Friday, July 16, 2010
Friday, July 9, 2010
We interrupt this program for a special bulletin...
I got about half way through a 4,000 word blog post covering my life over the last month, and a funny thing happened. What was supposed to be a brief diversion on the changeover of Australia's prime minister developed into a longwinded, ranting and in places rambling critique of the events leading up to and including June 23/24th (a spectacular, truly wonderous day marking the ascension of Australia's first female PM AND my birthday). I know many will disagree with my assessment, and that's totally your right, but I guess at the end of the day I'm still comfortable in my belief that you're, well... wrong. What's that about hubris?
So enjoy me trying to inadequately express my beliefs by putting them into words, and rest assured that you can look forward to my irregular scheduling of less meaningful crap a little later tonight.
Cheers,
Phil
The changeover from Kevin Rudd to Julia Gillard is fundamentally a good thing for Australia. Kevin Rudd was doing a terrible job as leader. I was very excited when John Howard’s government was defeated. I don’t consider myself a rusted-on Labor supporter – I certainly haven’t voted for them in every election. There’s a lot to criticise, and obviously I’ve been unhappy with the performance of the Rudd government, after all it promised and the potential it brought to office. Yet under Rudd’s leadership, the Government were losing the hearts and minds of my friends, and, as the polls suggested, the Australian electorate.
The main problem as I see it falls back to a number of issues with Rudd’s personal style. Not him as a person and his beliefs, but the way he communicated them. Error #1 was to elevate himself above all others – remember all that talk about “The buck stops with me”? Unwise. It took them a while, but people increasingly saw through the inflated rhetoric (“the most significant”, “the most important”, “the biggest” blah blah), which was subject to the law of diminishing returns. Hyperbole is a very dangerous thing in government, and like the boy who cried wolf, people declared that the emperor had no clothes. This is to say nothing of the particular quirks that absolutely shat me (the convolution, the “working families”, the church posturing, the insincere smile etc.)
#2 was the policy decisions. The ETS is obviously a big one. I find it absolutely ludicrous that there is still a question in people’s minds about climate change. I can’t even begin to comprehend the scale of the science behind it, but the fact that the arguments against it hinge on such miniscule and specific contradictions, and that people fail to grasp the quite clear logical arguments and exploitations going on here, absolutely terrifies me. Even if anthropogenic climate change turns out to be bunkum, the achievements we gain in trying to prevent it more than outweigh the costs. Who can possibly suggest that the way we use the world now is sustainable? Who can legitimately argue that we don’t need to reduce our reliance on fossil fuels, that our lifestyles don’t cause irreversible destruction to the planet? Tony Abbott and the Coalition’s position terrify me. So much media coverage over the past six months has centred on authenticity, conviction, and honesty. Can anyone honestly hear Abbott’s words about ‘believing in climate change’ and taking action against it, and not absolutely cringe in revulsion at their insincerity? I’d like to believe that he doesn’t feel comfortable stating his true beliefs because they’re unacceptable to a vast majority of the Australian public who do want to see action. Even then, how can anyone possibly suggest that Abbott has more credibility than Rudd or Gillard? It blows my mind.
I very much doubt the ETS was anywhere near the best solution for the problem of reducing our carbon emissions. I know there’s an immense amount of criticism of it. However, my oversimplified view is that from a pragmatic position, if the left is criticising it for not going far enough, and the right is criticising it for going too far, it’s probably a good starting point that Australia will go for. I think the Rudd government was stupid in the handling of the original proposal, and absolutely squandered the good will and wishes of the Australian public, plus the bipartisan support of the Coalition. In not communicating the idea to the public and selling the concept properly, the Labor government set debate back in Australia five years. I had honestly thought we were past that. The decision to then dump the legislation was unbelievably cynical on behalf of the Government, and demonstrated a lack of conviction not in what they were doing, but in their ability to communicate it. To them I’m sure it seemed like the easier option than trying to convince the public it was the way forward. I hope the backlash against this is as much because people believe it’s an important issue that needs action as it is about conviction, though obviously the situation was poisonous as a result of Rudd’s overblown rhetoric about the problem (which may or may not be true, but certainly was the wrong way to go about it).
