Another week, another scandal in the New South Wales government. This time, the media are the ones guilty of over-reach. But the overwhelming impression voters still get is that our political system is broken.
The meme that "our politics is broken" is often a meme that politicians run. At times, it isn't necessarily true, or the claims are exaggerated.
But if you were to ask about the state of politics in New South Wales, I doubt you'd find many people who disputed it. Of all the governments in Australia, the NSW state government stinks the worst - and you probably wouldn't find much in the way of honourable or saintly conduct in local government either.
Local governments are regularly mired in corruption scandals. Influential people are able to get planning approval for all sorts of major projets with little active community consultation. When developers can't get what they want, like with the Coogee Bay Hotel redevelopment, they beef it up to exploit part 3A (the "state significant development" section) of state government planning rules to bypass all council involvement, and all community consultation.
The hotels lobby actively lobbies the government to kill arts, culture and live music and allow them to introduce more poker machines that take money away from the elderly, the poor and the addicted.
Property developers donate money to political parties (especially the incumbent one), and then lobby furiously to get land rezoned for development. Ironically, this is a product of the state government's own making, by neglecting to release enough land, thus pushing up house prices. They regularly win friends and influence people in the labor party. Some have stopped bothering trying to conceal their connections.
As many as four government ministers have been sacked or resigned over the past 4 years over sex scandals. Milton Orkopolous was defrocked for sexually abusing teenage boys. A second was accused of domestic abuse. Less than a week into Rees' reign, Matt Brown allegedly sexually harrassed people in his office. A vindictive journalist then exposed David Campbell visiting a gay sex club. That journalist was later exposed by Crikey of having a vendetta against the Labor Party for his poor treatment as a short lived spin doctor under Iemma - and for the poor treatment of Reba Meagher - a rare case of someone being sacked for genuine incompetence.
The New South Wales government has had 4 premiers in the past 6 years. Bob Carr resigned with an impeccable sense of timing. Morris Iemma resigned and took a number of discredited ideologues with him. Nathan Rees was ousted for few other reasons apart from coming from the wrong ALP faction. Kristina Keneally has surprised many with her competence, my included, but she is struggling to drag the very dead, very heavy weight of her colleagues to the polls. At each leadership change, two catholic men, one of them very rich, have effectively had the biggest say. The media now blatantly make up stories - and yet even the fake ones sound plausible.
And where has the opposition been? Well, in a similar state.
Kerry Chikarovski led the liberals to a decimation in 1999. John Brogdon was thrown to the wolves far too early in 2003. Two years later, some right wing religious crazies in his party spread rumours that he had sexually assaulted a woman at a party. He went back to his office and attempted suicide. Three weeks later he was replaced by a dribbly guy who was more frequently spotted in his red budgie smugglers than a suit.
As recently as last year, when they were virtually unassailable in the polls, the liberals were still having internal factional wars between two subfactions of the extremist hillsong/opus dei right. During the fight, Federal MP Alex Hawke stated that "nobody joins the liberal party to decriminalise homosexuality". And who is their leader? Barry O'Farrell.
Compared to everyone else, he looks like a saint, for the sole reason that he is a weak man who has done absolutely nothing and hasn't been brave enough. Which compared to anything else...
And all through this - where's the good policy in the public interest? What has the government actually done in the last 5 years that merits applause? MyZone? They nearly buggered that one up too. The Lane Cove Tunnel? The operator nearly went broke recently. And they still managed to build it without enough lanes.
Public Transport? A new plan every year, and hundreds of millions wasted on the Metro, but still no north west or south west metro. Public hospitals? Shortages of doctors, nurses, and funding have led to bed shortages and high waiting lists. The environment?
Well, there was one win recently - they stopped building a coal mine in the hunter. Why? Was it because the government decided it was bad for the environment? Well, no. It was because Alan Jones, John Singleton and a few other high flyers had friends up there who convinced the government that it was a major horse ranch area and furiously lobbied the government for 5 years. Thank you, racing and gaming industry, for your wonderful environmentalism!
Meanwhile, coal mines damage the environment north west of wollongong.
Gay marriage? the catholic right in the ALP have vetoed that over and over again. Abortion is still technically on the statute books as a crime for the same reason.
Karyn Paluzzano? Busted for corrupt use of her office. Nobody in the Labor party believes it's an isolated incident, me included.
The Michael McGurk scandal? We had the farcical parliamentary hearings into tapes that turned up nothing. Graeme Richardson even turned up and basically said "it's ok guys, I checked this one out, and it's not corrupt. Because believe me, if it was corrupt, I would know about it."
