There’s probably rarely been a more apt occasion for our Spotlight the Spin post than the reshuffle of the ministry Julia Gillard announced yesterday. Some journos and commentators occasionally stray into the territory of actually discussing the suitability of ministers for their roles and the tasks they will have next year, but this is drowned out by endless blather about the Prime Minister’s “authority”, “factional warlords” and “Kevin Rudd”.
If there was a moment for Kevin Rudd to make a comeback, it well and truly passed. One hopes that no one inside the government is feeding the media beast with all the tawdry and trivial stuff we’ve been reading about since the ALP National Conference. But the lack of reflexivity, and the self-fulfilling (or perhaps hopefully performative) nature of this script has rarely been more evident. Any government, in the current Parliament, would be subject to the same volume of endless noise. What is overlooked in all this is the way that noise itself becomes a problem not just for the government’s political interest, but also for governance itself.
I’d be much more interested in reading about the challenges Tanya Plibersek faces in the complex and challenging Health portfolio (and yay her, by the way) and her likely approaches than the sort of nonsense that we are reading. Where, too, is serious discussion about the appropriateness of the administrative arrangements for portfolios and the sense of priorities embodied in it? No, we just get “who’s in, who’s out” stuff. It needs to be underlined that a predicate of it is the attribution of only the basest motives to politicians, and a complete blindness on the part of those who write this blah to their own motives and self-interest.
“I’d be much more interested in reading about the challenges Tanya Plibersek faces in the complex and challenging Health portfolio (and yay her, by the way) and her likely approaches than the sort of nonsense that we are reading.”
Completely agree. I think the reshuffle reportage has demonstrated very clearly who the audience is for mainstream political journalism: other journalists. Why the hell they think people want to pay for they pointless meanderings is one the world’s current, great mysteries.
“Where, too, is serious discussion about the appropriateness of the administrative arrangements for portfolios and the sense of priorities embodied in it?”
That would require them to actually do some work. Far easier to do who’s in who’s out and the usual leadership speculation, challenge to her authority blah blah blah.
For instance, is it appropriate that climate change is now Greg Combet’s part-time gig?
Yes, the CEF package has passed the parliament, but there is still a) the international negotiations, and b) getting the implementation right – all in the context of an Opposition that will be looking to jump on anything and everything that might go wrong in the initial period.
Yep, I’ve been thinking exactly the same thing. We’ve got Australia’s first female attorney general plus a major promotion for an outstanding Labor woman and possible future leader, the shifting of more talent to the front bench, and what do we hear about? The fact that the reshuffle took a while to organise and some of it was leaked. Never had that happen before, have we? Oh, and the assumption that this all represents a threat to Gillard’s authority. Must be. Tony Abbott and the SMH say so.
There are a couple of changes that are odd. I reckon Shorten’s been promoted beyond his capabilities, and Arbib? Really? He seems to me to be an opportunistic careerist with very little actual ability, and I’m concerned it’ll bite Gillard at the next election.
Still, Roxon and Pliberseck more than make up for the lapses in judgement.
Two headlines on the Crikey home page “Reshuffle promotes Gillard’s ‘warlords’” and “Gillard knifes Carr in risky reshuffle”. I wonder if the people who write this sort of stuff have ever actually lived in countries that are ruled by real-life “warlords” and where political opponents are literally “knifed etc.”. Perhaps a one year sabbatical in such a place or perhaps just a week spent with some of our recent refugees from the ME, Central Asia or Africa might stem some of this juvenile garbage.
There’s a bit of “serious discussion about the appropriateness of the administrative arrangements for portfolios” in the second half of Tingle’s AFR piece: http://www.afr.com/p/national/payback_for_labor_warlords_DjRdwq0mapY5mQex3I1YBJ
Completely agree about there being no chance of a Rudd comeback, but let’s be honest. He’s said himself he’s “not going anywhere” — and he’ll be thinking about the next eight years, after Labor loses the 2013 election, who will lead? Shorten vs Rudd in a marathon race to the 2018/19 election.
I have no doubt that Gillard knew this is how her reshuffle would be spun by the MSM (with Abbott’s frothing about weakness and faceless men etc getting equal airtime of course) which is why she tried to elevate the narrative with commentary about the promotion of women during her presser, and why Roxon stamped her remarks about women’s aspirations into the record later in the day.
