Julie Bishop’s been copping it from unnamed “senior Liberals” for her poor performance as shadow Treasurer, who’ve helpfully implied Malcolm Turnbull shares their worries, and suggested a few names to replace her (Dutton, Robb, Hockey) for good measure.
While Bishop has been massively unconvincing in the Treasury portfolio, it’s not only the Deputy Leader who should be concerned over this latest outburst of leaks to The Australian. Malcolm Turnbull and the rest of the Libs should also recall that Brendan Nelson was brought down as much by the constant dripfeed of negative stories to their mates in the press gallery, as by his own hapless efforts as Leader. What is now being done to Bishop (and the articles have been cleverly framed to keep the “narrative” alive for quite a while - by forcing her putative replacements to deny an interest, and thus further fuel the story) could be done to Turnbull tomorrow. As if to lay down a few markers, Peter Van Onselen published an otherwise bizarre op/ed on Saturday praising Peter Costello as the best available leader.
I’ve observed before that the opposition’s coziness with the press gallery does them no favours. It shouldn’t be too difficult to find a way of resolving problems internally rather than in newspaper columns.
One of the minor notes of the political narrative last week was Julie Bishop’s half-hearted fessing up to publishing a book chapter containing numerous instances of plagiarism under her name, though (in a move quite reminiscent of the Howard government’s attitude towards ministerial accountability) she sought immediately to deflect responsibility onto the staffer who “dashed something together” for her in a spare moment, recycling and paraphrasing eight year old banal neo-liberal nostrums from the New Zealand Business Roundtable’s Roger Kerr. The news didn’t get any better as the week wore on for the editor of Liberals and Power: The Road Ahead, Peter Van Onselen, as it emerged that Brendan Nelson’s chapter had been ghosted by Tom Switzer, whose ruminations turned up in a column under his own name in The Spectator:
“It must have been subconscious … I have just regurgitated [what] was my line.”
Pushing a “line”, of course, comes naturally to the opinionistas of the punditariat/thinktank interface. The big surprise in all this, probably, is why an increasingly furious and perhaps naive Van Onselen ever thought that he could solicit contributions which actually represented the reflections of “some of the finest minds of liberal and conservative thought”. The notion, apparently shared by Van Onselen and Melbourne University Press Publisher Louise Adler, that Liberal politicians are in “a reflective period, a phase of rigorous self-criticism and reassessment” was always risible. All we’ve seen from the opposition since November 24 2007 are the fruits of a sense of frustrated entitlement, manifesting alternately in vicious infighting and empty and cynical populism.
Adler’s commentary on the book is yet another instance of blame shifting. Andrew Elder nails it:
If Adler was concerned about morality she’d pull the book and wear the financial consequences of doing so, to protect the intellectual integrity of MUP. Instead, the next Melbourne Uni student who gets busted lifting an essay straight off the internet should get Adler to brush away any nasty consequences (”so old hat!”).
Just before last year’s federal election, I read Neal Blewett’s Cabinet Diaries. The book is a good read, but I was also interested in reminding myself - in the dying days of the Howard Era - what a Labor government felt like. One of the things that really jumped out at me was regular discussions around the Cabinet table about assistance for the unemployed, and several of Keating’s measures to stimulate the economy were targeted to people on the dole, among others. Those with longer memories might recall Labor’s opposition to Malcolm Fraser’s “fight inflation first” austerity regime in the late 70s. Mike Steketee has a very good column today which shows just how much things have changed in the era of the deserving poor (and not so poor) and the undeserving poor. He rightly points out that some of the pensioners receiving payments will have substantial assets and incomes of up to $66000, and self-funded retirees with incomes up to $50000 for singles and $80000 for couples will also receive the one off payments. It would be very hard to argue that they are the folks in the community doing it toughest, and as Steketee suggests, there’s no guarantee the money will be spent rather than saved.
What we’re seeing here, I think, is a combination of Kevin Rudd’s very conservative personal values and political calculation.
