The 44th: Where are the Real Solutions?

Tony Abbott has always been a curious character in Australian politics. He was effective as a minister in John Howard’s government, and triumphant as Opposition Leader because he has the political instincts of a cornered Rottweiler.

As Prime Minister, we are yet to see if he can deal with the actuality of governing.

Remember the ubiquitous Liberal pamphlet entitled Real Solutions for all Australians? Remember the slightly vague policies that were released as little more than handy slogans, and were rarely discussed in any detail.

The contents of the pamphlet were the Liberal Party’s election manifesto – their handbook to winning, their campaign talking points and their promise to Australian voters.

Here, in these pages, is the stronger Australia – a truly 21^st Century Australia – that the next Coalition Government will build.

I didn't keep my copy of the Liberal pamphlet, but due to a catastrophic lack of trust in the Liberal Party, I kept a soft copy, complete with those juicy little talking-point-sized “policy priorities”. As we approach Treasurer Hockey’s first budget, seems as good a time as any to revisit the Liberal’s Real Solutions for all Australians, and see what progress is being made against the areas that the Coalition identified as their priorities for government.

1  1. We will build a stronger, more productive and diverse economy with lower taxes, more efficient government and more productive businesses that will deliver more jobs, higher real incomes and better services for you and your family.

The Reality

This statement is an equivocal catchall, with plenty of vague concepts that make the feel warm and fuzzy about life with a Liberal-Coalition government. Even if people were to read no further, this statement is positive and comforting. Post-election, the reality looks less certain.

•  Taxes are unlikely to be lowered as the debt has doubled since the election.
• Unemployment for March 2014 is at 6.0%, 0.2% higher than when the Coalition Government won office in September 2013. The unemployment rate in January was the higher than at any time during the Rudd-Gillard years, which included the GFC.
• The average adult wage for the September 2013 quarter was $1420.90. Childcare and Aged Care workers had their pay rises revoked.
• Better services is a subjective measure. The following changes have been made to services provided by the federal government:

o   Compensation to victims of bushfires has been reduced

o   Twelve advisory groups abolished

o   Medicare offices on are now closed on Saturdays

o   The Alcohol and Other Drugs Council of Australia has been axed

o   The Multicultural Communities Programme has been axed

o   Funding for the Indigenous Legal Services has been reduced

o   The Public Interest Advocacy Centre has been defunded

o   The Food Grants programme for small farmers has been axed

o   The tiny welfare payment to orphans of ADF members has been discontinued

        2. We will get the budget back under control, cut waste and start reducing debt – to keep interest rates low as possible and to protect the Australian economy from future economic shocks.

The Reality

This statement is predicated on the assumption that the budget was out of control – an assumption not shared by the IMF, the three major credit ratings agencies and the rest of an envious world. The reality of a healthy economy makes this Liberal objective redundant. Despite that, the Abbott Government and Treasurer Joe Hockey have succeeded in reversing the situation, leaving room for improvement where little opportunity existed before.

• According to the Australian Financial Review, “Australia has posted the fastest budget deterioration over the past six months of any of the world’s 29 most advanced economies tracked by the International Monetary Fund”. This would indicate that the budget is out of Joe Hockey’s  control 
• Mr Hockey has effectively doubled the budget deficit, adding $68 billion over the forward estimates in MYEFO
• 300 jobs from the Department of Treasury have been cut along with thousands from other departments
• According to the Government, it’s all Labor’s fault

3. We will help families to get ahead by freeing them from the burdens of the carbon tax - to protect Australian jobs and reduce cost-of-living pressures, especially rising electricity prices and gas prices.

The Reality

The Carbon Tax has not been repealed, and will not be repealed until the new Senate is sworn in in July. Even then, it’s not a certainty, although with the Palmer United Party holding the balance of power in the Senate, it does look likely.

• The Government has also introduced legislation to allow employers to pay junior wages – half the minimum wage, to workers under 25. This may encourage some employers to employ more people, but younger workers will find it impossible to live on half the minimum wage, so cost of living pressures will be insurmountable for those under 25.
• The Home Energy Saver Scheme, which helped low income households to reduce their energy consumption and hence electricity bills, has been axed.
• There doesn’t seem to be any provision for the instance where removing the Carbon Tax does not reduce electricity prices – and there’s absolutely no guarantee that it will.

    4. We will help small businesses grow and create more jobs – by reducing business costs and cutting red and green tape costs by $1 billion every year.

The Reality

The entire Australian economy is now under more pressure than it was at any time under the previous Labor government, including during the GFC. Businesses of all sizes are suffering. At this time, there have been no specific measures to support SMEs, aside from the following changes

• Tax arrangements for small businesses were amended, effective January 1 2014. 
• The government has introduced Repeal Days, an initiative with it’s own website dedicated to the red tape being cut.