Seriously.
Is it any wonder that people in new south wales are keeling over in agony?
They are desperate for something, anything. The polls show the liberals way out in front. But it's not with any enthusiasm that they endorse Barry O'Farrell, but more of a resigned "well, it's the only thing we can do, but I doubt it'll change much". They've actually taken more of a liking to Kristina Keneally on a personal level. But yes, even she owes her career to questionable tactics by the Tripodi faction in the preselections for her seat of Heffron in 2003.
And the political parties themselves - what an awful mess. They ceased to be mass-based political organisations many years ago. The Liberal moderates have been comprehensively routed by the extreme right wing crazies in recent years. The only reason Barry is the leader is that some of these right wing crazies were politically savvy enough to stick a moderate in front of the camera. But you only have to look at the Young Liberals to see what the future looks like. The poor old young liberals only ever read two books when they join - the hillsong bible, and Atlas Shrugged. Whenever they have a debate with young labor, they literally walk across the road from Macquarie Bank, or from their father's law firm, and walk in the front door of macquarie street.
In 20 years, these guys will be running the government.
Young Labor isn't quite as bad. There are some very good people. But somehow, none of them get promoted to good positions. I wonder why? The senior party uses it more as an employment agency for MP and ministers offices. Come March 2011, all of these men and women will be out of a job.
The ALP is an empty vacuum of talent. All the sensible people went to work in federal politics or the union movement long ago. Most have given up trying to even save it. Many party members I speak to think that a loss would actually be good for the ALP. Bad for the state, perhaps, but good for the ALP. What a shocking thing to even think. Most of these members have been through the pain of watching someone parachuted in over the top of them by the executive, or having their views on policy ignored by factions.
Does anyone doubt that the moment labor loses the next election, a whole number of labor MP's will be exposed as corrupt frauds? Curring favour from business? Stabbing each other in the back? Selling government to the highest bidder? In the late 19th-century, if the founders of the labor party saw what was to become of their creation 100 years later, they would have been appalled. Is this supposed to be the party of the workers?
But does anyone seriously think the liberals will do any better? They're just as likely to be worse.
Who's going to save NSW?
Sunday, May 23, 2010
Monday, May 10, 2010
Memo to Kevin Rudd - unclog the pipes, please.
Kevin rudd has now had two polls in a row that have seen the popularity of his government fall dramatically.
Pundits will no doubt speculate on the reason why this is the case. While I'm here I might throw my own two cents in - the fall in rudd's popularity is entirely of his own making. In the past few months the headlines have been bad, particularly on the insulation scheme. However despite this it left no bad dent in the government's popularity. the big dents started to come when Rudd started making the wrong decisions about policy - usually to cancel a key election promise, on Emissions trading or Child Care centres. In the same time, he has put up cigarette taxes, announced a health care plan without Western Australia's agreement, and has now started chasing mining companies for their profits.
Rudd has made two big mistakes in the past couple of weeks.
Firstly, contrary to the big media headlines, most people don't care about how tax is collected as long as people can be sure about where that tax money is going. But at the same time as the government is putting taxes up, they have cancelled a whole lot of policies. This is leaving a hell of a lot of voters very confused. "What did we put them there for", people will ask, "if all they are doing is jacking up taxes and not spending the money on anything?" Or, as my girlfriend beautifully puts it, "That Kevin Rudd, he does nothing!"
Secondly, the policies he has jettisoned haven't won him any new votes. It's wrong to state that Emissions Trading is seen as a massive betrayal just by voters on the left - in fact, if you look at the 2007 election climate change was one of the top 5 issues in marginal seats. Despite the failures of international consensus since then, many marginal seat voters do still care about the issue. Many were left confused by the inability of the government to explain emissions trading - admittedly a complex policy for an average punter. Many were attracted to Tony Abbott's climate change policy because it was simple to explain. Abbott's policy was completely useless - but the government didn't hammer him for it nearly enough at the time.
The government's policy backflip itself was particularly peculiar. Most people were resigned to the fact that there wouldn't be any emissions trading scheme until after the election, for the simple reason that Tony Abbott would ensure it got blocked in the senate. But instead of just acknowledging this fact, they announced that they would delay it until 2013. It was completely unnecessary to make that announcement, even if in reality it was going to be true. It won them no voters and lost them a whole bunch of others. It made them look absolutely weak. Worse than that, Tony Abbott hasn't jettisoned his bullcrap policy - so now it looks like the only major party with a climate change policy is the liberals. How stupid is that? And this from the Prime Minister that called Climate change the "greatest moral challenge of our time". It's hard to believe that 9 months ago he gave a very strong speech that brutally called out the skeptics.
