The summer holidays are perhaps the time of year when the dissonance between most people’s lived experience and the obsessions of the political and pundit class is most starkly on display.
While everyone else is lapping up the sun, or bemoaning having to go back to work, the drumbeat of ideological opinionistas’ fantasies taps away relentlessly on keyboards. The Australian‘s op/ed page, for instance, appears to have been indulging itself in a bit of a contest to see if it can print 50 different ways to deny climate change in far fewer days.
And Tony Abbott’s been popping up all over the place. Just as with Rudd, he’s a new opposition leader installed just before an election year.
Let’s consider the contrast with Kevin Rudd, then and now.
Rudd, like Abbott, took over his party’s leadership in early December. Both weren’t unknowns to the public, but Rudd didn’t have an accumulation of negatives to overcome. His appearances on Sunrise and his prosecution of the case over wheat sales to Saddam’s Iraq (hardly something even hardened Liberal partisans would regard as one of their best moments) had established his image, and the “fresh, new” stuff worked well against an aging Prime Minister in his fourth term. Abbott, arguably, has been much more prominent in the public eye for much longer than Rudd had, and he’s up against the most consistently popular first term Prime Minister ever.
Rudd blitzed the media early on, to establish his persona. He then went relatively quiet over the Christmas/New Year period, only to resurface with a very effective ad on Australia Day, which helped define him just as attention was beginning to return to the political contest.
Abbott has at best ten months before the election. Rudd probably benefited from Howard’s delay in going to the polls, because it reinforced his consistent message of steadiness. Abbott has hardly disappeared from the tv screens over the holidays, and his message is scattershot. It may well be that his omnipresence serves mainly to irritate, particularly at a time when most Australians would rather think of anything but politics.
In politics, you need to know when to go quiet. Labor has followed a communications strategy of effective disappearance when the Libs’ internal ructions have been at their height. The impression, by virtue of their very absence, is that Ministers are quietly getting on with the task of governing, while the Opposition go into hyper-political mode.
Time is against Tony Abbott, but invisibility at the moment might be a better option for him. Much more important as a political indicator of what’s to come than what’s being written in the papers or online would be to compare how many stories on the nightly news at this time of the year feature the Liberals compared to the government. Paradoxically, that’s not to their benefit.
The government seems to be ignoring the op-eds from the Australian over the Australian.
Speaking of Tony Abbott his comments on how well New Zealand has been doing economically compared to Australia have been nicely de-constructed by peter Martin and i am sure have been noted by those Ministerial staffers not on lholidays.
The problem with invisibility, Mark, is that whilst Abbott could do it (if he wanted, ha!), he has almost no chance of controlling the blathering idiots on board this titanic with him.
Even without the favours that pushed him into leadership, he lacks the iron fist that Howard ruled internally with.
Barnaby Joyce!
Nick Minchin!
Bronwyn Bishop!
Sophie Mirabella!
Andrew Robb!
These are just some of the idiots you can hear crapping on about shit until the next election! From the mistaken, to the fanciful, to the paranoid, racist and more! All this is available in just one party with a low, low polling!
But wait there’s more! If you listen to a soundbite right now, you get to hear the Liberals not only parting from reality as we know it, in some kind of Polanski-esque Repulsion tribute, but you all get to see them sailing away from the electorate opinion faster than Wilson Tuckey’s losing brain cells – and that’s fast!
If you don’t like the opinion or politician you receive, don’t worry, you’ll get to vote them out again in only _five_ short years! Take advantage of this offer now, before the coalition realises the dustbin of history has a pretty funky smell!
And, in a special offer, if you vote at the next election, you’ll receive two times the usual amount of idiots in your liberal party! Truly, this many lobotomy impersonators in one party is one of kind – but only for the next election!
Please, let’s give them no gratis advice that might help.
I could be wrong, but if the Opposition thinks Rudd is going to spend much time out of Oz this year on pet projects and banking on another 2009…
I think he’ll come back from his “hollies, whiz up to Brissie to see the extended fam. to drink cuppas out the back” or some such touch base thang etc and then start domestic campaigning from when the rating season begins and the real hosts are back in the saddle… all the way to election day.
And who’s not going to ink in the first Tanner vs Barnyard Lateline stoush. A Jimmy Sharman Tentshow match-up, and after the bar has closed.
Don’t worry, Rx, I think Abbott will be the gift that keeps on giving …
patrickg is right about the control thing. Abbott is an order-taker not an order-maker. While the idea of a “media strategy” is overrated it would be a mistake to think that quiet governance will suffice – surely the lessons over the ETS have been learnt. Sometimes you have to stand up and make the case for change.
Yes, but you don’t do it when people don’t want to listen to it – ie school holidays, Andrew.
From Peter Martin
TONY ABBOTT, last night’s 7.30 Report:
“If you look across the Tasman, New Zealand has done just as well it seems as Australia without going into anything like the same level of debt and deficit that we have.”
Umm Tony, New Zealand went into recession – for five consecutive quarters .
http://petermartin.blogspot.com/
The Nationals in New Zealand commissioned a major study, headed by Don Brash, into how to get the NZ economy performing as well as Australia’s.
Source: TVNZ
The Brash Report was poorly received when I was there and it was released in early December.
The point is that if Tony Abbott is running around saying that the NZ economy is performing as well as Australia, it flies in the face of the view of the NZ Government and key business stakeholders.
