The Demise of Australia's Xena
/You know I started to write about racism again yesterday but the day was filled with interruptions. From Twitter mostly (I know, major distraction). It’s not like I could shut it off and lock myself away to write. Someone might tweet me. Someone might reply to one of my tweets. Someone IMPORTANT. Someone I’m trying to impress. Like a doe-eyed, silky-haired King Charles Spaniel, always wanting to please, always seeking attention and lurve (me not the IMPORTANT person) I sit and dribble unashamedly with my paws in the air taking in every scrap of attention. Incoming tweet. Oh it’s not for me… Incoming tweet. Oh it’s not about me… Incoming…
I did read someone saying that Twitter was full of people seeking… no. It’s escaped me. Seeking something. Damn. That was probably important. Well anyway, my reply to that is, AREN’T WE ALL?
And then an historic moment passed before us all; Prime Minister Julia Gillard was ousted by Kevin Rudd in a leadership takeover, much like she herself had done to Rudd three years ago.
The irony.
I don’t know what to think about Julia Gillard. I am really not politically savvy. I have not had time or the inclination to follow politics for years. The last time I looked, Malcolm Fraser was in and I rather liked his droll demeanour. I had no idea what he was striving to do or what that meant for the country. I was an ignorant voter.
Still am. Although I am not alone. Last election my bro voted for the Liberal candidate because they were offering free rubbish bins or some such. HE wasn’t alone in that either. His friends followed suit.
What a sorry bunch we Aussies seem to be at the polling station. And I speak for only MOST of us. Some are well worded up or powered up or just read up. But they don’t read me so I can say what I like.
Ad Astra, blogger at the Political Sword , is a fan of Julia Gillard (writing well before last night’s events) believes we should be judging our politicians and their parties on their actual performance, not on polls. What a novel idea, one I shall run past my bro. And his colluding bin whore friends for good measure. Ad Astra is not alone in this as Ben Pobje at the Guardian also agrees with this concept:
“Gillard may be the nicest woman in the world... Big whoop. But I’m an Australian voter, not Gillard’s life coach…
...To determine whether Gillard is a good prime minister, we should be weighing things like the achievement of Disability Care against things like her cynically brutal treatment of desperate asylum seekers; not how proud we are of her for taking crap from Alan Jones without crying…
…Obsessing over the personalities of the people we vote for is dangerous. Ronald Reagan was a “nice guy” and he spent eight years helping his rich white friends hold the poor Americans' heads in the toilet.”
I love that guy. Pobje, not Reagan.
Ad (if I may call him that- I actually don’t know who it is much like my own nom de plume. You may call me Left. No. I don’t like that. Too late to think it through) has a long list of her formidable achievements and reforms. And they are admirable. Although being the ignoramus that I am, I haven’t heard of half of them ( the critically important BER and HIP programs, the carbon tax/ETS, the MMRT, NBN) and don’t understand the other half (the critically important BER and HIP programs, the carbon tax/ETS, the MMRT, NBN).
I guess that’s where the term ‘half wit’ comes from. Never mind.
“What a pity the critics don’t start with the many accomplishments of the Gillard Government and suggest how the electorate can be made aware of them.”
I find a strange comment given they’re critics and unlikely to aid her cause. But anyway Ad Astra is a faithful friend.
Clint Howitt writing in the Independent says there was nothing illegal or illegitimate about her ousting Kevin Rudd 3 years ago. Howitt claims Gillard approached Rudd face to face and told him of her intentions and that widespread dissatisfaction in the party was sufficient justification for him to be toppled. Well Rudd can hardly bring THAT one up against her now can he?
Howitt goes on,
“On top of the usual irrelevances that women in positions of prominence have to endure, like her dress sense, her hair styles, her shoes and so on, she also faced a barrage of conservative disapproval over her childlessness, her atheism and her marital status.”
In addition, minority government creates an extra burden to an already heavy and burdensome job. All that negotiating with the Greens and with Independents. To her credit she seems to have done a fair job and pushed through some 300 pieces of legislation. That’s something isn’t it? Of course quantity does not mean quality, but I’ll vociferously argue that point with you when it comes to my second bottle of Bolly thanks very much.
She did aim and claim to head a ‘reformist’ government and that is inevitably fraught with danger when facing conservatives and those vast industry magnates with vested interests in keeping her legislation from being passed if their name appears anywhere in the fine print and it involves government hands taking out of their pockets rather than government hand outs going into their pockets. Subtle difference you see. But sometimes, okay, always, involving millions if not billions of dollars. As Ghandi said, Money Talks. No, I know. It was Kirk Douglas.
Howitt again,
“Major reform is risky. It is easy for little things to go wrong and be blown out of proportion by those who oppose it. We need look no further than the stimulus packages used by the Rudd government to deal with the GFC in 2008 and 2009.
