Bernard Keane in today’s Crikey email:
Rudd’s more fundamental problem is that a key characteristic of his political personality is proving unsustainable over a long period. For all his talk of taking tough decisions and being willing to risk unpopularity and awareness that there are no magic solutions, a key element of the Rudd personality is the assurance that he shares voters’ concerns on pretty much any issue raised with him and wants to do something about them. Rudd’s instinctive reaction on virtually any issue is to express concern, without committing to any specific action, or without any follow-up.
It stood him in good stead in the lead-up to the 2007 election, where he was able to express concern about issues like petrol and grocery prices and thereby convey that he was on the same wavelength as voters, who felt themselves hard-pressed despite the economic boom. No one ever lost votes telling well-off Australians that they were doing it tough and needed help.
As a means of catering to the selfish obsessions of voters, it was highly effective against John Howard, who was far more reluctant to suggest that governments could or should be in the business of pandering to the most micro-concerns of voters. Howard preferred simply to throw money at them at let them work out how to spend it.
The reflexive expression of concern without demonstrated action on the issue is no longer working as a tactic because it can’t be sustained over the long term. Eventually voters start to wonder what the Government has specifically done. A pattern emerges of concern expressed, but not acted upon.
When it comes to fulfilling its election commitments, this Government has been rather more obsessive about doing so than most. The Opposition can try to pick out promises it claims were breached but Rudd doesn’t come close to the systematic breaching of promises by the Howard Government in its first term – most of which, incidentally, were justified by fiscal circumstances, even though Howard like Keating knew perfectly well just what a dire state the Budget was in before the 1996 election.
But being able to tick off election commitments on a list masks the fundamental truth that Rudd oversold himself as being cognisant of voter concerns and willing to address them, in a way that Howard, even at his Big Government worst, was never prepared to do. There’s a credibility gap that can’t be addressed no matter how often Rudd recites his list of kept promises, a feeling that he is less than what he offered.
It’s not necessarily fatal. Voters were perfectly aware John Howard lied and twisted his own words to suit his purposes but kept electing him anyway, confident in the job he was doing. There’s no reason why Rudd shouldn’t manage the same, especially with his successful management of the financial crisis behind him. But only if he can overcome his addiction to pandering to voters and convince voters Green Loans and foil insulation aren’t symbolic of his Government’s competence.
Keane compares Rudd to John Howard. I think the difference here is slightly overdrawn; Howard was famously prepared to give an opinion on almost everything, and the ‘culture wars’ saw a determined attempt to politicise differences in social values and to stigmatise the choices individuals might make, as well as making institutions and major aspects of national culture both the province of state action at the national level and leverage for partisan differences.
Kevin Rudd treads much more softly in this domain, but his preparedness to express concern and to intimate that ‘something should be done’ is a song sung in a similar register.
The projection of empathy, as Keane says, worked wonders for Rudd in the 2007 campaign, but the common theme here might be playing to the statist political culture of many Australians; the sentiment that the government should be tailoring policy to their individual circumstances twinned with the paradoxical preparedness to live and let live and to judge others’ choices. We don’t appear to have much of an impulse to take responsibility for the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, preferring to grumble that state policy isn’t configured to give us all that we so richly deserve.
That culture can form the basis for a social democratic model of collective welfare and state action to facilitate individual opportunity, but it can also become a degraded desire for the state to act instantly on our individual plights.
It’s here that the micro-managing urges of Kevin Rudd come into play. Despite his background as a diplomat, I think he’s been most shaped by his experience as a Queensland bureaucrat. And what we have in governance Rudd-style is the parish pump politics of state level service delivery writ large. Grand plans come down to the ground level of tricky problems of implementation, with big picture objectives reduced to bite sized policies whose national scale still means there’s endless scope for things to go wrong (think Myschool as metonym and placeholder for the education revolution, or the roof insulation programme as climate change politics).
Tony Abbott, of course, would be very much the same in practice – an interferer, a straightener, a centraliser.
And we also have politics, state Labor style; the art of the permanent campaign, and playing to the proverbial kitchen table.
At federal level, of course, the first administration to really indulge in the dark arts of spin was John Howard’s.
I remarked on my ‘vision thing’ thread that Paul Keating’s example is the template for what not to do for the Rudd government, just as Whitlam’s was for Hawke. There’s no doubt that the Keating government’s experience of dissonance between ‘big picture’ politics and the everyday lived experience of voters has been a powerful warning for Rudd. I’m surprised that’s not noticed more often.
