Baby with the Bathwater?

The next round of soul-searching and recriminations has begun for those on the right side of Australian politics.

Gerard Henderson had an entire column in the SMH last week devoted to eulogising the Libs entitled "No strangers to crisis, the Libs will pull through". For me all Gerard's desire to trumpet the fact that the Libs weren't utterly destroyed really did was serve to reinforce how truly screwed up they actually are. He points to their lack of "political depth" for example, reminding us just how reliant on the cult of personality that surrounded Howard and his closest cronies, Downer, Costello, Abbott, the party actually was. Is anyone else thinking that Turnbull is kicking himself for signing up with the wrong team?

Mr Henderson also points out that the good Dr certainly has some room for improvement in the leadership department. He highlights his rather odd vacillations around those "I have never voted Liberal in my life" comments (yes true believers I think Mr H is reading this blog too). In fact Mr H goes so far as to come up with a plausible but equally suspect story about all of that. Never fear, the good Dr is still a liar no matter which way you spin it. Mr H also takes issue with his inability to answer satisfactorily a question regarding his commitment to social justice as a member of the Howard government.

Right.... social justice and the Howard Government... isn't that like a google search that would turn up no responses? It is a total oxymoron.

But wait!

Apparently all Mr H needed from the good Dr was a mention of the lowering of unemployment and the government's commitment to families with dependent children. Yes folks in the world of the rabid right THAT is social justice. Notwithstanding that lowering of unemployment in and of itself means very little (even if you can believe the stats and in this case we can't seeing as word on the street has it that the stats included people on the dole involved in the welfare to work scheme for example). Simply saying that more people are working (not a bad thing mind) without taking into consideration wages and cost of living, housing stress and other important bits and pieces, tell us precisely nothing about the social conditions, or someone's commitment to social justice.

Secondly, the Howard government's commitment to families with dependent children amounted to well what exactly... family tax benefits? A welfare to work scheme for parenting payments (15 hours a week work volunteer or paid that can include studying, even at postgrad level, but that also includes a direction from the minister to lie to applicants and tell them their masters or PhD doesn't count?!), and Costello's immortal comment to have one for the country. Awesome.

No mention of refugees, Indigenous people, the poor, housing prices, war, same sex marriage rights, discrimination, sexism. But hey, all that falls outside of the Henderson view of social justice I suppose.

Mr H also has academics in his sights... not unsurprisingly, they are a fairly safe target for the rabid right. He writes:

When the Liberals go into opposition, some academics step forward to proclaim the end of the party. In July 1993 Judith Brett declared that "the Liberal Party in the 1990s seems doomed". But it was back in office within three years. Last January Norman Abjorensen wrote that a "Coalition defeat in 2007 will almost certainly herald a major realignment of the non-Labor side of politics, but it is problematic whether the Liberal Party, as now constituted, will survive".

Stuff and nonsense according to Gerard. The Libs will survive as they have always done.

Perhaps someone should tell them that.

Currently the night of the long knives (weeks of the long knives?) have now come down to this.... should the conservative parties merge and be done with it? No academics here, this is Chris Pyne and others in the party calling for a branding change so the party can, in the words of Queensland Liberal Peter Slipper, "like a Phoenix [rise] from the ashes" (no really.... that's a quote, someone get that man some media training stat!).

It's okay to laugh... I am.

Yes the post-election hysteria has reached fever pitch and now everyone is surveying the options on the table and deciding whether a new marketing approach will save conservative politics. I note that the good Dr is very quiet on this subject. Mr Abbott was the cautious Liberal voice of the day (things are certainly getting increasingly weird over there). There seems to be serious talk about creating an entirely new party.

I do not deny the Libs need an image change. But think about the way that government was identified, usually as the Howard Government, rarely as the Coalition. The parties weren't the brand at all, either unified or individually, Howard was. And god knows a little distance from him and some of the policies associated with him (you know, all the ones responsible for destroying social justice...okay so their entire policy platform), will not any conservative any harm.

