Scalping the scalpless!

After over a decade of Howard Government Minister refusing to resign over a variety of failures in their portfolios, there is certain sense of irony about they baying at the door Peter Garrett. He is of course a high-profile minister, probably the most instantly recognisable after the PM, and there would seem to be little doubt that things are not as they should be with regard to the supervision of the home-insulation fiasco.
Under my old rules, (the buck stops here), he should probably go. In the light of the experience of the last decade, no one takes ultimate responsibility for anything and ministers don't resign.
As I have observed before about garrett (and indeed about Turnbull...) as one who is not a 'dyed in the wool' politician. I suspect he will tire of the political game playing, and get out. To much time trying to get the upper hand instead of addressing the issues.
Turnbull and Garrett wanted to change things, not ultimately to see one party victorious over another at any cost. In the end will they both have to realise that Parliament is not the place for idealism? I suspect so!

Peter Garrett- a bit sad

I guess there will be many who will note the irony of Peter Garrett approving the latest SA uranium mine.
Wednesday's editorial in The Advertiser patronisingly suggests that he has grown up!
It still begs all sorts of questions. (which I have suggested in various blog entries ever since he succumbed to political ambition).
I don't really think that we have had proper debate about nuclear energy in this country.
We sidestep the question of whether we can sell our uranium to almost all comers whilst claiming some sort of moral high ground in not looking seriously at whether or not we should be moving in that direction ourselves.
This is not to say that we do not have a similar dilemma with coal. Victims, like everyone else, of global warming ourselves we don't seem to be able to extricate ourselves from our exploitation of coal. Either for export or our own use. These things of course are not straightforward, and can't be done overnight.
I am open to being convinced that safe nuclear energy might be the way to go. But to be convinced we need to have robust and very public discussion. I don't think we are having or have had it.
People like Garrett who have capitulated looks as though they have given in to political expediency (and maybe for good reason). This only makes them look foolish because the reasoning does not seem to have been aired. I suspect Garrett has done better than that, but he is havign trouble getting the message out.

You've gotta laugh - creating a Rudd mythology

Last night's Q&A continued to show that this show is good for a laugh, and has a totally different style from much of the dreary garbage that passes for pacey debate between politicians.

Much of the action comes from the almost random throwing together of diverse politicians which last night included the Nationals Barnaby Joyce(left) and Labor's Peter Garrett. There was also Green's Sarah Hansen-Young, and Liberal Pru Goward. Along with black playwright, director and dramaturg Wesley Enoch  the mix was right for many good exchanges.

One thing that interests me is the way that the right has obviously been advised to create a Rudd mythology. This has many aspects. One of them is that he is too smart for his own good...and by implication ours. And that he talks incessantly.

So I had to laugh when the "never backward in coming forward" Senator Joyce accused Garrett of taking lessons from the PM and creating a "wall of sound"  ie. talk, talk talk and never allowing discussion. 

I don't think this is true, I think this is the mythology that they are trying to create.

What was farcical was that Joyce had himself talked down almost everyone on the panel throughout the show, Ms Goward, ever perceptive and articulate, was getting quite annoyed by the end. The main "wall of sound" was coming from Barnaby Beagle  himself.

He also added to the creation of the Garrett mythology ("what has happened to Peter Garrett activist Rock star?")  by jokingly, persistingly and embarrasingly interrupting the Minister "OOOh where's Peter Garrett, where's Garret...he's disappeared."

As I say to my children, funny once not funny twice!

In the end this sort of perception-creating politics is not about  truth, it is about creating perception. And the two are not necessarily the same. They are more about manipulating the voter.

