Follow the Leader

What you see depends on where you stand.

You know what I mean? If I sit at my desk, I can see the palm trees and the giant Moreton Bay fig in the yard. It’s a vista of rich green shapes that fills the window. But if I move about 5 steps to my boss’s desk, the green growth that fills my window is only a small part at the edge of his vision. He sees mainly blue-grey sky, grass, and beyond that, the river reflecting the mood of the sky.

Former Prime Minister Julia Gillard is in a very different place now to where she was just a month ago, and I imagine her view is very different from the back benches. More importantly, Ms Gillard’s view of the future has changed too. I don't know what it is that she sees, but I know it's different, because her perspective is different.

Kevin Rudd has been Prime Minister before, so the view is distantly familiar, but the environment and challenges are different.

Remember  that our views have changed too. Where a month ago our leader was a red-headed woman, it’s now a silver haired man. Change is emotional, for those involved and for those looking on. As a Change Manager, I should be aware of this, and in a professional capacity, I certainly am. As an observer and biased commentator on the political situation, I seem to be less astute.

There is still so much bad feeling lingering after the spill. I had thought that perhaps the Rudd fans who’d been so depressed after the June 2010 spill would have regained their equilibrium and be ready to get on with the job. Equally, I hoped that the Gillard supporters would accept that whether this year’s spill was right or wrong, warranted or not, restoring Rudd to the Prime Ministership has given the ALP a genuine opportunity to win the election and retain government.

The acceptance, the unity I was hoping for just isn’t evident. There is still pronounced ill-feeling, most of it aimed at Kevin Rudd. Those who supported Ms Gillard while Mr Rudd – in their opinion - destabilized the party and white-anted the leader refuse to forgive and forget. Some vow to boycott the ALP and vote Green. Others are still incoherent in their rage at what was done to our first female Prime Minister.

Perhaps we should take notice of how the Australian cricket team has behaved since their spill. South African-born coach Mickey Arthur was never well accepted by Australian cricket fans, so after a string of disappointing performances by the Aussies, Mr Arthur was sacked by Cricket Australia.

The Aussie fans were pleased to see the end of Mickey Arthur, particularly when he was replaced by Aussie bloke Darren Lehmann, better known to all as “Boof”. Boof doesn’t say much to the media. He gets results, and grotesque failure by the Aussie top and middle orders notwithstanding, we almost beat the Poms last weekend in the first Ashes test. No-one expected that.

Unlike politics, the cricket spill seemed to be surgically precise. Mickey was gone, Boof was in, and everyone was happy.

Except Dave Warner. And Mickey Arthur. And Michael Clarke and Shane Watson. First of all, Dave Warner, banished from the Australian team for two tests because of unacceptable off-field behaviour, admitted that his poor attitude and resulting booze-fuelled larks may have been a factor in the decision to give Mickey Arthur the boot. Very perceptive, Dave. Actions have consequences... but the coach failed to manage Dave's behaviour. I'm not making excuses for Dave Warner - he's old enough and experienced enough to know better - but when it became obvious that he had a problem, he should have been counselled and disciplined.

And now, Mickey Arthur is suing Cricket Australia for four million dollars, for wrongful dismissal. Now I don’t know what was in his contract, but if his employment was to coach the Australian team to victory, he failed in most of his objectives. If his contract included doing nothing to damage the reputation of the Australian cricket community, he failed on that measure as well as his team repeatedly made headlines for boozing, blueing, and failing to do their homework.

In his media statements, he has indicated that he was the hapless victim in a feud between Aussie Captain Michael Clarke and opener Shane Watson. Respected senior players like Brad Haddin are falling into line to support their team, denying any kind of contretemps between Pup and Watto. Boof, of course, has remained silent, as he should.

Whether there is or was any klnd of conflict between Pup and Watto is fascinating in light of Arthur’s claims. If there was no feud, Arthur is lying and looking for high profile scapegoats and a big payout. If there was a real feud, Arthur, as coach, should have intervened and managed the situation in whatever way was appropriate. In both cases, Arthur is wrong. I fail to see any "wrongful" in CA's dismissal of the former coach.

Mercifully, whatever had been going on within the Australian Cricket Team under Mickey Arthur is being dealt with, and team is behaving as a team (except for the regular batting catastrophes) and everyone, from fans to players to the Cricket Australia management group is united behind the bloke called Boof.

In the meantime, Labor supporters are still venting their bitterness all over social media. Julia Gillard isn't suing anyone for wrongful dismissal - she's got way too much class for that. In any case, if part of her role as parliamentary leader of the ALP was to lead the ALP to an election victory, she would have found herself soundly defeated. Another female Labor leader would be brought undone.

I understand that her supporters might abhor the way that Mr Rudd replaced Ms Gillard, but that’s done. My loathing is for the way she was treated while in the top job, but standing here at the boss's window, I can see that there was little option but to replace her. Continuing to focus energy on the spill appears as ALP disunity, and helps no-one. Ms Gillard's supporters need to move to a bigger window with a different view. It’s not Rudd versus Gillard that they should be seeing; it’s the Rudd versus the Coalition in the coming election and the view from that window is tinged with hope. 

