When does Abbott release anything other than a thought bubble? From ‘just turning the boats around’ to his spontaneous whim on paid maternity leave through to his flip flopping about being on the verge of a famous victory. Both sides are equally guilty of this sort of thing but there is precious little media scrutiny of Abbott’s lack of depth.

And of course all of this was inverted when Rudd was in ascendency; the media scrum just uncritically shuffled off in whatever direction he pointed them.

We have churned through 5 different party leaders in this electoral cycle. I don’t know if that circumstantial or the machine now just chews them up and spits them out like they were gen y pop stars.

Gillard bent over backwards trying to frame asylum seekers as a big picture issue requiring complex long term solutions. Within 2 days the media were breathlessly reporting her ‘policy’ was in ‘tatters’ despite both the ET President and Prime Minister saying they would approach the issue with open minds.

In that environment, how do you create reform based on consensus, especially if the singular objective of the opposition is to create ‘great big new scare campaigns’?

I also think Rudd copied Howard too much.
Like howard he spent so much energy getting to PM he couldn’t figure out what to do when he got there properly.

Then he had statistical illiterates getting rid of him when the ALP would be comfortably re-elected.

Kevin you needed a Liberal caucus

Hawke’s humanity carried his capacity for tough decisions and allowed him to embody the politics of ‘difficulty’ and ‘change’ in a way that Rudd could not. Hawke as a former figurehead of the unions (then I imagine seen as more representative than now) gave him a capacity to act not in the short term but longer term interests of working people. That’s a hard act to do.

Labor started to drop its argument for te stimulus once it became about waste … They didn’t want the legacy and so got lumbered with the negatives. Labor may rue this for a long while.

I suspect when another shock come the public at that point will remember Rudd more fondly if the Govt don’t take such action.

Rudd’s primary fault in my view a refusal to prioritise policies, cull dross and announce ‘non-core’ promises early. Everything promised was a commitment – it was crazy! He needed to pick 2 or 3 big things and just do those. He also refused to provide any coherence. For example, it was obvious that say the seamless economy policy was best thought of as a wider issue about federation, but here there was no prime ministerial narrative – no imprimatur. So whilst Ministers like Emerson or such would make a key speech on something like that, in my view those speeches should have been by the PM himself. he should have done less programme specific speeches – that Ministers can do – and more here’s where we’re going on big stuff. i.e. how all the issues (seemeingly dispirate relate). Hawke and Keating did that brilliantly and Howard often did as well.

So the PM became about programmes not narratives. He didn’t discuss frameworks or motive. Look where it got him …. A man with no centre of gravity.

And by the way, that’s no media spin, he genuinely could form polar opposite views about similar issues and somehow not see why that was intellectually fraudulent … maybe he did and just choose to ignore that. This is why his The Monthly essay was so tortured and horrid … so perhaps he did do narrative but it was misguided stuff when he did that.

Much to say …

In response to your question at #27, yes and no.

I think their performance has been of a piece with the Great Complacency. My test of political complacency is this “is the government’s benchmark zero pain or some calibrated decision to do stuff, and take some hits for getting some things done, of course falling comfortably short of taking huge risks of losing office.”

By that standard they were complacent, whereas ironically Howard, who ended in the Great Complacency understood at the outset of his prime ministership that as a political question, getting unpopular stuff done in your first term was important – and he did a lot of cutting in his first year, even though it was around a year too early from an economic point of view (roughly what Cameron and Clegg are up to in the UK).

OTOH I think Rudd’s handling of the GFC was his finest hour – a really great macroeconomic and political achievement – especially as I was speaking to senior people on his staff after the first cash splash and they assured me that there couldn’t possibly be any more stimulus because it would drive them into deficit. I told them then that they’d better get their headspace around choosing between the lesser of evils because there were no longer any pain free options. Rudd cut through that and took Treasury’s advice. So around 150,000 people should be grateful to him for their jobs for that.

That was the strange and sad thing about Rudd. He didn’t lack political courage so much as judgement. I mean sticking to his guns on the RRT was an act of (foolhardy) political courage, and yes I know the spinmeisters were all telling him he couldn’t back down on it having backed down on other stuff. But that’s nonsense. If he’d seen the challenge coming and sorted out the tax he would have lived to fight another day, and probably got over the line at the next election.

But Rudd still never really figured out that he was in government, that he didn’t need to worry much about what the Opposition was saying unless it was right in some powerful way. The Rudd Govt were as consumed by political tactics as an Opposition is and needs to be, and yet they were not just a government but a new government, covered in the glow of a honeymoon and protected by the invisible shield of psychological self preservation (who amongst swingers having voted in a new government wants to admit they were wrong?).

