Lying is hard work. It’s not easy to invent things in a consistent and plausible fashion. That’s why most lies have some sort of basis in fact, and even the most committed fabulists rarely weave their stories entirely out of whole cloth, but work with a substratum of truth.
And so it is with News Ltd’s war against the Greens, and in particular its fantasy that federal Labor has gone into “coalition” with the Greens and handed over the agenda-setting to them, thus giving unjustified traction to all the fringe values (science, enlightenment, compassion, etc) that its readers hate.
This story has a core of truth to it; what makes it fantastic is that this is not a result of Labor’s scheming, but an unintended byproduct of its incompetence. Worst of all, Labor shows a complete inability to learn from experience.
The story starts last year when Kevin Rudd abandoned his emissions trading scheme. Opinion in the community was divided between those who wanted to do something serious about climate change and those who didn’t. With the Coalition under Tony Abbott firmly in the “do nothing” camp, having Labor join that side as well left a substantial body of opinion (perhaps a majority, but at least not far off) with only the Greens to represent it.
For the Greens, that was a quite unexpected bonus, suddenly elevating them to quasi-major-party status. It meant that when this year Julia Gillard finally fell into line with them on carbon pricing, they did indeed seem to be setting the agenda — but only because Labor had abdicated the field to them in the first place.
That also meant that when Labor did come around, they could get things done; the Greens provided a senate majority as well as political cover.
That didn’t stop Labor from copping political flak, but its only alternative was to get into a competition on denialism with the opposition, which it was never going to win.
So the lesson was twofold. First, don’t give up a big chunk of policy territory in the first place. Second, if you’ve already made that mistake, co-operate as best you can with the Greens (or whoever) to undo it at the first opportunity.
Neither lesson was learnt. Having displaced Rudd, Gillard immediately doubled down on the next issue, same-s-x marriage. Again, there was a reasonably even division in the community, the opposition was clearly anti, but Labor just gave it to the Greens, making them the only party standing for the view held by a majority of Labor’s supporters.
The most glaring case, however, came with asylum seekers. Gillard’s ascendancy brought an inexplicable conversion to the cause of offshore processing, despite the fact that Abbott had that territory well and truly sewn up. The Greens got to own what was probably the majority view (or at least the view of a much larger group than just Greens voters), while Labor alienated large swathes of its own base.
Worst of all for the government, without the Greens it lacked a parliamentary majority and so was unable to implement its (or rather the opposition’s) policy. It was left looking ineffectual as well as heartless. This surely was the time to embrace necessity as a virtue, defend onshore processing and try to duplicate the achievement on carbon pricing.
There are some small signs that Labor now realises that; Craig Emerson told Radio National yesterday that “We will never embrace Tony Abbott’s callous, mean, horrible policies on asylum-seekers.” But by and large Labor gives the impression of being dragged kicking and screaming into a humane position.
It’s possible, of course, that it’s all part of the plan, a grand Machiavellian strategy to get to exactly this position while being able to blame the Coalition for it. (Kerry Thompson suggested this in Crikey yesterday.)
But not only does this give Labor far too much credit for forward thinking (and understate the power of the far right within the party), it leaves unexplained why anyone would try to sell a policy by arguing how awful its consequences will be.
Labor was able to get a carbon price enacted by admitting that its previous position was wrong. And while confessing to mistakes is never pleasant, the sooner and more comprehensively it’s done, the better.
Offshore processing is a gigantic mistake, and until someone other than the Greens says that, Labor will continue to suffer.
But at the very time her fallback strategy on one front is shown to have worked, Gillard is fighting tooth and nail against pulling the same trick anywhere else.
Charley I prefer Nikki’s version:
Fall from grace began with a coup
by: Niki Savva
From the Australian (18.10.11)
WHEN she looks back over her career, will Julia Gillard be able to pinpoint a single moment, or a single issue, or a particular characteristic that, if she could have changed, she would and prevented it all unravelling? Anecdotal evidence and private polling suggests the dislike of her is so extensive, so entrenched and so personal that choosing a particular time or policy or trait is impossible. People doubt her competence, question her trustworthiness, distrust her values and mock her presentation.