Not interested, said the MSM, projecting their own tiresome macho preoccupations. We want to talk about the biffo, not babies.
And whiny McClelland, a waste of space if ever there was one, gets the nod from the MSM to whinge and blubber all over the place today about his demotion, in order to reinforce the press meme that Gillard is weak and not up to the biffo. My head hurts.
“If there was a moment for Kevin Rudd to make a comeback, it well and truly passed. ”
I agree. It looks like Bill Shorten is the new golden boy.
I remain pretty non-plussed with Gillard, but she has out-smarted Abbott by a long shot. He just looks increasingly miffed and bewildered these days. Not much gusto left in the old dog….
And on the “knifing and warlords” narrative, is this not a consequence of ALP right’s the brilliant strategy strategy whereby factional “warlords” “knifed” the sitting PM? Did these genius not think that, given the shallowness of the press, the slightest hint of intrigue would set the hares running?
And Croakey comes through with exactly the sort of analysis on Plibersek and Health that the post called for!
http://blogs.crikey.com.au/croakey/2011/12/13/the-ministerial-reshuffle-and-health-plus-analysis-of-roxons-tenure-and-advice-to-plibersek/
Has anyone stopped to calculate the costs, financial and in terms of lost opportunities of these continuous reshuffling of APS departments and agencies at twelve month intervals?
What about some analysis of this?
” continuous reshuffling of APS departments and agencies at twelve month intervals”
Can you have continuous intervals?
Perhaps, Patrickb. You can certainly have functions that are continuous over an interval.
Michelle Gratton describes reshuffle winners as Gillard’s “henchmen”, or at least the sub-editors who titled it did. Henchmen – coz she’s an evil mastermind, right?
http://www.theage.com.au/national/gillard-rewards-her-henchmen-20111212-1orn9.html
read comments 1580 & 1620 for Bushfire Bill’s analysis of the reshuffle @
http://blogs.crikey.com.au/pollbludger/2011/12/11/nielsen-57-43-to-coalition/all-comments/#comments
I would have thought it’s still a little early to tell. If Julia Gillard is still languishing in the polls a year out from the election, a leadership challenge won’t be entirely unthinkable, by Rudd or someone else.
Shorten has had an amazing trajectory to Cabinet.
You all seemed pleased with the rise of Roxon and Plibersek. Even some seem to think that the rise of Little Bill may be a good thing.
I was disappointed with the treatment of Kim Carr, the rise of the creepy Arbib (complete with free trip to the London Olympics) and the fact that the very dim Joe Ludwig remains in charge of a portfolio that presides over the grim issue of live animal export.
I have just one question: why don’t we ever hear of faceless women?
‘… in order to reinforce the press meme that Gillard is weak and not up to the biffo.’
Yes, the usually excellent Laura Tingle was berating Gillard this morning for not behaving like a man — of course, she didn’t put it like that, but that was what she meant. I assume that journos of Tingle’s generation, and even more so Michelle Grattan’s, had to push and fight and behave aggressively in order to survive in that most sexist of professions, to the point where they’ve completely internalised aggression, ‘stamping authority’ and other biffo-related triumphalist activities as desirable things.
@ 21:
Probably because there weren’t any women in the ALP Federal Executive back in 1963.
One would think that those who are paid to think of original headlines and photo captions would not still be re-hashing something from so long ago.
Taswegians shouldn’t be too dissapointed with losing their only Cabinet Minister – they’ve still got President Bob Brown running the show.
PC, three of the heavy-hitters, Tingle, Grattan and Keane, ran the same old biffo narrative today, in perfect harmony. I think they all need to go and sit on a beach for a while.
Razor, if you’re going to make a snarky comment, can you at least get your facts right? Nick Sherry was in the outer ministry not the Cabinet, and that different Tasmanian has been promoted to the ministry.
I think it’s outrageous. Surely in 2011 women have just as much right not to have have a face as the men do.
If you wants some actual analysis of portfolios, policy and the like, try this one. The MSM can’t seem to write like this.
http://blogs.crikey.com.au/croakey/2011/12/13/the-ministerial-reshuffle-and-health-plus-analysis-of-roxons-tenure-and-advice-to-plibersek/
Also see this on another portfolio.
http://delimiter.com.au/2011/12/12/mcclelland-carr-exit-technology-related-portfolios/
Grow up, Razor.
