The state of Australia 2013
The commandments laying out how the 43rd Parliament of Australia would function were etched upon a stone tablet in the afternoon of September 7, 2010. This was when the ghastly blank of limbo that the inconclusive election result of August 21 produced ended. No sooner had Rob Oakeshott's epic and yawn-inducing speech finally lumbered to the (by then) inevitable conclusion that he, along with fellow independents Tony Windsor and Andrew Wilkie and The Greens' Adam Bandt, would support the Labor government on confidence and supply, than a decision of almost equal importance was made in a nearby room.
It was made by Opposition Leader, Tony Abbott, who, having almost sniffed the soon-to-be-removed asbestos of The Lodge, had been spurned by these now most important of men. The reasons he failed to close the deal with them were many (his policies, personality and fiscal imprudence to name but three of the more prominent ones), but these weaknesses were not acknowledged in his subsequent decision. Rather, being denied what he rightfully saw as his probably confirmed to him that what he was doing was the correct course of action to take. In effect he swore that conventional opposition politics would be defenestrated, and that by foul means and fouler, he would make Australia rue its indecision until the country gave him what he thought he deserved.
This meant that he would do everything in his power to portray the Gillard government not as having a limited mandate in a minority parliament, but as being totally illegitimate to the extent that any action taken to hasten its demise would be not only justifiable, but necessary and urgent. Standing Orders would be challenged continually, Question Time would be shut down, votes of no-confidence would mooted in almost every sitting day, and personal insults would replace political rhetoric. The full arsenal of the right wing media artillery would be trained on Julia Gillard, and nothing, from her gender to her past relationships and jobs to her late father, would be off limits. This was total fucking war.
And in this he has two crucial allies. The above-mentioned media, already mostly in the tank for the conservative side of politics, let rip with joyous abandon. It has ever been the nature of the press to go mad at the sight of political blood, and this feeding frenzy was a nauseating sight to behold. When most of Australia's media landscape is sculpted by the Murdoch press and the feeble rage of impotent and incontinent old men wheezing into Sydney AM microphones, it's not surprising that the particulars of minority government, a situation not experienced in Australia since 1943, were not adequately explained to the voting public. Gillard's policy retreats and limited ability to legislate were explained not as the inevitable result of having to work with other parties and independents in order to get majority support, but as failure both political and personal.
A hostile opposition functioning more like a radical insurgency than a proper political party run by adults and a shrill right-wing noise machine would be more than enough for anyone to contend with, but the Gillard government had a third force working against them; the ghost of leadership past. The method of her ascension to the top job was not remarkable in the least in our Westminster system, but the deposing of St Kevin of Rudd rankled many of the less informed, and once again the media was only to happy to continue attacking rather than pausing to enlighten. The only people who "voted for Kevin Rudd" were the 43,957 voters in his division of Griffith who put the ALP as their first preference in 2007, and the only people who "elected Kevin Rudd prime minister" were the 88 Labor caucus members who in 2006 chose him over Kim Beazley in a party room ballot. Once again though, thanks to the media and politicians like Rudd who base campaigns solely around the party leader, many of the public were deluded into thinking that Australia functions as some kind of presidential system where the removal of a leader was somehow a crime against democracy rather than the conventional political manoeuvre it was.
Rudd himself shared this view that he had been stabbed in the back Brutus-style, and from the moment the last tear dried after his nauseating farewell press conference he set about plotting his revenge. While it appears the 2013 campaign will surpass the depths of banality and farce plumbed in 2010, what is missing this time is a devastating series of leaks from Gillard and her supporters, the way Rudd and his backers undermined their own party's electoral chances out of pettiness and spite last time around. Even after the ALP scraped home and formed government, Rudd's appointment as Foreign Minister did not soothe the raging demon of his wounded pride. This continual cycle of challenges and white-anting eventually took its toll, and support for Julia Gillard both within the party and the community collapsed. Rudd stood triumphant upon the ruins of a political movement he had helped build, embraced once again by his only true friends, the media, who temporarily laid down their own sledgehammers to once again swoon over the only man who ever truly loved them.
