag for upwardly mobile inner-city wankers then one must admit they were in love with him. Two columns waxed lyrical about the man. One backed up the assertion of this post – ie that the ALP had a strategy waiting to go.
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However they were all clearly excited. Could it be that the culturati, long the province of the ALP, are being courted by Mr Turnbull who collects art, likes eco-stores and hugs Tim Flannery in public?
I just saw Albanese calling him the Merchant of Venice in The House. Not a bad riposte to the Prime Tourist tag, getting (at least) two memes in. Even Malcolm Bligh Turnbull looked prepared to pay that one for cleverdickedness.
Good point Martin B. He’s got Buckley’s of being PM then!
Turnbull isn’t competing agains Howard, he’s competing against Rudd and Labor. I agree with you about WorkChoices, but then again Labor shook off Communism once they set their minds to it.
No, I always thought the LMBT was absurd and have never actually seen it succeed, not in politics nor anywhere I’ve worked. I think Rudd’s been complacent, and complacency is a weakness.
I think that carefully thought out strategies sometimes fail. My point on Fraser anticipating Hawke stands. So too, Keating should have eviscerated Howard – shades of Johnson-Nixon I reckon, or the English playwright on the best laid plans of mice and men.
Bottom line Mark: Labor have been lazy and they need to lift their game. Disagree?
No, wrong way around. Rudd needs to get some runs on the board economically and in other basic functions of government. Imagine someone like Jeanette Howard saying this twelvwe months ago:
I know Turnbull’s competing against Rudd, Andrew, but I still think that he’s got problems in identifying with those “Howard battlers”, WorkChoices aside.
I certainly don’t think, and didn’t say, that Labor’s strategy will necessarily work. In fact the post has quite a few conditionals.
I’ll unhappily concede Rudd’s his own worst enemy, and that Labor have indeed been off their game. But as I said, there wasn’t much of a game to be played with the Liberals failing to field a team up til now!
I think the ALP needs to play the Senate smarter – get some things passed and paint the LNP as born to rule blockers are sitting out 3 years of this inconvenient public judgement in 2007.
And yes – I really do think Turnbull is less known to the public than Rudd. He doesnt ‘inherit’ the former government like say, Costello, or perhaps even Nelson might.
After all – wasnt he a Macquarie Banker? And aren’t they at the forefront of the most dubious low-equity quick and hi turnover banking practices in Australia? Havent they lost packets lately?
Oh thats right, we cant be “talking down” any Strayan banks.
No need to worry about Turnbull – Costello’ll be Lib’s ldr before EOF 2009.
Well, if anyone still wants to pay that low-rent feral abacus politics of the Howard-Costello years, then: lets point at Bishop! She doesnt know the teh official interest rates! http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/09/22/2371279.htm
Economic credentials in TATTERS etc yells the Oppo Organ (well, perhaps not in this case. After all she’s a girl and thats TEH sexist!).
Plus ‘Macquarie’ Turnbull is more part of the economic problem of new guard financial cowboys than solution, right Dennis?
Some “economic management” team!
I’m sure that’s right, or at least his persona is less filled out. I haven’t looked at the Newspoll tables but the “don’t know” in the preferred PPM would be a reasonable proxy. The various numbers – probably with the exception of the arrogance one! – that Shanahan pulled out of his Newspoll hat to tell a story the poll didn’t support (unlike Nielsen… if it does… but that’s another story) say more about Rudd than Turnbull.
Hardly anyone is a political junkie. A lot of voters won’t remember anything about the Republican Referendum in any real sense, and less so about Turnbull because it wasn’t candidate centred. Turnbull – for most people – will have just been a face in ads and occasionally on the news. And he wasn’t that high profile a Howard Minister compared to the ones who’d been there forever.
If you conduct focus groups, you get a really good sense of how little the public focuses on politics and politicians (very sensible, given what’s normally on offer). That’s why the race to define Malcolm is important.
Or the price of milk! She should have looked it up on GroceryWatch.
And here is the interview in question on ABC Local Radio 720 where the host leans towards the Conservative side of politics.
http://mpegmedia.abc.net.au/news/audio/audio/200809/20080822-julie-bishop.mp3
Mark -
A message from His Cosmological Omniscience Emperor Rupert I the Merciful to one Brizvegas based commoner; text follows:
> ___ After duly being instructed in the wishes of His Magnficentness vis a vis filling out their how-to-vote cards next Federal election His Australian subjects have been duly informed of their duties. Because His Omniscience is merciful and because you are a relatively new
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(the)News(is)Ltd serfhonoured contributor the Emperor has decided to be content in warning you and will not require the sacrifice of a limb this time..
Please take care to
be a cringing toady PR nerd fordisplay a balanced view towards Malcolm the Annointed in future. Harumph.Lefty E -
Whachadoin’ on a site spewing shit moi’? Yer fakin’ ehlitrat uh sumthink moi’? Youse cun oivn spell roi’ ey? This’s howyouse sayit?:
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Oi’at’s roi’ woi cn boi tawkin’ bow ‘Strayan banks n’ shittin’ on ‘em ‘ey?
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All’s youse cou’ spell roi is Strayan? Git’n edjookoishn up youse? Faakmoided ey?!
