Voters actually watching tonight’s debate between Julia Gillard and Tony Abbott, as opposed to the Worm or the Twitter feed, would have heard a lot about “fair dinkum” “honest, decent Australians” and an “economic plan” or “a better way”. Oh, and “wide open spaces” and “protecting our Australian life”. But, “there’s no quick fix”. Those are all direct quotes from the PM and the Opposition Leader.
In part, it was just an exercise in pushing out slogans that may have been missed over the first week of campaigning. Leaving aside the opening and closing statements, 50 minutes were taken up largely on just one issue – immigration – and a contest of symbolism and personality politics. Debates don’t have much impact on voting intention. One of ABC News 24′s commentators, former ALP Senator Stephen Loosley, gave the game away when he observed that it would set the media agenda for the second week (a comment made in the midst of indulging in the American politics obsession characteristic of a certain style of Labor pollie).
A serious question from the Financial Review‘s Laura Tingle on the possibility of a double dip recession was batted away. Both parties want to induce a sense of complacency, and play to the theme of security. But neither leader addressed the serious questions facing our nation in the next three years, let alone the next twenty. The horizon for a policy that goes beyond a soundbite is rapidly receding. Maybe it will come in the campaign launches. Perhaps not.
In truth, what we saw was the apogee of postmodern politics – politicians playing pure politics, standing symbolically on values alone, deferring any difficult questions of policy to an “independent umpire” or a commission.
All I learned from tonight’s exercise was that there’s a status update limit on Twitter. Who knew?
Cross-posted at the ABC’s Campaign Diary blog.
NB: Previous discussion at LP is here.
Update: Here’s the debate transcript.
I think it is very difficult in the current climate to advance any major reform without immediate scepticism and suspicion on the part of the media and the voter.
I don’t blame the politicians for steering clear of ambitious policy directions right now. It may be a hangover from the GFC, climate change saga, leadership spills – but people are jaded and cynical. I am more likely to blame people’s lack of political stamina than anything else. They want comforting promises that it’s all going to be alright if we just do nothing very much at all about everything. About the only policy an Australian voter ever viewed without suspicion was a tax cut.
I firmly disagree that the majority want to take an economic hair-cut to deal with our carbon pollution. We are a long way from that day. The Green vote at the election will prove the point one way or the other.
Very ordinary debate but twas to be expected in this bad vs worse campaign.
Interestingly the Channel 9 audience gave it to Gillard 63-37.
I feel dirty for having watched the debate. It lived down to my worst expectations and then some.
But I think it said more about the Ranga and the Monk than the politics of the times. If Turnbull has been up there, and but for one vote in the Liberal Party room he would have been, some real issues would have been talked about, if not actually debated.
The worm beats two grubs. http://enpassant.com.au/?p=7793
Fortunately there’s no way I could have watched even if I wanted to, but the commentary is interesting. It reinforces my belief that contemporary politics in the USA – and thus in Australia – are all about fear and insecurity. Campaigns are mainly about who can best protect you from the monsters lurking in the mist, ready to blow you up in an airplane or feed internet porn to your children or worst of all, increase your mortgage repayments.
The idea that political action could actually improve people’s lives in anything more than a trivial financial sense has been abandoned by both major parties; mainly because they like things just the way they are but partly because having to take responsibility for serious change scares them shitless (for which I guess we can thank WorkChoices).
too true john passant – the only real difference between Labor and Liberal is the people they pitch the interests of sustained inequality to.
@wbb says “I firmly disagree that the majority want to take an economic hair-cut to deal with our carbon pollution. We are a long way from that day.”
Yes indeed, couldn’t agree more, and the numbers back you up. It’s unfortunate, but true. No economic haircuts. 33% of Australians don’t want to pay anything at all, and a further 25%% are only willing to pay up to $10 a week (Lowry Institute 2010 poll). So while a majority does think it needs to be dealt with, they’re also unwilling to cough up for it.
The Lowry poll also found that the priority given to ‘tackling climate change’ is at its lowest level since the question was first asked in 2007.
I can see exactly why, given those numbers, Gillard doesn’t want to release a policy that will give Abbott a chance to spend the remainder of the election campaign parroting “Great Big New Tax on Everything” in an attempt to scare us into voting for him and leaving our heads firmly buried in the sand of climate change denial (sand that may rapidly become less metaphoric as desertification increases).
And @Mark, glad to see you know where the apostrophe should go in leaders’ debate, even if the press club seems not to.
Ironic, hipster apogee? There are no heights in this election.
Turnbull and Grech and the Ozcar debacle put that side of politics in true perspective.
Twenty-six sleeps to go. If only I could merge them into one continuous sleep…
This from moi, a politics tragic since the age of 5 (ah, the 1961 election – them were the days).
