Why Rudd had to go!

I personally don't think that Rudd was dealt with harshly by his party.

He got what he deserved because he had forgotten that as PM it is not incumbent upon him to tell others to jump and for them to respond "How high?", but rather to lead a team. He clearly didn't do that. And the team eventually revolted.

When asked by my keenly observant 16 year old who said "I don't understand why they got rid of Rudd, why did they do that?"

My reply was simple.

"He had forgotten that he was so supposed to work with people and just chose to do what he liked." I am glad that we live in a democracy that calls this sort of behaviour out.

Despatching a leader

Can't help but think that there is a stark contrast between the way the Power got rid of Mark Williams and the way the Labor Party got rid of Rudd.

The agony that went through Labor ranks is laughable when you consider the ruthless despatching of Choco. Very few people are standing around saying that he deserved better (which in my opinion he did) but I guess he was more compliant than Herr Rudd too! And he didn't seem to think for a moment that the club wouldn't/couldn't survive without him.

Kevin at Centrelink

This is presently doing the rounds!!!

Julia versus God

I have no problem saying "Hooray!" that our PM told the truth about her belief in God. It would be ludicrous and total lies to do otherwise. It was a Roman coin question (here)no one was interested in the answer (we all knew already) they weer trying to trap her.

I make two points:

1. Just because she doesn't believe in God doesn't mean that we who do are absolved of our responsibility to pray for our leader.
2. There have been many who called themselves Anglicans who embarrass me more by their hardness of heart towards refugees. A Prime Minister, a Foreign Minister, two Immigration Ministers and an Attorney General in the last government were outspoken protagonists of some of the cruellest policies I believe this country has ever known.

Can I also just observe (as I have before) that too much is made of the fact that Rudd used to do doorstops outside St John's Canberra week by week.

It seems to me that he is not the one who engineered this. The reality is that he was a weekly church attender and the press quickly realised that if they wanted to catch him Sundays, even if they wanted to try and "catch him out" or catch him "unawares" (see the aforementioned Roman coin story) then all they had to do was be outside the Church at about 10.30 and he would always be there.

Good on him that he didn't say 'I don't want to be seen to be enthusiastic about being an Anglican and so I'll stop going to church lest they think I'm too pious'.

A true victim of damned if you do and.....

We survived!

We managed to survive the first day of a woman PM and the world didn't collapse.

Everyone has had interesting conversations about the events of the last few days. I share some observations with you.

JG is being compared with Helen Clark who incidentally was not the first woman PM in New Zealand but the second (see here), but I for one had completely forgotten about Jenny Shipley.

Both women were tagged as frumps, and endless comments were passed about their hair. They have both been criticised for being "career women" [how many men are criticised for being 'career men'?] who chose not to have children. And bizarrely (as if this rubbish is not enough) eventually they are 'accused' of being lesbians!

It is interesting to note that Margaret Thatcher, who always seemed to me to be a formidable woman...was never tagged as lesbian...but there were the endless comments about her dress sense and her hair.

One conversation I had about why Gillard is preferable to Rudd (and early polling seems to suggest this...in a dramatic way) is that, although she was part of the Quattuorvirate ....is there such a word?... yet she is distinct from it.

My comment, though, is that at least she has (and is seen to have) a sense of humour. Rudd's humour always seemed forced.

This is a difference between Gillard and Clark, and I suspect Thatcher. She obviously has a wry sense of humour and enjoys people. She is affable, and seems to get along with almost anyone. Clark was often seen to be withdrawn and humourless, and Rudd...just totally self-contained. Thatcher ferocious and and almost a caricature of herself.

I do remember a story about Thatcher which Keith Rayner told after his return from the 1988 Lambeth Conference. But it was more of a joke at her expense rather than an indication of her sense of humour. It went something like this

Thatcher (also like Rudd something of a one-person band) and her Cabinet were in the middle of some pretty gruesome discussions and she was working them really hard. Finally they just had to break for dinner so she took them all to dinner to give them a break.

The waiter came and took orders naturally he came to her first and she said

"I'll have the rump steak, very rare, with the blood dripping out!".

Such waiters are meant to not skip a beat in the face of any extremity so simply said,

"And the vegetables?"

To which Thatcher replied,

"They'll have the same as me!"

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

The biggest blunder yet!

While, of course, it remains to be seen...I suspect we have seen the biggest Opposition blunder yet with Ms Bishop's breaching of the protocol with regard to security information (here).

While she may post factum have tried to put the genie back in the bottle and say that she didn't reveal information that can only have come from confidential briefings as the SMH said

When asked directly if Australian intelligence agencies forge passports, Ms Bishop – a former cabinet minister in the Howard government – replied “yes”.

There was a bit of furious back-peddling but it is pretty clear that she was relying on being privy to security information, about which there is a strong convention hat nothing is ever said.

Can't help but think that this political game-playing to try and embarrass each other has got a bit out of hand.

