Just Julia

I am inclined to think that Julia Gillard is not the ambitious vixen that some would try to caricature as.

She seems to me to have been about as open as you can be about her desire to lead the nation, and also as reluctant as you must be to pursue this with the sort of ferocity that many of her male counterparts would only too happily indulge in.

The absolute and utter hypocrisy of much of what transpired as comment yesterday on all sides of politics, almost infuriating if not so utterly transparent and laughable.

I mean, who could fail to be aghast at the audacity of the mad monk standing up there lecturing the Labor Party about how no leader should be treated as Rudd was by the bovver boyz of his own party.

I mean if he wanted to be taken seriously he should at least have been made to look Malcolm Turnbull in the eye while he was saying this.

Having worked for over thirty years in an institution (the Anglican Church) which is even more male-dominated than the Parliament, I hope for our country what I believe is true also for the Church. And that is, that female leadership will be different in style from all-male leadership.

There are those who find this laughable, who tend to suggest that women are more ruthless than men and only get into power by being more power-driven than their male counterparts (some of those voices were heard yesterday).

In my experience the proponents of this are very often men who have been rolled by strong women who are not prepared to be patronised.

What seems to be truer, is that women rather value and encourage certain loyalties rather than others. They are not so driven by the need to 'win' so much as to 'succeed'. This might seem a subtle, even nuanced, difference. But it is rather important.

Winning is rather short-term, where success is a much more wholistic idea.

I think Ms Gillard's language indicated that she is aiming to succeed rather to win. Kev's problem (and I suspect Abbot's) is that they have to win

Ageing politics

I was rather taken aback by commentary that Malcolm Fraser's departure from the Liberal Party (see an interesting British commentary here) would not be terribly consequential as most voters wouldn't even remember the Fraser years.

To me the heady events of 1975 seem like yesterday. But, I suppose it was 35 years ago. And he was replaced by Hawke in 1983. (27 years ago!!)

If I had nothing better to do then I would look up the age composition of the electorate, but I suspect that the observation is probably true...that many many people do not register Malcolm as a political figure of any moment any more.

However, it is laughable to read the Guardian begin its little piece by saying "Fraser has been slowly sliding to the left for the last twenty years!!"...if Malcolm is left then Gough Whitlam is more to the left than Lenin..(some people would believe this!)

No, I think it is much more that the Liberal Party under Howard, and it looks even more so under Abbott, has lurched to the right and then some. Followed not far behind by the Labor Party.

Fraser's obvious disgust with this has been apparent for years. It is clear he held Howard in disdain, and it's noteworthy that Howard only ever came into his own after Fraser had well and truly left the scene. The days of the small 'l' liberal are well and truly over.

When no means yes!

I have some sympathy with Mr Abbott, who yesterday (perhaps foolishly) admitted to Kerry O'Brien, that what came out of his mouth was not necessarily perfectly formed.

As a person who quite often "thinks with his mouth" I sort of know what he means.

TONY ABBOTT: Well, again Kerry, I know politicians are gonna be judged on everything they say, but sometimes, in the heat of discussion, you go a little bit further than you would if it was an absolutely calm, considered, prepared, scripted remark, which is one of the reasons why the statements that need to be taken absolutely as gospel truth is those carefully prepared scripted remarks.

Kerry rightly questioned this

KERRY O'BRIEN: So every time you make a statement, we have to ask you whether it's carefully prepared and scripted or whether it's just something on the fly? No, seriously; this is a very serious question.

But it's dangerous territory for all concerned.

It is interesting that the Opposition (eg Joe Hockey on Q&A lauded this sort of recklessness as "straight talking") but as O'Brien remarked does this mean "there will be no new taxes", and "is Work Choices in or out". This is rather like the malleable world of "core" and "non-core" promises.

It will be interesting to see how this plays out

The politics of personality

The ongoing decline in the Rudd Government's popularity and approval rating is part of the inevitable reflection communities make on incumbent governments. How did it happen? How can a government that was so phenomenally far in front now be behind in the run-up to the election?

There is no doubt that the answer to that is: Tony Abbott. His political savvy and relentless discipline in the last little while has been remarkable. Not unlike that of his former leader and mentor, John Howard.