But Keating also believed that the national government had a higher role to play than the quotidian concerns of state administration – that a PM shouldn’t be involved in or comment on every issue, and that it didn’t matter so much if he wasn’t on the news every night. It was probably the case that his focus was the wrong one, and should have been on economic issues, and there’s endless evidence that his own path to the Prime Ministership shaped his approach for the political worse (‘Fixed economy and integrated Australia globally? Tick! Bored now – onto the plane of the symbolic’); but that doesn’t mean that Keating’s core conception of federal power and politics was wrong.
But I don’t think Kevin Rudd has it in him to be a Paul Keating of any stripe.
Sorry but off the top of my head reaction looming.
I have some respect for Keane cf the MSM punditry in general and I didn’t bother to read all of his article above and certainly not in depth.
I’m just sick of the approach that starts out with the assumption that Rudd ‘has a [fundamental] problem”.
And then proceeds to pontificate wheteher such problem is real, confected or imaginary.
Keane and the other pundits have a problem.
They seem compelled to start analysis with the presumption that Rudd has a ‘problem’, is facing a ‘crisis’ and then analyse whatever from the viewpoint of personaslity politics.
Boring.
Most voters like MySchool. its the AEU and a few private school principals that are against it. And AEU members are not going to switch their votes to the Libs.
Rudd has been sporting a beautifully cut black suit for the past week, and a solid bright red tie, looking very Keating-esque if you ask me.
But then I just don’t get what Bernard Keane is rabbiting on about anyway. Rudd and his front bench have been in fine form this week. The Red Fox has a new dye job, with streaks this time. Garrett was a symphony in blue today, as he smacked down young Hunt in his pink paisley tie, and Abbott looks distinctly tired and shopworn.
QT today was a pleasure to watch, with the Government front bench in top form. Hunt tried a series of “forensic” questions, none of which had any effect, and finally asked for permission to table correspondence from the Auditor-General (!) that had poor old Julie Bishop leaning forward in thrilled anticipation, but was batted away down quickly and expertly by Albanese. That was worth a laugh.
And the finale was Rudd repeatedly expressing his full confidence in his Environment Minister and inviting Abbott to move another futile no confidence motion.
Whichever way I look at it, Rudd and the Government have finished this session way in front, but I am sure that will not be the way our jaded press gallery (and Bernard Keane) will see it.
One of Howard’s strengths was that he knew when to backflip. Right now it would be easy to backflip on ETS and come up with a much better direct action plan. The longer Rudd puts off the backflip the greater the risk that the opposition will actually come up with a reasonable plan – much harder to be seen as meekly following then.
I don’t know how or why this tendency arose for politicians to have an opinion on everything, but it’s a pernicious development and means we live in a more or less continuous welter of frenzied argument about trivia. The phenomenon is not limited to Australia – you see the same kind of thing in the USA where presidential utterances about all sorts of petty crap run as lead stories for days.
The latest example is Rudd’s po-faced thoughts about raising the drinking age, with obligatory disagreement from Abbott. Who gives a continental what either of them thinks? It’s not a federal government responsibility. Who knows?
Maybe they do it because it keeps attention off their chronic inability to deliver on their promises in the core areas that ARE their responsibility; or maybe it just reflects the laziness of the media and the egos of pollies who are incapable of declining to appear to be experts on everything.
One of my major issues with Howard was that he did very little proactively. I always thought he was at his best when reacting – gun control, East Timor etc. On economics, his greatest achievements were in doing what Treasury and the Reserve Bank advised. The GST was his stand out proactive achievement.
I’m beginning to see Rudd in a quite similar light. No doubt his greatest achievement of the term was the response to the GFC, but to be fair, he just did what he was told by the economists of Treasury and the RB – as he should. That’s not to say it’s no achievement, but I’m absolutely sure the Libs would have achieved the same outcome had they won the election. Their opposition is the unfortuntate lot of the Opposition.
I honestly struggle to point to any other significant achievement of this Government beyond the symbolic. For the first year, we were told “we’re working overtime – all the important changes are in the pipeline and the results will start to flow”. Well, it’s been two years now. What have we to see?
kymbos, you will need to open your eyes to see.
And I think it clear that Howard and co would have been quite averse to a stimulus package. Apart from probably flinging a few more bucks at people with no need to spend it.
Ken Lovell at 5: Raising the drinking age to 21 was a question put to Rudd on the Q&A show.
Are you saying he should not have answered a question asked on a national television show?
In fact, you seem to be accepting the misleading interpretation in the media of Rudd’s answer. Here is Rudd’s response.
