I’m not following the election, but I had an hour or two off today (from my 17-hour week, if you remember). I rang friends to see how they reckon the thing’s going down. Folks report an “it’s all over but we can’t think that” feeling, combined with stuff like “the most boring election ever” and torrents of laughter at the PM’s expense. Many think Governor Clint Eastwood Stevens will stake him with a rate rise.
Cold showers all round colleagues and comrades. Perhaps I’ve got one of those war-zone afflictions, and I don’t want to sound all Dennis Shanahan, but I reckon some timely reminders are in order. John Howard has a Hawke-Menzies election record and anyone who thinks this guy hasn’t got a plan to win back office is off their scone. If you believe for a half-second that Mr Howard hasn’t figured his trajectory on the possibility of the Reserve putting up rates, you haven’t seen him shovelling demand into the place by the truckload. Mr Howard will leap all over an interest rate rise like a Tampa he hasn’t seen since 2001, or the truth we haven’t since he ran on trust.
A rate rise will define economic management front and centre. The PM will leverage WorkChoices into the bridge, killing his biggest negative with his biggest negative, whichever you think his biggest negative. In Howard’s position, the risk has to be proportionate to the distance he must make up. It’s all worked out on PowerPoint.
We are all so sure there will be a Tampa. Paul Keating was no fool and he couldn’t find a way to stop the slide in 1996. An interest rate rise will sink the PM stone dead. ‘Labor View from Broome‘
Agree, Chris. For all the favourable results for Labour in the polling for the last few years, my take is that those polled are not rusted on Howard voters and Rudd does not scare them much. The campaign of fear by the Liberals has barely started. The Team is daring the voters to change their vote away from Howard. Hence the Recession word is now getting a blast ahead of any interest rate rise.
The campaign of fear – if you the voter dont like WorkChoices and are thinking about not voting for us and a Labour government made up of union bosses gets in, when WorkChoices is abolished, wages go up, and interest rates go up (and dont forget interest rates are always higher under a Labour Government). The message? A recession will be worse for you than WorkChoices. So, stick with us to avoid a recession.
Paradoxically, if a recession does occur, all the worst aspects of WorkChoices will be realised as employees are retrenched/laid off in large numbers for operational reasons with no or very limited protections.
What a miserable message.
I think the R word is being trotted out in preparation for opposition and the likelihood of a crash in the next term, as a result of lax central bank monetary policy around the world. Greenspan’s comment that they’ve lost control of rates is a sign, as well as the sub-prime fallout now. We have the ludicrous spectre of anticipated interest rate rises here to curb inflation, whilst the US is expecting their Fed to cut rates to ease the bad debt problem. It’s not looking good and Costello probably knows that. A little bit of mud now will stick later on no doubt. Nothing new in that. Labor’s been doing the same on perceived Govt weaknesses. I also think the big tax cut plan was another each way bet. If it saved their bacon, well and good, but if not, then it was a stick to beat Labor with every time food and petrol prices or housing affordability reared their heads. Libs as the party of low tax again, without the low taxes really.
I tend to believe Kevin R is correct. Four weeks to go and like a mudslide on a steep slope, Howard’s decline appears to be gathering pace. The satirists are having a field day, Governor Stevens looks like acting come what may and mentions of the ‘R’ word are only likely to point the fickle finger at eleven years of good times ill attended and ending.
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Well, maybe, but people have stopped listening this time. The only plan for winning now is a new leader, and that one fell down the back of the couch a year ago.
I’ve no doubt you’re right that Howard has a definite strategy and that an interest rate rise was already factored into his calculations. But faced with having to start from so far behind that strategy had to be either:
- concede defeat but prevent a landslide by targeted pork-barrelling; or
- use spectacular stunts and personal smears in the hope of pulling off the long-shot, at the risk of a landslide.
Judging by the particular marginals he’s chosen to fund and the deliberate boringness of the long campaign I reckon he’s opted for the former. He’s temperamentally ill-suited to the latter anyway.
Spared the hat, then.
Given that JWH campaigned, very effectively, on interest rates last time around – it seems poetic that they will in all probability be the last nail in the coffin.
Ho hum, having sown the wind he reaps the whirlwind.
I think that any myth that Howard is such an effective campaigner has got to be put to rest finally. Lucky does not equal good. Profligate maybe, but even that runs its course.
The competition he has campaigned against and seen off in the past wasn’t luck wilful, just poor management by Labor. That’s all changed at last.
You do not care about Australia and australian people. All you see is a Labor government. Jetstar is starting a 7 day fligth to Cuba, very cheap, even less for people with union’s membership. And they buy an Airbus 380 with a capacity of 800 seats per fligth. I think after a year, all the lefties in Australia will be with their good mate Fidel…Good riddance…
I fell off my scone some time ago.
I have no issue with your theories but as a pedant I am intrigued by your Hawke-Menzies analogy – have you forgotten that Howard led the Liberals to defeat in 1987?
Menzies led the Liberals to defeat in 1941, not that one would wish to put too fine a point on such coincidences. The message is, if you don’t think John Howard is working his campaign to a specific plan, and that this plan has taken into account the possibility of a rate rise, you’re in dreamland. I haven’t got a clue who’ll win, and favour Kevin Rudd, but you underestimate Howard to your peril, as too many have discovered for too long.
Johnboy is yet to raid his war chest and pull out some of those big guns. His campaign launch will be one of those gala events with row after row of seated party faithful choking back tears as Johnboy throws bundles of money at the voters. More for hospitals, roads, education…….he’ll press the right buttons. Will it be enough? Who knows. Who cares. What is lacking is any real political talent on the horizon.