Leaders’ debate? No, there were no leaders here. As John Passant said on his blog:
Waheed Aly got it right on Q&A. This is the least important election of all.
Rebekka: “33% of Australians don’t want to pay anything at all, and a further 25%% are only willing to pay up to $10 a week (Lowry Institute 2010 poll). So while a majority does think it needs to be dealt with, they’re also unwilling to cough up for it.”
hmmm. “how much more are you willing to pay on your electricity bill [per month]”
33% don’t want to pay anything.
25% were willing to pay up to $120.00 a year.
15% were willing to pay between $121.00 and $240.00 a year.
19% were willing to pay $252.00 a year or more.
Speaking personally, if the Greens interim carbon price of $20.00/tonne were implemented immediately, my household would easily fall between the $121 to $240 range [granted, I have solar hot water].
I really don’t think the stats you quote paint such a bleak picture. I really am starting to get the impression that many progressives choose to believe a fairly unflattering stereotype of the average Australian.
My worst fears about both candidates were realised. To Gillard, “sustainability” means hanging on to our current lifestyles, which require a couple of extra Earths for lebensraum. Tones was only just in his depth, I thought. Nothing new from either of them, and certainly nothing that resembles a vision for Australia beyond the company tax rate. That really instils national pride, that does.
Mind you, the Geek and I are old enough to be amused at the sight of a Labor leader saying that their tax rates will be lower than the Coalition’s.
Julia’s best hit: giving Tony some reality about “turning back the boats”. Tony’s best hit: the “record” summing up at the end.
Winner? It’s a tie. Loser? Our country.
Oh I don’t know. Abbott managed to not put his foot in his mouth so far as I could tell which is an absolute triumph and the Prime Minister managed to lie through her effing teeth when she claimed that OH+S normalisation is a great leap forward for ordinary ‘Strayans. It is not, of course, as the NSW scheme of no fault compensation is now undermined in NSW by the requirement to show fault on behalf of the employer. No fault workers’ compensation was not adopted for national model legislation. A great leap forward for employers but hey, they’re now the model citizen for ordinary ‘Strayans. We’re all sub-contractors nowit seems. I also loved the warm and caring tone she adopted when she said that she’d seen a public servant with “tears in their eyes” (OMFG!)as the legislation was passed (?) or the model draft completed(?) or their job was made redundant. Oh, more please.
That wasn’t a debate. It was a neoliberal faction dispute. So much for the end of the neolib consensus. Boy, is it healthy and strong.
And, fuck me dead, who knew that our wide open spaces were imperilled? Camels? Afghanis? Enclosure?
@Rebekka, people are already paying big increases in power bills because of gouging by electricity distributors privatised by state governments. I suspect that’s colouring the answers in that poll. I doubt that a few extra bucks, more than adequately compensated (most households would have benefited from the CPRS), is really going to make too much of a difference.
What wbb and Rebekka said, and Ken too, I think.
Abbott reckons the parliament can deal with climate change, omitting to say that it could until he voted the consensus down.
I was disappointed with Gillard’s answer. All she had to say was that we dealt with the last one and we’ll deal with the next one, as the circumstances require.
Not that hard.
Gillard was possibly afraid of saying something that would turn up in LNP ads or feed into the news cycle.
I’m afraid Julia Gillard reminds me too much of John Howard – I think it’s the fake sincerity, but she doesn’t do it quite as well. Give her time.
Meanwhile Tony Abbott seemed to have been coached to within an inch of his life. Keep calm Tony and speak slowly, no don’t get excited.
As chookie said, a draw, but I was very impressed with the editor of the AWW in the evaluation on Nine. Better than all the ABC journalists put together.
Brian, being afraid of saying something that might turn up in an lnp ad is the whole problem!
Another disappointment with Gillard was her response on Nauru. Some political instability thing.
In terms of a centre that means that the boats don’t have to come to Australia, all she had to do was to say the Nauru was off to buggery somewhere else. The only way that asylum seekers are going to get to Nauru is if they set sail for Australia and we apprehend them and take them there.
Mark @ 20, I agree. The debates should be cancelled and save everyone time.
Mark
Ex post, you are almost certainly right. Ex-ante, not so much. What matters, politically, is what marginal voters think could happen under an ETS, not what will actually happen. 58% being prepared to pay either nothing or less than $2.50 a week is pretty damning. We are only 4 weeks away from an election. Any labor announcement now for an interim carbon price cannot be followed by households actually seeing the impact of the policy and realising the impact is small. That leaves any such policy very open to a scare campaign. Labor screwed this up last year. That mistake cannot be addressed now. There simply isn’t time politically. It will have to be dealt with in the next term.