I think they are all taking this Menzies thing a little too literally. I know the man lost an election (well Gerard says he was trounced actually), formed a new party and went on the lead the country for forever, but honestly the good Dr is not Menzies and this is not the 1950s and if they don't stop running around like headless chickens what little faith people have in them really will be gone!

What will save the Liberals is less of this endless navel gazing, soul searching and finger pointing and a little more of being in opposition (although Dr Nelson has already signalled his antipathy to that course of action). In fact I suspect that Howard's final act of hubris and stupidity was calling the election a little to early or a little too late. There is not much business to be done at the moment so all the political hacks have to do is endlessly disect the election... The Libs really need to leave them to it.

At any rate I can only say the less likelyhood there is of a conservative government the happier I am, but a word to the wise. Don't throw the baby out with bathwater... sure no one likes a loser but people might warm to a battler, to the underdog. Goodness knows no one will ever warm to a snivelling, cowering, whinger.

So.... Suck it up Liberals and get ready for the next round or you may in fact find you are out for the count.

Spare a Thought for Janette

Imagine the conversation at Kirribili house on the morning after the night before. In my mind it runs like a Your Rights at Work advertisement... it goes a little something like this:

John: They've taken away my job, my seat, my houses, my cars... they've taken everything!

Janette: Can they do that?

John: They have...and what worse, the Commonwealth says its okay. Apparently elections pass the fairness test.

I mean really, talk about a tough day at the office, a popularity test where retrenchment is the prize for the runner up.

But I ask who is the real loser in all of this? It has to be Janette. The long suffering wife who for years has stood by her man. She has no job, the kids are all grown up and now she has to move back to Woolstonecraft at Christmas! All the while watching that Queensland upstart and his working wife and Asian son in law prepare to move into the Lodge, while banning fundraising at Kirribilli House.... oh the humanity!

And, unlike the rest of us, she can't even mitigate her personal trauma by gloating about the change in government. Can you see her in a Kevin07 tshirt?

Perhaps that is why she is encouraging JW to get out of the house. The SMH dutifully informed us that our former intrepid leader was getting back to normal life by playing a few rounds of golf (and anyone who has ever seen footage of JW attempt to play anything involving a ball and basic handeye coordination is right to find the concept of him playing golf innately amusing). The article also mentioned that he was playing his round of golf alone bar two security personnel.

Hmmm am I right in thinking that 30 odd years in politics with at least 11.5 of them spent as an utter dickhead leaves you friendless and alone, playing 18 holes of golf with rentacops? Either that or being on the wrong side of a landslide makes you want to shorten the odds and play a game you know you can win.

How apt....How delicious!

Of course JW's golfing excursion further serves to reinforce how out of touch he is with the common person, or rich wanky golf lover for that matter (and aren't they after all the Lib's core constituents?).

This week the SMH also felt compelled to share with us the revolution in golf hitting a Sydney club near you. Nine hole, kinda the one day cricket of the fairway. Apparently we are all too time poor in Sydney to play the game properly and if the mountain won't come to Mohammed the golf clubs will halve the length of the game and come to you! I wonder if the golfing world has ever considered that maybe people just don't like golf.

So JW is starting his ordinary life playing a sport that most ordinary people can't play (this gives me faith in people's sanity broadly speaking) because they are working too hard to pay off the dreams JW cynically sold them for the last decade or so while he stripped away all their rights, devauled their infrastructure and disinvested in everything from welfare to education (except the armed forces of course), privatised telstra and generally made a big f***ing deal of spending any of our own money on us.

Despite this I say spare a thought for Janette.

After all she has him for life!

Ignorance is bliss (at least for the ignorant)

Perhaps unsurprisingly we were Tony-less when the Libs went to the party room to thrash out their differences.

I suspect someone had a work with him, gently reminding him of some of the differences between reality and his view of the world. I do love that he seems to be holding out hopes of a revival. He is absolutely unaware that he is about to be rendered completely obsolete. I wish I had said this first, but at least he knows he can always get another job.