Nah, Chris. For once I agree with Obbie. Labor has been led appallingly post-Keating. Blimey, if they’d seriously gone after him in 98 over IR then (remember the Bastard Boys?) they’d have won it in a canter (went close as it was). Apart from the leaders being ordinary, the organisation had decayed after a long period of factional dealing. That is, ever so gradually, being improved.
In 2001, I thought Labor was gone about May, although polling held up for another month or so. All Beazley and Crean did was gloat over Howard having to do back-flips to regain his constituency. Country people and the elderly were seriously up for grabs. Labor did nothing to win them. Howard got them back.
Tampa and 9/11 put it out of reach, but that would have been less likely with better leadership. Having a strategy of just moaning about the GST but not abolishing it was never going to work. Crean was too closely linked to that era, which is why nobody listened to him post-election.
Latham was always a gamble but perhaps a worthwhile after the ordinary efforts up till then. And he wrong-footed Howard for a while before finally falling almost in the last week of the campaign. There were always enough doubts about Latham and his past to give Howard an advantage. Howard’s effort then was perhaps his most brilliant even if it was a fraud. Turning Not Happy, John into “Who do you Trust … on interest rates” was as audacious as it was dishonest. Some people perhaps believed. Judging by the late ‘undecideds’, more probably thought, ‘why take the risk?’.
Now, they’ve put up a fairly credible leader in Rudd, eho can cut through, and the opinion poll ratings have gone through the roof. Nothing at all soft about 48 primary and 55 2pp preferred for over 8 months.
It’s almost as if the voters have been trying to say, “Well, WE don’t like him and his lot any better than you do. Give us someone halfway decent and we’ll vote for you.”
Chris, if Howard’s not in diabolical trouble, why would they not include his picture in campaigning material and barely a mention of his name? He might indeed have a plan, but it’ll have to be something a lot more imaginative than all his wedge and dog whistle plans to date. Textor’s hare-brained 150 by-elections approach will never go.
Rudd’s ‘falling in line’ approach makes a lot of us on the left squirm, but we know the aim and it’s working. Notice what hope and the prospect of success will do. How many ALP breaches of discipline and focus have there been?
It’s over, or at least Labor’s to lose.
Well, Christopher, I understand your caution but I think it’s game, set and match.
If Howard is working his campaign to a specific plan, I suspect that it has been terminally undermined by an overwhelming sense that, after 11 years, it’s simply time to change the government. It’s old, tired and cracking at the seams and Rudd has positioned himself brilliantly to be the beneficiary of a seamless governmental re-invigoration in an era when the state of the nation vital sign indicators suggest that the moment for a leadership shift that accentuates the positive – and dissipates the timeworn negative – has arrived.
Kevin Rudd’s approach certainly doesn’t make me squirm. I think it would be completely mad to go into the election with an agenda to overturn Howardism lock, stock and barrel in, like, one go, after the eternity over which it has become entrenched. A modest first term is completely fine by me, and I would promise no more even if it was entirely up to me. This is not the last federal election. Not only will there be plenty more, indeed another every three years, if all goes well, the ALP will go into the follow-ups from a much stronger position than opposition.
Otherwise, I agree with the direction of the general sentiment, but don’t trust John Howard. Never have. Never will. This guy is one tough and tricky customer. One minute you have everything home and hosed; next minute it’s all over, you’ve lost and you’re left wondering how the hell it all happened.
Unless and until we hear Kevin’s acceptance speech, I say: on bloody guard!
Chris, I appreciate what you say about John Howard never giving up, and how he’s been wily in the past and all, but even so I don’t think you got the title of this post right. It should read:
It’s the stupid John Howard.
That’s why the Coalition will lose this time. We’re not seeing the the wily Howard, we’re seeing the stupid one, the one who didn’t give it away when the going was good. It was predictable that he wouldn’t give it away, but he was stupid not to. And he was stupid to campaign on the interest rates slogans he did last time when he surely knew that it might come back to bite him and there would be nothing he would be able to do about it, stupid to imagine that people would forget about Workchoices, stupid to underestimate Rudd, stupid to abandon good governance entirely over the last twelve months in an effort to load mud onto the fresh new face, etc, etc. And his summing up in the debate where he inexplicably moved onto irrelevant culture wars? Damn stupid.
He was at his peak an incredibly astute politician but he hasn’t been behaving like one for quite a while now. People kept waiting for Karl Rove to pull a rabbit out of the hat before the 06 congressional elections too, and it neveer happened. It’s over bar the shouting.
I’m inclined to believe all that is true.
But Howard will be working to plan all the same, and I haven’t read a convincing account of what that plan is, yet. Nor do I necessarily think his plan will work. The question remains, what is the bugger up to? We know it is something. It always is, when you look back.
“And he was stupid to campaign on the interest rates slogans he did last time when he surely knew that it might come back to bite him and there would be nothing he would be able to do about it,”
He might argue that it was worth the risk for another term at least, as it transpired Andrew. However Rudd has done the same this time round largely on 2 accounts. Pinning his green credentials on Kyoto, given it’s performance to date, is more likely symbolism than substance, but voter expectations have been unduly raised here. The other is his good war/bad war schizophrenia. You can already glimpse the folly of that stance with the second soldier killed in Afghanistan, whilst amazingly Iraq has seen only one unfortunate killed, messing around with his gun in barracks. The logical approach, given the electorate now thinks both countries are not worth their blood and treasure, would have been to withdraw from both, ostensibly to concentrate on our backyard. But just as Howard stuck doggedly with the US, Rudd can’t let go of his UN/EU/NATO fetish. He’s as captive to Europe, as Howard is with the US.
Obs, as ever, yours is a unique world view. Rudd is probably as pro-US as Howard (both slightly less pro-US than Beazley). Cosying up to the US is standard practice for the major parties.