I suppose it happens on both sides; Turnbull is maligned by his opponents (as Andrew Lloyd Webber says about Cameron Mackintosh..."isn't he rich...richer than me" (You tube here))...while Ruddy is just as rich. The politics of perception and mal-image is not helpful

Counting the score

As amusing as it might be to score the government on its first year, it only serves to add to the general paranoia that ministers must feel. Is that a good thing? Probably not. It is rather, as I say, cruelly entertaining.
Governments need to be scrutinised rather than rated, but we see inevitably that Rudd is rated 8/10, Gillard 9/10, Garrett 6/10 (and dubbed the 'Minister for Nothing' )(The Weekend Oz). What does it mean? Nothing really, it is one person's impression and is akin to the 30 second grab, a not too sophisticated analysis of  complex issues; designed not so much to illuminate as to provoke discussion and not necessarily constructive discussion.
People will probably split along party lines (listen to Matt and Dave and the Two Chrises if you don't believe me...but I am sure you do), but this sort of stuff serves to seek short term results for what are obviously long term issues.
I personally think that there is much to be said for fixed governmental terms in a stable democracy like our own, so that although we can be amused by short term ratings we can actually appreciate that governments aren't going to have to pander to the need to amuse the fickle electorate when there is a long term job to be done.

Not feeling very afraid

An interesting campaign (which is presumably based on some research) against Peter Garret. Today's press says how the senior mobsters, Downer and Costello et al, are warning the electorate to be 'afraid, be very afraid' of Peter Garrett. The imputation being that some how he has an hidden agenda which has not yet been declared which is going to turn the country upside down if and when they get elected.
Well I don't feel particularly afraid. Indeed most Garrett aficionados want him to have done more, but there is a political reality about this that has to be faced. Attractive to people because of his greener credentials, some could well be afraid that he will be decidedly more attractive to younger voters than Malcolm Turnbull. Younger voters think the green stuff matters!!! I don't think the stuffy older set (on either side) have got this through their incredibly thick heads.
So yes, Downer and Costello should feel afraid; but I don't!

Unelieveable except for the fact that it's election time

Could you believe the poe-faced Costello running out to point out to the electorate that Peter Garret's off the cuff remark that all would change when the Labor party is elected meant that you can't trust anything. (here)
Drawing the longest bow possible Costello was suggesting that they would most certainly change, tax-cuts, climate change, water, energy...heaven knows what else.
Now Costello might have some high ground to stand on if it wasn't for the fact that the last two Liberal governments have broken promises hand over fist, and weighed in with the IR laws for which they had no mandate.
So earlier in the week ....oh what's the point they are all much of a muchness

He's arriving soon

Yes, I am sure that you are all aware that he is arriving from the States soon, and Sydney will never be the same.
No, I am not talking about Dubbya (here)who is most certainly on his way here, with an entourage that Rolf Harris would be able to justifiably add to the court of King Caractacus....on the first day of Apec my true love sent to me a George Bush and entourage....750 security, $150K of photographs, a personal chef or three..it all sound like one of the Louis de France
But, no in our house it is the arrival of Zac Efron, sweet faced star of High School Musical 1 & 2 and hit of the new movie Hairspray that will be heralded today.
What must (and does) really frighten political leaders is that in the end young voters will take more notice of Efron than of Howard or Rudd, or even Garrett.
But so far he keeps mum!

Gobbledegook

The Greens are accusing Peter Garrett of talking gobbledegook over the Tasmanian Pulp Mill (here). Now this is going to happen to him increasingly up and until his party gets into power.
So two predictions are:

1. That if (by some slim chance) Labor don't win then Garrett will jump ship because he won't really be able to bring any real influence to bear from long-term Opposition. (It will be interesting to see what Turnbull does if he is consigned to Opposition for similar sorts of reasons).
   
2. If he gets into a Government, then he had better start effecting some real political clout in the environmental debate or the Greens' critique will indeed be seen to be true. I would imagine if he just becomes a stooge then (again) he will jump ship because his whole raison-d'-etre will collapse underneath him...and I would like to think that his integrity won't be able to bear that

So, to the Greens it needs to be said, you need to be patient with Garrett.
The sad reality of politics is that not every battle can be fought at each and every opportunity. If, however, when he gets some real power he then doesn't do anything...then he should be hammered