But it needs to be said that, by and large, the battle ground has not been policy (what are the Liberal policies any way?) but personality. The Liberals have ruthlessly and relentlessly painted Rudd as boring, wordy and remote. One would have to say that they have been successful.

They have also been able to hammer the enormous spending spree that the fiscal rescue seemed to demand. (What would they have done?) and despite the annoying nature of its repetition...the idea of the Great Big New Tax has been fed into the nation's psyche and people don't like such an idea.

Equally well, political liabilities have been kept out of the public eye. Where, for example, has the agressive Ms Bishop been? or the twee Mr Pyne?

I suspect that the Libs have had (good) advice that they are both political liabilities and so have been kept very much in the background.

Will the Labor party then be sucked into this game and start playing personality politics. It will be fun to watch! It will be dirty! But is it good?

I don't think it is yet all over for the Labor Party, but they need to get their act together if they are to be credible.

The turning worm

While everyone seems to agree that political debate of the sort we saw between Mr Abbott and Mr Rudd is a good idea, I find it disconcerting (perhaps even disgraceful) that Mr Abbott thinks it is appropriate to make cheap personal jokes about the Prime Minister. I suggest it tells us more about the real quality of the rebuttal when all that is left to do is to insult your opponent.
The first rule any debating teacher tells their team is "Attack the argument, not the person". The use of cheap personal slurs says more about the poverty of the attacker's argument than the person they are attacking.
I suspect the 'worm' showed us that while the public might titter initially at cheap jibes it does not actually find this to be the sign of a mature leader.

Religion and politics (ii)

Part of the debate that has been doing the rounds on this question is whether or not is desirable that people of religious faith should be allowed to also exercise secular power.
The anxiety about this seems to come (not unexpectedly) from those who declare themselves to be not-religious.. It seems to me that this anxiety is misplaced, and comes about from a fundamental misunderstanding about religion that it is a private pursuit.
To the person of religious persuasion nothing could be further from the truth. Religion is essentially about whole-of-life, it is not a hobby or an interest, but about the way you view the world.
Now there are many things that are like this, not just religion, you education, background, ethnicity, social class...all affect the way you see and do things. We do not say that people of a certain racial background, or type of upbringing have to put that to one side...or that if you happen to have been educated at a state school, a private school or at home...then you are not allowed to bring that to bear on your political perceptions.
Why then would we say that some how you should park your religious perspectives (as if you could)?
The answer is not to some how detach ourselves from these things which colour our perceptions, but rather to declare them.
The truth is it's good that K Rudd talks about his Christian faith, or that T Abbott can tell us about why Roman Catholicism has shaped him. If we actually try to suggest that these things are some how unimportant and therefore should be set aside (and I say it again...as if you could) then this is more disturbing in actually making a clear apologetic for your sincerely held belief.
THIS IS NOT TO SAY that religious views, or any others, should go uncritiqued.
Quite the reverse. Critics of religion are right to suggest that we should not just accept an argument "because the Bible tells me so", or because that is what my religion teaches.
The religious person should be challenged to defend their position. This, to my mind, presents no threat to organised religion. Rather it enables those of us who are religious to respond to the challenge to not only be faithful, but also to be artional, reasonable and intelligent.
Nothing less should be expected in modern society.

quanto costo?

I think we ought to be realistic that you cannot run government for nothing. I tire of those newspaper stories that say Minister F spent $137,000 on a trip to Calathumpia to sell SA oranges.

I know it's a lot of money, but you can't do this crap for nothing. Nor can you expect Ministers of the Crown to stay in 2 star dives.

But inevitably you get the league tables, and the ridiculous questions.

The latest being about the cost of Copenhagen. The two mad terriers, Matt and Dave, in their last program for the year on Friday last had a good go at Penny Wong the Minister for Climate Change. I found myself getting enraged at their worrying at the legs of the good Senator. To be fair she dealt patiently with them. I am not sure if the transcript is available, but she gave a good rationale for why Australia benefits from having many people present. In particular she drew attention to multi-layered presences, from bureaucratic exchanges to region-region negotiation. Our own Premier is co-chair of this important multi local government exchange.