Other promises he has jettisoned have won him no voters either. Who's going to vote for a government that changed it's mind from doing something do doing nothing?
The immigration backflip is very disappointing but Rudd never once tried to strongly defend the current arrangements. When the government can't explain the merits of its own policy, who else is going to? And the Child care promise was also a silly one to jettison. One of the biggest key demographics to swing to Labor in the 2007 election was single mothers. Another stupid announcement that went down like a lead balloon in the motherland.
And finally there's the Henry Tax review - the only real things to come out of that were 12% super over TEN YEARS, and a big mining profits tax. It's difficult to enact big and controvercial tax reform when budgets are tight, but punters did notice when 96 recommendations in the report didn't get a look-in. All that work for nothing.
His government is quickly becoming a "big taxing - do nothing government". With a more popular opposition leader in charge, the government could be in some very serious trouble. With the benefit of hindsight, Labor should have gone to an election earlier this year. Rudd is reluctant to have an early election, but the fact is, every single government since Menzies has gone early for their second term, and every single one of them was returned.
Menzies went for a double dissollution in 1951 and got back. Whitlam went back in 1974 to unclog key parts of his massive agenda, including Medicare - and then held a joint sitting after the election to ram them through. Malcolm Fraser went early in 1977 and smashed Whitlam to bits for a second time. Bob Hawke went early in 1984 - he had a bad election but he got back in. He then went early again in 1987 using the Australia card as a trigger and thumped a disunited opposition.
In 1998, Howard used an earlyish election to ram through the GST. He lost the 2pp vote but was returned - and more importantly it gave him something to refocus his government's attention on after a shocker of a first term. Plenty of people disagreed with the GST but nobody doubted that Howard looked like a man with an agenda.
Which brings us to Rudd. With the election of Tony Abbott to the liberal leadership, Rudd's entire agenda from the past 5 months is stuck in the senate, and the rest will be as well for the next few months. Rudd has reponded to this not by going to an early double dissollution election, but by throwing away policies.
His view is that he is "clearing the decks" so that he can fight an election on health, but in reality he ends up looking completely weak for chucking stuff away. Whoever is telling him this - and my guess is the NSW right - is completely, utterly wrong. You can't blame Tony Abbott for being an obstructionist opposition - he's simply doing his job as party leader. But you can blame Rudd for refusing to fight back when he clearly could.
An early election in March on the issues Labor was trying to fight for late last year would have demonstrated some balls to the electorate - that Rudd believed in the merits of his policies strongly enough that he would be willing to take them back to the people instead of taking punch after punch and then throwing things in the bin. Throwing policies away isn't going to make them any more popular - in fact it will simply embolden Tony Abbott to keep on punching.
If an election happens in september, Rudd will have basically wasted 9 months with the pipes clogged - that's 9 months of air time given to crazy people to put up alternatives, and 9 months for talkback radio to run the "big taxing, do nothing" government meme, and 9 months of the government procratinating. When stuff gets blocked in the senate, nobody ever blames the opposition, everyone always blames the government. Now they are going to have to rely on the budget to get them out of trouble, and if there's nothing big there, voters are just going to get even more confused than before. Once the budget is out of the way, the government needs to do some quick evaluation. Does it really want to keep plodding along until september or october with nothing to show? Polls will just keep going down if that's the case.
What they really need to do is unclog the pipes. If I was to tell him anything, here's what
I'd say:
1. Return to the agenda that the Australian people put you there for - fix the health system, means test the private health insurance rebate, put an emissions trading scheme back on the table, reform federal-state relations, and pump more money into education. Stop throwing policies overboard. This agenda (plus workchoices) got you elected only three years ago - and now that the financial crisis is basically over now for Australia, you can go back there.
2. If your budget doesn't contain any big ticket items, you're going to have to try something else. After the budget is done, hold a big press conference and reannounce that you're going to put your entire stalled agenda back through the senate, and dare Tony Abbott to oppose any of them.
3. Put the entire stalled agenda, plus your big health care package and your mining tax changes through the senate one more time in June. If any of them get blocked, run straight down to government house and get a double dissolution. It will make you look strong. Ask the people for a mandate and run hard.
