The 44th Parliament

[pim]

It opens today. But the real show starts tomorrow. Expect a lot of stumbles from the Abbott Government with plenty of schadenfreude for us. Remember the Howard Government in its first term? I think 6 ministers crashed & burned and Beazley Labor managed to claw back the 1996 landslide in 1998. And then they made the fatal mistake of thinking that all they had to do was allow the Howard Government to hang itself while they (Labor) presented a small target, slid quietly back into office and then it would be a case of "What did we do with that starter button marked Hawke/Keating?". We know how that one panned out: the Howard Liberals had another 9 years in government while Labor floundered as a hopeless and directionless Opposition which led to a series of floundering and reactive Labor Governments. Which is how we got to where we are today.

So while I fully expect lots of stumbles from an L-plated Abbott Government, and maybe even a couple of ministerial scalps (please let one of them be Scott Morrison!), if Labor supporters then conclude that the Abbott Liberals will hang themselves so all Shorten Labor has to do is sit tight, that's a recipe for a long-term Abbott Government. The Abbott Libs will fumble and stumble in their first term, and the spectacle of them fumbling and stumbling will be an enjoyable one for us - I don't deny that! - but they'll also learn and they'll get on top of the business of being a government rather than an opposition. The strong chances are that they'll be returned at the next election because that's what happens. It's how Shorten Labor is going to pan out that interests me. Shorten said he plans to adopt a three stage Party/Policy/People approach. So first on the agenda is more party reform which in my view is absolutely essential. Since moving to SA I've never been allowed to vote in an SA Labor Party preselection. I did in NSW - lots of times. I want rank-and-file involvement in candidate preselection to be a matter of course. And that's just for starters. If Shorten Labor ends up using its time in opposition making Labor an exemplar of best practice in mass party democracy the political dividends will be enormous because the Liberals under Abbott are fast becoming world's worst practice in mass party top down dictatorship. The time will come when Abbott will pay a terrible price for that, particularly if faces a Shorten-led Labor Party that has addressed its internal democratic deficits and fixed 'em!

So internal party reform is, on its own, a huge task and could take up all the energies of the Labor Party. But Shorten has also set the party the task of policy makeover the way Whitlam did in the late 1960s. Make no mistake, he's set himself a massive task. But nothing less is required.

When we think of Whitlam we tend to think of Whitlam PM and we forget that Whitlam was Opposition Leader for twice as long as he was PM. His achievements as Opposition Leader were monumental and ground-breaking in restructuring and repositioning the Labor Party so that it finally moved on from the old Curtin/Chifley model to a modern late 20th century mass party that understood what sort of place Australia was becoming, had a message that resonated with late 20th century Australian suburbanites and was comfortable with the new medium of television so it could communicate that message.

Just as Whitlam moved Labor on from Curtin/Chifley, which is what that magnificent old bugger Arthur Calwell had represented and had been a relic of, Bill Shorten's task of Party/Policy/People will be to move Labor on from Whitlam. You have to wish him the best of luck. He's going to need it. It's why I voted for him as leader. I hope he delivers.

[Freddy]

If Labor can get its act together, then they can ensure that Abbott is restricted a one-term wonder.
As tempting as it is, the ALP should avoid the same antics that an Abbbott led opposition engaged in.
It then wouldn't be to difficult for the Australian people to realise just who are the incompetent children within the house.

[pim]

The "antics" that you refer to that the Abbott-led Opposition indulged in were summed up very pithily by Keating: "Make me PM or I'll wreck the place!" Clearly the Shorten Opposition is not in a position to throw its weight around in that way.

It isn't just a matter of defeating your opponents. Spreading fear and dismay is the easy part. Abbott succeeded brilliantly in his campaign of negative retail politics and he spooked Labor under both Gillard and Rudd. But that's over. Abbott is now PM, Gillard is out of the loop and Rudd is that most irrelevant of creatures, an opposition backbencher. Like it or lump it, the game has changed and so have the players - either by being eliminated, replaced or placed in different roles. The caravan has moved on.

I doubt, Freddy, that Abbott will be a one-term wonder but it may be possible to limit him to two terms. If there's any lesson that Labor has had to have learned it's this one: Never underestimate Tony Abbott, the man is a political cobra who will strike again and again with lethal effect.

It remain s a fact that the Abbott Liberals are a first term government and as such they will stumble. They already have! I fully expect a few ministers will crash & burn in the next couple of years and I wouldn't be surprised if one of them was Scott Morrison. I also think that the Abbott Liberals will cop grief from the PUP party. Who knows! Rupert Murdoch could cark it over the next couple of years. Now that would be a real game changer! But I'd lay short odds that the Abbott Liberals will get at least two terms and they'll learn their craft as a government.

Bill Shorten will not become PM simply by curling up into a ball, Beazley-style, and waiting for the Abbott Liberal Government to implode. That's not going to happen. Bill Shorten is going to have to be the leader who uses the time in the wilderness to give the Labor Party a makeover: in its internal structures to address the current democratic deficit within the party, in its policy frameworks and also in the message he crafts to communicate those policies to the voters. That's what Party/Policy/People means. At the same time he has to be an effective opposition leader in holding the Abbott Government to account and in exposing its shortcomings.

It'll be a thankless task. Hell, it's a shit sandwich! But he wanted it and now he's got it. The ALP lost its connection to the Australian people - especially under Gillard but also under Rudd - and it'll be up to Shorten to be the guy who reconnects. Whitlam did it. He ate the shit sandwich. You really need to see the parlous situation that the ALP was in after the 1966 Vietnam landside election defeat, coming on top of all the DLP shit of the 1950s and Evatt slowly descending into insanity. Calwell was a magnificent bloke. His speech to Parliament when Menzies announced conscription for military service in Vietnam was as inspirational, as dignified and as eloquent as it gets. But he represented a Labor model that was passé and that the Australian people wouldn't have a bar of. When Whitlam took over the Labor Party was in worse shape than before the Split of 11 years previously. And yet Whitlam's makeover of the party took it to office in two terms. It can be done and it has been done.