On Wednesday 19 March, following a statement by the Prime Minister, the Government introduced legislation and tabled documents to repeal more than 10,000 pieces and more than 50,000 pages of legislation and regulations and save over $700 million of compliance costs from across the economy. 

This is a significant move, yet the bulk of deregulation initiatives are unrelated to small business.

Another move which may assist small businesses to employ more workers, but is more likely to be an ideological war waged for political gain, is the government’s relentless pursuit of unions.

• Established a Royal Commission into Unions
• Stated that SPC Ardmona workers were receiving favourable conditions – this was later proven to be false
• Tried to strong-arm SPC-Ardmona into cutting the “excessive” wages and benefits of its employees
• Blamed the unions for Toyota’s  decision to pull out of Australia, despite Toyota denying that workers’ wages were a consideration
• Decreased the wages of Australian troops deployed overseas by almost $20 000 per solider
• Re-established the controversial Australian Building and Construction Commission

     5. We will create stronger jobs growth by building a diverse, world-class 5-Pillar economy – by building on our strengths in Manufacturing Innovation, Advanced Services, Agriculture Exports, world-class Education and Research, as well as boosting mining exports.

The Reality

Four of the five pillars of the Liberal’s economy - Manufacturing Innovation, Advanced Services, world-class Education and Research - have been disadvantaged, with the following actions blatantly limiting the government support that these pillars would receive. The concepts of innovation, advancement and research in every area are being challenged, and the government’s approach to education is in disarray.

• The 44^th Parliament does not include a Minister for Science
• The 44^th Parliament does not include a Minister for Innovation
• 600 jobs have been cut across Australia’s peak scientific body, the CSIRO
• Axed 400 jobs at the Industry department

The Prime Minister’s recent Asian tour has resulted in a number of Free Trade Agreements. The National Farmers’ Federation is less than enthusiastic about these agreements, particularly on the key FTA with Japan, which is strong in the upmarket areas of beef, seafood and wine experts, but falls short in other areas. The Sydney Morning Herald reported 

"The agreement does not improve – or marginally improves – market access and terms of trade for a number of sectors such as dairy, sugar, grains, pork and rice," National Farmers Federation president Brett Finlay said.

    6. We will generate one million new jobs over the next five years and two million new jobs within a decade by growing a bigger, more productive and prosperous economy.

     The Reality

    Former American Presidential hopeful Mitt Romney might take issue with this: he believes that jobs are created by the private sector. Nevertheless, let’s assume the Liberals were thinking about generating the conditions to support creation of new jobs and assess progress towards this priority on that basis.

    Unemployment figures released in February 2014 placed Australia’s unemployment rate at its highest point in the last ten years. In fairness, the Abbott government has moved to make it easier for businesses to employ more young staff, by

• Placed penalty rates and other Award conditions in doubt in the government’s submission to the Fair Work Commission’s review of all Awards
• Introduced legislation to allow employers to pay juniors (under 25) as little as half the minimum wage
• Introduced legislation to remove the responsibility of employers to protect rights of younger workers to access basic workplace health and safety provisions 

Aside from winding back workers’ wages and conditions to favour employers, it is difficult to see how the government plans to support the creation of any jobs at all, based on their actions since the election. With unemployment not falling, little effort to support small and new business, and the government's willingness to see significant Australian employers cut jobs, there is little good news.

   

    Terry McCrann, writing for NewsLimited, suggested this alternate reality: 

    There are two broad ways of looking at this. There’s the positive — perhaps, insanely optimistic — way. We are closing down the industries where we simply can’t compete with low-cost Asia.   They’ll be replaced by 21st century hi-tech industries more generally, with growth in areas, more specifically, like professional services, health and education services. 

But the development of those hi-tech industries is not being supported by the government, so it appears that Terry McCrann’s less optimistic future may be more likely:

    The negative way to see this, is Australia becoming China’s quarry, surrounded by very expensive real estate — much of it owned by high-achieving both non-resident Chinese and Australians of Chinese heritage — and producing very little of much else.

           

     7. We will build more modern infrastructure to get things moving – with an emphasis on reducing the bottlenecks in our gridlocked roads and highways.

The Reality

Were it not for last week’s announcement about Sydney’s second airport at Badgery’s Creek, it would be fair to assume that infrastructure chapter had been ripped out of the pamphlet and thrown to the four winds. Having said that, a new airport in Sydney’s west will do little to address the bottlenecks on Sydney’s roads.

In fairness, achievement in infrastructure is rarely fast. The ribbon cutting ceremonies attended by Infrastructure Minister Warren Truss have been for projects commenced under the previous Labor government. New projects which Mr Truss has announced are years from completion, and the High Speed Rail Advisory Group has been disbanded.

