Oooh, harsh.
After this afternoon’s shameful and embarrassing display, all I can say is the election can’t come soon enough.
I’ve just gotten home from work and the late news isn’t on yet.
What happened??
Gillard opened up the leadership but nobody challenged. “Farce” is the word being bandied about.
Hah!
What’s going on in the Labor party? Why did they oust Gillard with a couple of months to go?
Is it just that the party is polling poorly with her as PM, or is there some sort of back-room scandal or something?
What a fucking debacle.
Last night there was a ‘spill’ and a caucus vote dumped Gillard for Rudd…57 to 45 votes. So this morning (after a visit to the Gov General) we will have a Rudd Prime Minister again.
The Labour Party has been polling disastrously, with a catastrophic defeat predicted in the Federal election coming up in September. Ostensibly, the cabinet felt that they would have a better chance of deflecting such a disaster with Rudd at the helm. Curious though that many of the cabinet members who voted for him last night hate his guts.
This term of government and especially the last few months have been the dirtiest and shonky ever IMHO. Even though Julia Gillard and her team have done a creditable job leading this country through some of the most precarious of economic times, she has been victim to concerted attacks by the Opposition, the media and of course has been mercilessly undermined by Rudd and his sycophants at every turn.
The Labour Party is now hoping that with Gillard gone, the polling might improve and even though they will still lose the election, it might not be as bad as it could have been. They’re hoping that the folks who had been traditional Labour voters will come back to the fold now that the ‘woman’ is gone.
Personally, I think they are going to be in for a bit of a shock. Sure, they might get places like Western Sydney back, but just watch out what happens in Victoria…the most liberal of states in Australia. It’s always been a Labour stronghold, but I predict there’s going to be a bigger fight here than they anticipate.
I’m just disgusted. Fuck the lot of 'em.
My perspective:
Rudd had an abrasive personality when dealing internally with him one-on-one, but the voter don’t care at all about internal frictions when the leader is publicly likeable. Rudd’s main issue was purely internal–he was a progressive not willing to play nice with the unions, so as soon as his poll numbers dipped (due to the dumping of the ETS at the urging of Gillard and Swan, no less) he was knifed. Gillard was installed as PM and gave some line about how the Rudd government “was a good government that had lost its way”, implying that her leadership would set things right. In reality, the only thing that had changed was a union-friendly PM had been installed.
People aren’t dumb. Gillard was seen as opportunistic and untrustworthy–someone who had seized power from a first-term PM as soon as she saw an opening. And despite the official narrative being that she did the honourable thing and reluctantly agreed to take the leadership at the urging of the party, it later emerged that she was instrumental in internally urging the party to dump Rudd and install her as PM. The voters knew this to be true, despite her transparent deflections when questioned on the matter.
On top of that, Gillard’s 2010 campaign was inept at best. Half-way through, she decided her robot-like tactics weren’t working and said that now voters would see “the real Julia”. It gave the impression of someone desperately spinning their image to find what works, not someone running an honest campaign. Again, people aren’t dumb. Gillard looked like someone who was overly concerned with spin and who would rather bluster than give a straight answer. Frankly, the only reason the Coalition didn’t win a majority in 2010 is because Abbott is just so unlikeable.
Since then, Gillard, Swan and Emerson have demonstrated zero political acumen when it comes to presenting as a credible government. While Julia knits for the royal baby, Wayne listens to Bruce Springsteen and Craig sings to Skyhooks. Even Crean could see that Gillard just has no ability to connect with voters and whenever she makes an attempt, it’s so miscalculated that it hurts her further.
Gillard’s most honest moment–her misogyny rant–showed what she could achieve when not concerned about image (despite its context being one of more deflection, this time regarding Peter Slipper). So a few weeks ago she decided to capitalise on her moment of grrl power by raising the spectre of abortion rights, only further cluing us all in to just how desperate she is.
Rudd may have been lousy at internal politics, but he is a strong campaigner who feels like a real leader. Gillard, on the other hand, while instituting often strong policies, had no idea about how actual human beings think and feel, and had a talent for selling herself, her party and her policies with a contempt for the voters. Her broad lack of popularity was due to just how completely unlikeable she is, not her gender.
Neither Rudd nor the media did this to Gillard–you can’t undermine a PM who genuinely connects with the voters. She did it to herself. Finally, the narrative of how internal powerbrokers knifed a popular leader and installed a union-friendly automaton has played itself out to its natural conclusion.
^
Interesting perspective Lobot, a lot of it I agree with, some parts I tend not, but overall a reasonable summary.
I for one don’t consider Krudd to be as inept at internal politics as you paint. The arsewipe has been able to continually lever himself into this position so he must have something going for him.
Jules being pro union is without doubt, most of her support came from the unions.
Her main issue in my opinion was that she had a spectacular capacity to shoot herself in the foot while simultaneously putting that foot in her mouth.
What ever they did, they either misconceived it, buggered the implementation or if it was actually something good, utterly fucked up the communication of it. She couldn’t convince a starving man to eat a cheeseburger. That Mc Ternan douche should be shipped back to England and never allowed near Australian politics again.
The good news is we only have to tolerate Krudd until after Labor loses the election then if they have any sense they’ll sack him again.
. . . Just how sexist is Labour’s base?
Psssst. It’s Labor, even though it’s in Australia.
Continue…
A good example of how badly Gillard and co. botch even their best policies is the Gonski education reforms. It could have been a real boon to her government’s legacy, but by tying it to cuts to university funding, it looked more like merely shifting money around and managed to piss off academics (David Gonski included) in the process.
FWIW, as I understand it, the lack of the U is a deliberate spelling choice (and one I strongly disagree with) because of the American roots of the movement, as I understand it.
The New Zealand political party Labour spells it properly, though.
The election’s on for Sept. 7: http://news.yahoo.com/australian-pm-rudd-calls-election-sept-7-092305229.html
Here’s The Daily Show on Australia’s shortened campaign season:
The Daily Show video links aren’t available outside the US.
I watched the the other day, they seem to limit the bandwidth available for overseas rather than outright block it.
Google “down undecision” and you should find a You Tube clip.
How wonderfully appropriate that a thread about the election would have the wrong date.
So… No-one’s got any thoughts on the election, which is now in a fortnight?
Kevin Rudd is simply too stupid to be allowed to hold power. He announced a new tax on bank deposits to create a nest egg to pay for any future bank bailout - a nest egg that would take eighty years just to pay for the damage caused by the announcement.