The 44th: Hero Status

Originally Posted 6 March 2014

It's 7am Thursday in Brisbane, and just over 30 hours ago, Western Australia's Greens Senator Scott Ludlum delivered an extraordinary Adjournment Speech inviting Prime Minister Tony Abbott to visit Western Australia.

The video of that speech, delivered entirely without theatrics to a near empty chamber, has gone viral, being viewed over a quarter of a million times since being posted on YouTube. That in itself is remarkable.

Equally incredible is that the mainstream media appears to have completely missed it. Granted, we're not in a quiet news period. Traditional media is juggling headlines: Operation Sovereign Borders, the Qantas backflip on the impact of the Carbon Tax, the crisis in Ukraine, the censure of Senator Fiona Nash, new GDP figures and the Prime Minister Abbott's odd remarks about trees and forests, and an overnight victory to our cricketers in South Africa.

None of that has slowed down this juggernaut. Why are people being drawn to this speech, with its Western Australian bias? After viewing it, why have so many retweeted the link, shared the post or recommended it to friends and family?

This speech encompasses much of what the ALP should've been talking about for the past three months. Rather than swapping petty digs at competing press conferences, this is a catalogue of reasons why Australian voters are turning away from the Coalition. From mocking the Liberals' trademark series of three word slogans to the perverted authority of Gina Rinehart on matters of industrial relations, to the Government's deliberate impotence on anything to do with the environment, Senator Ludlam's measured words are more suited to an Opposition Leader than a Senator from a second-tier party.

Senator Ludlam has found his audience: Greens, appalled coalition voters, disappointed swinging voters, plus many on the left looking for more than their party has offered them.

For weeks now, Labor members have been asking each other why ALP Leader Bill Shorten isn't tougher, more vocal on issues ranging from Manus Island to Holden's withdrawal from Australia. Muted calls to replace the understated Mr Shorten with his deputy, Tanya Plibersek, or with Tory streetfighter Anthony Albanese have peppered progressive blogs. The members of the Labor Party, so encouraged by their new role in electing a leader, are now looking for leadership, craving inspiration, only to have it handed to them by a Greens Senator.

What does it mean for the Western Australian senate election in early April?

Senator Ludlam has all but assured his future in the Senate. Beyond that, he'll pick up support from disillusioned ALP voters, and from random voters who responded to the speech.

But it's not good news for Bill Shorten or the ALP. This is the speech Shorten should've been making in one form or another every week since Christmas, albeit without the Western Australian flavour. The is the first true offering of progressive leadership since the election last September.

It seems that the left has a new hero, and he's Green. Now it's up to Labor to respond.

Over Bob's Rainbow

Do you ever wonder about the incongruity of Sydney's Daily Telegraph talking about how progressive voters think? It's like asking an atheist why she doesn't believe  in God. Or why some people are gay. 

Progressive voters - lefties - rarely compromise. They're not dissimilar to conservative "values" voters in that way. Lefties are values voters, but their values are opposite to those on the right. True Believers, all. Please, insert your own 'der' here.

Reputable newspapers should have no difficulty in reporting what the Government of the day has said and done, give or take a degree of spin. Having said that, pretending to understand how the minds of progressive voters work is not an area of expertise for the Murdoch media. Just look at this effort from yesterday's Daily Telegraph. 

"Will Greens turn red now that Bob Brown is down?" asked the headline. 

Bob Brown's unexpected retirement has provided News Limited with a tailor-made opportunity to guess at the potential of a Christine Milne-lead Green machine. 

And they did. If you believe the Telegraph, Bob Brown's retirement could be the end of a significant third force in Australian politics. In Simon Benson's piece yesterday, you could hear the salivating: "Tony Abbott will make easy work of a perception that the man responsible for forcing the government to introduce the carbon tax doesn't even want to stick around to see it start."

Honeycomb. A sweet fiction full of holes. Just enough substance to make it feel solid, the glossy appearance of insider knowledge, and enough spin to appeal to the paper's conservative readers. For the progressive reader, manufactured air bubbles surrounded by annoyance.

Bob Brown didn't force the Government to introduce a carbon tax. No-one forced the government to introduce the carbon tax. Why is it so hard to accept that the ALP Government made a decision based on what they believe to be the best course for Australia? The Greens agreed. 

Perhaps the vision of a quietly determined Dr Brown monotonously brow-beating a weak-willed red-headed female PM into backflipping political submission works for you. If that's a credible image, Campbell Newman has tunnel to sell: one careful owner, barely used. He'll even throw in free delivery!

For anyone with an interest in returning the Coalition to power, the suggestion that Julia Gillard is weak is worth promoting. It's not factual, but that's not important, right? Right.

Next, drum up some fear, straight out of the Roger Ailes play book. According to Benson, Bob Brown - despite forcing a crippling carbon tax on an unwilling nation - is a moderate Green. The true Watermelon Devil is the new leader Christine Milne, with her communist tendencies guiding a radical social agenda. 

Ms Milne has been very determined to focus her intentions on more easily identifiable Green targets: rural Australia and big business. Not a whisper about middle class welfare from the Chief Commie...although Barnaby Joyce wants to increase the Baby Bonus for stay-at-home Mums. Only fair, too: if you sacrifice your career, the least you should get is a new set of stainless steel appliances. 