The hospitals issue was poorly managed, but to me the ultimate clincher was the handling of the Resource Super Profits Tax. I was totally for the original model as it was proposed, though obviously not how it was presented. It secured a stronger future for Australia. How the Government managed to let the mining industry COMPLETELY reframe the debate in their favour is stunning. It simply boggles the mind that ordinary people thought they’d be significantly worse off under the proposal. Let’s start with the immediate reaction. Of course the announcement immediately wiped off the value of the sector - it's a totally understandable reaction that occurs in any industry whenever there are changes and uncertainty, especially if they’re changes that will increase costs. This is common sense. Increase tax = lower profits = bad for shares. I don’t think anyone disputes that. However, the logical assumption goes a whole lot further in suggesting it’s permanent damage rather than something the sector will recover from, that investors will pull out, mining will collapse in Australia (no pun intended) and the Australian economy is DOOM-ED!
This is utter crap, and total manipulation by the mining industry. The reality is supply and demand - we have it, the world needs it. We produce twice as much iron ore as Brazil, the next largest supplier, and even if our supply immediately drops to half what it is now, in time it will rise as the market adjusts. There are a lot of advantages to working in our relatively advanced and stable country, with an industry and infrastructure that’s well established. Yes, we might have lost investments in the short term. In the medium term though, and I’m talking 10-20 years as a starting point, we’d be back to where we are now. I would suggest there’s simply not enough capacity in the world to fill the gap that would develop from pulling out of Australia. The halted Xstrata project in Queensland, for instance, was utter cynicism and a total political stunt, which I find disgusting. I would speculate more investment had already occurred on that site than what the new tax would have cost them. If they had cancelled the project and taken it to Canada, they probably would have lost money. It was an empty threat that a lot of Australians fell for.
Whatever changes were made to the industry, in time they would have adjusted and stabilised. The mining industry would protest about anything that wasn’t in their favour, but in the end they’d adjust to it and continue with business as usual. What we’ve essentially done is deprive the public of untold billions in future income, and the fact that Rudd’s government with Rudd at the helm so monumentally cocked up what should have been an easy sell to the public (and they probably thought it was going to be) beggars belief.
For these reasons, Rudd had to go. You could see how personal the vitriol was getting, and if he’d continued on in charge there was a very real possibility that Abbott would have gotten in and taken Australia back even further. Even if you’d prefer to see the Coalition in government, you can’t possibly suggest it’s in the country’s interest to have someone in the leadership who’s an ineffective communicator, and who alienates both the public and his own government. For those harping on about how it’s unfair, he should have been given a fair go, he should have served out his first term etc., can I just say: grow up. This nonsense about backroom dealings and nameless powerbrokers making deals is ridiculous. First of all, his name is Bill Shorten: his Wikipedia entry is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Shorten, his web page is http://www.billshorten.com.au/. Shorten did not single-handedly construct Rudd’s demise. The reality is, you could see this coming ever since he backed down on climate change. The pace of the transition was impressive, but the seeds of it were obvious, and had been lying very close to the surface for months. Rudd was losing his mandate with the people, reflected through poll after poll, and he was doing real and visible damage to the Government. I suspect a lot of the harping comes from people who have never voted Labor in their life and never will, though a lot of it would likely also come from people who just aren’t familiar with politics outside of a 10 second sound bite.
I accept that people feel they’re voting for a presidential style leader in elections, though clearly this is not the case. I can’t stand the hypocrisy though – remember when Tony Abbott ousted Turnbull less than a year ago, or when he undercut and beat Nelson not long before that? It’s politics, it’s dirty, but it’s (in theory) how we ensure the most suitable people lead the party. I immensely dislike that Abbott is leader of the opposition, but I begrudge the Liberal party’s decision to put him there, not their right to make it. I don’t understand why people are worried about Gillard not having a mandate when we’ll have an election in a matter of months – if you don’t want her as PM based on her party’s policies, you will be able to exercise your right to do so. In a sense the Labor party installed her in position to lead in the next election, not to run the country. My criticisms of Rudd meant that I didn’t want him to lead the party into the next election, and I’m happy that Gillard will now do so. She’s far from perfect, and I think questions about her involvement in key decisions in the Rudd government as a member of the Kitchen Cabinet are totally legitimate, and bear consideration. I think the BER criticisms, while valid in some cases, are an absolute beat up on the whole. I think overall Rudd was the architect of his own demise in making everything personal and about him, which he did so in particular through hubris and lack of consultation with the full Cabinet. I believe that he carries more responsibility for the direction of the Government than would normally be attributed to the leader. I hope that under Gillard there is a wider range of wisdom that informs the Government, and that it can communicate that effectively with the nation and get them on side.