She said she wouldn’t challenge, then she disposed of a first-term prime minister; she said she would never introduce a carbon tax, then she did; she said she would never tolerate offshore processing, now she says you can’t run a decent border protection policy without it and will operate onshore processing after putting her party through hell to arrive at a place she doesn’t want to be.
Professionals who have been around politics for a long time, and are normally reluctant to never say never, are convinced, despite any marginal improvements in the polls, that the antipathy is so embedded she will never be able to recover.
Proof of that is the leaking against her now by her own ministers, supposedly rock solidly behind her. Well, they are, but with knives sharpened.
The reasons for the public’s hostility to the Prime Minister go back to the very beginning, the night the factional boys told her she had to do it then and there, kill Kevin and rescue them all from the tyranny and dysfunction. How were they to know, or she for that matter, that while the tyranny would end, the dysfunction would continue, and people would find it hard to forgive the treachery?
She could have said no, that despite his flaws and the government’s poor polling, it was still retrievable and that Rudd had earned the right to fight the next election as prime minister and what she, as his deputy and they as his colleagues had to do was tell him upfront that he had to fix himself and fast.
Ego – she could not admit she wasn’t ready – the romance of the night, the absolute conviction that she could do better and fear that if she refused the opportunity might not present itself again (look at what happened to Peter Costello) induced her to take on a job she was ill-equipped to perform.
Having said yes when she should have said no, it was incumbent on her to prove she was better in every way. Instead she made a succession of mistakes and inexplicably continued to repeat them.
In the middle of an election she called too soon, and as her campaign fell apart, thanks partly to the Ruddites leaking stories that impugned her integrity and splattered her inchoate reputation, people began questioning who she was and what she stood for.
She responded not with principles or a recitation of beliefs but by promising to reveal the real Julia. She never did, or if she has could we please have the other one? There have been so many poorly handled issues, each one exemplifying her worst characteristics: her stubbornness, her inability to admit a mistake or concede a point, her lack of judgment and her propensity to twist facts into pretzels.
She could have been forgiven, or other misdemeanours excused, such as speaking in that soporific way, as if people are inattentive children she dare not slap, if she had at critical times displayed competence and astute political judgment. The two issues that have inflicted the most damage and best – or rather worst – displayed her inconsistencies and poor judgment are the carbon tax and asylum-seekers.
Even if it turns out to be the best carbon tax in the world she will not be forgiven the circumstances that led to its creation.
She announced the carbon tax surrounded by Greens and independents. They did not provide ballast; instead, it looked like propulsion. From the outset she argued with people who accused her of breaking her word. For too long she insisted she was only doing what she said all along she would do: put a price on carbon. Over and over they played her own words back at her: “There will be no carbon tax under a government I lead.”
Finally she struck on a more acceptable explanation: she had meant it when she said it but the changed circumstances compelled her to change, too. It came too late and without a hint of regret or apology. On top of that, whether because of tone or content, neither she nor her ministers has been able to sell it.
Insiders are fond of saying the government has a communications problem. All that means is they are incapable of persuading people. Either they can’t find the right words, their arguments are feeble or people have stopped listening. The carbon tax lost the support of the battlers, and the asylum-seeker issue cost her the support of the elites as well.
After condemning offshore processing for years, Gillard began her prime ministership with a few tweets of the dog whistle, announcing she wanted to process asylum-seekers in East Timor. It went pear-shaped almost immediately, and her first defence – stop me if this sounds familiar – was that she hadn’t even mentioned East Timor.
She had spoken to the President instead of the Prime Minister, then clung to it for months even though it was obviously dead. In between she tried and failed to reopen Manus Island.