TONY JONES: Right. Let’s get an answer – a specific answer – to Linna Wei’s question about raising the drinking age – the legal drinking age – to 21. Would you consider it?
KEVIN RUDD: I don’t have the evidence in front of me to say whether we can or whether we can’t. I’d just rather be straight up with you and say…
TONY JONES: Would you like to?
KEVIN RUDD: Of course. I mean – you mean would I like to?
TONY JONES: Would you like to raise the drinking age to 21? Of course.
KEVIN RUDD: I believe in something called evidence-based policy, which is if the evidence is there and it’s capable of being proven that it works, then we look at these things and make a decision. But you’re asking me for a personal impression. You don’t run policy that way, Tony.
TONY JONES: Sometimes.
KEVIN RUDD: Well, you don’t. You actually – if you’re doing the serious thing, how many of you are in the category of 18 to 21 here? Okay. How many of you want the drinking age raised to 21. Okay. Well, I’m just saying there’s got to be a debate about this and it would be an informed debate if we had evidence in front of us which said you do this in State X of the United States and the overall car accident rate and mortality on roads goes down. But I don’t have that in front of me.
TONY JONES: So it’s an interesting experiment though, policy by popularity. That’s – I actually haven’t seen that done before.
KEVIN RUDD: No what I mean is if you’ve got some evidence based policy, is it a uniform view in the community, point one. Point two, is it effective? So nice try, mate, but both are relevant.
@2 –
Sure, Terry. I said in the week it was released it was likely to be a big political plus for Labor. But it’s not quite an ‘Education Revolution’, is it?
@3 –
Perhaps so, grace.
But I think, in this piece, Keane was trying to take a look at Rudd from a longer term perspective than the gallery’s ‘today in the political narrative’ stuff. I don’t necessarily agree with all that he said, but I think that intention is to be applauded, and I also think (as demonstrated by my thoughts in the post), it’s useful to compare Rudd’s style of governance to those of other PMs, and also to understand it and its implications within a broader context.
Kymbos @6: “For the first year, we were told “we’re working overtime – all the important changes are in the pipeline and the results will start to flow”. Well, it’s been two years now. What have we to see?”
That thar pipeline got a kink in it, called GFC.
It has taken two years to undo that kink.
No excuses now. They’ll need to deliver in two years.
Oh, well, that’s cleared that up for me, thanks joe2.
You are welcome kymbos the blind.
I think it matters than the have a reputation as promise-keepers that they genuinely try to uphold – especially in the wake of the Howard govt. For all Talcum and Abbott’s yabber about ‘phoniness’, Rudd actually comes across as genuine. A bitr of a nerd, sure, but genuine in it.
Keabne’s got a point, but I wonder how we would reflect on his theme if Rudd hadn’t faced the current senate – for which “hostile” is actually the wrong word – more a crazy, unpredictable shambles.
Mark@9: thanks for the response Mark, and while I understand the road you are travelling here, Bernard just sounds bored to me, particularly as he propped his piece in crikey with Dog’s balloon-head cartoon. But seriously, I think that this sort of analysis should await the approaching end of the government’s first term, which has been endured with a hostile senate, that has effectively blocked the road ahead for any major policy innovation. My general impression is that all sorts of major policy issues are gradually coming to a head (!), just in time for an election blitzkreig. And I do hope its a DD, that will put the broom through the senate, and allow a second term government some elbow room, and give us all some retrospective wisdom to work with.
Will Rudd will be a rerun of Wayne Goss (or Obama?) who frittered away an apparently invincible position? if the Libs do OK this year then a Liberal government in 2013 will be quite possible and the Liberals will have moved rightward in the interim. Fraser to Howard to Abbott? Bush I to Bush II to Palin? Compare to NZ where Labour seems to have forced the Nats to the center.
There is also that other kink, the Senate. Whatever your opinion of its merits, the CPRS was not symbolism – it was monstrously big policy reform. If it had gotten through the Senate, nobody would be accusing the Rudd Government of being a ‘reactive’ or do-nothing government.
Keane is just buying into the media narrative du jour. Angus Grigg has a frontpager on the AFR today, in which he interviews talkback radio jocks (in the AFR!) about why Rudd is “on the nose”. Michelle Grattan has been rabbiting on about and you can’t turn on ABC radio without hearing some squeak like Fran Whatshername working herself up into a frenzy about Labor’s “crisis”.