Today on ABC's Insiders, I saw Nelson for the first time as leader of the opposition. Not that that is what he thinks he is, no the Good Doctor seems to think he the leader of the "alternative government".

Huh?

Wait did I miss something? Have we moved to a parallel multi-government universe? Was there a coup? Are the libs in exile rather than the wasteland?

Sorry Dr you have caught Abottitis (the blissful but damaging tendency to live entirely in a political world of ones own making) and I suspect it may be incurable. The prognosis for your political career is not looking good...

In about 3 days or so he has already made himself a flipflopper or at the very least the ff's poor cousin, the backpeddlar. I think he should just be quiet until the Libs actually have some policy positions instead of spouting off at every opportunity. Although come to think of it, perhaps he is still getting used to the fact that people actually listen to him now.

Dr Nelson has done well in the Libs seeing as he was, for a large portion of his life, a Labor man like his Dad and (shock horror) also the leader of a Union. He has switched sides and I must confess I reckon it is because he thought he'd be more likely to lead the party in the blue camp than the red (plus I'm pretty sure he hates Paul Keating).

But he fits well, at least in the old mould.
Dr N's cred:
A liar: see footage of the good doctor in 1993, swearing loudly, into a bullhorn, while being recorded on camera (smart huh?), that he has never and would never vote Liberal. Then remember that he has also said that he voted Lib prior to making that speech;

A hypocrite: he supports gay equality but still maintains that marriage is a union between a man and a woman and forms the foundation of our society;

Racist: yes he actually and with a straight face called the Stolen Generation the "Separated Generation" on TV today... what, do you think they got weekend visitation Dr?

An appalling, self-centred and arrogant minister: yes I am talking VSU and those planes that only exist on paper, that are more expensive and predicted to perform worse than the forty year old planes we already have and the planes of Indonesia (our most significant neighbour) uses, and that no-one, including the armed forces (you know, the air force) actually wanted Australia to buy... He took money away from infrastructure like education for that.

All in all a good, solid, Howard style conservative.

So he has his way, he is the leader of the OPPOSITION (suck it up Dr) but he will never lead the nation.

Abbotitis will make sure of that.

Glaring Omission

It was pointed out to me that I could not possibly engage with the Liberal Leadership Battle without mentioning Tony Abbott in a little more depth.

I must first confess that last night I had not seen seen much coverage of Abbott's annoucement, this, however has changed.

Today I read Annabel Crabb's excellent and always amusing column and found this:

"If you'd told me three days ago that by Monday Tony Abbott would be making a run at the Liberal leadership based on his "people skills", I would politely have assumed you were smoking something. And if anyone can nominate a more hilarious fib than Kevin Rudd's claim on Sunday that he had found this election "a humbling experience", I am all ears."

As am I!

Abbott's decision to run on his purported people skills is an even crazier strategy than his assertion that he will stay true to Howards ultra-right legacy.

Honestly... we all know that Abbott has no people skills, none! In fact, he doesn't have a personable bone in his emaciated, wannabe priest, head-kicker body. Remember this is the man that attacked Bernie Banton, a man dying of complications due to asbestos exposure, in the middle of an ELECTION CAMPAIGN!

I'd vote for him.... no really, I would.

Hell kids the only thing I can say is if Tony can run maybe I can too, based solely on my right wing credentials of course!

I still maintain that if they pick Turnbull now it'll be too soon and as much as I love Keating, Bish is also a liability, at least at this stage. That unholy duo may claw back some of the deficit in 2010 but only if they get a short run. If I were a Lib strategist Nelson would be my man. Not because he has much to offer, actually primarily because he doesn't.

Pick ME!!

So the knives are out and the race is on. Turnbull, the wet, was the first. Tony the ultra right head kicker was second and now Dr Nelson has announced his honourable intentions.

Meanwhile heads are rolling. Most self induced of course, but the attrition rate is astonishing. Brough on the night, Costello on Sunday, Downer has removed himself from the race (no doubt he will not contest the next election either) and now Mark Vaile, the leader of the coaltion partner the National Party, has also jumped ship...all for his family of course!