Rudd was also instrumental in making the first budget less restrictive than others wanted, showing a lack of political acumen entirely consistent with being part of the GC.

But even so I think the Rudd Government has been a fair bit better than a Howard Government would have been. Apart from their great passion for labour market ‘deregulation’ (A 1,200 page package of legislation), they were really just presiding over the odd idea that wafted up from the depths of the bureaucracy. Costello would only have added a coat of paint, though by now perhaps Malcolm Turnbull would be in charge and pretty obviously he’s got a lot more get up and go, though we’ll never know what he’s like unless and until he gets into Government.

observa you still haven’t offered a scrap of evidence to show price controls were ever contemplated.

From a very quick google search…
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/04/15/2217746.htm

The scheme will require service stations around the country to notify a central authority of their prices for the next 24 hours by 2:00pm.

They will then be required to stick to that price for the entire day, thus eliminating afternoon price hikes.

Sounds like price controlling regulation to me, presumably compliance costs to be borne by the business in question (and passed to the consumer).

I do note that when the price per barrel of oil was going up, up, up (before the GFC) so fuel prices went up in line with that, but when the price of oil fell down fuel prices only can down a little bit and have rapidly caught up the difference. Someone is making a fatter margin than they used to do.

I also note that Rudd could have saved a lot of angst and done a better job for a lower price by not using brute force to tell the petrol station how they were going to need to report to Big Brother every day, but by just paying a few people to zip around on scooters with GPS receivers and numeric keypads. Statistics can reasonably easily extract whatever features you care to discover (including afternoon price hikes), but making the raw data available as a web feed allows private data-mungers to extract all kinds of interesting bits while cutting down the taxpayer spend. A clear case for public money delivering public goods (see Nick, someone does listen).

Maybe a Kaggle competition — how to implement Fuelwatch in a way that is cheap, effective and non-interfering? Hmmm, not sure of a fair way to pick the winner. OK first a Kaggle competition on the best way to pick a fair winner in the type of political questions that have no clear winner (and since this competition is recursive, the winner must evidently pick itself).

Obviously you can’t say much in 800 odd words. This piece is a bit more substantial but I now disagree with one statement made (that’s the breaks when you publish something): http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=9376

Worth a read perhaps. In my view Andrew Leigh should not shelve his visions as he could really cut through (but be quite divisive). Maybe Andrew could go where other economic minded MPs fear to tread. Oblivion or bust … who knows.

Oblivion likely … but why die wondering and get out before you’re 45 if you fail.

Still, the first terms should be a time of doing things. Blair waited for a second term and ended up with little as a result.

Are you still contending the only reason why people drive is to buy petrol?

“you do not know this at present.”

Wrong. You don’t know if I don’t know.

“you do not approve of effective markets”

The market is effective, fuel is historically cheap, we’ve conquered the tyranny of distance and margins are low.

The take is in squeezed supply vis a vis a series of wars, high taxation, double taxation and depressed exploration globally through the 1980s and 1990s when the Saudis cheated their cartel or fuel became very cheap due to high and sustained growth.

We don’t need an artificially construction of an abstract idea to save a few dollars here and there for people who forget to buy fuel when it is in less demand. They can most probably afford it anyway.

you look at a website ans see where the best prices are.
you might be only driving in your local area or you might be driving elsewhere.

It doesn’t matter you would still know what the best prices is.

you do not know this at present.
No you say they do not want it.but then you do not approve of effective markets

Yes Homer, that’s all people drive their cars for. To buy petrol.

You dunce.

“Walrasian auctioneers do exist when you have said websites!”

So the Government can get rid of market inefficies by simply posting information no one wants?

Right…

I assume it went broke. On the cat you contended they did not try to make a significant proportion of revenue from impulse item sales.

I agree that consensus on its own is no recipe for anything – and that it raises the problems you mention. But it can be orchestrated by a leadership that has some idea of where it’s going.

In some ways democratic government itself runs by protecting vested interests. There will always be a lot of that. But I think consensus does enable you to agree upon and focus on a few big things that need doing, and, though I’m pretty ignorant about Dutch politics, I’d expect that the Netherlands is broadly pretty good amongst its democratic peers at focusing on the important few things that need doing.

I guess if I had to formalise my argument it would be along the lines of Calmfors and Driffill’s argument in the labour market. I wrote a little about that here.

No I have worked in a service station. I showed up your knowledge of how Service stations work was err wrong.

It has nothing to do with collusion.
it merely enables consumers to make more informed decisions.
It makes consumer sovereignty something practical not theoretical.