She vowed she would never send refugees to a country that had not signed the UN convention on refugees, then – when she should have been selling the budget – announced a half-cooked deal with Malaysia, which is not a signatory to the convention.
After it was rejected by the High Court she did something prime ministers should never do and criticised the Chief Justice.
At any number of points, particularly after that, then during the negotiations with Tony Abbott to get fresh legislation passed, she could have opted for Nauru, now a signatory to the convention. Even during that splintering cabinet meeting on Thursday it was not too late. If Abbott had still said no, he would have rightly been condemned and she would have had the upper hand. If he had said yes and the boats stopped, the story would have disappeared, leaving the initial embarrassment a small price to pay. If they did not stop, she could say: I told you so.
She would have been better off than she is, humiliated and saddled with a policy she admits will not work. While she was out there blaming Abbott, her backbenchers and frontbenchers were out there blaming her. Now, even if she could change, it’s too late. She will have a lot of time to think about where it all went wrong.
The “triumphalism” of this is misplaced. Sadly, the “agenda” has only another 18 month to run. And I say that with no joy, just sadness and regret.
The Greens, and Labor with them, will soon be enjoying the purity of impotent opposition. And the most right wing leader this country has had in my living memory will be ruling the land.
Alan Jones as Governor General? Andrew Bolt as Minister for Communications? Why not!
Thank you Greens, Thank you Julia Gillard. The Greens themselves see this as being electorally advantageous to them – thats the only explanation I can think of for their strategy. The appalling thing is: They’re probably right.
I very nearly didn’t renew my Crikey subscription, this year, in fact I let it go. I did return, just this week, but it seems I didn’t need to spend my $185 after all. I can get this sort of thing from New Matilda for free, if I could be bothered. Or the Greens own website.
Wow, now the libs have resorted to posting the Australian’s columns on Crikey!….How about next time you post a link rather than the entire article! While its great to get the Liberal party’s take on the Greens etc (surprise surprise, Nikki the Liberal ex-advisor thinks Greens and Labor are no good!) we can read the Oz for that.
Did want to add that I think the original article by Charles nails it. Labor has this weird dog-in-the-manger attitude to the Greens. They don’t want to represent any progressive voters but they don’t want the greens to pick up the votes of those people either. They are fond of bashing the inner city trendy left latte, bleeding hearts etc etc set but then get infuriated when those people, discerning that most of parliamentary labor holds them and their values in contempt, vote for the Greens…its weird politics.
There were those of us in the ALP who know when Julia started to go off the rails, and it was with her very first shadow ministry, in the early 2000’s, Immigration. I remember well how she came on “fact finding” tour of branches to be met by a host of “Labor 4 Refugees” supporters. She immediately alienated everyone in the room by extolling the virtues of the then new Baxter Detention Centre, a “wonderful facility”. This, followed by her slavish fawning over Ruddock, was the harbinger of her racist attacks on refugees to come. Our one regret, from that sad day in Brisbane, is that we actually allowed her to leave the room alive.
I stopped giving my first vote to Labor in 1984 – when Hawke gave Labor party members(and supporters) the middle finger over the third Uranium mine! I thought, right, that’s the end of me working like a mad thing on polling booths, conferences etc only to be ignored. The ALP has only got worse in this manner since then. If Julia Gillard wants several thousand new members to join up next year, she needs to take note of people like me who are sick to death of them selling out!
While there are some really good policy initiatives, like the NBN and now action on climate change, too many areas are the same or similar to the conservatives. I’d like to see the funding for private schools cut back for instance and they should show some initiative re dental health also. It’s in a diabolical state at the moment. She can take the initiative instead of just defending the bs of Abbott & Co! GO AFTER THEM!
More than anything I’d like to see JG really stand up to Abbott and disclose his telling of blatant lies. I’d also like to see her stand up to the Murdoch lies, instead of ‘courting them’? Just so much bs! It’s pathetic!