I am disconcerted about the idea of Julie Bishop as a likely contender for the deputy leadership. Well I suppose we would feel bereft without someone to accuse of me tooism. I have to say she is a poor (actually rich) man's Gillard with none of the spunk or intelligence but with blue-chip twinset and pearl credentials. While I want to see a woman run this country taking on a SA lawyer on because she is a woman, and tows the line is not ideal.

It is a tough strategic decision... largely because it is likely that this will be a two term Labor government. The new leader needs to weather the next 3 years and then no doubt another 3 before having a chance to win. Turnbull has plenty time to have his sheen rubbed off in that time. it would make sense to install one of the others (I'd pick Nelson of the contenders announced) to weather the storm. But that would require a certain amount of sacrifice or pragmatism. Perhaps if the good Doctor realises that he will never win an election but could satisfy some of his ambition with a little time at the top, he may be the man for the job.

Rudd has gone to work and we shall see what that brings but.... for now leadership battles and party implosion on the right is all the news that is fit to print!

Goodness gracious ladies and gentlement brace yourselves! It is going to be bloody, but there is nothing like public backstabbing for a bit of entertainment.

Bring it.

As an afterthought, there are seven seats still undecided, however it seems that Labor is leading in five. A 20 seat majority. That must surely mean at least a 2 term Labor Government? If they pick Tunrbull I hope, for the Libs sake, he doesn't peak too soon.

you got to know when to fold....

Can't say I am unhappy about last night.

Actually I am ecstatic. Certainly the result more unequivocal than I could have possibly have dreamed. There was a clear statement made about what Australians think about the direction of this country. I just hope it wasn't all about interest rates.

Certainly Federal Labor has benefitted from a strong anti-Howard feeling. The Coalition is very much linked to Howard's leadership and people have clearly lost faith in that leadership. I think it would be foolish, however, to assume that Rudd's proclaimed new leadership will be much more than simply a changing of the guard. Well that is unless we make sure it is. Labor has made few strong policy statements, and fewer promises. Not unexpected considered the pre-election polling, why make promises when people are going to vote for you anyway.

This may represent an opportunity though. It means that there is an agenda to be set. And it means that we should think about how we are going to set it.

One of the other interesting results in this election is the swing to the Greens. And that despite the mood for change and the fear of "narrowing polls" (and I feel tempted to say 'yeah right' to that considering the results) which might lead strategists to assume that people will vote more conservatively in order to assure a Labor victory. The Greens look also to have picked up some seats in the senate, 3 new seats according to the ABC online today. This is great news for the party and goes some way to deal with what is potentially the greatest threat to Australian Democracy; having one party controlling both houses of parliament. Without that we wouldn't have had WorkChoices, VSU or many other pieces of legislation that the Coalition felt (clearly to their detriment) that Australia needed.

I am extraordinarly happy that Mal Brough has gone. I am also happy that Lindsay spoke at the polls against bigotry, lies and cheating. I wish Turnbull was similary nursing a hangover and disappointment, and while it was always unlikey, if Joe and Tony had fallen my happiness would have know no bounds.

It is too early yet to know if Howard has lost his seat... God knows I am hoping against all hope. Nevertheless, that Maxine McKew managed to have such a large swing in a safe seat, held by the same member for 30 or so years and one that was held by the current Prime Minister, is an astonishing achievement. And a huge statement by the electorate. Even Howard is conceding in the press today that it highly likely that he will lose, meaning that he will join the ranks of sitting PMs who have lost their seat (yes there is only one and it hasn't happened since 1929).

Howard's Menzies complex, his own ambition, and his arrongance have cost him government and perhaps his seat. Well they do say pride comes before a fall and boy has Howard fallen.

Perhaps Howard should have listened to a little more Kenny Rogers. He overplayed his hand and worse than that he didn't know when to cash in his chips.

So, the King is dead...long live the King.