I am inferring looking at a website showing all petrol stations prices is more efficient than driving past a service station.

Walrasian auctioneers do exist when you have said websites!

As I said it is a pity people who claim to support the market system do not understand how it works.

that is catallaxy to a tee

When debtaing Fuel Watch on catallaxy you contended that it would help service stations, whilst positing a business model no one who has ever worked in one, nor any other economist has ever seen.

“Choice believed they had a good version of Grocery watch on board as well. gosh no public servants.”

So why spend the public money then econometric evidence shows no collusion etc?

“We nee only to drive past a service station to know the price. Yes but i need to drive past it and I have no idea of how it compares to others.”

You’re inferring that each route normally taken only has one service station. You’re also inferring we only have one opportunity to fill up our cars without facing high opportunity costs of running out of fuel.

We don’t need the Government doing this. This is very marginal benefit stuff, the kind of work that leads to poor Governance.

“look up what a Walrasian auctioneer is.”

They don’t exist in the real world. Kevin couldn’t and Julia still cannot conjure one up.

I am not sure about this. The Netherlands has the institutions you seem to ask for (a triage between politics, unions, and business) and I have not once in my life seen a successful challenge to vested interests in the Netherlands. Consensus in practice seems to me that vested interests are forewarned and organised against any opposition. Any minister advocating something new gets isolated, ridiculed, and then sacrificed.

I don’t know what made the Hawke era different, but I doubt it had much to do with co-opting business and unions and you shouldn’t expect much from an institutionalized triage system.

A more comprehensive form of the WA fuelwatch would have helped.

Choice believed they had a good version of Grocery watch on board as well. gosh no public servants.

you really cannot even get that right.

let us just check out Observa’s logic.
We nee only to drive past a service station to know the price. Yes but i need to drive past it and I have no idea of how it compares to others.

A fuelwatch actually tells me the prices. I can either get petrol in my local area or get it when I drive somewhere elase but I have noticed it is cheaper.

If you actually understood the market system or fuelwatch you would know that!

look up what a Walrasian auctioneer is.

“Where you get price controls from who knows”
Simply that it was constantly implied(dog-whistled) in Labor’s election campaign that ‘working families’ were being screwed by the Cole/Woollies duopoly and Big Oil and Rudd and Co will saveya! ie we’ll get those ripoff prices down folks and when they couldn’t SHORT OF LUNAR PRICE CONTROLS this was the inevitable result-

ABC’s PM Nov 9 2009

BRONWYN HERBERT: Craig Emerson is the Federal Minister for Small Business, Competition and Consumer Affairs.

Hey says the Government’s Grocery Choice website would not have made a difference in lowering costs, but says more competition in the sector is needed.

CRAIG EMERSON: Putting prices on the internet, in a website, while giving consumers more information doesn’t of itself provide more competition in grocery retailing. We are doing the hard policy work of introducing more competition by tearing down the barriers to entry by rivals to Coles and Woolworths into grocery retailing.

And on scrapping Grocerywatch-

‘Yesterday, after a meeting with major retailers, Dr Emerson said it had become clear it was not feasible to implement the envisaged Grocery Choice proposal. It “would not be able to generate reliable, timely data as a basis for consumers to make meaningful comparisons in their local neighbourhoods”, he said’
http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/national/grocery-website-quietly-checks-out/story-e6frea8c-1225740964270

“funny how all those people who loves markets didn’t think giving consumers more information to make a decision was a good idea”
As if paying millions to public servants to do what consumers do everytime they drive past a servo or check their junk mail or visit their local supermarkets will somehow help drive down prices and make them better off? I’ll let Emerson’s final words on the matter explain it to you.

that should give you something of a hint.

Where you get price controls from who knows.

funny how all those people who loves markets didn’t think giving consumers more information to make a decision was a good idea.
It would have been the closest thing to a Walrasion auctioneer we would have seen.

it actualy enhanced the market mechanism and consumer sovereignty.

That’s piffle when Rudd clearly raised the expectations of the gallery as reported back here-
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/opinion/watchdog-will-have-no-teeth/story-e6frg75x-1111117096979
Then after axing the useless Grocerywatch(as if consumers don’t know where best to shop) Emerson gets it right here-
http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/national/canberra-to-replace-grocery-pricewatch-20090628-d0s5.html
But then he was always a healthy skeptic along with Ferguson and Tanner-
http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/leaky-vessel-will-sail-on-with-fuelwatch/2008/05/28/1211654124083.html
And that was essentially always this L-Plater Govt’s problem. Play to the gallery and dump themselves in it longer term when they can’t deliver the rhetoric.