Continue reading ‘The stimulus package and fairness’
Andrew Norton argues that the controversy over Julie Bishop’s lifting of a form of words from the Wall Street Journal is irrelevant, and tries to excuse it by arguing that politicians recite speeches written by departmental or political staff all the time. Hmmm… I don’t think it’s quite the same thing, for two reasons:
(a) Bishop is being heavily touted by the Opposition and their cheer squad in the media as being part of the magic restoration of the Liberals’ putatively natural advantage on economic management. This despite the fact that Malcolm Turnbull has given zero evidence of departing from either Nelson’s populist nonsense or his own wildly incoherent “inflation doesn’t exist, and if it does, it’s Wayne Swan’s fault” puerilities from earlier in the year. Bishop is a lawyer, and I suppose lawyers prosecute a case for their clients. Perhaps therefore lawyers can be excused from not understanding what they’re saying? Her alleged forensic skills as an advocate are supposed to be one of her pluses - according to the aforesaid press gallery boosters. But isn’t there a problem - as with Peter Costello - when lawyers holding financial portfolios basically know stuff all about the actual economy and are only touted as having “credibility” because they’re able to argue a case?
(b) This stuff sticks. Just ask Joe Biden. He’s still living down having plagiarised Neil Kinnock (of all people) in his unsuccessful run in the presidential primaries in 1988. So in the terms of realpolitik, it doesn’t matter if it should be a problem when politicians plagiarise. When they do, particularly - as with Bishop - right at the start of their tenure in an important new job - it won’t be forgotten by the public.
As Luke Slattery observes, a significant number of universities are moving to emulate either the whole of or aspects of the Melbourne Model - generalist undergraduate degrees followed by vocational postgraduate degrees. UWA and Macquarie are the latest off the starting block, with Macquarie VC Stephen Schwartz stating:
Of course we will continue to teach professional skills - accounting students will still learn to keep books - but we will also ensure that each of our students learns how to analyse scholarly papers, criticise research methods, solve problems and integrate information into coherent arguments.
Some universities which are not going down this route are moving to a broader focus on core subjects and workplace learning for undergraduates - in generalist as well as vocational degrees. Sometimes this is driven by a desire to find a point of differentiation - for instance with Griffith’s emphasis on social enterprise as part of its Arts degree - which is, in part, a recognition that QUT and UQ have the vocational and sandstone/comprehensive humanities angles covered in the eyes of many students. Griffith Arts students also do first year courses like “Great Books”, which must gladden the hearts of the educational traditionalists (I don’t know what’s actually on the curriculum, I should add). And at ACU, all students must do “mission” units - particularly in ethics and to expose them to aspects of the Catholic intellectual tradition (as well as fostering social responsibility).
Slattery notes that some of this is driven by the international market - including the 3+2 Bologna Process for standardising tertiary qualifications across the EU where a bachelors degree is followed by a masters degree as a matter of course. There is probably some benefit - aside from considerations of the international export market - in maintaining the standing of Australian higher education, reducing the over proliferation of degree courses (itself driven by now superceded marketing considerations) and in fostering scholarly and critical skills across all disciplines in the academy. Continue reading ‘Exporting the Melbourne Model’
The list is out and it can be found here.
Julie Bishop is the new Shadow Treasurer.
Contrary to Turnbull’s own claims, it’s clear that he’s rewarded his own supporters and demoted or discarded some of Nelson’s - such as Nick Minchin and Tony Smith. Tony Abbott seems to have shot himself in the foot with his undisciplined comments that he’d rather be closer to the action leading to his remaining where he was.
And Sophie Mirabella joins the Shadow Ministry. That might tell you something - along with the elevation of Concetta Fioranti-Wells - about the depth of talent Turnbull has to work with.
Earlier in the year, writing in On Line Opinion, I thought that Labor’s “Forward With Fairness” industrial relations policy was best interpreted as an attempt to entrench a new workplace settlement acceptable to all parties - and I still think that’s the Rudd government’s main game. However, it’s now becoming clearer that an element of union bashing is involved - the tired old Third Way game of establishing supposedly electorally popular distance from teh evil labour movement, and also that the “balance” being struck is tilted quite significantly in the direction of employers. Among other things, this explains the dissent in the ranks of unions toward the lacklustre public performance in holding Labor accountable from Sharan Burrow and Jeff Lawrence. It’s also becoming clearer - with the resurrection of demands for “statutory individual contracts” by Julie Bishop as a condition of Senate passage - that the model hasn’t succeeded in producing consensus.