As for the timing of the retirement, I'm surprised no-one has suggested that it was a plot to deny the Liberal Premiers their national news cycle at COAG.  Not everything that happens on the left is designed to wound the right. Sometimes decisions are made not for their political impact, but because they are the best decisions one can make at the time.

Bob will be around to see the Carbon Tax; it's about to be reality, even in Tasmania. To suggest that he's retirement has anything to do with not wanting to be in Canberra when it happens is just nonsensical. 

It's a good yarn, though. If there is dissent within the Greens, Bob and the Lefties will be cheering from outside the inner circle. The Greens under Bob Brown accepted and encouraged people to think, to discover, to explore and debate and find their common ground and represent progressive Australians.
That's the way the Left thinks.

Simon Benson concluded his piece with this: "Whether you agree with his policies or not, it is unlikely this country will see another third force in politics like him for quite some time."

No, there's no-one quite like Dr Bob Brown. How fortunate we have been to have him as part of our national dialogue.

The Clive Who Cried Wolf

The thing about Professor Clive J Palmer is that he is oftentimes so "colourful" that when he makes up fantastic stories about environmental groups and the foreign spy agencies, we believe it. And we did. 

It’s not that we’re gullible, it’s just that we’re used to Clive having a finger in every pie and a self-serving opinion on everything. As far as we know, he's never deliberately lied to us before. As far as we know...

As we learned yesterday, Clive doesn’t really believe that the CIA is funding environmental groups to destroy Australia’s coal export industry, thereby favouring our American competitors. He’s no fan of the environmental groups; he just wanted to provide a big distraction in the last week of the Queensland election campaign. I’ve no idea why he thought he needed a distraction; there was never a realistic chance that the ALP could win.

Clive cried wolf, and our outrage was unanimous. Mission Accomplished.

Crazy Clive’s Conspiracy theory needs a closer look though. Just because he’s donned the lyrca and cycled backwards doesn’t mean he didn’t call a press conference to announce to the world that the CIA was funding the Greens. He can't put the conspiracy back in the tube. That kind of pronouncement has consequences.

Clive has undoubtedly damaged his own reputation, particularly with the media. He lied to the media for political gain. Anything else he says, at least regarding politics, politicians and interest groups, will be treated with some degree of caution, and rightly so.

He’s also damaged the reputation of the man he accused of receiving CIA funds to disrupt Australia’s export coal industry. Drew Hutton now has the backing of grass-roots activist group GetUp, and they will be taking Clive to court. Whether Drew and GetUp can match Clive’s bottomless funding pit is yet to be seen, but you’d think that Drew would have a pretty good chance of winning.

Clive’s more recent attention-grabbers - the Hyatt Regency Coolum, the Gold Coast Soccer team, his CIA Conspiracy, his weight loss triumph - are conspicuously unrelated to his mining operations. He doesn't involve his primary money-makers in his media insanity, unless it's to slap the Treasurer around.

Closer to home, I marvel that Clive thinks its okay to lie to get what you want. Is that what he tells his preschool daughter? Is that how he runs his businesses? Is that how he views his marriage? 

Or does he save his deception for political gain?

Clive is a liar and a bully-boy, and that’s disappointing. He’s also a liar and a bully boy with money and influence. That makes him dangerous.  

We're onto him now, though. No amount of money can buy credibility.

Conspiracy! The Clivening

Clive Palmer. What can I say? This afternoon, he went bat-shit crazy in front of the national media, at a media conference he called.

This wasn't an ambush, a leak to be denied or rumour to be confirmed. This was Clive Palmer deliberately standing up to demonstrate a theory that the CIA is funding the Australian Greens. Why? To ensure the continued success of the American coal industry by sabotaging the Australian export coal industry. 

It's not April Fools Day, so he must believe this stuff.

It's certainly not the first time that Clive's called a press conference and surprised a few journalists: his pronouncements can range from his new soccer league to weight loss to his reaction to Wayne Swan's provocations last month. He is unpredictable and emotionally engaged. 
And more than a little unhinged.

It's lucky for the LNP that they are so confident of winning on Saturday, because a brain splodey like that from the LNP's biggest donor could give some nervous LNP voters the screaming

God only knows what LNP President Bruce McIver thinks...and Bruce is pretty close to God. He's pretty close to Professor Palmer too. Palmer is McIver's boss.

Yes, the state president of the LNP works for a billionaire mining magnate who (a) delivered a bizarre international conspiracy theory on national tellie, and (b) is the largest donor to his employee's political party.

What is Tony Abbott's response to Clive's statement?

What is Campbell Newman's response to Clive's statement?

What is Bruce McIver's response to Clive's statement?

None of these politicians has made any comment about Clive's conspiracy theory, although it is obviously something they need to take time with. Surely they must recognise the insanity of today's presser...but are they willing to distance themselves from their largest donor? 

If the do, they risk losing his financial support as well as any potential backlash from other mining interests who are supporting Clive...if anyone is... I haven't seen a single word of support for him. Yet. 

If they don't repudiate his craziness, the LNP will be seen by everyone as supporting his theories. Many already believe the relationship between mining companies and both major political parties is too close. No politician can risk being associated this theory, surely?

At least Clive's spectacular pronouncement is keeping Hajnal Black off the front page.