The difference is that Howard has tied his fortunes to the Bush administration, and gone so far as actively criticising Democrat contenders. This partisanship won’t do any favours for the country-to-country relationship in the long term.
It probably helped him, however, on two fronts:
- it enabled him to play up Latham as anti-American
- it helped him to give the impression of being a key part of the “Coalition of the Willing” in Iraq, while actually committing very few troops, and mostly out of harm’s way.
Neither helps him now, and as the worm showed, Bush is now a real weight in the saddlebags.
As an aside,
I know you like to bang on about the “Good War/Bad War” argument, but September 11 provides a pretty clear answer to this:
- Osama bin Laden: supported by the Taliban, somewhere in Afghanistan (for a while at least …) – directly involved in the September 11 terrorist attacks.
- Saddam Hussein: not remotely involved in the September 11 attacks.
Haiku wrote:
SSShhhh haiku, you’ll wake up the wingnuts. That’s like their secret signal to froth at the mouth.
I’m personally amazed at just how unlucky JWH has been so far in the longest campaign in history. It’s like watching a tennis final between two opponents you think ought to be evenly matched, but one opponent is dribbling balls over the tape for cheap wins and the other one always manages to hit the tape 1cm too low and the ball falls back into his court. Maybe JWH has just been lucky all this time, maybe Costello has spent 10 years in a hammock. All I know is, it’s 5 minutes of electoral sunshine and I should be enjoying it, but every morning involves a scan of the headlines to make sure Rudd hasn’t f*cked it up.
Dr Patient – whilst history would tend to indicate that Howard will have a few juicy goodies for the voters to announce in the next few weeks, I wonder exactly how much money is left in the kitty after the tax cuts…(I”m notoriously bad at the economic stuff, and am genuinley wondering this).
these fools are now trying to bluff the RBA.
Its a lose/lose situation fellahs.
If only we had adopted Irn Mark’s more fiscally resposnsible line last election!!!
now he WAS a fiscal conservative
haiku, I hear what you are saying about the initial reasons for a good war/bad war critique, but my take is the punters are saying so what, they look the same to us now and where’s the end game. I put it to you that’s an impossible question to answer now and that will become increasingly obvious for Rudd and Labor in Govt. I can quite easily envisage a year or two into his term, Rudd after having pulled us out of Iraq, defending the mounting casualties in Afghanistan, with a resolute ‘We must stay the course to defeat terrorism’, while Pete and Co are nipping at his heels asking when will it be mission accomplished, as the various EU countries begin to abandon the cause. Either that or he backflips early in office over pulling out of Iraq unilaterally. Govt’s like that. You get mugged by reality, and can’t easily fall back on some esoteric stance from the past.
On another tack, here’s the Coalition preparing for Opposition now by the way http://www.news.com.au/adelaidenow/story/0,22606,22651654-5005962,00.html
I should add that I think Chris is worrying about imaginary rabbits. There aint any that would matter. Rudd could fall sick in hospital say for appendicitis in the last week and a drover’s dog could lead them to victory now. For the Coalition it’s just a matter of damage control now.
Don’t worry about all the snapping alligators and the other boats leaving, there’s a good crew. Just focus on why we all came here to drain the swamp. Yeah riiiight cap’n.
not working?
jacques – I can’t post a 250 word comment here. Getting error msgs.
I can’t think of an election since I was 9 years old when I have had less interest in the shennanagans of the campaign, the recordings of unguarded smirks, the performances in front of O’Brien and the media shifts and the nuances of print commentators filling deadlines daily.
But Howard is surely as Brandeis said; a rodent. With rodent cunning. He’s never more dangerous than when cornered or written off. Ask the Liberal party, ask Andrew Peacock, ask Downer, hell ask Costello.
Nico, nice observation. There may not be much left to toss about so it might come down to promising that no Australian household will be without a 68cm plasma screen. Knowing the monomania that exists in Tupperwear Territory such a pledge from Johnboy or Kruddie might secure the election.
Winning the election isn’t about who is smoothest on tv or radio although that matters, it isn’t about who you are sick of in the tea room, the staff room, the smoko shed or the “breakout social centre on main street” (true name of hot water tap, fridge and chairs in building I was recently working in)or who you favour over the skinny soy latte and pastries or beer and snags. No. Winning the election is about getting enough seats in the lower house. That means holding and winning seats in certain places not winning the hearts and minds of the majority of australians.
Howard doesn’t care these days about winning the hearts and minds or even respect, he cares about winning enough seats in the lower house to form government. He doesn’t even care if he wins by a small margin and all hell breaks loose in the Libs afterwards as it will as back benchers resign and by-elections explode all over, Costello challenges, Abbott challenges Costello, Downer challenges logic, Turnbull waits till they exhaust themselves and the small l’s become stronger.
The big danger is writing him off.
FXH is on the money for mine. This is a long campaign, which must therefore be thought of in stages. Howard will be “relaxed and comfortable” about handing a landslide in the first stage, perhaps even the first two stages, to the ALP and its over-confident supporters, for he will have a diabolical plan to get back by the skin of his teeth in the final stage.
No it’s all about ‘tone’ now. (no not Abbott you fools) Howard has run a long time on the economy and taxes and money and interest rates, etc and they’re ready for the warmer fuzzier approach, now that they can well afford it. Mind you, they’re not averse to more chid care rebates, but that’s more seen as helping struggling families, no matter if you are or not. Tax deductibility for computers and broadband sorta means well too, but then what the heck? Like the swinging lady said- ‘Personally Workchoices doesn’t affect me but…!’ Basically she worries about the future for the kiddies, despite the rather obvious demand for their labour and those unemployment figures. Then there’s being seen to do something about GW, even if its largely symbolic. Mustn’t impact on housing affordabilty or petrol and food prices of course. Then there’s those horrible people in Iraq who don’t deserve our brave diggers, but don’t get too technical about those people in Afghanistan just yet. It’s all about tone now and JWH just doesn’t have it anymore, nor can he possibly capture it. Not angry John, but we’ve just moved on from all that now.