I agree Ginja. I’ve seen displays in store windows. Some of them don’t even have heads. In the ALP, you could have faceless men and headless women running the show. Some of them could be those with parts of their heads sliced flat at the top.
They could sell it as including the disabled in public policy. Hmmm … given it’s the ALP, they almost certainly would.
Gillard beats Abbott in the year. LoL. I’d hate to see what a loser look like. Gillard and Labor are finished, they’ve been finished for a long time.
Labor will struggle to remain a party in the next ten years. The idea of Labor as a party has had its time.
Plibers is well educated with government administration type uni degrees, so is actually one of the better equipped people to take on this sort of portfolio.
Am disappointed to observe that Pavlov’s Cat appears to be plagiarising Grace Pettigrew, btw.
Beware.
You’ll find the Pettigrew woman can be an indomitable, intractable foe…
Shaun Carney gets all excited:
http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/politics/gillard-shuffling-into-a-showdown-with-rudd-20111213-1ot1r.html
Greg Jericho at the Drum. http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/3729772.html
I think an analysis without histerical overtones and coming from different angle
Well, at least Gillard’s not as bad as Thatcher.
But on a more serious level. She did herself no favours at the ALP Conference, even though it isn;t ger fault she has the charisma of Billy McMahon.
Its not a question of strength in regard to this cabinet reshuffle. She did reward right wing factional colleagues, and at least one of them, Shorten, deserved to be rewarded. She did promote two of the more outstanding cabinet ministers who happen to be women, though occasionally I wodered about Roxon in Health. Look forward to her as AG. She might have demoted some under performers (Evans?) and did nothing with others (Garrett) when she probably should have. The reshuffle is good in parts, but its still a bit of a dog’s breakfast and that is all Gillard’s fault..
No. I don’t think Rudd will come back now. Shorten will get there before him. (And maybe thqat’s why BS backed Gillard? But I have a nasty political mind sometimes.
I was so angry I started spluttering with rage in previous post.
Be nice, Fran. I could easily point to the parts of the anatomy that Greens lack.
Am I the only one who gets Billy Idol’s “Eyes Without a Face” stuck in their head every time a Liberal twit mentions the faceless men? It’s about as meaningless as Billy Idol’s ditty. Surely I’m not alone here. Anyone?
@21, makeup?
Ginja, I’d hate to see men with faces, if Shorten and Arbib are blokes without same.
Paul @ 34 – the leaks seem to indicate that some ministers refused to be demoted. And with the parliamentary numbers as they are she really can’t afford to have anyone resign and trigger a bi-election. I’d guess that more ALP members are realising that they can all be Kevin Rudd
Does this reshuffle presage a measurable change in the program of government? I think not.
In the absence of the promise of policy initiatives, other motives must be sought.
Is this the ministry that maximises the likelihood of electoral success in 2113?
I don’t think the ALP thinks that far ahead
Ginja said:
Don’t hold back. Point as you think fit.
If Labor loses the next election it will need to have a number of promising young members with real experience in government to provide more credibility when it is trying to get back in to power. From this point of view it is worth providing Roxon and Plibersek with wider experience. It is worth leaving Bowen in immigration to give him a chance of creating a reputation for dealing with a difficult portfolio. It also makes sense to move Shorten to a cabinet position.
By the same logic it is worth sacrificing people who are unlikely to add much to Labor credibility in the longer term.
Gillard is behaving like a leader who realizes that this term of government may be her only chance to make history. Hence the move from trying not to upset the conservatives to getting real things done. Building a credible term for the long term is a logical extension of this way of thinking.
Trying not to upset the conservatives?
Malaysian Solution, the welfare “reforms”, anti-gay marriage, citizen’s assemblies?
Please don’t say the carbon tax that was due to the Greens and obviously wouldn’t be happening if not for minority government.
I’m just hoping at some point her & the ALP start ignoring the bloody conservatives.
You’re expecting rational, evidence-based discussion or news on any topic – but especially politics – from Australian media?
Wow. And I thought that wild optimists were a dying species…how else do you think that “Honest John” Howard ever got elected? For that matter, a worthwhile media would be holding Tony Abbott’s feet to the fire often enough to expose his lack of a forebrain.
Once would suffice.