4. Remind people that all of these things would have already been done if it wasn't for the obstructionism of the liberals - and point out their complete lack of policies and the dangerous personality of Tony Abbott as Prime minister. You can quite easily make the case by now that you have tried everything you can to be reasonable with these people but they are just too nuts to deal with. Ask the people for a mandate to finish your initial agenda and give specific time frames for when you want each policy done.
5. Remind people that your government helped save the Australian economy from the financial crisis - and that many of the necessary actions were opposed by the liberals.
Despite the last 6 months, Rudd has actually had a good first term overall - much better than Howard's scandal-prone first term. Rudd dived straight into foreign policy, and the government's quick action saved Australia from the financial crisis. He has had a steady hand on the tiller from day one, but people are starting to get impatient and question his ability to get big policy reform done. This is his next text.
Rudd has long maintained that people expect him to serve a full term. Well, there's no use in doing that if the last 9 months aren't spent doing anything. Australians don't want a do-nothing government. I honestly believe that most people will be far less pissed off at being asked to vote a few months early, than they will be pissed off with a government that sat around for 9 months doing nothing to unclog the pipes. I think most of them would be ready to vote now if you asked them - and the result wouldn't be too good. Unclog the pipes - change the game. then you run, then you win.
Consider it a lesson in political courage. Pass this test, and you'll really know how to govern. Fail, and you're the Cowardly Lion.
Pundits will no doubt speculate on the reason why this is the case. While I'm here I might throw my own two cents in - the fall in rudd's popularity is entirely of his own making. In the past few months the headlines have been bad, particularly on the insulation scheme. However despite this it left no bad dent in the government's popularity. the big dents started to come when Rudd started making the wrong decisions about policy - usually to cancel a key election promise, on Emissions trading or Child Care centres. In the same time, he has put up cigarette taxes, announced a health care plan without Western Australia's agreement, and has now started chasing mining companies for their profits.
Rudd has made two big mistakes in the past couple of weeks.
Firstly, contrary to the big media headlines, most people don't care about how tax is collected as long as people can be sure about where that tax money is going. But at the same time as the government is putting taxes up, they have cancelled a whole lot of policies. This is leaving a hell of a lot of voters very confused. "What did we put them there for", people will ask, "if all they are doing is jacking up taxes and not spending the money on anything?" Or, as my girlfriend beautifully puts it, "That Kevin Rudd, he does nothing!"
Secondly, the policies he has jettisoned haven't won him any new votes. It's wrong to state that Emissions Trading is seen as a massive betrayal just by voters on the left - in fact, if you look at the 2007 election climate change was one of the top 5 issues in marginal seats. Despite the failures of international consensus since then, many marginal seat voters do still care about the issue. Many were left confused by the inability of the government to explain emissions trading - admittedly a complex policy for an average punter. Many were attracted to Tony Abbott's climate change policy because it was simple to explain. Abbott's policy was completely useless - but the government didn't hammer him for it nearly enough at the time.
The government's policy backflip itself was particularly peculiar. Most people were resigned to the fact that there wouldn't be any emissions trading scheme until after the election, for the simple reason that Tony Abbott would ensure it got blocked in the senate. But instead of just acknowledging this fact, they announced that they would delay it until 2013. It was completely unnecessary to make that announcement, even if in reality it was going to be true. It won them no voters and lost them a whole bunch of others. It made them look absolutely weak. Worse than that, Tony Abbott hasn't jettisoned his bullcrap policy - so now it looks like the only major party with a climate change policy is the liberals. How stupid is that? And this from the Prime Minister that called Climate change the "greatest moral challenge of our time". It's hard to believe that 9 months ago he gave a very strong speech that brutally called out the skeptics.
Other promises he has jettisoned have won him no voters either. Who's going to vote for a government that changed it's mind from doing something do doing nothing?
The immigration backflip is very disappointing but Rudd never once tried to strongly defend the current arrangements. When the government can't explain the merits of its own policy, who else is going to? And the Child care promise was also a silly one to jettison. One of the biggest key demographics to swing to Labor in the 2007 election was single mothers. Another stupid announcement that went down like a lead balloon in the motherland.
And finally there's the Henry Tax review - the only real things to come out of that were 12% super over TEN YEARS, and a big mining profits tax. It's difficult to enact big and controvercial tax reform when budgets are tight, but punters did notice when 96 recommendations in the report didn't get a look-in. All that work for nothing.
His government is quickly becoming a "big taxing - do nothing government". With a more popular opposition leader in charge, the government could be in some very serious trouble. With the benefit of hindsight, Labor should have gone to an election earlier this year. Rudd is reluctant to have an early election, but the fact is, every single government since Menzies has gone early for their second term, and every single one of them was returned.