Chris, I’d agree with you one hundred percent if it weren’t for one thing. We know Howard from past experiences, but we have to include the context. The fact is that he’s not experienced credible – in punter land – viable opposition.
I’m with you on what you say. I wonder also what’s in Howard’s head, in that context. His track record of expression – how we come to know what’s in his head – since Rudd took over is not good. Nothing, yes, nothing, has worked. Extrapolating with that knowledge, Howard isn’t going to make it: that nothing he does in this redefined context will pull the results he wants.
Has he diminished his desired results to be the barest? Many think so, and fair enough. Not disagreeing with those assessments, but must add that Howard has also given indication his desired results are more than barest bone. This area is truly fascinating, must say.
It’s all so unknown. “Diabolical” may prove disaster for the progenitor. It may prove the winning thing. Rudd could fuck it up. He may well have already done so with his tax response. We just don’t know.
What we do know is Howard is up against it – finally, really. Do we know this from the polls? Perhaps. Certainly, we know it from Howard. He’s not the same.
We know also Rudd is unproven, as Howard is in this context.
Not game enough to bet, but thankful as hell that that bets are seriously on.
Robert, three points:
1. Howard seems to be attempting the old ALP fall-back, which Latham ridiculed in his supposed diary. This is the “waiting for a recession” strategy. It’s as if Howard is treating the preferred PM as the real PM, and he (Howard) is leading the opposition attack on the way Kevin is handling the recession (oh, btw, that’s the recession that he and Costello are meanwhile inventing: there will be a target date for it to arrive in Australia on one of the PowerPoint slides).
In the end, the logic is that the PM will wedge enough people into a position where they are mesmerised, bamboozled, scared shitless, couldn’t tell a political party from a turnip under a bright light at noon in Queensland into thinking that they must vote for their job or their home. (“Their Jobs – Interest Rates vs Their Homes – WorkChoices” says this slide, interchanging the combinations till all the words disappear from view and a goose lops in to canned laughter).
2. I think “experience” is a fair cop, even though the PowerPoint slide has this heading filed under “Utterly self-serving tautologies that MUST be repeated by everyone at every opportunity”. I would be intrigued to see if I was following the election, but my own knowledge and gut feel about Kevin Rudd is that he has vast experience not yet seen nor appreciated.
The only thing Howard clearly has over Rudd is not experience in the world of political and public affairs (on which any one disinterested must conclude that this is a man of the rest of the world versus an ingrown toenail), but experience in winning federal elections. In this last, Mr Rudd must now prove a quick learner.
3. I have doubts that Mr Howard can pull it off. I hope I’m wrong about everything entirely. I will happily admit myself to “Getting Over The Rodent After 12 Years Anonymous”. This may well be a nightmare attributable to repeated exposure to deadly levels of political defoliant, or the aftershock of the Wallabies being beaten by the Pommies in the World Cup.
Labor can’t possibly lose now that Niall’s named them a certainty. As we all know he rivals Barry Jones and John Quiggin for the title of Australia’s smartest man.
I think what I want out of this election apart from a Labor victory is that, whatever happens, the seat of Eden-Monaro goes to whoever loses. I might go camapgin for Gary Nairn just to make sure it happens. This Eden Monaro bellwether thing is so tedious, and those folks down there are so full of themselves with the media attention they need bringing down a notch or eight.
Go, Gary Nairn!
I’ve got friends that live in Eden-Monaro, they refer to Gary Nairn as well-qualified for marginal seats in one way, he has a PhD of porkbarrelling. I think (unless ACT gets a 3rd seat) this will always be the way whether Labor or Liberal (although the seat of Braddon could now hold the Guiness book of records for the most pork per member of population). As, Eden-Monaro on its current boundaries will always be a marginal seat that is the closest to the nation’s capital, its proximity to Canberra will ensure that strange sub-species of man offering all sorts of electoral bribes, will with a couple of hours travel be able to pop over to Queenbyean or Cooma to publicise their latest offering of supposed generosity.
The added consideration to your thoughts there cs is that Rudd is showing clear signs of taking Howard on. This is the first time it’s happened in a way in which a) it comes from a seriously credible alternative (the punters do like Rudd) and b) it’s not overdone, not done with malice or whinge (go Dolly!). My observation is that Rudd chooses these times well.
This isn’t referring to the daily thrust and parry. This is Rudd bringing to the fore the games Howard plays – no one has really done this before: they’ve been too scared to spook the punters and in fairness to previous Opp leaders there wasn’t a market for it anyway – Howard was well enough regarded by the people and the ploys weren’t yet mainstream knowledge. That’s all changed. And Rudd sets up an environment prior to Howard’s ploy which limits the ploy’s effect, often very effectively.
The point about a rate rise bringing the economy to the fore is perceptive and could be the decisive moment. That Howard has prepared for it, as the primary post says, is certainly unsettling if not bloody scary (being desperate, what wouldn’t he do?). I’m not disagreeing with these things by saying that the act of being prepared for a rate rise is, by itself, not enough to be convincing that Howard will win on it, going by the current atmosphere (which as you say is likely to change, excepting that Howard is not pulling on the public mind as he used to), and that Howard is in danger of being overturned on what he does through the sheer opportunism of it. Is that latter thing a fine line? I don’t know. It could be that Howard’s opportunism is perilously close to doing him in, and a shot on peoples’ wallets and homes could raise merry hell. Then again, going by previous tampas (without opposition) Howard aims his shots extremely well. So is Howard walking a tightrope? Or is there a fertile field just waiting for him?