Over the next few days we may find out why Craig Thomson wasn’t appointed Minister for Internet-based Research.
Fran: you asked for it. The uncharitable would point to the mid-region (for the blokes), and for everyone else right up top. But I’m not the uncharitable type.
Ambigulous @44, I think Thomson may have made the cardinal error of delegating the writing of a report on his study tour to a staffer who is also a student politician from the right wing of NSW Young Labor.
Ginja had it that:
Not specific enough Ginja. Have the courage of your convictions. Don’t other the remarks. Say what you mean and take responsibility. Don’t be charitable. I don’t don’t believe in it, and nor, IMO, should anyone.
Paul Norton @46
… Craig seems to have difficulty with study tours …
was the young staffer just staffing around?
Fran, my mother raised me to be a gentleman. But if you insist, the blokes in the Greens have no balls and the the membership in general no brains.
I didn’t want to say something as crude as that but Fran forced it out of me.
Ginja said:
I much prefer candour. I think it telling though that you identify policy courage with male genitalia. Your mother, if I am to believe your witness, raised you to accept the most cliched views of masculinity and invited you to place that under the rubric “gentleman”. It is indeed progress that you have cast that aside and that you are now departing from your mother’s guidance. It is surely long overdue, on your account.
As to who has or does not have brains, I’d simply remind you that the ALP went perilously close to conceding control of the government to perhaps the most intellectually facile opposition in history despite at one point near mid-term having a PM with a 70% approval rating. The wounds were all self-inflicted, and we Greens gained ground at your party’s expense.
Let’s not insult each other’s mothers, people.
If anyone insulted Ginja’s mother, Tim, it was Ginja. I relied on nothing he hadn’t first attested.
Of course, if Ginja has spoken out of turn, attributing falsely, he should withdraw his attribution and apologise to her at the earliest opportunity.
I’ve just been thoroughly deconstructed. I admit my hidden misogyny and ask to be forgiven.
But as I’ve pointed out before, there is a clear link between lack of virility and voting Green.
And the Greens have contributed their share to the government’s problems. I suspect that in private Bob Brown would admit that if he knew the mischief the Coalition would get up to on a carbon price he would have passed Labor’s original plan.
Come on Ginga, people think with their brains, not their balls, unless at a very primitive stage of cognitive development, indeed. Balls provide semen, not ideas. Apparently its considered we are more like the female, but women reckon this is much underrated, fannies are quite versatile and elastic, balls are more ornamental, oversensitive, can’t take any sort of knocking without bringing their owners to a profound halt ( yes, I know…).
If you thought about it for more than a nanosecond, you would find that it is actually lib lab that causes much grief for the Greens, who remained baffled that politics operates of bases defined in prejudice and greed rather than science, reason and yes, dirty word- compassion. It is to be hoped that the Greens have caused liblab and its big business string-pullars a bit of grief, if this is the case, its because we need rational heads involved in decision-making that puts the economic base before ideological superstructures entertained as alibis for self will run riot, by unreflexive people unaware of what really drives their attitudes and actions.
We don’t want people with the mindset of medieval peasants entrusted with the care of the goose that lays the golden egg, less this wonderous and sustaining creature is maltreated to death let alone destroyed cpmpletely by the worst Wall St pathologies and impulses.
The old aphorism applies here Ginja: when stuck in a hole, stop digging.
The reality is that approximately 100% of the best things the ALP has done in office since 2007 have been done at our urging or at least with our support. Equally, approximately 100% of the things that have got the ALP into a mess have been done over our objections. Our brains have been deployed to the benefit of the ALP.
None of this has the slightest thing to do with which sex organs those supporting the ALP or Greens have or can deploy as needed, though I do note that allegations of malfeaseance (pun intended) to do with deployment of certain sex organs attach far more strongly and with far more pernicious effect to the ALP than to us. Perhaps ‘virility’ isn’t all it’s cracked up to be by its enthusiasts amongst the ALP.
Sidebar: the etymology of ‘virility’ seems to underline the masculinist ethic Ginja invoked above. The Latin vir described ‘a man’ or ‘hero’
At the risk of going way off-topic, Fran Barlow, if you’re stuck in a hole and keep digging sideways, you can convert the hole into a sloping trench and so get yourself out of the hole… eventually.
Or you could start digging into one wall of the hole and make yourself a stairway.