The hacks need something to fill the white pages between the ads with (or station promos in the ABC’s case) every single day. Labour has had a couple of bad polls (but still holds the lead that it won the election with and still has a prime minister with approval ratings that Obama would die for). Yet the story becomes ‘Rudd is on a death dive; he can’t do anything right; Abbott walks on water’. Honestly, the media doesn’t think about this stuff too deeply. It is just today’s noise.
On the contarary Mr Denmore, the media thinks about this stuff deeply enough to have an agenda and to prosecute it relentlessly. Filling the blanks between the ads or station promos is a priority, but that doesn’t explain why the filling is overwhemingly partisan.
Grace above mentioned the hostile senate, but Rudd has had to contend with a hostile media, whose hostility began long before he took office.
I think those on the ‘left’ or whatever you want to call it need to face up to the reality of the media in Australia and attempt to confront it. Saying that the media is just filling up space and has to report something ignores the content of that space and the consistent agenda that it pursues.
Since when/how is this a bad attribute? Specially if he qualifies his concern with the rider :
You’re either out of touch or you’re too sharing of voters’s concerns.
JohnL thanks for the clarification and I agree I misrepresented Rudd’s position. My argument holds good however; in fact Rudd DIDN’T answer the question he was asked but instead blathered on as if he would make ‘evidence-based policy’ about minimum drinking age once he had seen the evidence and participated in this ‘informed debate’ that ‘we have to have’.
Why not just say that he’s got enough on his plate with his enormous federal responsibilities without giving gratuitous advice to the states about liquor laws? I mean where did this attitude spring from that politicians must have opinions about everything and that polite deflection of a question is a legitimate trigger for shrill “Gotcha” cries?
Terry@2:
With only 23% of the respondents to a poll saying that they had looked at the MySchool site http://blogs.crikey.com.au/pollytics/2010/02/08/essential-report-myschool-and-climate-change/), it is something of a sweeping statement to say that most voters like it.
Adrian, you’re right, there is a conservative bias in the media, but I don’t think it extends all the way down to reporter level. Most of the time, the media hunts like a pack. It really doesn’t matter what the issue is. Chief reporters don’t like to be seen not to be covered on today’s water cooler subject.
So everyone in the last day or two is running their chosen angle on the “Rudd is on the ropes” story, because, well, that’s what everyone else is running.
I don’t think you can say this is an orchestrated conspiracy to get Rudd. The best you can say is the media gets bored when things don’t change for any length of time. So when there is a movement in the polls, they blow it up out of all proportion. They’ll get bored with this in a couple of weeks and start talking potshots at Abbott again.
It’s a bit like soldiers on guard duty. They’re itching to use their gun, so as soon as their hear a crackle in the bushes, they shoot the crap out of it.
Walter Cronkite got it right about the Aussie media. Too many reporters, too little news.
John Howard, who was far more reluctant to suggest that governments could or should be in the business of pandering to the most micro-concerns of voters.
That’s just utter tosh, and shows how desperately Keane is trying to form an argument, regardless of facts. Howard stuck his nose into everything.
There were a fair number of questions, Ken, in that show for which the real answer was : “Don’t ask me, go’n ask the state govt what runs that area.”
However Rudd took great pains to never use the term ‘state responsibility’. He knew that the audience wanted an answer from him and that any evasion would’ve been seen as an old federal/state buck pass.
I thought he trod a delicate balance pretty well when he couldn’t choose the questions he was being asked to pontificate upon.
@13, @14 and @15 – yes, I agree that Senate obstructionism is a big factor, as well as all the problems of actually getting something done that bedevil policy (and that’s worth remembering when people assume that as @6 that the response to the GFC is anywhere near as straightforward as just implementing Treasury advice – which, for a start, is formulated in a very dynamic context interacting with data and other actors).
But I’d go back to what I was arguing on the other thread – Rudd does need more focus, I think, and here the Keating comparison is relevant – being in the media every day and having an opinion on everything can devalue one’s political currency and ability to prosecute a case. There’s also no doubt that the media is a problem, but while I disagree with the simplistic Christian Kerr line about spin, there is also no doubt that Rudd’s office is focused on day to day messaging.
Doesn’t Rudd’s proposed 5% reduction in GHG by 2020 dispell the myth of his commitment to evidence-based policy? The evidence required much more dramatic cuts. Garnaut gave him the evidence, and he took another path.
Well, that exposes one of the fault lines in the idea of ‘evidence based policy’ – the evidence is not sufficient to ensure political and interest group acceptance of the policy.