Wong stands out as a fierce and rigorous negotiator( see here for example)

Th truth is that Matt and Dave were adopting the cheap spin of the Opposition. It's easy to say it all costs too much. But what is the alternative? Do we not go?

In truth Australia has often, perhaps always, has punched above its weight. This is the privilege of being a small rich country. Were not our involvement in both wars, and the Vietnam war, perhaps these two latter awful wars, and our many jaunts with UN forces, and in many international fora; all examples of being privileged and indeed required to 'punch above our weight'

Our sporting prowess no less is supported in the same sort of way, strange that you don't find Mr Abbott suggesting that the government spends too much on sport. Ahhhh but Mr Abbott that would be not as cheap to sell to the electorate!!!

Back to the future

It is clear, then, what Abbot's policy is as he appoints Bronwyn Bishop, Ruddock and Andrews to his front bench.

While there is no doubt that this group of 'tried' politicians have had measured success in a reactionary sort of way in the past; it is difficult to see that they will not alienate the very sections of the electorate that the Opposition need to attract back.

No wonder Turnbull will break with their reactionary sort of stuff. [I am trying not to invoke Godwin's law (here) and it is difficult.] One wonders if there will be a party split. I imagine Malcolm is unlikely to be bothered with such political nitpicking, but I guess we shall see.

Personally I think that Ruddock is one of the most divisive ministers we have had, how ever well (or not) he may have dealt with issues of immigration, he presents as a hard, callous and unbending individual. Bronwyn is almost a caricature, and Kevin Andrews recent participation in the leadership shenanigans leaves all sorts of questions unanswered.

Maybe he never thought he would be a potential leader and was just precipitating a crisis but even the bookies didn't give him any chance of being elected the other day. I was also bemused by one very senior journalist's radio comments about his putting himself forward, the disdain was palpable.

I personally don't think they have done themselves any favours.

The electorate will easily perceive that this is a "tried" team...but I wonder if they will also think that it is 'true'

The language of 1984

One of the key features of George Orwell's book "1984" is the way language is distorted by power to mean something that it obviously doesn't mean.

For the last two weeks (and longer) I have listened to the Liberal party build up its language of criticism of the Government. Now this is OK on one level, as long as we the public are critical of language and don't just accept it on face value.

It is, for example, OK for them to simplify the Emissions Trading Scheme as a Big Fat Tax.

As a strategy it seems to be working well, but the more knowing public should at least try to take this simplistic analysis for what it is....simplistic. But I have heard all sorts of Liberals use it in the last few days, Abbott, Bishop, Joyce...and no doubt others.

What is not OK is the use of the term Stalinist to describe the Labor Party's decision making processes. This term is of course most derogatory. I have no doubt that some of that mud will stick. I have heard both Abbott and Pyne, and others, use that term in the last week.

History suggests that there is not much to pick between Hitler and Stalin, and no one could imagine that a slur that Labor Party processes were run like the Nazis would have just been allowed to go unchecked.

There is not much to pick between the Labor and the Liberal Party in terms of questions like, loyalty and consistency. And you wouldn't stand in front of many of them with an exposed back on a dark night, but let's not even begin to suggest that the term Stalinist should be applied to any Australian major party. It is at the very least belittling to any and/or all of those who were subject to the violence of Stalinism.

Polls, polls and damned statistics. Or The demise of Malcolm Turnbull

I still remain committed to the idea that Malcolm Turnbull will tire of the political game playing. In reality it takes too much energy to master the polls and the statistics and this constantly detracts from the important stuff. Yesterday's polls in The Australian (see full article here) show only slight improvement in his standing as preferred Prime Minister. Coming off a very low base it would be hard to get any worse.
What is perhaps more disconcerting is that Peter Costello is still seen by more Liberals as a preferable leader despite the fact that he has disqualified himself and is on the way out. Similarly laughing Joe Hockey, who also says he is not in the running. The desperate cries (or perhaps "sighs") of the Abbots and the Pynes become less and less convincing; they two are very ambitious people and I swear I will scream if I hear Pyne say yet one more time "All I want to do is to serve the electorate of Sturt"
I guess Malcolm is a big boy and will know when enough is enough. Till then it is all a bit sad.