Tuesday, July 06, 2010

Gillard Tanks, ALP Plummeting to Election Oblivion

It is a fortnight since Gillard rolled Rudd, surprising her own party who desperately wanted something to assure them that the poll results they were reading were wrong. Media analysis had ignored the situation, and so the public were surprised by the desperation of the act. It is accepted wisdom that Rudd was the worst PM Australia has ever had, but it was hoped inertia would be sufficient to keep the ALP in government. Indeed, in January 2010, the current position seemed impossible. But Gillard has failed to seize an initiative, and now looks like hesitating over when to call the election, instead of temporizing. She has backflipped, but failed to change policy direction on issues that matter, and so the ALP are set to do worse than when they had Rudd in charge.
The new PM, the first female, a red head, foreign born, driven by ideology and compromise, a powerful advocate stands for nothing, but has ambition. There is nothing wrong with ambition, and in fact those with a strong ambition to serve have been spectacular in the past. But those with a powerful ambition to be served have also been notorious failures. The ALP were so surprised by the turn of events that some members, when questioned by the ABC, accused the ABC of scare mongering. The Telegraph ran a news story of how the CIA had been surprised by the turn of events. It had happened very soon after Gillard had declared it wouldn't, and gave examples of flying off Earth or playing for football sides. The ALP were on the nose, and had endured a record turn around at a Penrith by-election, of which Federal issues were not said to have played a big deal, but the voters didn't seem to notice that. Red Kerry on the 7:30 report had exposed Rudd's glass jaw in an interview, and had worked assiduously hard to claim to have found something wrong with Mr Abbott too, but Rudd's failure was noticeable to all but those spruiking the ALP in the press. Unreleased poll figures for the ALP, leaked to journalist Andrew Bolt, showed that the ALP faced substantial electoral defeat based on marginals alone.
The media missed the ALP poll collapse. Following a desperate budget, which had unlikely numbers, the usual crowd applauded the ALP as being proud and reforming. The 'reform' was actually a tax grab, breaking many election promises of '07, which had been sprung on the mining industry without prior discussion. At first, the government claimed an impending scare campaign to access a $58 million war chest, but then it became apparent that the adverts were not working for them. Hawker Britton gave qualified support for Rudd in interview. When the mining industry launched an ad campaign, Bolt criticized it for not being well directed and opposing the ALP where it was needed. But those in the back rooms of the ALP were aware that support for them had collapsed. The ALP had made many promises but gave little detail in '07, and so they couldn't match the expectation they had established with an election win. It was like when Keating had won his election .. he had promised a lot, cynically with the view that the Conservatives would be unable to reach the higher standard. But Keating had won and couldn't achieve anything like what he had promised .. except notable pork barrels. Rudd's only achievement was to create numerous pork barrels, he failed in all his policy areas. Even Rudd's parting speech listed only the areas where he had failed. But still the press were not reporting the concerns that those polled were expressing. So that even when public polls were given by the press on the issues, the questions clouded the results in that there was no clear way of favoring a conservative agenda.
Rudd failed on the environment, he had signed the Kyoto agreement, but he did not back it up with anything worthwhile, meanwhile the conservatives offer clear gains for the environment without the insane budget crushing of the ALP. Rudd failed to negotiate the GFC, first by attacking the economy in the lead up to the fall, and then spending insanely high on ill thought projects. The economy was in good order from the previous government, and so the damage Rudd has done has been masked so far, but the cracks are showing, and interest rates are rising regularly as they must. The fake apology to Aborigines damaged brand ALP among indigenous peoples, noting that important work from the previous government had been opposed, and legal advice sought to wrap it up. Little has been written of Rudd the diplomat's early failures, like blowing up Australia's close relationship with Timor in a bungled black op that almost had the President and PM of Timor assassinated, but many have noted Rudd's failure to engage properly with China, India, Indonesia, USA, NZ, Fiji, Cambodia, Afghanistan, Iraq or Israel, to name a few. Rudd promised a win on IR laws but the union movement were dissatisfied and the reforms had been crushed, and so industry was tanking, with many sandwich shops and small businesses struggling under ridiculous legislation which clearly prevented fair work or fair outcomes for workers. Rudd promised compassion with immigration, but it has become apparent that the Pacific Solution had been the compassionate device as some 170 people are known to have died for Rudd's bad policy, and over five thousand peoples have paid from $5k to over $20k to come to Australia and face internment for undetermined periods. It isn't many people in the scheme of things, but each represents tragedy of failed policy on a substantial scale. Even so, many reasonable people had voted ALP in '07, and it is a hard thing for people to accept they made a mistake when they have made a choice, and so despite the broken promises and neglect, it was probably hoped by the ALP that people would give them a second term so as to give the government the benefit of a doubt, and an opportunity to prosecute their policy agenda. But it had become apparent there was no policy agenda, and that the ALP were liable to say anything to explain what was happening, and was unwilling to make the hard decisions needed to govern, favoring making decisions seem hard.
In January, when Mr Abbott was asserting his policy direction as a new leader for the conservatives, the ALP looked to be riding high. Rudd had had the ability to force through parliament legislation that would have provided for an ETS, but instead chose to take steps to weaken the position of Mr Turnbull as leader of the Liberal party. When Mr Turnbull was rolled, Rudd's political capital was high, even though he had numerous policy failures. Rudd failed to call an early election, but instead had someone write a book under his name. Meanwhile, Australians were dying as a result of Rudd policy failures. Some died in Rudd's favored war in Afghanistan, others died while doing their business installing insulation into roofs. At any time, the ALP could have admitted mistakes and made policy changes, but they failed to.
When Gillard seized power, she could have made those important decisions. She could have admitted that the pacific solution had been right and that she was wrong to have criticized it the way she had, and she would take the right steps to fix the problem. Instead she chose to rename the policy and call it her own. She needs to buttress the policy with initiatives which Mr Abbott suggests, but she won't as she needs to maintain a point of difference. Her policy is yet another failure which she embraces, not as bad as Rudd's, but still cynical and a failure to address real issues. Similarly with the mining tax, she has renamed it and made it political, so that the industry recognizes the value is too small for them to blow a budget on, but the opposition conservatives must oppose because it is a bad tax. This will go some way to allowing the cheer team claim that industry endorses the ALP plan, but it doesn't. But still the figures given by the ALP on the tax are wrong, but what they need to run for an election with bogus promises that the conservatives will not match because it is based on unrealistic expectations.
Gillard has hesitated when she needed to show she was in charge. Whenever she calls an election, the ALP will pay a high price for this failure of leadership.

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