The alternative prime minister

November 26, 2006 on 12:52 pm | In Uncategorized |

I despise John Howard and his government. I know that most people don’t feel as strongly as I do but even so, it’s hard to find people who speak of the Howard Government with any real warmth or admiration. So why has it been in power for more than 10 years, and why does the betting currently favour its return in 2007?

No doubt the reasons are complex but surely the explanation lies partly in the uninspiring nature of the opposition. It’s all very well to say that oppositions don’t win elections, governments lose them, but the perceived quality of the alternative government must influence voters’ willingness to throw a government out. Morris Iemma must be hoping so, at any rate.

Which explains why I despair of Kim Beazley. After a lifetime in politics his judgement and communication skills are still so flawed I wonder if he can ever mount a serious challenge to John Howard. I said as much recently when he made his idiotic ‘Oops, wrong Rove” gaffe. My frustration was not because he obviously had no idea who Rove McManus was - hey Kim, join the club - but because he chose to say anything at all about the death of McManus’s wife. Remember this wasn’t some ambush by a journo being cute, Kim chose to lead off his daily doorstop or whatever it was with this feigned display of grief. No doubt he hoped he could piggyback his comment onto the media coverage of Belinda Emmett’s funeral. Well he got his publicity all right, for looking like a complete ass.

That was an illustration of the flawed basic strategy. Kim seems to have decided to model himself on two prime ministers who have perfected the art of being ordinary blokes: Bob Hawke and John Howard. The trouble is, Hawke and Howard are doing what comes naturally whereas with Kim it’s obviously artificial. You can almost see the strain on his face as he tries to act like he thinks a ‘middle Australian’ would act having a few beers at a barbecue.

You would think, having been bitten so badly by his own dumb strategy, that he would pause and reflect on whether he was following a sensible course. But no … what did he do? The Monday afterwards, just when the “Is Kim’s brain leaking?” stories are disappearing, he decides to rev the whole thing up again. He issues a statement saying he got the names mixed up (no shit, Kim, we thought you were trying to make a joke). What’s more, he’s going to write to Rove McManus to apologise. I mean wtf? Is this some deliberate plan to reinforce the “Kim’s a pratt” public persona? Who writes to anyone in those circumstances? Yes OK, people old enough to be my mum but who else? Kim if you were sincerely concerned about Rove’s feelings you would have quietly rung him up and had a chat. You wouldn’t write him a formal friggin’ letter and announce it on national television.

So now we have a flawed basic strategy coupled with poor judgement in its execution. But wait. It gets worse.

After the Roves fiasco you would think that Kim would maybe have reflected and decided to stop doing the “Hey look how in touch with ordinary people’s lives I am” bullshit, or at least given it a rest for a bit. But no, what’s he do in his doorstop last Thursday? Well here’s how he leads off:

BEAZLEY: Firstly of course, before I get into the main topic of today. Shane and Glenn, absolutely vital that in your 100th Test you ensure that we have a good start to putting that urn back to where it belongs, which is here. We want a triumph in the Ashes and we want a triumph quickly.

Hur-hur-hur jolly good Kim, you Mr Everyman you. I didn’t see the interview but I can hear you chuckle as I read the words. It reminds me of the feigned good humour that is the stock-in-trade of a certain kind of clergyman and real estate salesman. Or of somebody trying to appear cool. Kim if you’re so lacking in self-awareness you don’t understand how false this strained bonhomie comes across can’t one of your minders slap you until you wake up to yourself?

The real tragedy of Thursday’s doorstop was that Kim also had this to say:

There’s one other thing that I ought to say something about and that is the Wheat Board and the story that’s out there at the moment that there’s an advice given the Wheat Board a year in advance to the rest of the community, that the Government intended to go to war in Iraq. Now, John Howard was prepared to take the Wheat Board into his confidence a year before going to war, but not the Australian people.

Kim that should have been the first thing you said. Instead, it wasn’t even the ‘main topic’ that you wanted to talk about. You threw it in right at the end after a lot of pointless bullshit about giving food stamps to young mothers instead of money. And that, of course, was what you got quoted on by the media.

Here’s a story that suggests our prime minister has been lying through his teeth for three years about the circumstances in which he committed Australia to an unprovoked war of aggression and what does the alternative prime minister want to talk about? Shane and Glenn.