Two Parties - Neither Preferred

Today's Herald/Neilsen poll is yet more confirmation that Australians are less than enchanted  with both the Federal Labor Government, and the Coalition in Opposition. No matter how these numbers are cut, there are no clear winners, least of all the Australian public. 

Today's poll sees the Labor Government once again nudging the record low primary vote of 26%. Get away from the statistics for a moment, and remember that these numbers represent people: put four adult Australians around a table, and three of them would vote for someone else before they'd vote Labor. If you're the one ALP voter at your table, you might want to talk about something  other than politics; something less controversial, like the existence of God or life on other planets...

The truly frightening numbers are those involving our leaders. Sixty percent disapprove of the job the Prime Minister is doing. 57% disapprove of the job Tony Abbott is doing as Opposition Leader. Approval numbers are at 36% and 39% respectively.  

And that's not the worst of it for Gillard and Abbott. Both current leaders are far less popular than their predecessors. Gillard trails Kevin Rudd by 30 percentage points, and Abbott trails Malcolm Turnbull by 27. Those numbers aren't really as dangerous they look though; both party's leadership issues flatten out considerably when opposition party voters are excluded. 

The one big move in the poll is Tony Abbott's personal approval dropping five points. As I write this, Mr Abbott is spinning for all he's worth, at a press call located at a garbage dump - bring your own imagery. Journalist and author George Megalogenis has tweeted: 

John Howard was poll-driven. But he never fell for trap of responding to, let alone spinning each survey. @TonyAbbottMHR is no John Howard.

Mr Abbott is nothing if not reactionary, and Ms Gillard tends to bite every time he attacks. That makes him an effective, if unpopular, Opposition Leader, but not an effective Party Leader or Prime Minister. A Liberal leadership spill would be unlikely though; with such a solid Primary and 2PP vote, there's no imperative for a leadership change.

Ms Gillard and Mr Abbott have one thing in common though: they both had rocky starts to their leadership: Gillard was crucified for her assassination of Kevin Rudd, and Tony Abbott beat Turnbull in a spill, by a margin of just one vote. 

To break out the sweeping generalisations from today's poll, here are a few headlines:

3 in 4 voters won't vote for a Labor candidate
3 in 5 voters don't approve of the job the Prime Minister is doing
3 in 5 voters don't approve of the job the Opposition Leader is doing
Kevin Rudd is almost twice as popular as Julia Gillard
Malcolm Turnbull is approaching twice as popular as Tony Abbott

So it still looks as though the Coalition will form the next government with a swing of around 7%, but it's not something they should be proud of. They're not liked or respected; they're still just "less awful than Labor".  What a mandate that would be: "just be better than the last lot".

This poll included a specific question to gauge reaction to the Coalition's relentless attacks on Labor over the Craig Thomson Fiasco. For all our bleating that the voters are sick of their parliament being a swirling cesspool of negativity,  53% responded that the Coalition attacks were either 'reasonable' or 'hadn't gone far enough'. Only 31% thought the Coalition had been excessive in their pursuit of Mr Thomson.

Careful now, this is confusing: 57% disapprove of the job Tony Abbott is doing, his personal approval has dropped by 5%, yet 53% approved of his handling of Craig Thomson's demise. What does this mean? Do we want more nasty, personal, even brutal offensives in our political arena? Or is it more a case that Craig Thomson looks as guilty as sin and is therefore a fair target? Perhaps it's the third option - a reflection of primary voting intention? 

It's hard to read what's happening in the minds of voters right now, other than a strong "please don't make me vote for either of those two" sentiment. Having said that, what are the options? The Greens picked a smidgen under their new leader Christine Milne, but they aren't a major party, and hardly an option for conservative voters. 

While the structure of this parliament has highlighted the roles of the Independents, they may have endangered their own existence. Sadly, these independents who are free to vote as their beliefs dictate, for the benefit of their electorates, may not be re-elected. Rob Oakeshott is still mocked for his seventeen minute speech announcing his allegiance with Labor, allowing Ms Gillard to form a Government. Seventeen minutes can be a long time, but it's a shame we remember the length of the speech and not the substance. 

It's almost inconceivable that Bob Katter's party could have an influence outside of Queensland, where despite both singing and dancing, it made little impact on election. Even today, Bob Katter is talking up his party performance in the Queensland election. The KAP won only two seats, but polled around 15% of the vote in some key seats. Unfortunately, 15% doesn't get you a ticket to the show.

So it appears that we don't like our current government, and we don't like the alternative government. Factoring in the unions and Greens on the left and the Mining interests and Christian Lobby on the right, it's hard to have confidence in how much leading the Leaders are doing. They appear to be following their masters, although not exclusively. We don't like the negative way politics is conducted, but it was acceptable to at least half the sample to watch Tony Abbott - of whom they disapprove - tear Craig Thomson into soggy little sound bites.