Added to that is Rudd. If Howard has prepared for the rate rise, can’t we assume also that Rudd has?
The Wallabies lost it – I keep thinking of that boot camp (that’s another story) – through not wanting it enough. Rudd wants this, oowee he wants this (again, not like any in Howard’s tenure), and that rate rise moment going by the points in your post and that Rudd, too, is prepared for it, looks like a bit of a clash?
It could be fun.
I think who ever wins this election is in for a hard time in terms of economic policy. There will continue to be pressure on interest rates because of strong demand and historically low unemployment. The basis for strong cost push inflation is there.
Moreover, both parties are committed to huge tax cuts that will add to demand.
This fact might be used by Howard to suggest that an inexperienced bunch of Labor politicians will face difficulties but it will bind either possible winner.
Basically this post is saying – I am paranoid about the 1% probability that Howard will get up because I am a mindless Labor supporter. The paranoia might be better directed at the actual character of the current situation.
If you wanted a decent conspiracy theory it could be that Howard understands he is likely to lose and offered the tax cut policy to get Rudd to follow into
trecherous economic waters that will guarantee a one-term Labor Government. I shouldn’t have suggested that because you guys care gullible enough to believe it!
On comment (15), by cs, I noticed Tim Blair has some observations.
“Menzies led the Liberals to defeat in 1941, not that one would wish to put too fine a point on such coincidences. ”
Jeez, it takes a neocommie academic to jam so may egregious blunders into one sentence!
- The Liberals did not exist in 1941 (they were formed in 1944)
- The election was in 1940 and Menzies won it
- Menzies was UAP
- Menzies resigned the UAP leadership well before UAP ceded to the ALP in 1941
MarkL
Canberra
Doh, MarkL. It takes whoever you are to imagine that you know better by turning convenient insider shorthand into gratuitous pedantry. Menzies was the leader when his party collapsed, the forerunning party on the conservative side of politics to the Liberals, giving government to Labor. Grow up. This is a blog you twit, not the Royal Australian Journal of Historical Studies.
Basically this post is saying – I am paranoid about the 1% probability that Howard will get up because I am a mindless Labor supporter
Actually, if you read it again, you’ll see that it says that I am paranoid about the 1% probability that Howard will get up because I am mindful of what has happened before; but suit yourself, if you prefer to be mindless it’s your mind. Oh, and I also have a mind that is mindful not to read Tim Blair.
So even the most fundamental of tenets do not matter to you, like getting basic facts right.
Well, you illustrate yourself in an interesting light by taking that path – but that is your call, not mine.
How much more dignified and honest it would be to say something as simple as ‘oops, wrote in haste and made a bit of a hash of it’. Your automatic ad hominem response also tells me even more about you. Thanks for the tip on Blair, interesting that you read him so assiduously.
MarkL
Canberra
You referred to me as “neocommie academic” and then claimed I have gone “automatic ad hominem”. Would you prefer me to be proportionate and call you a neofascist wanker, which might better imply the mentality that claims to find great virtue in pretentious pedantry?
“Menzies resigned the UAP leadership well before UAP ceded to the ALP in 1941″
I am not sure what you mean by “well before” but the facts are: Menzies actually resigned the leadership of the UAP in the last days of October 1941, when he saw the writing on the wall – UAP was a minority government in coalition with the Country Party having been seriously weakened when three of its senior ministers were killed in a plane crash. Even in a Coalition situation it was just two votes in it as you can see below.
Artie Fadden (Country Party) took over as leader of the Coalition, with the multi-faceted Billy Hughes as leader of the UAP.
The UAP struggled for about two weeks but it was defeated during the budget debate on a no confidence motion when two independents in the House, Wilson and Coles, crossed the floor to vote with the ALP. Fadden then was forced to tell the GG that he could not form Government. The UAP had a role in the Labor wartime government until 1944.
I think it is fair to say that the Liberal Party was a successor to the UAP, indeed, it was a cosmetic renaming and that is about it. Liberal Party joined the Country Party in a Coalition as before.
Thus, folks, let us not overdramatise the errors.
Thank you Sir Henry. I know the history, and presumed others did such that there was no need to spell it out. Of course, one forgets that there is no accounting for the fuckwits around the place.
Maybe a rate rise won’t have the effect on people’s decision-making that it once might have had. That the price of everything is rising or inevitably going to rise is something we’ve grown accustomed to if not more or less bored by. We’ve also grown seriously bored by the Howard and Costello act. They really should get their stories straight. Howard’s star is well and truly on the wane, whereas Rudd’s is on the ascendant. He knows it, we know it.
As always, it takes a great mind to make grand generalizations, and only “pedants” concern themselves with accuracy in facts. Clearly the planets orbit the earth, and it is only the most pedestrian-minded of folks who concern themselves with such trivial nuisances as retrograde motion that are only apparent when one has nothing better to do than dwell on minutiae.
Eh…. apparently Chris DOESN’T know the history. Nor does ‘Sir Henry’
The facts are: Menzies resigned as PM on 28 August 1941 after his return from the UK (in May) where he had been strategising with (and some say manouvering to replace) Winston Churchill. Leadership of the coalition government then shifted to the Country Party’s Arthur Fadden.
But Menzies resigned the UAP leadership only AFTER the defection of two independent MPs during the budget vote caused the minority coalition government to fall and a shift of power to the ALP. This took place in October 1941. And in the wake of that loss of government, a dispute developed within coalition ranks as to who should be the official opposition leader. Menzies believed it should be he because the UAP was the numerically dominant partner in the coalition. But when a majority of his party colleagues voted in favour of the continued leadership of the Country Party’s Fadden, then and ONLY then, did Menzies resign the UAP leadership to Billy Hughes. Allow me to reiterate, this took place AFTER the ALP assumed the reins government through the defection of the independent MPs. There was no election in 1941.
