How do we sleep when our campaign's burning?
Peter Garrett is either a complete idiot or a total genius and I honestly can’t decide which it is.
Here’s why.
On the face of it, Peter’s little joke with Steve Price is the kind of insanely bad gaffe that whole elections can be lost over. With three weeks to go, and the Government living their worst nightmare as nothing they do causes the polls to shift their way even a little, and Labor apparently cruising towards a landslide with a single minded focus on a small target strategy so blatant that ‘me too’ may as well be their official campaign slogan, it is utterly unbelievable that a frontbencher from the Labor Party would say, in any context, that they are actually going to ditch the 'me too' thing the minute they get elected.
It would be staggeringly stupid to say this at a meeting of the local branch of the Labor Party with no journalists presents and with every person present having made an Unbreakable Vow in the manner of Severus Snape and Narcissa Malfoy never to breath a word of what was said to anyone ever.
It is about a billion times more stupid to say it to Steve Price, a man with no love for Labor who would be utterly unable to resist grabbing the first available microphone and telling everyone.
Can I say at this point that having Richard Wilkins present for the conversation is just weird.
Every media report on this that I have seen or read so far has commented on Peter Garrett’s lack of political experience and taken at face value that it was an ill advised joke that has been an unintentional yet huge gift to the Government.
So, a pretty strong case for the total idiot theory there. But I still have my doubts.
Even though Peter has been in federal politics as a Labor party member for a few years now, most people haven’t really paid much attention to his earlier involvement in politics. This is why everyone assumes that his little joke was simply the undisciplined act of a political novice.
Everyone seems to have forgotten that this man ran for election to the Senate as long ago as 1984. He was at the time a member (and indeed, co-founder) of the Nuclear Disarmament Party. He needed 12.5% of the vote to win a seat in the Senate, but a primary vote of just over 9% was insufficient when Labor withheld preferences.*
After that, Peter went on to be president of the Australian Conservation Foundation from 1989 to 1993 and 1998 to 2004, and did a bunch of other relevant political stuff, including being on the board of Greenpeace.
In other words, the general perception that he got done with playing at the Sydney Olympics, briefly wondered what to do next and then strolled into Parliament on a whim is at odds with reality. So, is he really inexperienced enough to make a mistake so basic that even I wouldn't have made it? The alternative is that the rest of the Labor Party, also not being complete morons, may have started to catch on to what a number of pretty intelligent analysts like this blogger, as well as some rather less cluey types like me have been worried about for a while, which is that if you don't give people some reason to change the government, they won't bother to.
So, since it's a bit to late to officially stop with the 'me too' shenanigans, and since said shenanigans have actually been irritatingly effective so far, why not send out a few hints that actually things might change a bit after the election.
Lets face it, no one believes the official promises made by the parties any more anyway. Rudd isn't willing to go all Latham and present himself as some sort of radical ideologue (and would anyone have believed it anyway?), and we need to give our ridiculously afraid of change compatriots some reason to believe that the Labor Party can handle the economy and generally take a sensible approach to running things. As I said, that's been working pretty well. But if, in addition to creating a general impression that a change is safe, you can also create a general impression that your party has it's own vision for the future, then you're in excellent shape.
So, if you do want to drop the odd hint that the Labor Party may behave a little bit like a Labor Party once it wins government, what better way to do it? Take the one guy on the front bench who is not perceived as a political insider and who can't be pinned as a unionist, get him to make a joke to a broadcaster who is taken seriously by no-one other than rusted on Liberal voters anyway, do this in the most casual setting imaginable (in the presence of political heavyweights such as, er, Richard Wilkins) and then officially deny the whole thing and blame it on political inexperience.
If it is a deliberate strategy, it's staggering clever, although history will judge whether, in giving the government a whiff of oxygen at a point where they looked like they were about to suffocate themselves with their own pants, it may not have been too clever by half. It's also possible that this is just something dreamed up by a blogger who is half cynic and half optimist and who desperately wants to believe that Kevin & Co are pursuing some brlliantly intelligent masterplan, instead of believing that they started with a strategy I hated and now they are screwing it up becuase Peter Garrett chatted to Steve Price shortly after he'd finished 'celebrating' Silverchair's recent success at the ARIAs with old mate Daniel Johns** (which would also explain, finally, what the hell Richard Wilkins was doing there).***
If there is one thing that emerges from this rambling exercise in stream of political consciousness blogging, it's that if there is one person on the Opposition front bench who could get away with this, it's Peter Garrett. Can you imagine what would have happened if Julia Gillard (or, heaven forbid, someone with actual union connections**** like Lindsay Tanner) had said it? However, as I've been at pains to point out, most people seem unaware of Garrett's political history.