We have less than eighteen months at the outside until the next Federal election must be held. Something is wrong, and we need to fix it. 

What's Wrong with Labor?

Not far beyond the half-way mark in the Gillard government, the consensus seems to be that the parliament has been nothing short of chaotic: scandal upon scandal, lie after lie. Pundits agree that this government is magnificently dysfunctional, when in fact, the Gillard Government has been passing legislation with quiet regularity. And yet, they have all but lost the election that won't be held for another twelve months or so.

The possibility that the ALP could win the next federal election lacks credibility in most quarters, and the newest national sport is hypothesising on what killed the Labor Party, and for those from the left, how to fix it.

Conservative commentator Chris Kenny proposed via on Twitter on May 15 that the ALP's woes are the result of being poll-driven.

Labor's whole problem is it is poll driven - even the claim it is not poll driven is poll driven #auspol

Bill Kelty, one of the godfathers of the Left, suggested to this week's ACTU Congress that they should look within: "...when he advised delegates not to blame the media or opposition because they are just doing their job, the meaning for all of us is that we control our own destiny with our own behaviour." There's more than a grain of truth there, but it's an insider's truth, not the whole truth.

Brisbane commentator Madonna King had a look at the situation in yesterday's Courier Mail. "Voters aren't taken with Tony Abbott, and they've now turned off listening to Julia Gillard." Ms King is correct, as far as she goes, but there's so much more to it, and Bill Kelty nudges it when he talks about making policy simpler for the electorate to understand and embrace.

For Labor, there is no easy answer, no single cause, and no silver bullet. An extraordinary convergence of events and personalities has conspired to...er...screw the Australian Labor Party with its pants on.

Circumstantial shots were fired by the GFC, ensuring that the Labor Governments of Rudd and Gillard would face economic challenges not predicted in the promise-filled days of campaigning. After years of Howard/Costello Budget Bonbons and Surpluses, the electorate was confused by talk of recession combined with stimulus handouts. It was seen as wasting our precious surplus when we needed it most.

History has shown that Wayne Swan's economic leadership through the darkest days of the GFC was masterful. Had he taken us in a different direction, Australia could well be fighting Greece and Spain for the title of Loser of the Week. But as the ALP has learned, it's almost impossible to get that triumphant economic message out.

Factors 2 and 3 in the ALP Real Life Disaster Movie are the Coalition and Media. Bill Kelty cautioned unionists not to blame the Opposition or the media, but it's foolish to discount their impact. Opposition Leader Tony Abbott is a skilled No-man, with a team of committed No-People behind him. So relentless, so fascinating is the Coalition's ability to undermine every Labor achievement, the media has no choice but to cover it, particularly when our articulate government ministers seek out a microphone and react every time the Noalition says anything. This is Labor allowing the Opposition to control the national agenda.

Who are the big media names in this country, the commentators with a personal following? Alan Jones, Ray Hadley, Andrew Bolt, Piers Ackerman, each of them aggressively conservative, with anti-refugee, anti-climate change, anti-gay rights agendas. There is no left-leaning equivalent with anything approaching the reach of these men.

Add to that Today Tonight and A Current Affair. They may not be overtly political, yet their lowest common denominator stories about undeserving asylum seekers living the good life, dodgy public officials and the appalling cost of everything, feed into the anti-government sentiment. Even as I write this blog, Today Tonight is promoting noted xenophobe Pauline Hanson's guest-starring role this week as another Caucasian making you mad at people who look like me.

Chris Kenny, journalist and Liberal party operative, suggests that the ALP downfall is because it is poll-driven. The assassination of Kevin Rudd's Prime Ministership had an element of poll-reliance to it, yet those poll numbers that Rudd had in mid-2010 would be a dream come true for Labor now. Why hasn't the ALP benched Julia Gillard? Perhaps they aren't as poll-driven now as they were two years ago.

What else do the polls tell us? Concern about the economy trumps all other policy areas, despite Australia's world-beating financial status. The latest Morgan poll on issues doesn't seem to determine ALP focus, but it does reflect the agendas of the right wing shock jocks.

Does all of this suggest that the Coalition is simply better at getting their message out via traditional means than Labor is?

The final, most disastrous element in the ALP's decline is the simple truth that the Party and it's traditional base are separated by an ever-widening ideological gulf. Bob Hawke can sing all the union anthems in the world, but it doesn't mean anything to the unionists who see "their" ALP slow-dancing with policies so far to the right that even Malcolm Fraser has to swivel his head to see them.

So there they sit, disgruntled unionists, disillusioned greenies, disenfranchised lefties of all kinds, wondering where their party went. Polls, media, an obstructionist opposition, a hung parliament, the GFC, climate change, asylum seekers and the rise in popularity of the raspberry macaron notwithstanding, the base is still there, where they've been all along. The ALP chased the centre, and in doing so, moved so far to the right that it's unrecognisable to grass roots lefties like me.

How does Labor fix the problem? Start by turning 180 degrees to the left and peering into the distance. There's literally hundreds of thousands of Aussies over here who'd like to have a chat.

.