blamebrampton (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
blamebrampton) wrote2010-06-24 12:39 am
blamebrampton) wrote2010-06-24 12:39 am
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Oh Kevin ... where did we fall apart?
The Australian PM is famous for working through much of the night. Tonight he is on the phone ringing around to see if he can get the numbers to hold onto his prime ministership. In 10 hours he may have lost his job.
Some background.
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd is a brilliant political mind who is also a very rational person. This is a problem, because he governs a country that is not famous for having a rational electorate. Basically, he's a reasonably conservative, if small l liberal, Professor Flitwick, though he looks like Harry Potter with a charisma bypass. A year ago he was the most popular PM in Australian history.
He has had some massive successes, most notably Australia weathered the GFC so well under his leadership that most Australians have no idea how bad the GFC actually was. And that's not a party political statement, rather a matter of fact. By every economic indicator, Australia has done remarkably well, without setting up an untenable deficit in stimulus spending
But he has also had some significant failures. The Australian Labor Party (ALP), his party, backflipped on the Emissions Trading Scheme, which had wide public support but could not get through both houses of parliament due to the ALP not having a majority in the upper house. This could have been the trigger for going to an election after a double dissolution in April, when the ALP were polling strongly, instead, Kevin declared that they would leave the scheme on the backburner until 2013. This was massively unpopular for a long list of reasons including making life very difficult for green power technology companies, and because Australia bears the brunt of climate change in the way that many other countries are yet to.
At about the same time, the government's insulation scheme blew up, sort of literally. The government had subsidised installation of household insulation to cut both greenhouse gas production and household energy bills (partially to offset the increased power costs forecast under emissions trading). Unfortunately, they did not bank on the People Are Bastards rule, which saw any number of shonky companies move in on the action to make quick profits and saw a number of household fires as insulation was stapled to wiring, and indeed four deaths of undertrained workers. The media and opposition screamed for the scheme to be suspended, and then screamed when it was suspended and legitimate companies lost money.
Recently, the Resources Super Profits Tax blew up. This is a very elegant taxation model for reforming tax in the resources (mining) sector. Most economists like it very much, as does the International Monetary Federation. It is was designed by a review committee led by the renowned Ken Henry and delivered late last year or at the very beginning of this one. And the government kept the report private for five months. Then announced that they would be going ahead with this new tax, without consultation with the public or the mining industry (which was stupid, because Rudd should have done what he usually does and had such a long and boring period of consultancy that everyone just ended up saying 'fine! Go for it! Just stop talking about it!'). The Mining industry responded to this by saying that they would all go broke, and that they were the only thing that had stood between Australia and bankruptcy through the GFC (Neither of these things are true).
After a bad year, Kevin has slumped in the polls and is actually polling behind the leader of the opposition, Tony Abbott. Abbott's the Vincent Crabbe of the Australian parliamentary scene, who last year rolled Draco Malfoy (aka Malcolm Turnbull) for leadership of his party. A rabid right winger, who is disturbingly keen to introduce religion into politics, Abbott is keen to have no emissions trading, no new mining taxes, and many fewer rights for workers, because workers probably don't vote for him anyway.
Tonight, Kevin has been tapped on the shoulder by members of his own party and told that he will face a challenge in the morning from the Deputy Prime Minister, Julia Gillard (very much Hermione Granger). Now she is lovely, and very bright, but did not previously have the numbers to win power within the party on her own, so settled for the deuptyship at the last election. She is on the Left wing of the ALP.
However, today the Right-wing numbersmen who largely govern the ALP in the largest states have all decided to switch their allegiance from Kevin to Julia, as has the Australian Workers Union. When asked why, there was a lot of blather about the need to defeat Abbott (which I am all for -- he is evil, Malfoy was heaps better), and then a declaration that they don't believe Kevin will be able to go to the next election and talk about policy when his leadership within the party is under question.
Which seems ever so slightly circular since they are the ones who are questioning his leadership.
It's a little bit rich to me: construct a problem and then breast-beat about the depths of the problem. But apparently that's the way we do things these days.
I miss Cardigan Politics, where all you had to do was be clever and committed and work hard and everything generally followed neatly along until you turned into a complete pillock, at which point another cardigan-wearing person was elected.
Still, Julia will be a fine PM if we end up with her, it's just a very stupid way for Kevin to be removed. I rather hope he gets the numbers now, as he will be unleashed to be the fierce little policy wonk he really is, and THAT would certainly blow Abbott out of the water.
Some background.