The pleasing part of all this is that the Government has had plenty of time to attack Garrett over his ties to the Greens movement or everything else he's done in politics for the past 23 years. Instead, they have apparently been working on the theory that it is far more effective (and, I'm sure they privately believe, devastastingly witty) to have Alexander Downer regularly quote Midnight Oil lyrics in his own special snotty way.
So, if Labor gets away with this one (yes, I'm back to leaning towards the 'stuff up' theory) it will be largely because of our Government's incredible arrogance and determination to take cheap shots at its opponents instead of engaging with the issues, coupled with 11 years of commitment to dumbing down public debate at every opportunity.
That loud clucking you hear from 8.00pm on 24 November onwards will be the sound of 11 years worth of chickens all coming home to roost at once.
Yes, just like the lovely and talented Ms Higgins, I am All for Believing.
* Not actually ironic, but something similar
** The word 'allegedly' may be inserted into that sentence at will, and should be, several times.
*** Let's face it, Tony Abbott is also pretty experienced in this politics thing and if anyone can tell me what his masterplan is, I'm impressed. Actually, scrap that, he's clearly decided that of Howard wins and hands over to Costello, Abbott will never be PM, whereas if come November 25 Costello has around 6 years as opposition leader to look forward to, I'll bet Abbott thinks he could cut that to 4 years 6 months and have a reasonable shot at the title after that. Oh great now even the footnotes are rambling
**** Being a lawyer at a firm that has represented a union DOESN'T COUNT
Here’s why.
On the face of it, Peter’s little joke with Steve Price is the kind of insanely bad gaffe that whole elections can be lost over. With three weeks to go, and the Government living their worst nightmare as nothing they do causes the polls to shift their way even a little, and Labor apparently cruising towards a landslide with a single minded focus on a small target strategy so blatant that ‘me too’ may as well be their official campaign slogan, it is utterly unbelievable that a frontbencher from the Labor Party would say, in any context, that they are actually going to ditch the 'me too' thing the minute they get elected.
It would be staggeringly stupid to say this at a meeting of the local branch of the Labor Party with no journalists presents and with every person present having made an Unbreakable Vow in the manner of Severus Snape and Narcissa Malfoy never to breath a word of what was said to anyone ever.
It is about a billion times more stupid to say it to Steve Price, a man with no love for Labor who would be utterly unable to resist grabbing the first available microphone and telling everyone.
Can I say at this point that having Richard Wilkins present for the conversation is just weird.
Every media report on this that I have seen or read so far has commented on Peter Garrett’s lack of political experience and taken at face value that it was an ill advised joke that has been an unintentional yet huge gift to the Government.
So, a pretty strong case for the total idiot theory there. But I still have my doubts.
Even though Peter has been in federal politics as a Labor party member for a few years now, most people haven’t really paid much attention to his earlier involvement in politics. This is why everyone assumes that his little joke was simply the undisciplined act of a political novice.
Everyone seems to have forgotten that this man ran for election to the Senate as long ago as 1984. He was at the time a member (and indeed, co-founder) of the Nuclear Disarmament Party. He needed 12.5% of the vote to win a seat in the Senate, but a primary vote of just over 9% was insufficient when Labor withheld preferences.*
After that, Peter went on to be president of the Australian Conservation Foundation from 1989 to 1993 and 1998 to 2004, and did a bunch of other relevant political stuff, including being on the board of Greenpeace.
In other words, the general perception that he got done with playing at the Sydney Olympics, briefly wondered what to do next and then strolled into Parliament on a whim is at odds with reality. So, is he really inexperienced enough to make a mistake so basic that even I wouldn't have made it? The alternative is that the rest of the Labor Party, also not being complete morons, may have started to catch on to what a number of pretty intelligent analysts like this blogger, as well as some rather less cluey types like me have been worried about for a while, which is that if you don't give people some reason to change the government, they won't bother to.
So, since it's a bit to late to officially stop with the 'me too' shenanigans, and since said shenanigans have actually been irritatingly effective so far, why not send out a few hints that actually things might change a bit after the election.