The key piece of infrastructure available for delivery under this government is the National Broadband Network, which has been scaled back to a B-grade facsimile of what is needed.

    8. We will deliver better services including health services – by putting local communities in charge of hospitals and improving co-operation with the States and Territories.

The Reality

Presiding over health services has become an unfathomable tug-o-war between state government, federal government, the AMA and private corporations in the health arena. Undeniably, health care in Australia is becoming more expensive for consumers. Whether restructuring the provision of services to put locals in charge of hospitals is debatable; all the Abbott Government has achieved in the health services space is a few token manoeuvres.

• Threatens to impose a $6 Medicare Co-payment
• Cut $150m out of the health budget
• Cut the Alcohol and Other Drugs Council
• Cuts the website providing information on the ingredients and nutritional content of foods
• Announced a plan to decommission the GP Superclinics
• Closes Medicare offices on Saturdays
• Approves private health fund premium increases of an average 6.2% a year

     9. We will deliver better education – by putting local communities in charge of improving the performance of local schools.

    The Reality

    One of the major achievements of the Rudd-Gillard administration was the delivery of the report into the funding of education – the Gonski Report. In contrast, one of the more entertaining performances of the Abbott Government so far has been their triple somersault with full cowardly pike over the Gonski Reforms.

    Bernard Keane described the endof Christopher Pyne’s gymnastic routine in Crikey:

    Now, with Pyne’s third backflip yesterday, at the instruction of his Prime Minister, there’s no funding model of any kind. States can direct the additional funding (for four years) wherever they like — which allowed Pyne to partially restore the promise about individual schools to say they wouldn’t be worse off “as a result of Commonwealth actions”. But there’s no requirement on the states to adhere to the needs-based funding model developed by the Gonski panel — a state could direct all the additional funding to wealthy private schools if it so desired.

10.   We will take direct action to reduce carbon emissions inside   Australia, not overseas – and also establish a 15,000-strong Green Army to clean up the environment.

The Reality

Speaking of backflips, Tony has donned the sequinned lycra to reverse his crappy 2009 position on climate change. While maintaining vehement objection to the Carbon Tax – which he also used to support – the Prime Minister’s attitude to climate change and the environment suggest a quiet return to his original position, where climate change was crap and all was good in the world. 

             

Issues loosely described as green have attracted much government attention in the seven months since the election

• Abolished the Ministry of Climate Change
• Abolished the Climate Commission
• Denied any link between bushfires and climate change
• Approves the largest coal port in the world to be established on the doorstep of the Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area
• Dumped the Murray Darling Basin area from the list of Critically Endangered habitats
• Axed the COAG Standing Council on Environment and Water
• Moves to remove the Tasmanian forests’ World Heritage listing to allow logging to commence
• Changes national environment laws to allow WA to enact their infamous Shark Cull
• Announces a review into Australia’s Renewable Energy Target, to be headed by Dick Warburton – who admits to not believing that excess carbon dioxide is causing global warming 
• Blamed the Carbon Tax for the closing of Alcoa smelters, despite Alcoa denying that it was a factor. 
• Axes 480 jobs from the Environment Department
• Moved final authority on some  environmental issues from federal to state level, downgrading their value and allowing for inconsistencies across the country
• The Green Army will not be administered by the government, but will be sent out to tender 

    11.   We will deliver strong borders – where the boats are stopped – with tough and proven measures.

The Reality

The single most memorable quote from the last two Liberal election campaigns is the sound of Tony Abbott promising to Stop the Boats. Of course, this priority is open to interpretation. Clearly, the Liberal Party’s goal was to stop asylum seeker boats from reaching Australian waters – and that, they have done. Whether it’s permanent stop is yet to be seen.

Unfortunately, their solution has been messy, diplomatically fraught, the subject of deliberate obfuscation, and has included undermining the objectivity of our military forces and has resulted in one death, countless injuries and the abandonment of our own humanity.

The Abbott Government’s response to the ‘problem’ of asylum seekers has centred on Operation Sovereign Borders (OSB), yet has spread far beyond a border protection operation. The Government has:

• Instructed public servants and detention centre staff to call asylum seekers “illegals” despite this being legally incorrect
• Provided free of charge, two navy patrol boats to the Sri Lankan government to stop asylum seekers fleeing the same government that now owns the boats
• Turned boats back to Indonesia using military intimidation
• Offloaded asylum seekers from their boats into substandard (orange) “life boats” and towed them into Indonesian waters
•  Violated Indonesia’s sovereign waters multiple times while on Operation Sovereign Borders activities
• Shuffled existing refugees who arrived by boat to the bottom of the priority list for family reunion status
• Twice tried to reintroduce temporary visas for asylum seekers who have been found to be genuine refugees fleeing persecution
• Twice tried to introduce retrospective TPVs to apply to over 20,000 refugees already in Australia
• Sent unaccompanied minors to offshore detention centres
• Prevented the UN from inspecting the Australian run detention centre on Nauru
• Endangered around 10, 000 asylum seekers and their families by releasing their personal details on the Department of Immigration website
• Failed to provide safe haven for asylum seekers on Manus Island
• Provided incorrect information to the Australian media regarding the Manus Island riots in February, and failed to correct it for several days
• Discontinued the tradition of free legal aid for asylum seekers

     12.   We will deliver strong and stable government that restores accountability – to deliver a better future for all Australians.