Technically, yes, topography and the composition of the ground permitting. I suppose that’s what people do in cyberspace when they thread-derail to cover.
Ginja was digging deeper, not laterally of course.
The one thing that lends some of the Rudd talk some legitimacy is the manner in which Gillard swung the party to the right (while also putting an admittedly impressive amount of legislation through parliament – an incredible amount when you factor in that it’s a hung parliament with reliance on independents who have no commitment to the government beyond defending it from votes of no confidence or blocking of supply). As much as this shuffle does promote some good performers, you can’t dismiss as media spin the notion that it’s also seen a buffering of right-wingers (by ALP standards) at the cost of those more sympathetic to a more moderate (i.e. further to the left) position on a few key matters. In some cases, they also happen to be individuals closer to Rudd than Gillard.
Since losing his position, Rudd has tried to sell himself on 2 platforms: (1) going ‘over the head of the factions’ to his popularity amongst the electorate, and (2) as someone who governed to the left of Gillard (made into a truism by Gillard’s swing rightwards on refugees and gay marriage, but even before then Rudd had the benefit of being THE labour PM to bring back Keynesian interventionist economics after so many years of worshiping the free market, and (whether by luck or talent) doing so to amazing success, keeping Australia out of the world’s economic nose-dive).
That doesn’t mean that Rudd is gearing for a challenge. If I was to guess, it’s more likely that he’s defending his legacy – if the ALP are going to go out next election (and there’s a good chance of that), he wants the history books to note him as the great moderate who resisted the pressure to cave to rightwing pressure, and who bravely adopted a Keynesian stimulus to stave off recession, before being deposed by party hacks who shifted to the right and attempted grossly inhumane refugee policies, and were then dumped by an angry electorate. (not saying that’s the truth – but Rudd would surely like it if that’s the way the ALP government of 2007-2014 is remembered).
The underlying problem is that as long as TPP is 57 to 43 (Morgan Newspoll and Neilson) in favour of the coalition the media will take the negative side. Unless Labour can turn around the TPP these problems will continue. The media are a bit like lemmings.
Azrael, the probability of Rudd primarily being in defend-the-legacy mode ranks very high in my book. Not only does he not want to totally tear the party apart nor contribute to them being unelectable for a decade or more, but it seems to be openly acknowledged that he has his eye on positions with the UN after his parliamentary career ends (eta: which will happen when he chooses, as he is an extremely popular representative with his electorate). He must want to go out looking as if he’s rolled with the punches graciously and gracefully, because that’s not only going to look better in the history books but it’s also going to look better for the UN.
I rank the probability of him intending to be PM again very low, especially if he has to fight Gillard for it, because he knows exactly the tawdry revenge frame that the media would run with, and he just doesn’t want to be That Guy. If she is rolled by other parties and they install somebody else, I could perhaps see him biding his time until that successor is ripe to be challenged, and then taking it on, but I don’t really see that as a hugely likely scenario either.
Julia Gillard’s record couldn’t be trusted:
- She said no challenge the P.M position with Kevin Rudd, but few days later she did.
-In the election campaign 2010, she confirmed no carbon tax, but she broke promise. The carbon tax is just as the” capitalist beaten” in the communist country, but the socialist Julia Gillard applies into the democratic state, likely US president Barack Obama with the payroll tax. The pollution is global problem, but the most released carbonic states as China, US, India…act nothing. Moreover, the carbon tax would cost the jobless and harm the national economy.
-She is going to turn the face away with Andrew Wilkie about the poke machine after recruited Mr. Peter Slipper who replaced the house speaker Jenkin.
-She backed Mr Craig Thomson, although the man to be accused corruption.
The cabinet shuffle is just as the bandage covers an infection without medical treatment, but she could keep her top job for while. In the society, people have no trust to whom has bad credit, so the Labor government would be faced the hatred from people, so far so bad and the next election, the Coalition will claim the landslide victory.
However, Labor is being into the dilemma situation, the minor government to be held in the hands of greens and the three independents, so Labor does nothing the save, even change the leadership. Indeed, the Greens leader, Dr. Bob Brown who has using his power as blackmail to pressure Gillard government for their ambition. Unfortunately, the Greens has no policy, they just aim to protect the tree, animal, climate… but not for people, so Greens supports the abortion ( if an animal being pregnant killed, Greens opposes against).