Because a few years ago, the media decided that reporting on politics was far too dull and decided to no longer bother. They correctly guessed that an overwhelming majority of the Australian public doesn't really give a shit about politics as long as interest rates remain low and those pesky Indonesians don't lock up too many of our youngest and dimmest mind-altering substance enthusiasts. Far more fun to concentrate on Kevin Rudd's wife, Tony Abbott's daughters and Julia Gillard's counter-intuitively heterosexual ex-hairdresser partner. The only part of the political process the media still relished was the gripping drama of a leadership spill, and unfortunately their suppliers in Canberra had dished out too many of these intoxicants, and it all rather went to their heads.
Brendan Nelson in 2007, Malcolm Turnbull in 2008, Tony Abbott in 2010 (strangely he didn't seem to think knifing one's way to the top is a problem when the Liberal Party do it) and the endless Labor soap opera meant that the revolving door of leadership prove all too much for the journalists who started seeing challenges in every shadow. And this perceived instability added to the conservative media and the Abbott-led opposition's demolition campaign to make both the government and the parliament look enfeebled and incapable of governing. The only solution was to have another election, and this time the Australian public must go back and return the only correct result, the one they failed to give in 2010. Because of our intransigence our punishment has been both the last three years and, it is more than likely, the next three to come.
The final verdict is yet to be written on Kevin Rudd; until the election the nation is holding its collective breath. Should the government defy both the polls and conventional wisdom and retain office, Rudd will be a Labor hero. Should the government fall, his name will rank down there with Billy Hughes as Labor rats who condemned the party to the wilderness of opposition. Consider the situation in early 2010, Tony Abbott had only just replaced Malcolm Turnbull as opposition leader and the Coalition were a divided shambles. Labor were riding high in the polls with Kevin Rudd on a 70% approval as Prime Minister. It was this moment, after the emissions trading legislation had been defeated in the Senate for a second time providing the necessary trigger for a double-dissolution election, that was Rudd’s to seize. He should have announced that the platform that Labor had been swept into office to enact was being stymied at every turn. Then he could have asked for, and would have received, the double-dissolution and Labor would have been returned, perhaps even picking up seats in the house, along with a more compliant Senate.
But he didn’t. Because he is a coward without principles, he decided to dump one of the key policies that brought Labor to office and move onto something else, hoping everyone would be so wowed by some tinkering with health funding and a new mining tax that we’d forget about all that depressing climate stuff. But we didn’t, and that craven retreat sealed his doom, everything since has been delaying tactics only. The philosopher Joseph de Maistre said that every nation gets the government it deserves, but in this instance it is not we, the Australian people, that truly deserve Tony Abbott's wrecking crew, only the Labor caucus and the nation's media should suffer so. For it is they that have brought us to this lowest of points, and the future from here looks bleak.
It was made by Opposition Leader, Tony Abbott, who, having almost sniffed the soon-to-be-removed asbestos of The Lodge, had been spurned by these now most important of men. The reasons he failed to close the deal with them were many (his policies, personality and fiscal imprudence to name but three of the more prominent ones), but these weaknesses were not acknowledged in his subsequent decision. Rather, being denied what he rightfully saw as his probably confirmed to him that what he was doing was the correct course of action to take. In effect he swore that conventional opposition politics would be defenestrated, and that by foul means and fouler, he would make Australia rue its indecision until the country gave him what he thought he deserved.
This meant that he would do everything in his power to portray the Gillard government not as having a limited mandate in a minority parliament, but as being totally illegitimate to the extent that any action taken to hasten its demise would be not only justifiable, but necessary and urgent. Standing Orders would be challenged continually, Question Time would be shut down, votes of no-confidence would mooted in almost every sitting day, and personal insults would replace political rhetoric. The full arsenal of the right wing media artillery would be trained on Julia Gillard, and nothing, from her gender to her past relationships and jobs to her late father, would be off limits. This was total fucking war.
And in this he has two crucial allies. The above-mentioned media, already mostly in the tank for the conservative side of politics, let rip with joyous abandon. It has ever been the nature of the press to go mad at the sight of political blood, and this feeding frenzy was a nauseating sight to behold. When most of Australia's media landscape is sculpted by the Murdoch press and the feeble rage of impotent and incontinent old men wheezing into Sydney AM microphones, it's not surprising that the particulars of minority government, a situation not experienced in Australia since 1943, were not adequately explained to the voting public. Gillard's policy retreats and limited ability to legislate were explained not as the inevitable result of having to work with other parties and independents in order to get majority support, but as failure both political and personal.