Julia Gillard outlined the results of consultations and more of the shape of the policy which will be embodied in legislation soon to be introduced into Parliament in an address to the National Press Club yesterday. The transcript is here. Commentary is largely focused on the unfair dismissal changes for small business, and there’s a sample of the reaction in a good article summarising union and academic views in The Age. But equally important are the machinations going on in the Industrial Relations Commission over “modern awards”, where employers have been presenting what are basically award-stripping ambit claims, and some odd interventions from Gillard herself [the process was examined in a previous LP post by Senator Rachel Siewert of The Greens] and the rather weak protections for collective bargaining that have been outlined.
It’s all very well to say that Fair Work Australia will be able to make good faith bargaining orders, but if they’re only weakly enforceable, and if there’s no power to arbitrate in the face of, well, bad faith, then it seems somewhat of a fig leaf. The ongoing legal maneouvring Telstra have engaged in, which has just had a setback with employees rejecting a non-union collective agreement in a Commission ordered ballot, is a case in point. Differential pay offers (which have nothing to do with rewarding merit and performance and everything to do with de-unionisation), legal stalling, failure to recognise bargaining agents and “wait them out” negotiating are all weapons in the armoury of management strategy, and it’s far from clear from what Gillard had to say that these tactics couldn’t be employed by business under the new laws.
Continue reading ‘Julia Gillard and the unions’
There’s a fair bit of analysis of and commentary on the Northern Territory election results around the blogosphere.
The Poll Bludger is progressively updating late counting, while Tim Dunlop discusses the low turnout. Antony Green also looks at the impact of absentee votes and is critical of the administration of the election and Andrew Bartlett discusses the coverage of the election, and has some other interesting observations.
I noticed the usual predictable “it spells doom for the Rudd government” and “no it was fought on territory issues” dichotomy being produced in comments by pollies yesterday. I doubt that either Julie Bishop on one hand or Chris Bowen and Stephen Smith on the other were really following the election closely and that they are speaking with any authority on this matter. It’s always possible that they were privy to some internal polling, but unlikely in my judgement. I’d prefer to get some information on the dynamics of the contest from someone who’s actually an informed Territorian, so I’d take a lot more notice of Ken Parish’s take on the campaign and the result at Troppo.
Continue reading ‘Northern Territory election result analysis links post’
Nelson has taken off in another direction on emissions trading schemes again. What Turnbull, Hunt and even Julie Bishop think of this is not known. Certainly Nelson’s new position would have been a surprise to Helen Coonan on Q&A last night. (How excruciating was that?!)
Nelson is now saying that a “cap and trade” emissions trading system may not be the best way and that there are “multiple models out there that should be debated”. Well, at least one - the hybrid scheme proposed by Warwick McKibbin.
Continue reading ‘Nelson determined to be different’
Feral Sparrowhawk offers some thoughts on the future of the Liberals, something rather topical at the moment in the wake of Brendan’s big night out in Parliament.
Everyone knows the Liberals are in trouble, with the possible exception of Alexander Downer. However, looking at the discussion, both on blogs and in the MSM, this seems to be perceived to mean: They can’t win in 2010, probably not in 2013. However, the assumption seems to be that at some point the Liberals will be back (possibly merged with the Nationals). Much advice has been given based on the notion that ambitious Liberal leaders should be positioning themselves to lead in 2013 or 2016, rather than now.
I disagree. I believe that 2010 is likely to be the best chance the Liberals will ever have to get back into government. If they can’t win then, or at least give it a decent shake, there will probably never be another Liberal-led federal government in Australia.
A big call I know, but my thesis is that the Liberals are caught between two crises, both of which will likely see them whither in the long term. Every election will become harder to win, and after a while it will become difficult for them to even sustain the position of official opposition.
Continue reading ‘Guest post by Feral Sparrowhawk: They’re (probably) not coming back’
I’m thinking it might be fun to turn the liveblogging gaze on Brendan when he replies to the budget tonight.
Update: I think Jason has a point about being a glutton for punishment! Instead, I think I’ll throw the comments thread over to everyone else to live-comment the budget reply. Or perhaps it would be more in the spirit of Nelson if we were to wait til 3am and take our laptops out to the gutter.