What will this mean? Well I was surprised to see both Mr Smith in the Parliament and the PM last night both seething ...and indeed quite shaken...that this had happened. Bishop, as I say, seemed to be furiously back peddling, but it's rather too late and exposes that sometimes there are serious misjudgments about what can be used to beat your political opponent over the head.

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?

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 best laid plans

If I were Kevin Rudd I would be wondering what information Malcolm Turnbull has that has caused him to decide to stay in politics.

Clearly (and not unreasonably) Turnbull is an ambitious man, and one suspects that he believes that Rudd is in danger of losing the next election. This seemed unthinkable 6 months, 12 months or 2 years ago...but does now seem a possibility.

One guesses that Malcolm is attracted to being part of the next liberal government!

So Kevin might be feeling a little edgy.

However, I guess he could also be reassured when he looks at Turnbull's record at testing the political wind. Which is not particularly good!

In fact Rudd may well be rubbing his hands with glee at the destabilisation that this is going to bring to Abbot's Liberal Party.

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.

Religion and the polls (i)

I am personally pleased that the leaders of both major political parties in the Federal Parliament appear to be serious and practising Christians.
This is a change from the sort of wishy-washy tokenism that we appear to have had (which, by the way, Anglicans are used to) of leaders who say they are Christian but who are at pains to show that they do not have any meaningful attachment. Sadly they have most often called themselves "Anglican" as a sort of establishment stamp. But their analysis of matters religious and how this might affect day to day life is often simplistic and dismissive. John Howard was a classic example of this sort of Anglicanism.
So in comes Ruddy who not only seems to be an Anglican, but seems to know about it, and takes it seriously. He is often pictured going to Church and seemed to even smile when he came out as if he might have actually enjoyed it. Most un-Australian!
My impression of what really happens is that the Canberra gallery knowing where he would be at 10.30 on a Sunday morning habitually lined up for a door-stop outside St John's Church and Kev obliged.
Then the Opposition began to feed into our Australian wariness of anything pious and started suggesting that this was staged and, indeed, not what ordinary Australians do.

I am, of course, pleased that Kev has stuck to his guns. Which is what you would expect if he does indeed take his Christianity seriously.

Tony Abbott, too, has made no secret of the fact that he is a serious Catholic. Though he constantly equivocates (as in the Murdoch press today...."I do not regard myself as a Christian. I regard myself as a politician who just happens to think religion matters.") lest we think some how his Catholicism informs his conscience! I think this is bizarre.

He is, perhaps a little unfairly, constantly asked about the issue of abortion and whether he accepts contemporary social attitude or enforces catholic social teaching. There has of course been reason to explore this since he has made no secret of his anti-abortion stance and the fact that he is clearly at one with Roman Catholic teaching about matters such as the 'morning after pill'. This seems to me to be a much more potentially explosive matter than Rudd's attendance at the Eucharist Sunday by Sunday.

....more coming

These are a few of the most tedious things

In my semi-obsessive way I have a sort of weekly routine. I try to fit in bits of talk-radio into my daily tasks. Judging by conversations I have with people many others do the same, because they hear the things that I do.

But some of it is so irritating.

Like,I tire of hearing the Federal Opposition Manager of Business, Chris Pyne on Mondays saying things like...of I am a Federal Member I can't possibly comment on State politics.... Seems to me he is happy to promote things he agrees with but then when he is obviously in disagreement (as he was today with the Regional Royalties issue...saying it would be foolish for a Labor government despite the local Libs promoting it as a vote buyer ooops winner) When challenged about this inconsistency he trots out his mantra....I can't possibly comment on State politics.

And then of course there is the Honourable Alexander...his Monday ADVERTISER column (here) is developing an air of predictability...along the lines of how provocative can I be...last week it was Obama should give back the Nobel prize.

Today it is: how awful that Australian soldiers should die in the theatres of war to which his government was only too pleased to send them. He admits in the course of his article that many will disagree. I think he is correct. Particularly objectionable is the simplistic critique that perhaps some of the young Afghanis should stay in Afghanistan and fight the Taliban instead of fleeing.

This may be populist, but it is hardly credible analysis. But it will get him attention I suppose.

Equally tedious is the PM's seeming retreat to the Howardist position on refugees...I make no apologies for being firm. Today's cartoon in the same paper has him driving the Refugee yacht with a secret super-keel and the observation...when they will admit that this was really invented by Howard!

Death by essay

One can only imagine that Malcolm Turnbull has a death wish. After pouring scorn at Rudd for being out of touch by writing an essay on economics he responds how?.............................by writing an essay!!!!

Who does he think the electorate is?

He needs to be assured that most of us struggle to read two turgid paragraphs, let alone a diatribe in response. (Mr Rudd could well take note too!)

As far as I can tell...and I used my rapid reading skills to read the idiocy this afternoon...Turnbull's essay is nothing of the sort!

It is a political diatribe which begins by regurgitating the nonsensical garbage that is transparently political rather than analytical...