And yet Sir Henry strangely asserts that Menzies resigned the UAP leadership before the ALP took power. But this is factually incorrect. Henry has the dates right, but he has the sequence of events wrong.
And as for Chris, well it’s obvious that he doesn’t have a clue.
‘You referred to me as neocommie academicand then claimed I have gone automatic ad hominem.’
You are, according to your claims on your website, an academic. This is hard to tell from your public commentary, which is quite poorly written and structured. Let us not discuss your basic ability to spell.
You also proclaim strong leanings to that blood-sodden political ash-heap of history, the political left. ‘Neocommie’ is a handy shorthand in the same vein as ‘Neocon’, which I have been referred to in the past as both here and at LP etc. I view that word (neocon) as describing a former socialist who has shifted their political ground considerably under the impact of reality, and as that describes me quite well, I have no problem with it. In fact I view it as a personal compliment. The accepted definition ‘Neocommie’ as a socialist who ignores reality in order to maintain their own personal fantasy of how the world works. That seems, by your writings and demonstrated ignorance of basic facts, to describe you by virtue of self-description. What’s offensive about either term? As use of the term ‘neocon’ is acceptable parlance here, for it has been used to describe me, so must the term ‘neocommie’, surely?
‘Would you prefer me to be proportionate and call you a neofascist wanker, which might better imply the mentality that claims to find great virtue in pretentious pedantry?’
Please note that I have maintained a civil tone, and that it is your actions which present yourself as an undignified and rather egocentric, foolish sort of fellow.
‘I know the history,…’
Well, not according to, you know, the actual facts. This, of course, undermines your pretense to academe. The actual academics I work with are rather attached to facts: by your words and deeds you would disagree with Louis Agassiz in regards that “impartial jury”, eh? (Oh, go on child, Google him: hints – 1866, and glaciers. You know you want to, and you may actually learn something from your academic betters.)
‘…and presumed others did such that there was no need to spell it out.’
Hardly, my dear little chap! You got it all wrong, and lacked the essential decency to admit it and so regain some dignity and sense of adult maturity for yourself. Now, you have reduced yourself to hollow bluster and to the crudest of schoolyard invective.
Like this: ‘Of course, one forgets that there is no accounting for the fuckwits around the place.’
How terribly impressive is your intellectual ability for civil discourse in a public arena.
MarkL
Canberra
I don’t care who called who what or when. Remember that we try to maintain a civil blog here. If all commenters could refrain from uncivil remarks, that would be just swell.
Cheers,
The next MHR for Solomon (and sometime Club Troppo Oppressor).
You are, according to your claims on your website, an academic.
It’s not my website and I don’t describe myself as anything, stupid.
The historical point is simple and accurate. Like Howard, Menzies was a failed leader of the Liberal Party before he was successful. If you want to be a pompous, pretentious, pedant, you can add that the Liberal Party had a different name then. Go away.
observer
While Rudd might have many shortcomings, this is not one of them. Rudd is perfectly aware that Europe is a backwater, and that the only strategic game for Australia is the Asia/Pacific, which means China and the US. The rest are just dumps of yesteryear.
My dear fellow, I was referring to [delete]
What I find remarkable in this exchange is the lack of historical knowledge, early resort to invective, and generally boorish behaviour you have placed on public display. Quite uncivilised in general.
MarkL
Canberra
Is it worth trying to fight through such a thick fog of pomposity, even if it makes rude allegations and contains all number and sorts of errors, the author of which is all the while hiding behind the cowardly shield of anonymity? Nah. I’ll just delete most of it.
“Rudd is perfectly aware that Europe is a backwater, and that the only strategic game for Australia is the Asia/Pacific, which means China and the US.”
OK, if you say so. Then why isn’t he advocating leaving this risky scenario behind like Iraq?
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,22661191-23109,00.html
Is he dyslexic or something?
ChrisL
Your historical point might have been simple, but it was far from accurate, as I demonstrate above. There is something rather ridiculous about a polemicist who mounts what he claims to be a history-based aasertion, but who then contends that factual accuracy is irrelevant when errors in his argument are brought to light. The term ‘trying both to have his cake and eat it’ comes to mind.
I would have had more respect from you if you’d had the gumption to stand up and own up to your mistake. A simple mea culpa would have taken the issue off the table. But you seem to be incapable even of that elementary standard of intellectual probity.
Yes, ridiculous, and more than a bit pathetic, as well.
Bob Brown jumps on board with the majority of punters http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,22664679-29277,00.html
Daniel Deronda, Menzies failed at his first attempt at leading the Liberals (for pedants, I’m using the term loosly, so as to also encompass the predessor parties, as this is a blog not an encyclopedia so who gives a stuff). In this sense, one can draw a parallel with John Howard. There is nothing wrong with that statement, but if you want to rabbit on, or believe something different, or make pompous pronouncements about a pretentious “elementary standard of intellectual probity”, find a blogger who cares.
“I know the history, and presumed others did such that there was no need to spell it out.”
General Robert E. Lee defeated the Spanish at Pearl Harbor in 1913.
Or, whatever. Do I really have to spell it out for all you fuckwits?
People are welcome to comment on the issues in the post and related arguments. Any more overblown pettifogging over chronological trivia is likely to be deleted.