This was the biggest global financial crisis since the Great Depression. The size of the problem demanded a huge response to prevent the country being plunged into a major recession.
The success of the measures are borne out by the fact that Australia was the only one of the 33 advanced economies to record positive growth during that time and not enter recession.”
The achievements Howitt lists are: a strong economy, low inflation, low unemployment, low government debt and record levels of investment, action begun on climate, development of renewable energy projects, NBN happening, health reform package, member of the UN Security Council, Minerals Resource Rent Tax, plain packaging for cigarettes, record numbers of uni students, apprenticeships and traineeships, increase in the tax free threshold from $6,000 to $18,200, record increases for pensioners and improvements in working conditions for lower paid workers.
Both the IMF and treasury review discuss the profligate government of John Howard versus the first reduction in government spending in 42 years under Julia Gillard.
For further, see http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-01-11/imf-labels-howard-most-profligate-pm/4460900
Writing in Crikey, Bernard Keane reveals that the big hill for Labor up which it needed to push its vast success in the economy was the voters themselves. He blames (kind of) Wayne Swan for essentially being really good at his job but not at selling his product; a major drawback in the spin capital. And of course the media too were to blame for thwarting Labor’s good PR attempts at each laboured step. We need to remember that everyone else on the planet slid into depression and not the Zoloft requiring kind but the food stamp requiring type. We quietly entered our 21st consecutive year of prosperity with barely a nod to the orchestrators from anyone except Paola Totaro from the Guardian, a London based ex pat back in March.
What is it about Aussies that we delight in calling ‘Poms’ whingers when we in actual fact are the greatest perpetrators of plaintive, complaining gripes to have polluted the atmosphere? The world was struggling; vast numbers of citizens in the US lost their homes, jobs, Greece actually fell apart financially, even Switzerland had to slow down the clock making and we were whingeing because the Murdoch and Fairfax press kept telling us how badly off we were and the opposition did their jobs and CONSTANTLY and venomously opposed everything and everyone and for some inexplicable reason, we listened with wrapt attention and not a little glazed-eyed dribbling.
Paola Totaro today in the Guardian remonstrated that the last week in particular and the last three years in general, of particularly vituperative vitriol against the Prime Minister, was simply an indication that Australia was not yet ready for a female leader. Parvati forbid that be so. Or Diana if she be more powerful.
For The Conversation's Michelle Grattan, the “transition” is probably too little too late:
"Labor has finally made the decision it ought to have taken long ago, but the counter-revolution has been extremely bloody and there are bodies all over the place ... It is a great pity they did not have the political nous and hard headedness to realise a year ago that he was their best option. Labor’s prospects would be much better."
So we can gather from that analysis that the Labor party are Game of Thrones fans (who isn’t?). But failed to cotton on early enough and only started watching late in Season Two. Too late that is. Advisers heads need to roll on that one. Badly misread. Get with the program!
Annabel Crabb from The Drum at the ABC wanted to know:
“What if the polls turn out to be chimeric after all, like they often do in these situations? What if the people who answered "yes" to the poll question about whether they would be more likely to vote Labor if Kevin Rudd were restored to the Labor leadership find a new thing to be grumpy about now that's been done? What if the poll questions that weren't included, like "Would you be more or less likely to vote for a party which, having ripped down leader X and replaced him with leader Y three years ago, now rips down leader Y and replaces her with leader X, seemingly in an effort designed entirely to second-guess your answer to the question you are right now being asked? Assuming an election were held this weekend?" turn out to be just as significant as the ones that were?”
Confusing but essentially true. Just asking the question will ensure a negative answer because like all those awful maths questions in high school exams, you just switch off after a while and it all becomes Hindi so you tick whatever the hell boxes just to get out of there. I think that’s what she means anyway.
Meanwhile, across the world in New York, Matt Siegel for the New York Times said,
“She also faced a relentless political opposition that worked hard to deny her the accolades a different leader with a similarly wide range of legislative accomplishments might have received…”
Ouch! if even a foreign journalist reads our domestic politics that way…
Lenore Taylor, the Guardian,said today,
“Gillard will now leave politics at the next election, gifting Rudd a better chance of unity than she ever had. She negotiated a more hazardous set of circumstances and endured more personal vitriol than any recent leader, with a resilience that amazed even her enemies.“
Tell me again why she’s leaving?
And finally, I’ll leave the last word to Tony Wright from The Age who wrote,
“Julia Gillard was, declared her outgoing deputy Wayne Swan, "one of the toughest warriors who have ever led the Australian Labor Party".
Watching Ms Gillard present her last press conference as Prime Minister, few would have much argument with Swan's assessment.
…But she did not dwell on the negatives…
Ms Gillard took no questions. She'd said her piece. And that was all.”