P.S. Well well, always the bridesmaid never the bride!

I have just found out on SMH online that Costello will not seek nor accept the nomination for the leadership of the Liberal Party. That is despite Howard's endorsement (kiss of death?) pre-election. Who will be the next leader? $50 says Turnbull.

At least Costello knows when it is time to go.

T'was the night before polling.....

The irony of seeing Anthony Albanese speak about the Fake Pamphlet scandal in the marginal seat of Lindsay on Lateline last night was palpable. Perhaps he is considered an authority on matrimonial influence since he is the the federal half of Labor's very own power couple, the King and Queen of Marrickville. Nevertheless, the question must be asked, can we really believe that neither Jackie Kelly, nor the current candidate (who's husband is also implicated), nor the Liberal campaign manager, really could not have known what was going on? Labor sure seemed to....

Now I will admit here that I didn't watch the interview. I am suffering from serious election fatigue and I don't find Albanese or Ruddock who was also on, particularly appealing, even after a schooner or two. So I am not going to comment on it. What I am interested in the the Liberals apparent ineptitude when it has come to campaigning in this election. I have only lived in Australia under a Coalition government. That puts me in a similar position to many people voting for the first time in this election. In every federal election to date it has seemed that Howard and the Coalition could literally not put a foot wrong. Partly this has had to do, I think with federal Labor's inability to offer strong opposition. They have been for eleven years or so Liberal Lite. I think they still are really. But for some reason this time it doesn't seem to matter.

Why?

Well perhaps because eleven years is just too long. People want a change. If the Liberal party had changed leadership earlier they may have been in a better position, and I am not talking Costello because who in their right mind would vote for him?!

The next problem is WorkChoices (it really makes my skin crawl to call it that because the only people it really offers genuine choice to is to business). This is one of the most broadly unpopular pieces of legislation the government has introduced and using their senate majority to ram it through backfired I think. It has solidified "battlers'" resistance to both the legislation and the government because it seemed to take no consideration for the opposition. But again, why did this not happen when Howard and co. introduced the GST after promising hand on heart that they would never do it?

I suspect it has something to do with the media. Not a new or insightful comment admittedly. What it seems is that for the first time in eleven years the mainstream media outlets have moved away from subtle (in a few cases) or quite overt support of the government. One could say that they seem to read the mood of the country better than the pollies. But I think we have the cart before the horse. I think the media contributes enormously to that sentiment. I am convinced that what happened in Lindsay is not a new tactic. I am convinced that the government's lies and arrogance are not new traits. This time, however, they are being reported and we are seeing the Liberals for what they are; liars and cheats at worst, frightened at best.

We still see headlines that warn us that business is bracing for the return of the Unions, as was on the front page of the Fin Review yesterday. We are still being told that the polls are narrowing, that the coalition could still win, but this reporting serves Labor as much, if not more than the Coalition. Simply because it makes people afraid. Afraid that the mood for change is not strong enough, afraid that we might have 3 more years of the coalition (if we think they are bad now imagine what the next term will be like when they have won the "unwinnable" election), afraid that we may end up with a PM we didn't even vote for.

We all know that winning this election is a big ask. As has happened before a party can win the most votes and not the most seats... and Labor needs to win 16 new seats (didn't Latham get a kicking?). That is a huge swing in real terms. But not imossible. A poll released last week showed Labor leading in 18 marginals, if they deliver that is a landslide in anyone's books.

Personally I want to see a change, I would love it coupled with a change in Bennelong, but I am not fooled. We will all need to push to keep the ALP honest. The scene has been set for mendacity and wilfulness, remember when Howard said with a straight face that involving us in Iraq was an example of his not being a poll driven politician since he simply ignored the massive displays of public sentiment (you know the great unwashed he is supposed to represent) that were so vehemently opposed to it.

This is a government that has shown itself to be more concerned with keeping their jobs than doing their jobs. Lets make them redundant, take away their penalties, because if there is one thing I know, elections certainly pass the fairness test.