Lets face it, no one believes the official promises made by the parties any more anyway. Rudd isn't willing to go all Latham and present himself as some sort of radical ideologue (and would anyone have believed it anyway?), and we need to give our ridiculously afraid of change compatriots some reason to believe that the Labor Party can handle the economy and generally take a sensible approach to running things. As I said, that's been working pretty well. But if, in addition to creating a general impression that a change is safe, you can also create a general impression that your party has it's own vision for the future, then you're in excellent shape.
So, if you do want to drop the odd hint that the Labor Party may behave a little bit like a Labor Party once it wins government, what better way to do it? Take the one guy on the front bench who is not perceived as a political insider and who can't be pinned as a unionist, get him to make a joke to a broadcaster who is taken seriously by no-one other than rusted on Liberal voters anyway, do this in the most casual setting imaginable (in the presence of political heavyweights such as, er, Richard Wilkins) and then officially deny the whole thing and blame it on political inexperience.
If it is a deliberate strategy, it's staggering clever, although history will judge whether, in giving the government a whiff of oxygen at a point where they looked like they were about to suffocate themselves with their own pants, it may not have been too clever by half. It's also possible that this is just something dreamed up by a blogger who is half cynic and half optimist and who desperately wants to believe that Kevin & Co are pursuing some brlliantly intelligent masterplan, instead of believing that they started with a strategy I hated and now they are screwing it up becuase Peter Garrett chatted to Steve Price shortly after he'd finished 'celebrating' Silverchair's recent success at the ARIAs with old mate Daniel Johns** (which would also explain, finally, what the hell Richard Wilkins was doing there).***
If there is one thing that emerges from this rambling exercise in stream of political consciousness blogging, it's that if there is one person on the Opposition front bench who could get away with this, it's Peter Garrett. Can you imagine what would have happened if Julia Gillard (or, heaven forbid, someone with actual union connections**** like Lindsay Tanner) had said it? However, as I've been at pains to point out, most people seem unaware of Garrett's political history.
The pleasing part of all this is that the Government has had plenty of time to attack Garrett over his ties to the Greens movement or everything else he's done in politics for the past 23 years. Instead, they have apparently been working on the theory that it is far more effective (and, I'm sure they privately believe, devastastingly witty) to have Alexander Downer regularly quote Midnight Oil lyrics in his own special snotty way.
So, if Labor gets away with this one (yes, I'm back to leaning towards the 'stuff up' theory) it will be largely because of our Government's incredible arrogance and determination to take cheap shots at its opponents instead of engaging with the issues, coupled with 11 years of commitment to dumbing down public debate at every opportunity.
That loud clucking you hear from 8.00pm on 24 November onwards will be the sound of 11 years worth of chickens all coming home to roost at once.
Yes, just like the lovely and talented Ms Higgins, I am All for Believing.
* Not actually ironic, but something similar
** The word 'allegedly' may be inserted into that sentence at will, and should be, several times.
*** Let's face it, Tony Abbott is also pretty experienced in this politics thing and if anyone can tell me what his masterplan is, I'm impressed. Actually, scrap that, he's clearly decided that of Howard wins and hands over to Costello, Abbott will never be PM, whereas if come November 25 Costello has around 6 years as opposition leader to look forward to, I'll bet Abbott thinks he could cut that to 4 years 6 months and have a reasonable shot at the title after that. Oh great now even the footnotes are rambling
**** Being a lawyer at a firm that has represented a union DOESN'T COUNT
posted by I'm not Craig at 9:19 PM
3 Comments:
Hee.
Being a lawyer at a firm that once represented a union doesn't count as having union connections, obvs. It does however mean that you have to tangle yourself up in knots over this election.
Let it go INC - it's what I'm trying to do. Let it go to Jesus (to paraphrase my MiL) you know you want to....
*snort*
Why can't it be the 24th already???
"to have Alexander Downer regularly quote Midnight Oil lyrics in his own special snotty way"
...with any luck this is how they will find him, in a dank alley on the morning of November 25....hoarse-voiced, bleary-eyed and rocking ever-so-slightly,
Acton
Now I'm evenmore confused. The bit about being a lawyer at a firm that has represented a union was a reference to Julia Gillard, but since she has not noticably been tying herself in knots (what with being too busy having fun at Tony Abbott's expense) I suspect that you are suggesting that I am the one tying myself in knots.
And you're right.
For one brief terrifying moment I thought you were serious about the let it go to Jesus thing. I was much relieved when you snorted. Thank you.
Giggles
You paint a vivid, and inspiring picture, as always. Fine work!
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