The Reality

The Abbott Government is hardly a model for strength, stability, accountability, or for that matter, transparency (which wasn’t promised, but should’ve been!)…although they have proved themselves adept at obstinacy, uncertainty, indictment, ambiguity and clarity.

Consider these events:

• Indonesia characterised Australia as a threat after repeated diplomatic miscalculations by Foreign Minister Julie Bishop and Immigration Minister Scott Morrison
• Recent opinion polls have shown support for the government falling to a level where they would likely lose the next federal election
• Assistant Treasurer Arthur Sinodinos has appeared before ICAC over his involvement with Australian Water Holdings
• Treasurer Joe Hockey’s re-election finance group, the North Sydney Forum, has also received funds from AWH
• Public servants have been prohibited from making comments critical of the government on social media, even anonymously, and have been instructed to dob in on colleagues who do
• The government has established a covert political hit squad based in Parliament House and paid for by taxpayers to target political enemies.
• The Minister responsible has repeatedly refused to answer questions at media briefings regarding OSB – and then cancelled the briefings.
• The government is prepared to release the previous Government’s confidential cabinet papers to the Royal Commission into the Pink Batts scheme, despite the established practice of sealing cabinet papers for 30 years
• The Prime Minister accused the ABC of bias against the government, and then announced an efficiency review into the ABC and SBS
• Rejoiced in the blatant bias of the Liberal Speaker of the House, Bronwyn Bishop
• Closed down the National Steering Committee on Corporate Wrongdoing
• Privatised the Australian Valuation Office at a cost of nearly 200 jobs
• Denied human rights lawyers access to Manus Island detention centre
• Has failed to report on the death of an asylum seeker, two months after the riots during which he was killed
• Amended the Ministerial Code of Conduct to permit ministers to own shares in companies
• Appointed several former Liberal ministers and supporters to prime positions, including Alexander Downer, Sophie Mirabella, Tim Wilson and Peter Costello
• Required that all media requests be run via the Prime Minister's office for Chief of Staff approval 

We must not exclude from attention the numerous actions taken by the Abbott Government which were not listed as priorities in the Liberal pre-election pamphlet, yet which seem to have enjoyed a meteoric rise up the To-Do list since the election: 

• Pokie reform legislation to help control problem gambling has been thrown out
• The Commonwealth Firearms Advisory Council, designed to advise the federal government on firearms safety in the community, has been defunded
• AUDAid has been abolished, and with it, hundreds more public servants’ jobs
• ACT Marriage Equality laws have been struck down
• The latest version of the NBN has been downgraded to something akin to a pair of soup tins and a string
• The government failed to provide customs vessels to monitor Japanese whaling in the Southern Ocean, despite their promise to do so
• Tony Abbott has re-established the awards of Knights and Dames without consulting with his cabinet
• Headed up the search for missing airliner MH370

One infamous appearance on the ABC’s 7:30 saw Tony Abbott admit that he has a fast mouth and sometimes finds the truth hard to wrangle. As Prime Minister, he’s proved his reluctance to accept dissent from anyone. He is utterly committed to his version of the truth and will not be swayed.

At the end of Mr Abbott's introduction in the Real Solutions pamphlet, the following words appear:

This is the Australia that we believe in.

The Abbott Government is now about 20% of the way through its first - and perhaps only - term in office. Is the government committed to delivering real solutions...or have the solutions become irrelevant now that they're in government?

Is this the Government Coalition voters believed in?

The 44th: Back to the Future

History books will exalt Tony Abbott as Australia’s greatest ever devotee of history, a man so obsessed with recreating the past that he is transforming Australia into a living history museum. Regrettably, the budding history-themed continent-wide fun park is being created from the remnants of a progressive nation. The result is a haphazard collection of concepts dating back through the decades to World War II, overlaid across a nation ramping up for the 21^st century.

Scarcely a single new idea has emerged from the government. The first six months of the 44^th Parliament has been dominated by recycling old ideas and dismantling existing laws. On March 3, the Guardian reported that the House of Representatives had literally run out of legislationto discuss. This wasn’t reported anywhere else, although was discussed on social media. For a government which is so feisty, there seems to be surprisingly little governing actually taking place. 