Shorten impressed me when he invoked Whitlam, not as PM but as Opposition Leader and it's why I voted for him. Whitlam didn't sit on his hands and wait for Holt, Gorton and McMahon to implode and give him government. God knows the post-Menzies Liberals rapidly became a shambles but what Whitlam did was craft a message that the Australian people wanted to hear and keep giving that message. It is a fact that Labor has lost that connection with the voters who in turn are voting all over the place. Labor lost pretty convincingly and the Liberals won handsomely, but not in a landslide. A lot of votes went everywhere and anywhere which means they're up for grabs. They're not going to go to Labor by default. Shorten's going to have to go out there and get 'em!

[Earl Grey]

Will Abbott's quip about "Electricity Bill" Shorten take root?

It could be a fatal tag, given Abbott's success with slogans.

[pim]

Depends on how deftly Labor is able to respond with "Phoney Tony" ... especially if when the price on carbon is eventually lifted there's no appreciable difference to what people pay for electricity.

[geopol]

From something I read in today's SMH I have become an Abbott Abhorrer, probably something like the Howard Hater I was some years ago...

[Freddy]

Nov 13, 2013 11:18:23 GMT 11 pim said:

Depends on how deftly Labor is able to respond with "Phoney Tony" ... especially if when the price on carbon is eventually lifted there's no appreciable difference to what people pay for electricity.

Typhoon Tony

[pim]

Not a good look, Freddy and it would be an own goal of massive proportions if the ALP went down the "Typhoon Tony" path. To call Abbott "Typhoon Tony" is to hold him responsible for a humanitarian tragedy in the Philippines of apocalyptic proportions. Now you might want to argue that he is but if Bill Shorten were to advance that proposition in the public domain guess who would lose big time and guess who would be laughing all the way to the next DD elections. Seriously!

So, OK, you want to use a massive humanitarian catastrophe and tragedy to score a few miserable domestic political points - which would go to the other side anyway because the shabbiness of it would be trumpeted from arsehole to breakfast time ...

Quite frankly I don't think the ALP will touch that one with a barge pole. Let the Greens carry the can for that one.

[Freddy]

So, Pim, at what point do we expect Tony to face reality, and do the right thing by retaining a price on carbon emissions, and therefore hold polluters responsible for the filth that they emit ?

[pim]

You're not suggesting that I'm advocating that the Labor Party lets Tony Abbott off the hook on climate change! I don't see how that follows! And nor do I see that the cause of getting action on climate change up there on the public policy agenda is advanced by deliberately scoring massive own goals.

Haven't you learned the lesson yet? Action on climate change had been up there on the public policy agenda and the political dice were loaded Labor's way on that issue. And then the so-called "left" in the form of the Greens launched a torpedo into its guts by blocking with the Liberals to sink Rudd's ETS.

Ahhh the left! So big on "gesture" politics and yet so tiny in their lack of understanding pf how the Perfect can so easily become the enemy of the Good. The left are great on street theatre politics but lousy when it comes to the business of translating ideas into government policy.

It's not surprising that the moniker "Typhoon Tony" comes from the Greens. It's the type of reckless adventurism that suits them. Are you really serious that Bill Shorten should lead the Labor Party in holding Tony Abbott responsible for a humanitarian catastrophe in the Philippines? Let's see how well that goes down in Parliament, or when Leigh Sales dissects what it means on 7:30, or Emma Alberici on Lateline, and lets see how it goes down on Q & A shall we?

[Freddy]

OK, so call him the Slogan Bogan instead. Point still stands that the ALP should go the knuckle. Just as going the knuckle was all that Slogan Bogan knew.

The ALP should hammer him as a yesterday man that's standing lone in the world, and looking pathetic while he is at it.
Remind the Slogan, and his walking brain-dead cabinet that no secrets can be kept now that technology has rendered that redundant, and the only reason for it is that, implicitly, they are fraudulent failures.

[Freddy]

So, it seems that PM Abbott is happy to turn a blind eye to a repressive regime, just so the victims of that regime are prevented from trying to come to Australia by boat.

[pim]

You're understating what Tony Abbott is doing in Sri Lanka at CHOGM. He isn't turning a blind eye. It's far worse than that. He's actively promoting the Sri Lankan regime as paragons of human rights and democracy. It's classic George Orwell in "1984" in which the Ministry of War is renamed the "Ministry of Peace" and the government department that's tasked with spewing forth the latest "hate" propaganda is called the "Ministry of Love".

By contrast David Cameron is using the fact that he's present at CHOGM to actively promote the issue of human rights. Now in "realpolitik" terms I can kinda understand why Tony Abbott would decline to join the boycott of CHOGM. The Liberals don't have a monopoly on "stop the boats". It's bipartisan in spite of all the white noise & bullshit/lies coming from the Liberals. If Rudd or Gillard were still PM I could imagine them going. The fact is that Australia needs the co-operation of Sri Lanka in the boat people issue. And that's bipartisan. So you'll notice the muted response from Labor to Abbott attending CHOGM.

But for Abbott to attend CHOGM is one thing. For Abbott then to become a propagandist for the Sri Lankan government, with its appalling human rights record, as some sort of paragon of democracy and human rights, is grotesque in the extreme.

[Freddy]

It's mind boggling that he would do something like this, all so he can "stop" a few boats.

[Freddy]

The dye has been cast. It is now acceptable for Governments to roll their PM within their first term.
I give Tony 12 Months, at best.