The crime of the day seems to be that someone has an opinion on just about everything. Blogs like this would not exist if people did not have opinions on a range of subjects or the ability to put forward an opinion on any topic raised. Bernard Keane (and Mark perhaps?) apparently watched Hungry Ghost last night where Mr. Rudd’s statements on a range of matters were represented visually, from which the conclusion is being drawn that he has an opinion on everything and he just shouldn’t damm him. And it follows therefore that if he offers an opinion or gives an answer when asked that this is another defect in his character. Now I know not to invite either Bernard Keane (or Mark presumably) to any of my dinner parties where I expect a range of opinions to be proffered.
el oso, I think you’ve missed the point. Rudd can certainly have an opinion on everything under the sun, but that’s separable from his public position.
My immediate response to your question, Mark, was, “Nothing – but something’s up with Bernard Keane at Crikey.”
Except for the usual suspects his bloggers aren’t buying his rhetorical attacks on Garrett of the past few days which read like speeches written for Abbott. Nor am I. Reporting opinions of third parties who possibly have vested interests and spouting moral indigation over dramatic scenes of house fire damage without evidence of cause is not the sort of journalism Crikey subscribers pay for.
Did I imagine reading something somewhere about negotiations with News Ltd. on some level? Happy to be put straight.
I dont like Rudd. He is smarmy and nasty. His attack on ETU’s Mighell recently was pitiful. Rudd is a dud and the ALP is a niche club of dudder nobodies.
@29 – I haven’t seen anything, Patricia WA, but do you mean Keane or Crikey?
I doubt that a News Ltd takeover of Crikey would make any sense – its independence is vital to its reputation, and thus market value.
I was a voter, during that period, and cannot remember that bit. Kev, on the other hand has sent a number of little parcels my way, with no strings attached. Maybe Bernard is getting his leaders confused like his “at” and his “ands”.
I suspect Keane refers to things like the “one off” cash payments to pensioners and the baby bonus, joe2.
Elmer Rudd. Social technocrat par excellence. Normal habitus: cupboard. Diurnal habits. Normal stance: ameliorative humility. Reactive disposition: rage. Call: sibilant sussuration in Standard Speech. Mating habits: self replicating bureaucrat. There is some debate as to the authenticity of the ruling Elmer Rudd who many argue is in fact a descendant of previous recombinant self replicators from Qld. Known to venture into class origin speak and to fail dismally at vitually every attempt. Associates and family friends are prone to wag their finger and state “better than the last lot” ad nauseum. Core beliefs: appears to think that “The Magic Pudding” is an economic statement. Historical antecedants: Norman Linday argued that certain types shouldn’t be trusted in a chook shed and this was on the basis of the sort of hats they wear. Observe Elmer Rudd while wearing a hat and see if you don’t agree especially in light of the fact that money for Medicare rebated psychiatric services has been seriously depleted by Australians seeking assitance overcoming flashbacks and intrusive thoughts about John Howard wearing a hat.
Wether Garrett is sufficiently practised in a political and regulation forming sense to understand the exact outcomes of Murphy’s Law can only be seen in the after view of whatever are the outcomes of that law.Seeing his failures are not deaths alone,but that just recently added to the ability of the Minister,I think, much of the criticism is valid.As for Rudd ,and people like him,whom do not need need to PM’s they simply cannot help themselves.If you live to a portrayal of oneself as some sort of nice,intelligent Guy,or something,it is bound to be you are not doing the work to be that.Voters,when they deem themselves as that, do not need to respond even to what the PM maybe firing their way in Niceness.Rudd as now a Public Figure doesn’t have to be always aware that niceness isn’t picking your nose,but maybe, a unwillingness to always sound like your behaviour has already been defined for reach.
Mark at 26- “Well, that exposes one of the fault lines in the idea of ‘evidence based policy’ – the evidence is not sufficient to ensure political and interest group acceptance of the policy.”
Is that the definition of ‘fault line’ or ‘failure of political leadership’?
It isn’t that long ao that the ALP was a self-defeating mess of minor nobodies but Rudd managed to ditch Beazley ( or was it Crean?) and by being all the things ALP supporters regard as something you need to scrap off your shoes he has gained power.
Ah, lovely power.
As Gillard said at conference ‘Doesn’t it feel good to be back.’
As soon as the polls slip the knives will be out and his ‘suppoters’ will end his career.
After reading this latest bit of tosh from Keane I am sorely regretting renewing my Crikey subscription on Tuesday. Should I ever wish to read hack journalism/opinion/punditry I shall purchase a News Ltd rag and send an email to Piers and Andrew.