The lack of an original legislative agenda should be no obstacle when there is so much history to mine, and when all else fails, there are throwaway media conferences and ceremonial distractions to perform. 

“Stop the Boats” is a perfect example of such meaningless activity. Last week there was a press conference to announce that no boats had arrived in Australia for one hundred days. This was a jarring change from the shy and silent traditions that surround Operation Sovereign Borders, yet was every bit as empty as the briefings provided during World War 2, under the glare of wartime censorship.

Tony and Grace Sullivan

Dare I say that for anyone who cares to dig, the OSB media policy is more instructive about World War Two than the iconic Australian drama series, The Sullivans? Perhaps that’s where Prime Minister Abbott stole the idea…which makes sense, as he believes we are at war with people smugglers, and we treat asylum seekers worse than prisoners of war.

The long-long-long Menzies era, is another pocket of history within Mr Abbott’s Australian History Theme Park. He’s always been socially conservative, following the dogged traditionalism of his Liberal predecessor John Winston Howard. Our little piece of the 1950s and 1960s arrived last week with the reintroduction of knights and dames. How Menzies would have approved!

But the 50s and 60s was also a period where Australian identity and culture slid across the Atlantic and we started identifying more with America than with Great Britain. Fortunately for Mr Abbott, America provided Australia with a wholesome, values-driven example to follow, even though the TV shows – Little House on the Prairie, Happy Days and The Waltons - weren’t made until the 70s. It was during those years that we learned that the only acceptable family structure is illustrated by the Ingalls, the Cunninghams and the Waltons.*

Howard and Marion Cunningham and their long-lost son, Tony.

Alongside the best of 50s family values, last week our strong, forward-looking country glanced over it’s shoulder, and turned to embrace former Governor General Quentin Bryce as she accepted her Dameness. Damehood. Dameship. No-one denies that she’s a real Dame, but why not refuse the honour, the republicans ask, bewildered. Dame Quentin Bryce has just served as Her Majesty’s representative in Australia. Would it not be hypocritical to refuse an honour bestowed by the very same Queen of Australia? In any case, our Dame has too much class, as befitting a titled woman of the Menzies era.

The iconic image of Australian politics of the 1970s is Gough Whitlam on the steps of Old Parliament House. Prior to being sacked, the Whitlam Government introduced free healthcare in the form of Medibank, later Medicare. When Mr Abbott is in a 70s mood, he takes us back to a time before socialised medicine, a time when conservatives had governed for over two decades. A six dollar fee for “free” GP consultations is not the same as free medical care for all.

Malcolm Fraser was a Liberal Prime Minister who has since resigned from the Liberal Party. The government led by Tony Abbott is far more conservative than the Fraser Government ever thought to be: the Racial Discrimination Act, the Human Rights Commission Act and the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park became certainties during the Fraser years. The Abbott Government is undermining each of them, dragging us back to a time where bigotry was acceptable, where people could be imprisoned without trial and corporations could pollute without penalty. 

The Qantas Sale Act, another Abbott target, came during the Hawke-Keating years. It’s on the hitlist too, courtesy of Qantas boss Alan Joyce, but not in a back-to-the-future way. The proposed changes to the Qantas Sale Act could leave Australia without an Australian-owned national carrier.

Doc Brown with Tony McFly summon the DeLorean

Predictably, little from the glorious Howard years will change during Tony Abbott’s step back in time. His trademark Stop The Boats policy referenced the Howard years as the very model of success, and his IR policies echo that Howard hit, “Workchoices”. Perhaps the name has been changed to protect the guilty, but back to 2007 we go.

The last chapter of our history to undergo the Extreme Makeover – Abbott Edition is the Rudd-Gillard Years. In this episode, Mr Abbott is attempting to show us what would’ve happened had the Coalition won the 2007 Federal election, and every one since. Every major initiative of the Rudd-Gillard Government is going…going…Gonski, the NDIS, Carbon Tax, Mining Tax, our relationship with our Asian neighbours: Gonski, or at  least, changed beyond recognition.

Subversive television featuring supernatural beings & unnatural families

Tony Abbott’s relentless charge to recreate the past is a singular achievement in the history of this country. Never has a multi-themed fun park been created so quickly. Experts anticipate that at this rate, all progress in Australia since the 1940s will have been obliterated by the end of Abbott’s second year in power. At that point, the Government will need to find some new ideas to enact.

The only thing that springs to mind is Paid Parental Leave.

*Whatever you do, don’t mention those subversive 60s shows like Bewitched, I Dream of Jeannie, & The Brady Bunch.

For What It's Worth

If you aren’t involved in the progressive side of social media, you’d be forgiven for not having the faintest clue about the March in March before seeing last night’s television news. After seeing the coverage, you’re probably not much better off. It was a strange series of events which grew from   and within social media, a passionate but unfocussed mass of strangers shouting at a government that isn’t listening, about a range of issues.