Looks to me like the Medicare levy rise will now get through, as Xenophon previously said he’d support 75k. Not sure on Fielding.
Which is great news for public health: that heaps dropping out of of the ludicrous private health rebate, and 30% public money saved every time – which can be spent of hospitals, rather than propping inefficient private insurance bureaucracies – who then raise their fees as a result, effectively flushing that public momey down a toilet..
I cant wait to see the look on some people’s faces when they discover public health queues *don’t* get any larger as a result, but in fact shrink. What a con that whole scam was!
What made anyone think that funding and propping up competing bureaucracies with public funds might lead to whole-of-system efficiencies?
Interesting responses to the “X is more honest than most politicians” Essential Research poll question, reported over at Pollbludger:
Rudd 53%
Nelson 25%
Turnbull 25%
Conclusion: only rusted-ons buy Turnbull at this point. He’s got all the work to do, as noted earlier in this thread.
Mind you, other interesting data there suggesting 45% think Rudd moving to slowly on IR. I quite agree!
Spoikstrayan cununnerstan’ awordyersayn fak.
Can we have a thread to discuss Christopher Pyne as Education shadow please.
Provided we can also discuss “Christopher Pyne as arseclown”, I second Laura.
Has he actually done or said anything related to education, Laura? In the meantime, there’s the “winners and losers in shadow cabinet” thread, unless you can suggest a particular angle for a post?
I suggested a particular angle Mark!
Anyway, I think this is on thread: just read Juliane Schultz’s excellent piece in the latest Griff review. Great fill in for me on QLD politics of the 70s (I have only marginal personal memories there, primarily mum bailing dad from the watchhouse – again – after another right to protest rally); but above all it should be read by anyone who imagines Rudd and Swan came just got lucky in 07. They’re canny buggers with a major track record of taking down the seemingly untouchable.
Of most interest was the way Goss and crew went to Griffith circles for intellectual inspiration from Colebatch, Davis, the newer governance crowd – rather than the more familiar UQ Left academics. Mind you, hardly any of those UQ academics were actually in the ALP by then! So its not really so surprising they werent Goss’s coterie of choice.
Maybe all that says is Griffith was/is more intellectually innovative and fresh than UQ – having had extensive dealings with the latter, I cant say Id be surprised.
It has to be said though, I doubt the climate for Fitzgerald would ever have emerged without that key bastion of resistance at St Lucia.
I think the influence of the Griffith mob is played up a bit too much, Lefty E. I was saying that to one of those old time lefty UQ academics recently and he agreed!
Btw – I wrote about the issue here:
http://larvatusprodeo.net/2008/08/25/hidden-queensland-griffith-review/
But, yep, I agree with the general point. Anyone who’s been around Qld politics for a bit knows Rudd and Swan didn’t spring up from the ground like mushrooms last year.
Graham Young and I were emphasising way back when Rudd was elected that we were going to get a Qld ALP style campaign. Which we did. Not our problem that the rest of the country never thought what went on up here was important enough to notice!
Ill check that post out Mark. Hadn’t read the piece when it went up!
And yes, agreed: Griffith card overplayed by, oh, Griffith review…
Like I say above – without St Lucia, forget it. Can you imagine QLD, then, without UQ?
A vast quarry with no eye.
Indeed!
More precisely, they had a fair degree of influence on the governance stuff, to be sure, but that’s somewhat secondary to the policy substance, or if it wasn’t, then that was a big part of the Goss government’s problem!
Yep, if GU wants to take credit for the boring, technocratic “everyone take a cold shower” vibe we got from Gossy as of 3 December 1989 – well, let them!
Still it was a good night at Livid!
I did have in mind the general ‘arseclown’ theme, actually. I don’t know whether he’s said anything yet or not. Probably he hasn’t. I imagine he’s waiting for a suitably, erm, ‘quotable’ editorial to be published in an American newspaper, to give him some ‘ideas’ for his first parliamentary remarks on the subject.
Hehe, Talcum doesn’t seem be aware the Roosters aren’t AFL.
Connecting with the people! And the plagiarism, compounded by basic economic data cluelessness deal – wtf??
This is actually a shocker of a start from the opp!
It was unforgettable night at the dance party I went to in the Valley too Mark~! (Love&Justice, The Roxy, 2/12/89). I’ll have to check the relevant statute of limitations before making any further reveries – but suffice to say we all saw the first daylight over Brisbane from the Hill – and first ALP state govt of our 21 yo lifetimes. Great times!
Laura, I might set up a watch on his press releases and statements, even if it does make my RSS reader feel dirty! I can’t understand why Chrissie Pyne has ever been regarded as being a “talent”, unless being smarmy is a talent.
The smarmy pratt tolerance threshold is clearly higher in South Australia than the parts of AU Im familiar with.
Seriously – Pyne could not have become an elected rep of the people in, say, QLD. No way.
George Brandis?
But then no one really votes for individuals on the major parties’ Senate tickets.
LE – they’ve clearly been desensitised. I call it the “well, he’s not as smarmy as Dolly” effect.
Exactly FDB – only in the shadow of Australia’s greatest Pratt could Pyne exist.
Senate is different, yes!
Exhibit A Mal Colston.