BTW Mark, I reckon you missed the best post in crikey today, putting bored bernard aside for a moment. It was this, from the very wonderfully perpecacious (anotehr glass of wine please) Margaret Simons:
“[Mark Scott] says the new ABC News Online Investigation Unit has been designed to support ABC reporters engaged in investigative journalism across the organisation. The unit, under the leadership of Lateline reporter Suzanne Smith, will help with research, data analysis and as a sounding board as well as helping to make sure that stories are properly followed through, he says.
Scott admits that the ABC is not always good at capitalising on its own news stories, but rebuts critics (including me) who have suggested that the ABC does not break news.
“Sometimes at the ABC, due to our structures, territorialities and history, our news rooms have not followed up stories broken by our current affairs programs as assiduously as they should have. Our news reporters have often had neither the understanding, contacts nor the brief to do so. Now none is this is best practice, nor is it wise. Which is why we are already at work to correct it.”
This is pretty interesting stuff, in the context of the swingeing (love that word) complaints of many of your highly esteemed commentators in recent times – adrain comes to mind.
Sorry, not trolling, this is on topic, if testiness with premature narrative arcs is permitted.
Yes, I read that, grace, but hopefully this thread won’t turn into a discussion of it!
Wow, mention Beazley and you end up in moderation?
And while I’m on the outer could you correct the spelling of ‘supporters’? Thanks.
Not a chance, Mark!
@41 – apologies – a stack of comments got caught up in the mod filter for reasons which aren’t immediately clear to me.
This is all turning into a “TMZ” or “E!” approach to political journalism, the trash-mag hyper-analysis of everything that is tangential to the actual narrative.
Murf the surf @37 predicts the knives will be out for Rudd as the polls slip. Rudd worries me that based on his last Q&A response, unless he had evidence based research in front of him he wasn’t prepared to comment. In other words his gut reaction was a bunch of nothing. Viewers know there is some leverage in shows like this and there is always plenty of opportunities to recant if absolutely necessary.
I think he is badly advised.
Hungry Beast was excellent tonight. Rudd, Wong, Garrett and Conroy are really starting to creep me out. I keep having visions of Rudd in a white lab coat looming over me with a syringe and a clipboard in his hand. Nurse, help, nurse. Wong enters the room followed by Garrett who is pushing a hospital trolley with a horrible smirk on his face. I know Conroy is here somewhere because I can hear the sound of whiskers scraping along a sterile surface beneath me.
Why do people fall for Paul Keating’s Placido Domingo view of himself?
Paul Keating likes to give Kevin Rudd condescending and gratuitous advice in the media, but Rudd actually led his party from opposition to an election win. Keating led his party to one of its worst electoral defeats.
And though the economic circumstances were different, I’ll take Rudd’s quick response to recession over Keating’s belated effort any day. I can’t understand the nostalgia for the ’90s (found almost exclusively in the pages of The Australian) – it was a bleak and depressing time for ordinary people.
“I can’t understand the nostalgia for the ’90s”
The music was a helluva lot better.
True 48, but it was depressing – it reflected the zeitgeist.
Hey, the website is up again. LP has been down for ages.
The Parliament of Australia website has also been down since early this morning…
Hope it wasn’t ‘the anonymous’ here as well. Last time I looked LP was not a tool of government or Scientology.
Ginja @47
I don’t believe Keating’s loss to Howard in ’96 was one of Labors worst defeats. There have been worse. In any case that has to be weighed against his defeat of Hewson in ’93. Remember that was supposed to be the “unloseable election” for the Libs. By ’96 Keating had been Treasurer/PM for 16 years and had just run out of steam.
Sorry, that should be PM/Treasurer for 13 years, not 16.
Rossco, ’96 was one of Labor’s biggest defeats – up there in modern times with ’66, ’75, ’04. It was a disaster.
The Hawke/Keating government had many achievements it can be proud of, but the simple fact of the matter is that Paul Keating was a dreadful politician. He seemed to think politics was all about policy – the more unpopular the better – and to resent “flicking the switch to vaudeville”, by which I think he meant having any contact with the public at all. It kind of makes you wonder why he wanted to be in electoral politics at all – if all he wanted to be was a mandarin like Ken Henry.
I doubt Keating would have won in ’93 had he run against a more skilful opposition leader. Keating also made many serious policy mistakes – mistakes that had serious human consequences. Keating was no Placido Domingo.
I’ll take Rudd over Keating any day – as both a politician and on policy.