If this is the quality of economic contribution you can expect from Tony Abbott, then it confirms impressions that the guy is a complete plonker.
I think he’s lazy and uninformed.
It does not say much for Chris Uhlmann, and the “let’s get this over with mate” robotic interview, who did not pick him up on this obvious gaffe. Somebody should tell him that this perfectly rehearsed style of work is a recipe for boring television.
@Mark
His three chief weapons are laziness, ignorance, ruthless headkicking and an almost fanatical devotion to the Pope? Oops, his four chief weapons…
“His three chief weapons are laziness, ignorance, ruthless headkicking and an almost fanatical devotion to the Pope? Oops, his four chief weapons…”
And those would be his ‘good points’ which he proudly wears as some sort of badge of honour.
Another thing that Uhlmann failed to pick up on during the 7.30 report interview with Abbott, is that Abbott also said that the reason that Australia didn’t experience the high levels of unemployment that other nations experienced as a result of the GFC was all down to the good policies of John Howard!
WTF?
The Coalition (and Abbott in particular) still believe that their future salvation relies on invoking the memory of their fallen idol.
That’s just plain weird.
They’re all doomed…. DOOMED!!
Mark,
You’re spot on about this Xmas holidays thing. Even a political junkie like me wasn’t that interested in hearing about it over this period, though I have to say the illegal Japanese whaling saga and the murder of the Indian student somewhat re-awakened my political antennae. If I’m feeling a bit like that, God knows what the people out in voterland who are only interested in politics if adversely affected by a Government decision or in the last week of an election campaign felt.
It does not say much for Chris Uhlmann…
To be honest, I am yet to see anything that says much for Uhlmann, I really don’t rate him as a journalist. Even by the pathetic standards of the circle-jerk Canberra press gallery.
I went off Chris Uhlmann when he began cooing in the direction of Plimer and his gang of delusionists and agnotologists.
Didn’t see Uhlman’s love duet with Abbott last night. I was too busy watching series four of Upstairs Downstairs on DVD.
I’m considering giving the 7.30 Report a miss till Kerry O’Brien gets back from holidays. (Unless they get another presenter or relegate Uhlman to the social pages where he belongs. I wonder how many comnplaints about him Auntie has had?
… Abbott also said that the reason that Australia didn’t experience the high levels of unemployment that other nations experienced as a result of the GFC was all down to the good policies of John Howard – reb
Much as I detest Howard they have some right to say this. The low government debt that Rudd inherited gave our Treasury far more room for manouvre in late 2008-early 2009 than, say, the UK one had.
But of course this is incompatible with the “we’ve got so much debt that it’s gonna sink us all” meme that the they are also trying to push. In fact we still have the lowest government debt-to-GDP ratio in the whole developed world – if we have a government debt problem it’s more likely to be that it’s a bit low because Howard didn’t spend enough on infrastructure (broadly defined).
“I was too busy watching series four of Upstairs Downstairs on DVD.”
You know, that’s not really something that I’d fess up to on a public forum like this.
But I guess it takes all sorts.
Couldn’t you have just made up something more believable, y’know like you were watching porn or something?
Mark@7:
There was a study a few years ago on Australians’ attitude to politics which concluded that the total amount of time the average Australian voter spent in a year thinking about politics is: eight minutes. Xmas/New Year is a time when people take stock of their lives and resolve to make changes.
My views on Abbott are pretty much fixed and so are yours, but you can understand why Abbott is reaching out those susceptible to change – even though he has nothing to offer them.
reb@19:
No, it’s a form of denialism arising from mourning that can’t imagine a future without the deceased. The Coalition’s half-hearted clinging to Howard in 2007, even though the polls showed voters were sick of him, is proof of this. The Liberals have no choice but to work this out of their system. Healing takes time and the courage to be open to new possibilities (the fact that Liberal candidates of recent years have been Howard government staffers portends this will be a slow, slow process).
reb, its true. Haven’t watched the last series yet. Will buy it next aged pension cheque.
(I love the show.]
Agree with you about Uhlman, Joe2. Just hope he’s not being seriously trialled as possible successor to Red Kerry.
By the way, isn’t it refreshing to listen to ABC Radio National without Fran Kelly!
Uhlman’s gone back to Canberra. I think Heather Hewitt’s taking over from Monday.
Patricia WA, my gut instinct tells me he is being trialled to replace KOB who must be due for retirement soon. Unfortunately that gut instinct is frequently right.
Oh, relevance of my comments to the thread? The ABC recognises the Christmas holiday break in some ways, even if Tony Abbott doesn’t want to acknowledge it and spend more time with the family.
Mind you even if he weren’t newly elected Opposition leader and obliged to spend time indoors with party apparatchiks or chatting on talkback radio I doubt he’d be at home. He’d have to be flying along with a crowd of speed crazy cyclists, or sporting his body beautiful on beach patrol or more likely beating out bush fires in the wilds of Warringah.
What a bitchy comment. Those are worthwile activities and are to be commended particularly by those citizens who volunteer their time both in and out of holiday periods to safeguard us against fire, flood and shark attack. But right now in these Christmas holidays Tony Abbott has the chance, responsibility even, to catch up on some reading and at least get to the end of the Ian Plimer book he admitted as the only one he’d “had a look at, but not finished” on climate change. I wonder if he has a “recommended” book list, and what else is on it?
No need to wonder if Rudd is reading contentedly away in some shady corner of Tassie, emerging occasionally for a happy family photo shot.