Everyone with even a vague interest in Australian politics is analysing and interpreting the March In March events which were held this weekend, climaxing today with a Letter of No Confidence in the Abbott Government being hand delivered to Greens MP Adam Bandt.

That was the end point of the three-day March in March event, and by the reckoning of the organisers, it was a success. Not everyone agreed. The event drew criticism for having no single issue to focus on, and no possibility of an acceptable resolution…at least according to various external definitions proposed by conservative commentators. Apparently, in order to be “valid”, a nonconformist lefty protest must conform to the standards set by the conservative right.

There were the unavoidable comparisons with the conservatives' last big protest action, the Convoy of No Confidence, including one by Jacqueline Maley who was herself the target of Alan Jones’ wrath at that very protest.

The gathering, which was matched by similar events around Australia, was a left-wing echo of the infamous ‘‘Convoy of No Confidence’’ rallies held against Julia Gillard's former Labor government, at which Mr Abbott and other Coalition MPs appeared alongside offensive signs, to much public criticism.

In every way possible, the March in March was the antithesis of the Convey of No Confidence.

It looked as though mainstream media would ignore the event. Ultimately, it was covered, but too often, with a cynical sneer. Firstly, Jacqueline Maley opened her report in the Sydney Morning Herald with the whimsically irrelevant comment that

“Socialists, it seems, are not made of sugar.”

Goodoh then.

Sky News Australia’s Sunday night team of right wing commentators Chris Kenny and Paul Murray chose to emphasize the handful of tasteless and couple of downright offensive placards that were caught on camera yesterday. No respect was paid to the overwhelming majority of protesters who were both well behaved, and carrying a wild array of pithy or humorous and downright blunt slogans. 

Their colleague at Sky, political reporter Laura Jayes tweeted at lunchtime today, asking for people to forward to her pictures of the worst, most offensive placards. What on earth is she planning to do with them?

Several media outlets and plenty on social media have commented that Opposition Leader Bill Shorten chose not to appear at any of the rallies, drawing another comparison with the Convoy of No Confidence, where then Opposition Leader Tony Abbott, along with Coalition faces Sophie Mirrabella, Bronwyn Bishop, Warren Truss, Barnaby Joyce and others stood on a podium in Canberra, flanked by banners referring to Prime Minister Gillard as “Bob Brown’s Bitch” and calling for someone – anyone – to “Ditch the Witch”. These are the enduring images of the anti-Carbon Tax protest.

The only politician from either major party to comment on the March in March was Warren Mundine, who tweeted his disapproval. Note that he had to google the name of the rally - that's how thoroughly the mainstream media ignored it.

Despite the organisers’ pleas for civility, it was always probable that a few wowsers would disregard good sense. Where Sky News Australia is happy to give these sad characters publicity by shining a light on their deplorable placards, I am not. Sadly, their selfishness has allowed the mainstream media to obscure the real story, which is that over 100,000 Australians gave up their Sundays to express their disappointment with the current government.

The ALP must not allow itself to be so easily distracted. Labor MPs chose wisely in refusing to associate themselves with March in March. Now they should be studying the vision of the events, tracking down transcripts of speeches and talking to their constituents to pinpoint the issues that progressive and centre Australians care about: respect and care for asylum seekers, protecting the environment, fast broadband, gay rights, equality, honesty and transparency in government. The marchers knew that catching the acknowledgement of the Abbott Government was highly unlikely; this protest is a message to Labor.

The same social media that allowed the March in March to become a reality was euphoric last night, as marchers celebrated a shared experience. Over 100,000 potential Labor voters are so frustrated with Australian politics, they attended protest rallies in what was largely a series of organised venting sessions, but they did it together, with little more than a few tasteless placards in the negative column.

Social media is already rippling with talk of the next rallies, protests and boycotts. 

CAAANBRA: WONKSPORT DAY 1

Originally Posted 5th August 2013

Welcome to Day 1 of the semi-regular poliwonk festival known as the Election Campaign. It's a glorious time for fans of political contests, particularly if you disregard the notion that the winner gets to be The Government for the next three years. Block out the consequences of those nasty policies and an election is sport, plain and simple.

As with sport, though, every member of the team must be clear - crystal clear - on the the strategy. Every single member must know their role and responsibility, and be warmed up and ready to play the moment the whistle blows.

The Prime Minister blew the whistle yesterday. It's Game On...And that's enough of the sporting metaphors.

Brian Loughnane, Federal Director of the Liberal Party, has experienced the full gamut of emotion today. Breakfast must've been buoyant with two polls both delivering the Coalition a 52-48 2PP lead. But then Joe Hockey opened his gob and suggested that if the Reserve Bank cuts interest rates tomorrow, it's bad.

