Preferred leaders

Julie Bishop the Deputy Opposition Leader and Labor Senator Mark Arbib were asked an "objective" question on Lateline on Friday night (here)

When does a party know that it's time to change leader? What are the signs that are, "Look, you know, we really need to change courses now."

Arbib couldn't really bring himself to answer the question as Leigh Sales wanted it, and while Bishop got the point she didn't do much better. Though she did make the good point that it doesn't really make much difference changing the leader if they don't also bring about change in policy.

This is of course what happened when Abbot took over from Turnbull, there was an about face on emissions trading policy. But not when Nelson took over from Howard.

Present speculation that K Rudd is now so unpopular with the electorate that he may be a liability makes this sort of question interesting and is rife here in the press today and here.

While Ms Gillard, as the Deputy, is no doubt front-runner Labor seems to be in the fortunate position of having any number of candidates. This is partly because of the phenomenon of being in government, I would suspect, we see Lindsay Tanner, Julia Gillard, Craig Emerson, Chris Bowen, Nicola Roxon...perhaps not so much Mr Swann, and certainly not the hapless Peter Garrett ... but also the affable and feisty Mr Arbib.

So, all this begs the question....when do you know that you should change your leader?

Q & A

Couldn't help but think that Thursday night's Q & A was pretty good sort of stuff. So I was surprised when the delighted Tony Jones announced this was the last for the year. I suppose it is October.

Peter Costello,. Nicola Roxon, the bombastic Mr Marr and Ms Kernot and the curious Tom Zwister sparked pretty well together.

If you can, and haven't, then you can watch the video here

I am really glad this program has worked, it brings a new dimension to political chit chat which is less serious and yet more animated (reminds us of the good ole days of Latham and Pyne on Lateline or Pyne and Schacht on Matt and Dave... before Pyne started taking himself too seriously and became a little tedious)

Tension in the camp

As we reflect on the Howard-Costello years we see there was this tension between the economic discipline of Peter Costello, and the pragmatism of the successful Mr Howard.
Howard's genius was, I suppose, to be able to persuade Costello when it was OK to loosen the belt in order to buy the votes of the electorate. And to do this without fuelling inflation.
I think voters saw through this at the last election.
But it would appear that present leader Brendan Nelson is trying the populist Howard strategy, whilst his Opposition Treasurer Turnbull is at least as, if not more, fiscally restrained than Costello.
So it comes as no surprise that there was an "exchange of emails" (is this the 21st century equivalent of 'pistols at dawn'?). It also is not surprising that Nelson the present leader won, and I use that description advisedly.
It is, however, disconcerting for the poor dears when it all comes out in the public arena, and Turnbull is exposed as believeing one thing but having to say the opposite.
This is of course the nature of politics. Mr Downer did not bat an eyelid on Lateline last night, (false I hear you cry...but I resist the temptation to comment on Alexander's eyelashes...he was looking quite old last night)...back to to the plot. He said quite clearly that we may believe in one point of view but after the argument is over we tow the party line, even if we are fundamentally opposed. He said this is the nature of the Westminster system. I don't believe that is so, I think the Westminster system is about free and open debate...but he's a politician and I am not.
Of course he did point out that from Opposition fiscal promises are all hypothetical any way.
And we might also point out that the fiscal conservatism versus vote buying strategy is going to be the same issue for the present Government; though we are yet to see if there is the same sort of political opportunism in Rudd's heart as there was in Howard's. I suspect not.
But what would I know?