Chris, further to the post, two things come to mind which could well prove different this time around. For each election as we know a bunch of experts in some field or other stand up and tell the public what a twat Howard is. Each year they are dismissed by Howard and the media lets it be. This year, given the change in political environment, I think this area will be intensified as those numbers and relevence increases, as the scent of their stand actually making a change/getting a result grows and entices, with the problem for Howard in that these fall into the ‘tired’ and ‘time for change’ thing the media are running (no doubt because the market likes to hear it). It’s reasonable to expect media will run them more readily, and not dismiss them as so. Perhaps not a big thing, but this sort of heaping on the Govt and Howard could help edge a swinging vote. Maybe not; the rationale is that increased intensity applied within this environment could affirm doubts within the undecideds. Where could those ‘experts’ come from? Economy, Security, Education, Health, Trust – the folders are filling.
Secondly, the Liberal Party tv adverts have to tread a difficult line – they have to cut through without the negativity being the take-out (ie, the negativity of the ad itself, that it is negative). And with only negative ads the Libs will appear as without vision. On the first bit of this, recent history says the Libs will choose the line poorly. On the latter, the LNP doesn’t have a vision and unless it comes up with one – would that work this late? – the Lib’s advertising campaign may lose more than it gains.
It would be a heck of a fear which pulls voters back to Howard. Keen to hear your thoughts on it.
Yes, Robert, the longer it takes Howard to get an appreciable shift, the more it will be assumed he cannot make it, and the more the whole thing would tend toward becoming self-fulfilling. On the one side, critics will gain more standing, leading to more of them, etc. On the other, there will be more splits along the lines of Malcolm-Kyoto. If it becomes an official death watch, I would expect the Qld Nats to cut Howard loose. All this will encourage undecideds to vote Howard down.
On the other hand, as there always is another hand in this game, at that stage the ALP would also have to counter the protest vote. The senate vote in the Latham election, which was only spooked by the possibility not anywhere near the certainty of an ALP win, suggests that the protest vote could be potent if the perception of “it’s all over” gets out, about and entrenched. At no point can ALP supporters assume it’s over till it’s really over.
On the negatives, I’m happy to venture that the anti-union scare campaign has failed pathetically. The stupidity of the Liberals making this centre stage is yet to dawn, but it remains that more Australians belong to unions than any other single institution with the possible exception of churches. Moreover, almost everyone knows a “real” unionist, probably even has one next door or chatted to him/her at last weekend’s BBQ – and if voters live in a marginal seat, they would have already been visited by “real” union members and officials several times. I remain partial to the theory that advertising will only take if it confirms an existing preference/non-preference, and this one looks to have sunk like a stone. Hard to believe the anti-union blah blah matters at all, really, except for an ALP laugh or unless it is being set-up to leverage into something smarter.
Cheers; further…
Looking at the immediate:
Agreed, this is going to come up, and not being evident right now takes on a lesser imperative. As the days crunch into Nov 24, the protest vote could catapult in significance.
Let’s look at where the protest might happen. Given Lib voters won’t care for this, only no-core Lib voters would be affected. We know there’ll be a considerable variance in degrees of non-core”ness”; but the variant numbers don’t appear to be in the Coalition favour (we’ll get to the soft vote thing, which your point highlights). The public aren’t hugging onto Howard – for him to pull back the numbers via a protest vote suggests a brilliant reason as yet not provided publicly by which the public will protest. My point is this: a protest vote against Labor under the circumstances agreed upon won’t just happen because the circumstances are there – it requires the Coalition to provide a valid, pull-able (some may say suck) reason to protest by ballot.
Let’s remember that for a protest vote to occur against Labor requires an incredible historical moment: a situation where the Coalition is certainly done for and Labor is a surety. This, also, is the stuff of “time for change”, is it not?
Within that, concerning the non-core LNP voters, is an atmosphere of protest vote already occurring, of sorts, against the Govt – or Howard, Costello, WorkChoices or Climate Change policy, perhaps even opportunistic policy making: take your pick. If the onus is on Howard as master politician as I suggest to make a case for a Labor protest vote (do you agree?), that’s a big case to make.
So I don’t agree that Labor has to counter the protest vote; instead, Howard has to make it.
Regardless of my accuracy in this, it all raises a critical question, brought to light by your post, concerning the gravity of the voters’ intention as relayed in the polls, and, let’s be sure, by all partys’ responses. Yes, polls don’t show voter intention, but the latter point: the partys’ behaviour, points to a Government in danger. Where is that voter intention strength? Dunno.
I do believe we need more solid answers to this before we write off Howard and say hello Rudd. Others will have a better understanding of voter intention strength in marginal capacities.
Let me share this point, though, which is shaping for me to be critical. It’s a brand new thing.
Cast your mind back to previous contests and they’ve been about the Coalition, or, really, the Libs, and Labor.
Here’s what Rudd has done so far, and if it continues, I’ll back this as a significant determinant to the result. Rather: what Rudd hasn’t done. He hasn’t made this a contest between Libs and Labor. The “Labor” factor is way back in the background.
Let’s clarify that. A difference is occurring, I believe, in the public mind this time, which has altered the weight of what “Labor” is. “The Labor way” – think past Labor heavyweights – is not being pushed: it’s been subjugated to another voter imperative, which is the here and now, and where and how you’ll be in the future. Instead of “Labor” being the definitive force for this, the voter is. Rudd is standing for all those things, howsoever they are original or not, as a matter of voter needs and wishes. He’s not standing as a Labor man.
Every now and then Rudd talks about “Labor” – but note, it’s only to tie a voter thought to the ballot box name.
This is subtle stuff, but gee it’s powerful. Howard et al are trying desperately to tie the “Labor” brand to Rudd, and that they haven’t succeeded is very telling.
Note, also, that every time they try to do so, they also serve to entrench (as there is always another hand) that Rudd is not brand Labor. This enhances freshness, that a vision exists (in brief punter take), strength – all illusory for sure, but extremely effective – and warms buried sentiment towards Rudd for making the changes Labor needed to make, and heightens the tiredness/out of date imagery of his opponent.