"The fact of the matter is, we should not be in a position where interest rates are being cut, because the economy should be growing faster. That's what the government said was going to happen. And they got it wrong. And they keep getting it wrong, because you do not tax your wage prosperity.”

I'm sure that Joe Hockey didn't mean to suggest that Aussie battlers in western Sydney would benefit from higher interest rates, but this is a federal election campaign, and the man who wants to be the next treasurer of Australia simply can't afford to make stupid gaffes like that. 

It got worse when Liberal candidate for Greenway, Jaymes Diaz, flaked in front of Channel Ten's news cameras. It's not his first campaign, but on Day 1, this performance is nothing short of tragedy...and it's not his first campaign.

But - to return to another tortured sports metaphor for a moment - it was the team captain who really stepped up to show his team how to campaign. 

First, he threw some carbon tax figures through the meat grinder he was inspecting at JBS Australia. It was another one of Tony's trademark hi-viz and hard-hat or hair-net appearances, and he announced that his first priority as Prime Minister would be to scrap the Carbon Tax. Apparently the campaign that didn't get him elected last time is stronger the second time around. 

Unfortunately, it slipped his mind that he had opposed a grant that gave the factory $4.4 million dollars, which was saving the company $1.1 million in power costs each year and helping JBS Australia to lower its carbon emissions by up to 81 per cent. Lucky for Mr Abbott, local ALP member Shayne Neumann was there to remind him. Perhaps Mr Abbott didn't want to mention that he opposed a measure because it is proof that the Carbon Tax is working as it was designed to work. 

My personal favourite from Day 1 was news that Mr Abbott had attended an event this evening in Western Sydney, where 500 Muslims were celebrating Eid el-Fitr, the end of Ramadan. Mr Abbott, whose signature slogan "Stop he Boats" refers primarily to boats carrying Muslim asylum seekers, spoke of multicultural Australia as "beacon of hope to a troubled and divided world".

My irony detector was going off like a frog in a sock. 

He continued:

"I am the sworn enemy for anyone who seeks to divide Australian over Australian on issues of class, gender, birth place, race and particularly over faith. I believe that all religious faiths seek to come to grips with the complexity of human condition. We have to respect the specialness of that faith to every person."

Despite the obvious grammatical...aahhh...challenges, it's a surprisingly inclusive sentiment from a man who was almost a Catholic priest. In fact, its downright lefty! Perhaps Mr Abbott meant to that we should be a less beacon-like...?

For now, I invite you to enjoy the cultural, religious and racial diversity of the Liberal Party's first official advertisement of the campaign, which was played at least eleventy-seven times today on Sky News Australia. 

Behold, New Hope.

CAAANBRA: LIBERAL TURDUCKEN

If I had to take a guess, I’d say Opposition Leader Tony Abbott, his trusty Chief of Staff Peta Credlin and her husband, Liberal Party President Brian Loughnane are holed up under a bed somewhere, rocking back and forth and sucking on their thumbs. The unthinkable has happened – again.

First time around in 2010, they lost the election they were supposed to win, because Mr Abbott was so desperate that he scared off the crucial independents and couldn’t form a minority government. Julia Gillard became Australia’s first female Prime Minister.

But the Liberals were not defeated. They simply chose to ignore reality and spend the duration of the 43rd Parliament calling for an election, calling the members of the Government names, and creating the most negative political environment in living memory. With assistance from a largely sympathetic media, the Coalition came into the last three months of the electoral cycle as the unbackable favourite for a landslide victory. All they had to do was not fuck up and victory was theirs. Mr Abbott could be drinking shandies in the Lodge.

Complacency is never a sensible strategy.

Ruddmentum arrived and less than two weeks later, the Coalition’s election winning lead in the polls has evaporated to literally nothing. On current numbers, the election of September 14 looks to be as close as the 2010 election. Having said that, Mr Rudd has momentum on his side right now, and Mr Abbott is struggling to find a media strategy that works in this strange, post-spill world. Mr Abbott is, and always has been, a very effective Opposition Leader. Now that the game has changed, what can he do to regain impetus?

It seems that his strategy has barely changed in the two weeks since Mr Rudd regained the Prime Ministership. Despite no longer being the clear frontrunner, Mr Abbott is still trying to control the game. He is trying to force an election, which he’s been trying to do for the past three years. He’s trying to convince us that he can ‘turn the boats around’, despite the Indonesian government rejecting the policy. He’s stating that he did nothing wrong in the promotion of his book Battlelines, and yet repaid nine thousand dollars that he had claimed for travel expenses while promoting the book. He’s blaming the Carbon Tax for everything and promising to repeal it, without repealing the compensation or reverting to previous taxation arrangements. He’s supporting his copper-wire broadband programme, even though it’s inferior by every measure. Just look at his wishy-washy performance on 7:30 last night:

But for the first time in about three years, not everything is going Mr Abbott’s way. He is being challenged for refusing to appear on the more serious current affairs programmes, and being mocked (yes, by me) for refusing to debate Prime Minister Rudd outside the structures of a political campaign.
Abbott is also being challenged regarding a matter of $9400 in travel expenses which he may or may not have claimed while promoting his book. He has repaid the money…but denies any wrongdoing, and today, tried to blame the ALP for reigniting the issue. In fact, it was journalist Margo Kingston who campaigned hard to bring this issue to the attention of the mainstream media. The ALP was nowhere near it.