I must say it’s fascinating to be reading LP at this time.
Like the general political landscape ancient coalitions have been torn asunder. It’s like McCarthy’s The Road.
Yep. Strange days!
Agree with Mark – the idea that people ‘dont want to pay for CC action’ merely displays the lack of political will – not some objective truth about the electorate.
When did we ever ask beforehand “excuse me, would you like to pay more?” when we were convinced of the need for reform?
Rather, we sold the benefits. Of medicare. Of the GST.
Frankly, Im amazed the numbers in that Lowy poll are so high. They’re amazingly HIGH given what a totally arse-about way that is to approach a major reform.
And as Mark says – how many rises *for no reason at all* will we see before realising that $3 will be totally forgotten when the next $10 hike comes in from the shonky hucksters who sell power these days.
Did anyone ask us if “we’d like to any more” before some idiots created private oligopolies? No.
Did that stop the reformers? No.
In short: bollocks.
Furious balancing is right – I just went and looked at the Lowy Poll.
What is *actually* says is that a stonking majority of 59% ARE prepared to pay increased power bills. go check yourself on p28 http://www.lowyinstitute.org/PublicationPop.asp?pid=1305. As FB notes:
25% were willing to pay up to $120.00 a year.
15% were willing to pay between $121.00 and $240.00 a year.
19% were willing to pay $252.00 a year or more.
Why is so much guff peddled about this issue?
Its actually NOT the case that “people dont want to pay more to address CC”. HELLO!!!?????
If people didn’t mind paying a few dollars more for cleaner electricity they’d be buying ‘Greenpower’ now – but hardly anyone does.
I don’t see anything strange other than the ALP making a massive and unprecedented break of faith with those that supported action on climate change. The fallout is understated if you ask me. I wonder whether (contra to some comments at LP) Gillard is getting a free ride because of her gender.
Gillard losing some gloss. Newspoll reports 52-48. http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/coalition-gaining-ground-as-julia-gillards-rating-drops/story-fn59niix-1225896774195
Its really 52.7-47.3, but nonetheless, QLD looking important now.
“Labor’s two-party preferred vote is now back to where it was when Mr Rudd was prime minister on the weekend before he was toppled in favour of Ms Gillard”
Hmmm. Wonder if this was taken after her climate squib, or before them?
When. will. they. learn. climate. action. is. popular. ARRGGGGH.
Opps, it isnt really 52.7-47.3. I misread that.
Its just 52-48.
Survey taken last weekend Lefty E. But I’m sure the AWU’s private polling is telling a very different story, which they’ll reveal to Andrew Bolt when the time is right.
The poll would have been taken Thursday-Saturday, as they normally are, so would have had Gillard’s climate stuff factored in. That’s why they often time announcements for Thursdays and Fridays, and/or leak the details the day before, as was the case with the climate change policy.
Anyway, I’ve got a separate thread on it:
http://larvatusprodeo.ozblogistan.com.au/2010/07/25/newspoll-labor-52-48/
It wouldn’t have been taken when people had seen the debate, so discussing it on this post is probably a bit off topic!
Ah, post-climate squib then.
Is it too late for Shorto to move on Julia? You know what happened to the last bloke trawling along with Newspoll figures like this.
With the delays incurred by having a citizen’s assembly it will be too late to do anything vaguely controversial next term either. So it’ll get filed away as “we’ll definitely think about doing something after the 2013 election”.
@36 – I fear that’s right, Chris.
Update: Here’s the debate transcript.
The debate was incredibly dull and uninformative, apart from Abbott’s “Coles and Woolies” tax. He’s put his foot in it there. I suppose Gillard won, but in reality it was a win for Abbott because his performance was so controlled and coached that it probably wiped out the bad impression he made with the health debate with Rudd. Only the worm and Twitter were informative.
And this election is anybody’s at the moment, but I still expect Labor to win narrowly at the moment.
Not just in this debate,Brian @ 18. It feels to me that Gillard and the ALP, although trying to run as positive a campaign as they can in contrast to the Coalition, are reluctant to assume too pro-active a stance on almost any front. They have seen Rudd torn down with ruthless mendacity by Abbott and a shadow leadership team which has lost all scruples. They will sell their souls for the slightest edge on any issue.
Some of them know it but still go along with it. Watching Greg Hunt recently was almost tragic. His aged and skeletal face suggested a man who is hardly sleeping. Even Joe Hockey, never my favorite politician, has disintegrated to the point of idiot ramblings. No wonder some sitting Libs are trying to distance themselves locally where they can, trying to retain some shred of character.
If Gillard and the ALP really mixed it with Abbott and this Coalition rump in this their last ditch stand even their best policy proposals could be muddied or ruined beyond repair.