I respect that you have a right to disagree, but if you do, disagree for considered, thought out reasons, not sloganeering. Ask yourself where your beliefs come from, and how you formed them.
Be excellent to each other. Party on dudes.
So enjoy me trying to inadequately express my beliefs by putting them into words, and rest assured that you can look forward to my irregular scheduling of less meaningful crap a little later tonight.
Cheers,
Phil
The changeover from Kevin Rudd to Julia Gillard is fundamentally a good thing for Australia. Kevin Rudd was doing a terrible job as leader. I was very excited when John Howard’s government was defeated. I don’t consider myself a rusted-on Labor supporter – I certainly haven’t voted for them in every election. There’s a lot to criticise, and obviously I’ve been unhappy with the performance of the Rudd government, after all it promised and the potential it brought to office. Yet under Rudd’s leadership, the Government were losing the hearts and minds of my friends, and, as the polls suggested, the Australian electorate.
The main problem as I see it falls back to a number of issues with Rudd’s personal style. Not him as a person and his beliefs, but the way he communicated them. Error #1 was to elevate himself above all others – remember all that talk about “The buck stops with me”? Unwise. It took them a while, but people increasingly saw through the inflated rhetoric (“the most significant”, “the most important”, “the biggest” blah blah), which was subject to the law of diminishing returns. Hyperbole is a very dangerous thing in government, and like the boy who cried wolf, people declared that the emperor had no clothes. This is to say nothing of the particular quirks that absolutely shat me (the convolution, the “working families”, the church posturing, the insincere smile etc.)
#2 was the policy decisions. The ETS is obviously a big one. I find it absolutely ludicrous that there is still a question in people’s minds about climate change. I can’t even begin to comprehend the scale of the science behind it, but the fact that the arguments against it hinge on such miniscule and specific contradictions, and that people fail to grasp the quite clear logical arguments and exploitations going on here, absolutely terrifies me. Even if anthropogenic climate change turns out to be bunkum, the achievements we gain in trying to prevent it more than outweigh the costs. Who can possibly suggest that the way we use the world now is sustainable? Who can legitimately argue that we don’t need to reduce our reliance on fossil fuels, that our lifestyles don’t cause irreversible destruction to the planet? Tony Abbott and the Coalition’s position terrify me. So much media coverage over the past six months has centred on authenticity, conviction, and honesty. Can anyone honestly hear Abbott’s words about ‘believing in climate change’ and taking action against it, and not absolutely cringe in revulsion at their insincerity? I’d like to believe that he doesn’t feel comfortable stating his true beliefs because they’re unacceptable to a vast majority of the Australian public who do want to see action. Even then, how can anyone possibly suggest that Abbott has more credibility than Rudd or Gillard? It blows my mind.
I very much doubt the ETS was anywhere near the best solution for the problem of reducing our carbon emissions. I know there’s an immense amount of criticism of it. However, my oversimplified view is that from a pragmatic position, if the left is criticising it for not going far enough, and the right is criticising it for going too far, it’s probably a good starting point that Australia will go for. I think the Rudd government was stupid in the handling of the original proposal, and absolutely squandered the good will and wishes of the Australian public, plus the bipartisan support of the Coalition. In not communicating the idea to the public and selling the concept properly, the Labor government set debate back in Australia five years. I had honestly thought we were past that. The decision to then dump the legislation was unbelievably cynical on behalf of the Government, and demonstrated a lack of conviction not in what they were doing, but in their ability to communicate it. To them I’m sure it seemed like the easier option than trying to convince the public it was the way forward. I hope the backlash against this is as much because people believe it’s an important issue that needs action as it is about conviction, though obviously the situation was poisonous as a result of Rudd’s overblown rhetoric about the problem (which may or may not be true, but certainly was the wrong way to go about it).
The hospitals issue was poorly managed, but to me the ultimate clincher was the handling of the Resource Super Profits Tax. I was totally for the original model as it was proposed, though obviously not how it was presented. It secured a stronger future for Australia. How the Government managed to let the mining industry COMPLETELY reframe the debate in their favour is stunning. It simply boggles the mind that ordinary people thought they’d be significantly worse off under the proposal. Let’s start with the immediate reaction. Of course the announcement immediately wiped off the value of the sector - it's a totally understandable reaction that occurs in any industry whenever there are changes and uncertainty, especially if they’re changes that will increase costs. This is common sense. Increase tax = lower profits = bad for shares. I don’t think anyone disputes that. However, the logical assumption goes a whole lot further in suggesting it’s permanent damage rather than something the sector will recover from, that investors will pull out, mining will collapse in Australia (no pun intended) and the Australian economy is DOOM-ED!