I take most of that, although protest vote dynamics can be confusing. I guess I only mean, if Labor becomes generally considered to be home and hosed for all money, there is a certain mentality that will go against that grain, which is amenable to being fanned to some extent. Peter Beattie was always a master of somehow talking the prospect of a landslide into the perception of a tight race … to produce the landslide!
More generally, looking at the news tonight, the government seems strangely flat and unco as of this week. Howard could barely get out of the box on the 7.30 Report tonight. The analysis that goes “Howard is spending too much time defending his record instead of talking about the future” runs straight into a black hole when he tries to switch and the first question is “so, how long are you going to be around?” “Do you mean the the future next year, the future over the next 18 months?” This looks a deadly trap.
Chewing through this, I’m wondering now what moves a protest vote into a fear vote.
According to Lateline, tomorrow’s Australian is publishing a poll in which the 2PP vote is 54-46 in favour of the ALP, down from 58-42.
It’s interesting Sacha: (1) always doubt polls – a 5 point margin of error across two polls leaves a lot of room for false alarums; (2) 8 points is prima facie a more plausible election result than 58-42, so if we imagine it as an accurate reflection and correction, it’s comforting in that things are on track, as per normal if Labor is to win; (3) the only real event above the flim flam since the last poll has been the interest rate rise story, in which case if we imagine the poll as a true reflection of that event, read my post again, and if you’re an ALP voter, stay – on guard! Fat lady, long way to go, cold showers, etc.
Notwithstanding personal mistakes and successes of television advertisements, and not including other factors, I think the situation may be summed up by framing the “it’s time” and “time for change” elements in the context of voters (but how many?) being soft or not listening to any party. That would sit with otherwise Liberal voters Howard has lost – including the swinging or Old Labor voters he won to gain and keep office.
In terms of fear campaigns, while the heat isn’t on and the suburbs aren’t taking much notice at the moment, I think the key forces head to head will be Howard’s attack on Rudd and team Rudd (obviously) hitting up against Labor’s attack on Howard’s fitness to govern (which includes the contemporary context) and the fundamental question the Government hasn’t answered: who will be Treasurer?
In brief, it seems the two majors are able to gut the other pretty much to the same extent, so it boils down to who isn’t listening and the soft vote and how they’ll firm. I think I read somewhere that’s around 20% of the vote, in any case, it’s not a landslide at the mo’.
The two areas of current uncertainty then are the soft and deaf vote, and the votes Howard has already lost.
I accept your points in this post and thread, Chris. This all points to why Howard is confident he can win. I agree also that if Labor is sung as home and hosed, some people will make a correction or be comfortable to leave others to be bold and stay themselves with LNP. Not contradicting that is the same song can provide confidence to some other voters and they’ll go with the perceived flow.
I wonder just how many voters Howard has lost, more than I concern for the soft and deaf, as the latter group as a guess would fall into roughly the same pattern as eventuates with the decideds (surely they wouldn’t swing drastically one way, if a swing isn’t on elsewhere), or would tend to favour Labor if Labor’s chances are reported as looking a win.
I should have added I think there is a critical difference between votes Rudd is attracting, and votes Howard has already lost. This goes to the psychological element which moves the pencil away from the LNP box – that people are more given to move away from what they dislike than towards what they do like.
Hence, Rudd has to remain as is, and Howard has to win votes back through either fear or favour. Given fear is the stronger, Howard has to get this right. I’m not convinced he will. All of this depends as said on the numbers Howard has already lost.
A further thought to this then is that the election could well have been decided already, (with the unreliable pointers showing a narrow Labor victory).
But the key: how many votes has Howard lost as of today?
It’s hard to figure. On the surface, the LNP is running a dreadful campaign, without any luck to boot, as far as I can tell, although I’m not following it very closely – pretty much only the headlines.
Again, this just makes me think that it is all too easy. There has to be something more going on underneath, or something planned down the track such as the “interest rate” play. The only alternative explanation for such a pedestrian government outing is to re-weight its past victories much more heavily in favour of luck, opportunism and ALP self-harm.
I also noticed that Kevin looked and sounded very commanding indeed on the 7.30 Report last night.
A bad day for Abbott is a good day for me so this was my favourite day evah. I can leave the country next week and miss the rest and be content. Tone being handed humble pie by the hosts in an interview on Sky News in the morning. No, he wasn’t handed it, they dropped it on him attached to an anvil marked ACME. “Well Minister, we asked Bernie Banton to be here but he couldn’t because HE IS HAVING CHEMOTHERAPY and you have not made THE FIGHT FOR HIS LIFE anyway easier, WHAT DO YOU HAVE TO SAY TO THAT????” On and on it went like that for what seemed like hours.
Then not showing up to the debate. Then when he did show up, the first thing out of his mouth was to insult the media, the same media he had just kept waiting for 35 minutes. And just now on Nine News, Laurie made sure to show Abbott after the debate muttering “that is bullshit” to Roxon. Ha! Hope that makes ABC news too.
HA! The extended Roxon-Monk private spat on 7.30 Report was even better. What a galah.
Why would you shake this man’s hand–TWICE?
Smiling, shaking hands for gratuitous photo op:
[in dulcit tones] You just can’t help yourself can you?
[slightly more audibly] No, and you sir are a complete disgrace.
Can we get another shot of you shaking hands and smiling?
Sure. Go fuck yourself. You stupid bitch. Now smile–sweetly, like a good girl.
[ENDS}
Epilogue.
And the people saw it and were appalled and disgusted but re-elected them anyway and so got what they deserved.
Tony is the star so far. The Liberal blowhard, who the public likes to pull by the tail, just for laughs. Will he punch someone out at some stage?
Nicola Roxon certainly knows how to pull Tony’s tail. She damn near publically emasculated him in two terse sentences. More please, Nicola.