In the meantime, Bernard Keane at Crikey has been gazing into his crystal ball: Continue reading ‘Emo man meet ute man: Liveblogging Nelson’s budget reply’
Julie Bishop has had an interesting week. Although it’s hardly been a good one, she appears to have been at least trying to display some of the leadership so sorely lacking from Dr 9%. Could she be angling for the big L Leadership? I think there may be a new cat among the pigeons, as I argue in my column for New Matilda today.
I’m often up late, and I’ve reverted to an old pattern formed when Labor was last in government of watching Question Time. The House was on last night. Given all the talk about how important it would be for Ministers to establish their authority, it’s interesting to have a look at who has. One person who has certainly established his authority early is the new Speaker, Harry Jenkins, who gives every sign of having both a dry wit and a much bigger dollop of independence than many of his predecessors. He’s adopted the laudable habit of making Ministers sit down, turning off their mikes when required, and insisting on relevance to answers. It can’t be said - at least on the evidence of Tuesday’s Questions - that the Opposition have entered into the spirit of the thing, using points of order to make debating points - particularly Julie Bishop, who has an apparent horror of being “misquoted”, and the appalling Wilson Tuckey, who appears to think he’s funny. Julia Gillard, though, has both enormous authority and great humour, and Lindsay Tanner is also a dab hand at the dispatch box. Poor old Wayne Swan, though, is indeed showing signs of nerves. It’s probably a bit unfair to compare him with Costello (who was shown making faces from his redoubt in the back row) and Keating. There’s no rule I know of that every Treasurer has to be a deft and cutting Parliamentary performer. And he’s right about (at least) one thing - Malcolm Turnbull and Brendan Nelson need to decide whether the economy’s in tip top shape or reeling from inflation which apparently came out of nowhere. Premises are important as well as questions, after all.
Here’s Hansard [pdf] for those wanting to have a gander.
This was originally going to be my column for New Matilda this week, but it was overtaken by events, and after a bit of editorial discussion, it was agreed that I’ll be writing on the IPA advice instead.
Benjamin Disraeli, who would have known, once wrote about the plight of the opposition leader:
There are few positions less inspiriting than that of the leader of a discomfited party… he who watches over the fortunes of routed troops must be prepared to sit often alone. Few care to share the labour which is doomed to be fruitless, and none are eager to diminish the responsibility of him whose course, however adroit, must necessarily be ineffectual… A disheartened Opposition will be querulous and captious. A discouraged multitude have no future; too depressed to indulge in a large and often hopeful horizon of contemplation, they busy themselves in peevish detail, and by a natural train of sentiment associate their own conviction of ill-luck, incapacity, and failure, with the most responsible member of their confederation.
Disraeli penned that purple passage of prose in 1852, but he could have been writing of the plight of Brendan Nelson in 2008.
It didn’t take long after election night last year for the few Liberals who weren’t totally shellshocked to admit that WorkChoices had played, at the very least, a substantial part in digging their political grave. It was significant that Joe Hockey, himself charged with the hapless task of selling laws which had become so unpopular they were no longer to be named, pronounced WorkChoices dead. But it also didn’t take long for hardline voices within the Liberal Party to try to salvage some of the hard edges of workplace relations policy from the wreckage.
Continue reading ‘“A disheartened opposition will be querulous and captious”’
If even Geoffrey Blainey’s upset with John Howard, you know the PM can’t be having a good week (or year, for that matter).
The eminent historian has expressed concern about Howard’s personal intervention in the awarding of a history prize worth $100 000 against the recommendation of a panel that Howard himself established to decide the winner of the PM’s Prize for Australian history. While the panel favoured Peter Cochrane’s Colonial Ambition, Howard reportedly intervened to ensure that his pick, Les Carlyon’s The Great War, shared the honours. Blainey also thinks that the inclusion of a federal government rep on the panel, Education honcho Lisa Paul, is inappropriate for an award which ought to be judged on merit.
Journo and author Gideon Haigh, who reviewed the best-selling Carlyon tome for The Monthly, says:
This isn’t a bad book, it’s even quite a good book. But it’s ultimately a pretty safe, unambitious and formulaic book — too big, too unwieldy, too superficial. In the end, too obviously in the Australia-saves-the-world-again camp.
Quelle surprise, as Alexander Downer might say…
Continue reading ‘Ain’t gonna study (culture) war no more…’
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