A hostile opposition functioning more like a radical insurgency than a proper political party run by adults and a shrill right-wing noise machine would be more than enough for anyone to contend with, but the Gillard government had a third force working against them; the ghost of leadership past. The method of her ascension to the top job was not remarkable in the least in our Westminster system, but the deposing of St Kevin of Rudd rankled many of the less informed, and once again the media was only to happy to continue attacking rather than pausing to enlighten. The only people who "voted for Kevin Rudd" were the 43,957 voters in his division of Griffith who put the ALP as their first preference in 2007, and the only people who "elected Kevin Rudd prime minister" were the 88 Labor caucus members who in 2006 chose him over Kim Beazley in a party room ballot. Once again though, thanks to the media and politicians like Rudd who base campaigns solely around the party leader, many of the public were deluded into thinking that Australia functions as some kind of presidential system where the removal of a leader was somehow a crime against democracy rather than the conventional political manoeuvre it was.
Rudd himself shared this view that he had been stabbed in the back Brutus-style, and from the moment the last tear dried after his nauseating farewell press conference he set about plotting his revenge. While it appears the 2013 campaign will surpass the depths of banality and farce plumbed in 2010, what is missing this time is a devastating series of leaks from Gillard and her supporters, the way Rudd and his backers undermined their own party's electoral chances out of pettiness and spite last time around. Even after the ALP scraped home and formed government, Rudd's appointment as Foreign Minister did not soothe the raging demon of his wounded pride. This continual cycle of challenges and white-anting eventually took its toll, and support for Julia Gillard both within the party and the community collapsed. Rudd stood triumphant upon the ruins of a political movement he had helped build, embraced once again by his only true friends, the media, who temporarily laid down their own sledgehammers to once again swoon over the only man who ever truly loved them.
Because a few years ago, the media decided that reporting on politics was far too dull and decided to no longer bother. They correctly guessed that an overwhelming majority of the Australian public doesn't really give a shit about politics as long as interest rates remain low and those pesky Indonesians don't lock up too many of our youngest and dimmest mind-altering substance enthusiasts. Far more fun to concentrate on Kevin Rudd's wife, Tony Abbott's daughters and Julia Gillard's counter-intuitively heterosexual ex-hairdresser partner. The only part of the political process the media still relished was the gripping drama of a leadership spill, and unfortunately their suppliers in Canberra had dished out too many of these intoxicants, and it all rather went to their heads.
Brendan Nelson in 2007, Malcolm Turnbull in 2008, Tony Abbott in 2010 (strangely he didn't seem to think knifing one's way to the top is a problem when the Liberal Party do it) and the endless Labor soap opera meant that the revolving door of leadership prove all too much for the journalists who started seeing challenges in every shadow. And this perceived instability added to the conservative media and the Abbott-led opposition's demolition campaign to make both the government and the parliament look enfeebled and incapable of governing. The only solution was to have another election, and this time the Australian public must go back and return the only correct result, the one they failed to give in 2010. Because of our intransigence our punishment has been both the last three years and, it is more than likely, the next three to come.
The final verdict is yet to be written on Kevin Rudd; until the election the nation is holding its collective breath. Should the government defy both the polls and conventional wisdom and retain office, Rudd will be a Labor hero. Should the government fall, his name will rank down there with Billy Hughes as Labor rats who condemned the party to the wilderness of opposition. Consider the situation in early 2010, Tony Abbott had only just replaced Malcolm Turnbull as opposition leader and the Coalition were a divided shambles. Labor were riding high in the polls with Kevin Rudd on a 70% approval as Prime Minister. It was this moment, after the emissions trading legislation had been defeated in the Senate for a second time providing the necessary trigger for a double-dissolution election, that was Rudd’s to seize. He should have announced that the platform that Labor had been swept into office to enact was being stymied at every turn. Then he could have asked for, and would have received, the double-dissolution and Labor would have been returned, perhaps even picking up seats in the house, along with a more compliant Senate.
But he didn’t. Because he is a coward without principles, he decided to dump one of the key policies that brought Labor to office and move onto something else, hoping everyone would be so wowed by some tinkering with health funding and a new mining tax that we’d forget about all that depressing climate stuff. But we didn’t, and that craven retreat sealed his doom, everything since has been delaying tactics only. The philosopher Joseph de Maistre said that every nation gets the government it deserves, but in this instance it is not we, the Australian people, that truly deserve Tony Abbott's wrecking crew, only the Labor caucus and the nation's media should suffer so. For it is they that have brought us to this lowest of points, and the future from here looks bleak.