Mr Abbott’s biggest challenge is that his strategy for winning the election in September was based on three mainstays:

His opponent would be Julia Gillard
The Coalition would have a comfortable lead in the polls
He – and the media sympathetic to his cause – controlled the national agenda

The re-emergence of Kevin Rudd has knocked those pillars to the ground, and the Coalition strategy with it. Most damaging is the inability of Tony Abbott to continue to campaign in sloganistic notions. Against Kevin Rudd, a re-energised Labor front bench and a less sympathetic media, vague slogans and references to the “glory days” of John Howard’s government will make him look insubstantial and unprepared.

On the other hand, if he continues to avoid real debates and searching interviews, he will be perceived as weak and cowardly.

CAAANBRA: THE CHICKEN DANCE

Dada dada dada Duh, dada dada dada Duh, dada dada dada Duh Duh Duh Duh Daaaahh!

Opposition Leader Tony Abbott has refused to debate Prime Minister Rudd in the Press Club until Mr Rudd names the date of the election, and then, he will debate within the context of a political campaign.

I call fowl. In fact, I call chicken. Just two days ago, former Prime Minister John Howard introduced Tony Abbott at an event in Melbourne. The event? It was a pseudo campaign launch, an Address to Victorian Federal Campaign Rally, complete with American style flag waving and banners. Unfortunately for Mr Abbott, the news media was more interested in the born-again Prime Minister, and Mr Abbott’s big media event ran a poor second.

Mr Abbott ended his address with the following call to action:

I say to the Australian people: we are a great people. You are a great people. We are a great country. There is nothing wrong with this country that wouldn't be improved by a change of government and our duty, our duty, every day between now and the election is to work to give that better government to the Australian people. That is our duty and we must pledge every fibre of our being to bring that about.

There is no doubt that that is a campaign speech. Therefore, if Mr Abbott is making campaign speeches, can we not just assume that the campaign has commenced, and start scheduling debates?
I can’t help but wonder why the Leader of the Opposition, whose party is still in a winning position in the polls, choose to avoid participating in the debates Mr Rudd has proposed. Isn’t this an opportunity for Mr Abbott to show off, to illustrate all those points he keeps making about the ALP Government’s financial mismanagement. Isn’t this an opportunity to wrest momentum back from the ALP?


While we’re talking debates, can we please adopt a format that means something? SkyNews Australia’s Town Hall Forums in Western Sydney are interesting, but as one politician follows the other, there’s no opportunity to see the two politicians debate a policy. The traditional Sunday night Channel 9 Debates, with Ray Martin and the Worm are almost as bad.

Let’s have a series of serious conversations between the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition, each with a topic to be decided on the night. The combatants have to speak to each other, answer each other’s questions and remain civil and respectful throughout. One moderator is there to ensure the conversation remains ‘on topic’ and doesn’t disintegrate into the kind of appalling behaviour we’ve seen in Question Time.

I think the Prime Minister would be willing to give it a go, but I doubt Tony Abbott would be in favour. In fact, he’d probably be happiest with no debates at all.

Dada dada dada Duh, dada dada dada Duh, dada dada dada Duh Duh Duh Duh Daaaahh!

And of course it’s Monday night, and with that, comes QandA. It’s 1050 days – or if you prefer, 2.87 years – since Tony Abbott appeared on QandA, despite what I’m sure is an open invitation. QandA rates well, and is a show which is considered to have gravitas.

I’m sure that the good people at QandA would offer Mr Abbott the same conditions as his last appearance, when he was the sole guest. Surely QandA without a panel to challenge what he says would be a perfect vehicle for Mr Abbott to display his charm, his engagement with the electorate and his knowledge of Coalition policy.

Should we be making plans to mark the third anniversary of Mr Abbott’s last appearance on QandA? Roast Chicken seems appropriate.

Dada dada dada Duh, dada dada dada Duh, dada dada dada Duh Duh Duh Duh Daaaahh!

If I had any interest at all in assisting Mr Abbott, I’d be telling him that he has to change his game plan. The ALP is within the MoE, and the momentum is with the left. Constant negativity is out of favour and the electorate wants more. Mr Rudd is ready.

What are you waiting for, Mr Abbott?