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd is a brilliant political mind who is also a very rational person. This is a problem, because he governs a country that is not famous for having a rational electorate. Basically, he's a reasonably conservative, if small l liberal, Professor Flitwick, though he looks like Harry Potter with a charisma bypass. A year ago he was the most popular PM in Australian history.
He has had some massive successes, most notably Australia weathered the GFC so well under his leadership that most Australians have no idea how bad the GFC actually was. And that's not a party political statement, rather a matter of fact. By every economic indicator, Australia has done remarkably well, without setting up an untenable deficit in stimulus spending
But he has also had some significant failures. The Australian Labor Party (ALP), his party, backflipped on the Emissions Trading Scheme, which had wide public support but could not get through both houses of parliament due to the ALP not having a majority in the upper house. This could have been the trigger for going to an election after a double dissolution in April, when the ALP were polling strongly, instead, Kevin declared that they would leave the scheme on the backburner until 2013. This was massively unpopular for a long list of reasons including making life very difficult for green power technology companies, and because Australia bears the brunt of climate change in the way that many other countries are yet to.
At about the same time, the government's insulation scheme blew up, sort of literally. The government had subsidised installation of household insulation to cut both greenhouse gas production and household energy bills (partially to offset the increased power costs forecast under emissions trading). Unfortunately, they did not bank on the People Are Bastards rule, which saw any number of shonky companies move in on the action to make quick profits and saw a number of household fires as insulation was stapled to wiring, and indeed four deaths of undertrained workers. The media and opposition screamed for the scheme to be suspended, and then screamed when it was suspended and legitimate companies lost money.
Recently, the Resources Super Profits Tax blew up. This is a very elegant taxation model for reforming tax in the resources (mining) sector. Most economists like it very much, as does the International Monetary Federation. It is was designed by a review committee led by the renowned Ken Henry and delivered late last year or at the very beginning of this one. And the government kept the report private for five months. Then announced that they would be going ahead with this new tax, without consultation with the public or the mining industry (which was stupid, because Rudd should have done what he usually does and had such a long and boring period of consultancy that everyone just ended up saying 'fine! Go for it! Just stop talking about it!'). The Mining industry responded to this by saying that they would all go broke, and that they were the only thing that had stood between Australia and bankruptcy through the GFC (Neither of these things are true).
After a bad year, Kevin has slumped in the polls and is actually polling behind the leader of the opposition, Tony Abbott. Abbott's the Vincent Crabbe of the Australian parliamentary scene, who last year rolled Draco Malfoy (aka Malcolm Turnbull) for leadership of his party. A rabid right winger, who is disturbingly keen to introduce religion into politics, Abbott is keen to have no emissions trading, no new mining taxes, and many fewer rights for workers, because workers probably don't vote for him anyway.
Tonight, Kevin has been tapped on the shoulder by members of his own party and told that he will face a challenge in the morning from the Deputy Prime Minister, Julia Gillard (very much Hermione Granger). Now she is lovely, and very bright, but did not previously have the numbers to win power within the party on her own, so settled for the deuptyship at the last election. She is on the Left wing of the ALP.
However, today the Right-wing numbersmen who largely govern the ALP in the largest states have all decided to switch their allegiance from Kevin to Julia, as has the Australian Workers Union. When asked why, there was a lot of blather about the need to defeat Abbott (which I am all for -- he is evil, Malfoy was heaps better), and then a declaration that they don't believe Kevin will be able to go to the next election and talk about policy when his leadership within the party is under question.
Which seems ever so slightly circular since they are the ones who are questioning his leadership.
It's a little bit rich to me: construct a problem and then breast-beat about the depths of the problem. But apparently that's the way we do things these days.
I miss Cardigan Politics, where all you had to do was be clever and committed and work hard and everything generally followed neatly along until you turned into a complete pillock, at which point another cardigan-wearing person was elected.
Still, Julia will be a fine PM if we end up with her, it's just a very stupid way for Kevin to be removed. I rather hope he gets the numbers now, as he will be unleashed to be the fierce little policy wonk he really is, and THAT would certainly blow Abbott out of the water.
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Still, Julia is so lovely, and so smart, that she may be able to win over the electorate quickly, and such a hardarse that she may be able to keep the ALP in check. I want a woman PM, but not one followed quickly by that ferret Abbott.
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Anyway, must stop reading and sleep. I guess we'll all know in 8 hours or so!
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Was that the Lieberman thing? MADNESS! (cannot follow links tonight, can only touchtype while watching football)
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