Menzies went for a double dissollution in 1951 and got back. Whitlam went back in 1974 to unclog key parts of his massive agenda, including Medicare - and then held a joint sitting after the election to ram them through. Malcolm Fraser went early in 1977 and smashed Whitlam to bits for a second time. Bob Hawke went early in 1984 - he had a bad election but he got back in. He then went early again in 1987 using the Australia card as a trigger and thumped a disunited opposition.
In 1998, Howard used an earlyish election to ram through the GST. He lost the 2pp vote but was returned - and more importantly it gave him something to refocus his government's attention on after a shocker of a first term. Plenty of people disagreed with the GST but nobody doubted that Howard looked like a man with an agenda.
Which brings us to Rudd. With the election of Tony Abbott to the liberal leadership, Rudd's entire agenda from the past 5 months is stuck in the senate, and the rest will be as well for the next few months. Rudd has reponded to this not by going to an early double dissollution election, but by throwing away policies.
His view is that he is "clearing the decks" so that he can fight an election on health, but in reality he ends up looking completely weak for chucking stuff away. Whoever is telling him this - and my guess is the NSW right - is completely, utterly wrong. You can't blame Tony Abbott for being an obstructionist opposition - he's simply doing his job as party leader. But you can blame Rudd for refusing to fight back when he clearly could.
An early election in March on the issues Labor was trying to fight for late last year would have demonstrated some balls to the electorate - that Rudd believed in the merits of his policies strongly enough that he would be willing to take them back to the people instead of taking punch after punch and then throwing things in the bin. Throwing policies away isn't going to make them any more popular - in fact it will simply embolden Tony Abbott to keep on punching.
If an election happens in september, Rudd will have basically wasted 9 months with the pipes clogged - that's 9 months of air time given to crazy people to put up alternatives, and 9 months for talkback radio to run the "big taxing, do nothing" government meme, and 9 months of the government procratinating. When stuff gets blocked in the senate, nobody ever blames the opposition, everyone always blames the government. Now they are going to have to rely on the budget to get them out of trouble, and if there's nothing big there, voters are just going to get even more confused than before. Once the budget is out of the way, the government needs to do some quick evaluation. Does it really want to keep plodding along until september or october with nothing to show? Polls will just keep going down if that's the case.
What they really need to do is unclog the pipes. If I was to tell him anything, here's what
I'd say:
1. Return to the agenda that the Australian people put you there for - fix the health system, means test the private health insurance rebate, put an emissions trading scheme back on the table, reform federal-state relations, and pump more money into education. Stop throwing policies overboard. This agenda (plus workchoices) got you elected only three years ago - and now that the financial crisis is basically over now for Australia, you can go back there.
2. If your budget doesn't contain any big ticket items, you're going to have to try something else. After the budget is done, hold a big press conference and reannounce that you're going to put your entire stalled agenda back through the senate, and dare Tony Abbott to oppose any of them.
3. Put the entire stalled agenda, plus your big health care package and your mining tax changes through the senate one more time in June. If any of them get blocked, run straight down to government house and get a double dissolution. It will make you look strong. Ask the people for a mandate and run hard.
4. Remind people that all of these things would have already been done if it wasn't for the obstructionism of the liberals - and point out their complete lack of policies and the dangerous personality of Tony Abbott as Prime minister. You can quite easily make the case by now that you have tried everything you can to be reasonable with these people but they are just too nuts to deal with. Ask the people for a mandate to finish your initial agenda and give specific time frames for when you want each policy done.
5. Remind people that your government helped save the Australian economy from the financial crisis - and that many of the necessary actions were opposed by the liberals.
Despite the last 6 months, Rudd has actually had a good first term overall - much better than Howard's scandal-prone first term. Rudd dived straight into foreign policy, and the government's quick action saved Australia from the financial crisis. He has had a steady hand on the tiller from day one, but people are starting to get impatient and question his ability to get big policy reform done. This is his next text.
Rudd has long maintained that people expect him to serve a full term. Well, there's no use in doing that if the last 9 months aren't spent doing anything. Australians don't want a do-nothing government. I honestly believe that most people will be far less pissed off at being asked to vote a few months early, than they will be pissed off with a government that sat around for 9 months doing nothing to unclog the pipes. I think most of them would be ready to vote now if you asked them - and the result wouldn't be too good. Unclog the pipes - change the game. then you run, then you win.
Consider it a lesson in political courage. Pass this test, and you'll really know how to govern. Fail, and you're the Cowardly Lion.
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