What a day. I don't consider myself a political tragic by any means, but didn't miss a moment of the coverage on the ABC last night. They acquitted themselves much better than the last time a PM was moved along this way.
Three out of the four press conferences were somewhere on the scale from very good to excellent. To his credit Tony Abbott took a couple of questions. They were both about his mooted attempt at a no-confidence vote in parliament. He claimed not to be into parliamentary games, which just goes to show that his glittering mendacity goes well with Julie Bishop's death stare. Tony Abbott's generic response to contemporary political issues is to say that we had the solutions in a proverbial yesterday (ie: before 2007), and we owe nothing to tomorrow.
Tony Abbott reckons Labor owes the nation an explanation. Well, I reckon he's got a few points he might like to clarify for himself. Perhaps we could start with the 'it doesn't explain nothing...it does explain some things' comment from Julia Gillard's press conference last night. There can be no doubt Tony Abbott has been at least complicit with some of the ugly gender politicking during Julia Gillard's time. It would be nice to hear why he felt it appropriate to stand in front of those placards at the anti-carbon tax rally. Actually, it would be very edifying to hear why he and two senior women from his party, Bronwyn Bishop and Sophie Mirabella, saw no problem with being photographed in front of those placards. Ah yes, weren't they serving a higher loyalty?The lack of policy in the Liberal profile is a problem. But I think people ought to remember things like the picture above. I think it is a significant touchstone for where the Liberals have traveled in recent years. They speak of elevating the tone, but their actions just don't match up to the windy rhetoric.
Sure, there are a lot of things about the last three years of Labor that will endure as generational charges against the Gillard government. People simply won't forget the vindictiveness towards the unemployed, particularly single parents. The paradoxical and destructive dithering over same-sex marriage. The constant race to the bottom to see who can be most inhumane and indecent towards people seeking refuge (and yes, I did hear Bob Carr's comments on Lateline). Then there are the cave-ins to lobbying from vested interests, starting with the miners. And yes, there is all the instability surrounding Kevin, and the unnecessary personal slanging by quite a number of the soon-to-be departed. People in glass houses, stones -- things could have been very different today.
But against these negatives there are quite a lot of positive achievements, of which the carbon tax-cum-trading-scheme, Disability Care and the residual Gonski package (again, for all it's paradoxical features) are two that spring instantly to mind. In spite of all the idiotic blather of the news media, I think the minority government has been anything but a hamstrung mess.
For what it's worth, I think Labor has done the right thing. Three years ago the excuse was that a good government had lost its way. This time round a good government had been consumed by its own strategic and tactical blunders. Rudd was right to say that the prospect of a Liberal-National government come September should not be assumed, and if there's any fight in the machine, then it should be all out. There are many things one could dislike about Kevin Rudd, but he has the ability to tell the story about Labor in a way Julia Gillard and her team never quite mastered. There is a generational change afoot in the Labor party with a lot of opportunities for new members, should the seats of departing luminaries be held after the election.
The reality is that Labor in 2013 has done something the Liberals could never bring themselves to accomplish when they had the chance any time before the 2007 election. Perhaps it is a measure of their niceness that they are not very sanguine about cutting down a leader whose performance isn't measuring up. John Howard was unwise in allowing himself to be venerated and pandered to when a more hard-edged approach was required for the good of his party. For goodness sake, he practically offered them the knife, a well-marked target and a free shot, all on a silver plate, and the people who supposedly wanted the change to occur wouldn't do anything to bring it about. They were all charmed by the delusion that he would retire at a time of his choosing, just like the dear old Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports. It didn't happen.
By contrast, Julia Gillard called the spill saying that this time it was for keeps, and the looser retires. She has kept her side of the bargain. It is honorable, decent, and gives the party a better chance at performing well on election day. What amazes me is that this is a mystery to anyone.
Kevin Rudd seems never to have had the veneration problem within the Labor party, although he would be quite entitled to it. The question is whether he has learned a better pattern of behaviours for the new phase of his leadership. I guess we now get to find out.