Like I said …. I despair of the man.

3 Comments »

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  1. I’ve hesitated to respond to your astute post because I don’t want to antagonise Aussie Bob any further. AB does a sterling job for the Labor cause but lately has had his hands full with the media anti-Beazley frenzy.

    But the truth is, you’re exactly right. He has appalling judgement on what should be priorities in public announcements. He continually tries for the short-cut into populism and usually even gets that wrong. He has had a very long history at or near the top of the Labor Party but he doesn’t seem to have learned from it.

    (That alone is a contrast to The Rodent, with whome he likes to see parallels. The Rodent suffered any amount of setbacks and humiliations, but he learned something from all of them - even how better to exploit racism.)

    Beazley seems almost the same as he began. Amiable enough, if a bit too windy, but usually settling for the softest option. So the factional bosses on the Right push him around. (This might not be a problem if there were still minds like Ducker around, but alas, the NSW Right is not the canny machine it once was.)

    He has understood little about the more successful leadership traits. Perhaps, as you observe, he has too readily groped at the populist tendencies of Hawke and Howard, and they sit uncomfortably with him.

    It would have been far better to look at some other aspects of the more successful ones like Howard, Carr, Beattie and Bracks. With the possible exception of Beattie, none are charismatic. But all have learnt more or less how to be themselves. (The public can spot an act a mile off.)

    His advisers and confidantes are just as bad -perhaps echoing his serious lack of judgement. Swan, Smith and Conroy are careerists from the apparatchik background and lack that life experience you can gain from outside the cloister.

    Every time I see or hear Swan I think of that US political parody of 50 years ago, “What this country needs is a good ten-cent cigar”. The only policy he ever raises (well he is treasury I suppose, but even before then) are tax cuts.

    No doubt there are focus groups talling them that this goes down well. Certainly this is mainstream media baron agenda. It’s why ‘relief’ from the ‘tax burden’ keeps cropping up in the language - as if we are being crippled by it.But I happen to believe that there are many in the community who want and expect a lot more from their government and not all of them are diehard lefties like me.

    Labor has to get serious about tackling major infrastructure problems in health, education, skills training, transport, communications etc. In a way they’ve even been offered a free hit though climate change and water supply. But it’s time to look at these things and offer the public some hope.

    I’m not even sure that a coup will help Labor much at this point, but I do think that changing around Beazley’s kitchen cabinet might help bring some fresh ideas into the equation. The Howard Government is definitely crumbling and it’s a question of whether it can hold together one last time. But Beazley can’t just wait for it to happen.

    In my view he has to defy the habits of a lifetime and make some hard decisions.

    Comment by Don Wigan — November 29, 2006 #

  2. You’re right about a coup at this stage being counter-productive Don … let Kim carry the whole burden of defeat (unfairly but that’s life) and a new leadership team can start with a clean slate. I don’t share the apocalyptic visions of the doomsayers, in fact I’ve argued before that a narrow Labor win at the next election might be bad news for social democrats if they then have to carry the can for the recession that has to happen some time soon.

    Comment by Administrator — November 30, 2006 #

  3. We now have a situation neither of us were hoping for, but I guess it’s a matter of living with it.

    I notice over at blogocracy you were extremely gloomy about the likely outcomes. There is always the chance that Rudd (assuming he gets there) may slip under the critical radar a bit, as Bracks did just before taking on the ‘unbeatable’ Kennett.

    I noted your comment that Howard would have to make 6 mistakes to level it out. Well, he’s over half-way with the AWB, Iraq, unswerving Bush support, keeping interest rates down, Workchoices. And there’s likely to be fallout from property price collapses in outer western Sydney. Our Pacific- SE Asia local area is also looking a bit unsteady at present, with many Melanesians unhappy with Downer-Howard.

    Krudd-Gillard would face a big challenge, but I think they could strike some blows and articulate a new direction. What I like is that both have risen from poor-humble backgrounds and still have a bit of fire-passion because of it, even if, in both cases, they have kept it under a tight reign.

    If Rudd is successful I think Labor will have moved away from the 04 situation in the US where Kerry was settled on as the least-upsetting candidate.

    Interesting times - as long as we don’t get too distracted from what the Rodent is getting away with.

    Comment by Don Wigan — December 1, 2006 #

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