He begins his essay with the catchcry of the last few months

"So far, all the Prime Minister has built is a mountain of debt.

We are heading for $315 billion of total debt, the largest increase by far in borrowings by any government in peacetime.

This debt represents about $13,000 for every Australian man, woman and child, and never has so much public debt been accumulated with so little to show for it.

There has been $23bn in cash handouts; borrowed, then given away"

All I can say is blah blah blah!!

His essay is an exercise in name calling and suggestion hinting...labelling Rudd as "the philosopher king" and as delivering a "sermon" he is using the language of slur rather than that of analysis.

If, Mr T, you are going to use the language of slur then let us not pretend this serious essay .

In reality it is an exercise in desperation.,

The only saving grace for the flailing leader of the Opposition is that the average voter is not going to read this any way.

The debacle of scalping

Once again this week we will be diverted by our Federal Parliament (on both sides) trying to get another scalp. This time the Federal Treasurer and/or the PM (good luck with that) is in the sights of the Opposition, and the PM (in a quiet measured way) gave notice that two can play at that game (quite good background here...poor old Mr Grech)

My question is not about the substance of this, 

[though I do find myself wondering  why it is so strange that politicians should be being criticised for being available to people who are worried about their businesses collapsing]

but in reality is this what we pay our politicians to do. This is, of course, posturing for the cameras. I am not suggesting that "misleading the Parliament" is not serious, and if Treasurer Swan has done so then he should probably go. Though I have noted before that the previous government seemed to have long ago stopped requiring Ministers to fall on their sword. 

Hardly surprising from a government led by a man whose misplaced hubris prevented him from apologising for almost anything...certainly for the grossest abuses to the weakest in our society.

But I ask again....is this  posturing.... on either side what we pay our politicians to be and do?

I think not!

It depends on your point of view

I am interested in the spin that is preparing us for next week's budget. We are being told that the need to increase pensions to aged and other pensioners will be a major driving force in making this a harsh budget. Tax cuts will be lessened or forgone in order to pay for increases to pensions.
Isn't it just as true to say that the commitment to massive increases in military spending are a major contributing factor?
I don't hear our beloved PM or Treasurer saying you will have to forego your tax cut so we can buy more weapons.



(Post 997)

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

Pacifism

I imagine a hard thing for good world leaders is making decisions about going to war, so recent decision to send more troops to Afghanistan must be hard for Rudd and Obama.  The principle is, I suppose, doing a lesser evil to allow a greater good. Though this is slippery slope stuff, and indeed the difference between politics and philosophy or ethics.

(Read for example an awful account of a current defamation trial in The Age. An alleged rapist and brutalist is alleged to have said about his brutality and killing of his enemies 

(Reporter),Paul  McGeough reported (in an interview with the man known as  Captain Dragan )  as saying: "Because of me, fewer have died than might have. And I don't think you will see any prisoners of war treated as well as ours."

Such language is of course total and utter rationalization. )

Thomas Merton says:

"I have learned that an age in which politicians talk about peace is an age in which everybody expects war: the great men of the earth would not talk of peace so much if they did not secretly believe it possible,  with one more war, to annihilate their enemies forever"

 in The Collected Poems pp 374-75  as in Seeds p. 34

Our beloved leaders would do well to hear this caution

Kill the beast, cut his throat, spill his blood....

The feeding frenzy going on round the Minister of Defence, Joel Fitzgibbon, is alarming. No matter what side of politics I have always been a bit alarmed when an Opposition gets the scent of blood. 

It seems that caution is thrown to the wind when a chink in a government's armour is spotted as though getting a minister to resign is a goal in itself.

I am of course not suggesting that incompetence should be allowed to go on unchecked, but has Fitzgibbon been incompetent? The Defence portfolio is notoriously difficult, and there is little doubt that there are those within the department who want him out.

This was true under the former government when the Minister was no less than former Liberals leader, Brendan Nelson. Howard resisted the temptation to sack him even though the (then Labor) Opposition were baying for his blood.

It doesn't seem to me that he has actually been incompetent. The fiasco of the SAS salary fiasco does not seem to me to be his incompetence but that of the public service. His relationship with a Chinese lady friend highlights the sort of carelessness that happens in Opposition which shouldn't happen in Government, and were it the case that we were talking about behaviour while he was a Minister rather than a Shadow Minister then it would be quite different.

Me old mate Alex seemed content not to be drawn into the Fitzgibbon imbroglio on Friday's Lateline but instead was unremitting about his innuendi that Rudd is in the pocket of the Chinese. He just kept repeating it and repeating it..."it's about Rudd, it's about Rudd...it's about (yes you guessed it) Rudd"

This practice of repeating it often enough until someone believes it  (the throwing of mud until it sticks) works quite well in politics. BUT it is pathetic!

Give us substance not innuendo.

Beneath all this the continuing slur that Chinese are somehow not to be trusted is ever with us. Doesn't actually do much for truth!