This is utter crap, and total manipulation by the mining industry. The reality is supply and demand - we have it, the world needs it. We produce twice as much iron ore as Brazil, the next largest supplier, and even if our supply immediately drops to half what it is now, in time it will rise as the market adjusts. There are a lot of advantages to working in our relatively advanced and stable country, with an industry and infrastructure that’s well established. Yes, we might have lost investments in the short term. In the medium term though, and I’m talking 10-20 years as a starting point, we’d be back to where we are now. I would suggest there’s simply not enough capacity in the world to fill the gap that would develop from pulling out of Australia. The halted Xstrata project in Queensland, for instance, was utter cynicism and a total political stunt, which I find disgusting. I would speculate more investment had already occurred on that site than what the new tax would have cost them. If they had cancelled the project and taken it to Canada, they probably would have lost money. It was an empty threat that a lot of Australians fell for.
Whatever changes were made to the industry, in time they would have adjusted and stabilised. The mining industry would protest about anything that wasn’t in their favour, but in the end they’d adjust to it and continue with business as usual. What we’ve essentially done is deprive the public of untold billions in future income, and the fact that Rudd’s government with Rudd at the helm so monumentally cocked up what should have been an easy sell to the public (and they probably thought it was going to be) beggars belief.
For these reasons, Rudd had to go. You could see how personal the vitriol was getting, and if he’d continued on in charge there was a very real possibility that Abbott would have gotten in and taken Australia back even further. Even if you’d prefer to see the Coalition in government, you can’t possibly suggest it’s in the country’s interest to have someone in the leadership who’s an ineffective communicator, and who alienates both the public and his own government. For those harping on about how it’s unfair, he should have been given a fair go, he should have served out his first term etc., can I just say: grow up. This nonsense about backroom dealings and nameless powerbrokers making deals is ridiculous. First of all, his name is Bill Shorten: his Wikipedia entry is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Shorten, his web page is http://www.billshorten.com.au/. Shorten did not single-handedly construct Rudd’s demise. The reality is, you could see this coming ever since he backed down on climate change. The pace of the transition was impressive, but the seeds of it were obvious, and had been lying very close to the surface for months. Rudd was losing his mandate with the people, reflected through poll after poll, and he was doing real and visible damage to the Government. I suspect a lot of the harping comes from people who have never voted Labor in their life and never will, though a lot of it would likely also come from people who just aren’t familiar with politics outside of a 10 second sound bite.
I accept that people feel they’re voting for a presidential style leader in elections, though clearly this is not the case. I can’t stand the hypocrisy though – remember when Tony Abbott ousted Turnbull less than a year ago, or when he undercut and beat Nelson not long before that? It’s politics, it’s dirty, but it’s (in theory) how we ensure the most suitable people lead the party. I immensely dislike that Abbott is leader of the opposition, but I begrudge the Liberal party’s decision to put him there, not their right to make it. I don’t understand why people are worried about Gillard not having a mandate when we’ll have an election in a matter of months – if you don’t want her as PM based on her party’s policies, you will be able to exercise your right to do so. In a sense the Labor party installed her in position to lead in the next election, not to run the country. My criticisms of Rudd meant that I didn’t want him to lead the party into the next election, and I’m happy that Gillard will now do so. She’s far from perfect, and I think questions about her involvement in key decisions in the Rudd government as a member of the Kitchen Cabinet are totally legitimate, and bear consideration. I think the BER criticisms, while valid in some cases, are an absolute beat up on the whole. I think overall Rudd was the architect of his own demise in making everything personal and about him, which he did so in particular through hubris and lack of consultation with the full Cabinet. I believe that he carries more responsibility for the direction of the Government than would normally be attributed to the leader. I hope that under Gillard there is a wider range of wisdom that informs the Government, and that it can communicate that effectively with the nation and get them on side.
I respect that you have a right to disagree, but if you do, disagree for considered, thought out reasons, not sloganeering. Ask yourself where your beliefs come from, and how you formed them.
Be excellent to each other. Party on dudes.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
