Tony Abbott

Tony Abbott’s body language at tonight’s press conference (where unusually, he answered questions) suggested that he’s worried that he’s got a fight on his hands. I think he hoped some of the independents would desert Labor by supporting a no-confidence motion tomorrow to hasten the election and bring forward his Liberal Party’s resumption of its ‘right to rule’.

It seems the cat’s out of the bag… he knows he doesn’t have the numbers.

In response to a question regarding the possibility of a no-confidence vote, Mr. Abbott said:
“Well, look, that’s really a matter for Mr Rudd. I’m not interested in playing parliamentary games. I think the people of Australia are sick of parliamentary games…”
Reading between the lines, it seems he’s recognized that he doesn’t have the numbers to force a no-confidence motion (thanks Bob Katter for your decisive support for Kevin).

Tony Abbott continued, “I am interested in giving the people their say as soon as possible and it was really quite odd that Mr Rudd didn’t confirm the former Prime Minister’s chosen election date – or indeed announce an earlier date…”
Clearly, Tony’s hoping for an early August election (the earliest we could have) but would settle for Julia Gillard’s September date. What he doesn’t want is for Prime Minister Kevin Rudd to have an opportunity to get anything done and build towards an election, perhaps as late as 24 November (the latest possible date for an election) but more likely mid October. Tony strangely implored Rudd to announce an early election date and sounded almost acquiescent in the doing.

What Tony doesn’t want is for the focus to be turned to his paucity of policy and the illogic of many of the Opposition’s pronouncements. Under Julia Gillard, the opposition Coalition has been given a free pass on their many ludicrous assertions, Tony Abbott stunts and carping negativity. Now that the Abbott/Gillard nexus has been broken, Mr. Abbott faces the unpleasant prospect of scrutiny.

Returning to the tired old mantra that has served him so well over the last 3 years, Mr. Abbott attempted to frame the terms of the election as:
“Who do you, the people, trust to stop the boats, to abolish the carbon tax and the mining tax and to get the budget back in the black?”

I think the answer to the first question might be The Age Newspaper and ABC News who just exposed the links between Indonesian people smugglers and allegedly corrupt elements of law enforcement. The Indonesians might be forced to act against the long-suspected rats in their ranks, which in turn might slow the boats. Let’s face it, the only difference between the current government and opposition ‘stop the boats’ policies, is Tony Abbott’s pledge to turn back the asylum seeker boats (after they’ve glued the scuttled boats back together, that is). I’ve got a feeling Rudd will articulate the obvious flaws in Abbott’s policy a lot better than Julia Gillard ever managed. As well, Julia fell into Abbott’s trap of framing asylum seekers as a threat to our sovereignty (border security). Perhaps now, Rudd will be able to refocus the boats issue as a leaky, sinking boats humanitarian crisis. Perhaps he can pressure Indonesia to stop the boats leaving port and also encourage them to work to stem the inflow into Indonesia of asylum seekers who buy visas, enabling them time to transit to Australia bound boats. In return Australia should quietly agree to increase our refugee intake from Indonesia to a few thousand from the present few hundred. There’s been no headlines screaming about breached border security when asylum seekers fly in, so getting the leaky boats off the daily newscasts and asylum seekers into airports instead, might just diffuse Tony Abbott’s racist pandering border security/turn back the boats ‘Labor: death by a thousand cuts’ strategy.

See the ABC story and video here:
• Footage shows Indonesian people smuggler discussing his business and boasts police involvement
(George Roberts, ABC News 25 June 2013)
See the Age video here:
• Hidden camera exposes people smuggler
(The Age, 25 June 2013)
Read the Sydney Morning herald story here:
• Jakarta pushed on people smugglers
(Michael Bachelard, The Sydney Morning Herald 26 June 2013)

Kevin Rudd

I’m also looking forward to seeing Kevin Rudd’s changes in the carbon price that will probably ditch the current 2015 time-table and bring in the ETS a year ahead of schedule, thereby blunting some of Abbott’s shallow rhetoric and turning the spotlight back on his own derided “direct action” policy. Hell, even Malcolm Turnbull, the Liberal Party’s former Environment spokesman, believes that Tony Abbott’s Climate Change policy is a crock of shit. This is what he had to say about it, “…the fact is that Tony and the people who put him in his job, do not want to do anything about climate change. They do not believe in human caused global warming. As Tony observed on one occasion “climate change is crap” or if you consider his mentor, Senator Minchin, the world is not warming, it’s cooling and the climate change issue is part of a vast left wing conspiracy to deindustrialise the world.”

Next: The Mineral Resource Rents Tax (MRRT) is a non-starter. Given that its legislation was practically written by the Mining Industry, and it’s raised so little revenue, it can’t seriously be seen as having any adverse impact on anything other than the government’s bottom line. All Rudd needs to do is acknowledge the tax needs some tweaking and move on. Keep in mind that the predecessor of the MRRT, the Petroleum Resource Rent Tax (PRRT), has operated with little controversy, and barely a ripple of attention, since 1987.

Of all Tony Abbott’s chosen fields of battle, the doozy is going to be watching him try to cogently explain how he’s going to get the budget back into the black quicker than Labor. Julia Gillard and Wayne Swan had failed to adequately enunciate the folly of Abbott and shadow treasurer Joe Hockey’s maths and the diabolical reality of the European style austerity that would be inevitable under an Abbott Administration; inevitable that is, if everything they’ve said they’ll do hasn’t just been a great big new block of fudge to add to their huge black hole in the cooked books from the last election. Sure, Abbott and Hockey can hack the legs off the poor by slashing the public service and the safety net; sure, they can intensify the devastation and violence of American style ghettoisation of ‘working poor’ urban areas like much of Detroit; sure, they can slash investment in Australia’s educated future and continue Australia’s slide down the international rankings; sure, they can reverse the Gillard government’s gains in healthcare; and sure, they can end Labor’s support for struggling parents such as the school kids education payments. This slash and burn austerity will also need to be enacted within a framework of falling revenues as the Carbon Price is terminated, stripping billions from the budget. This dark austerity cloud will also hang in sharp contrast to Abbott’s enormously generous Paid Parental Leave Scheme that will pay according to lifestyle rather than need. Enormously generous that is, if you’re earning up to $150,000 a year, as the scheme matches parental income, confirming that in the eyes of Tony Abbott, an affluent baby deserves a hell of a lot more comfort and pampering than a poor baby.

It’ll be interesting to see how Mr. Abbott tries to wriggle out of this minefield of commitments he has so recklessly laid for himself over the last 3 years.

In the last 3 years, Julia Gillard and Wayne Swan have frustratingly missed just about every point in countering Abbott’s hollow propositions as they inexplicably allowed Tony and his wrecking crew to run rings around them. I can’t see the articulate pair of Prime Minister Rudd and his new Treasurer Chris Bowen, suffering from the same communication paralysis.

It’s going to be very difficult for Kevin Rudd to get even some of the ducks in a row for the coming election (another reason I think he’ll go later rather than sooner) but at least the government wont be rigid with fear as they have been til now. Shuffling so many new bums onto ministerial seats is also going to be a feat of immense engineering. Getting everyone briefed and quickly up to speed might also flash reminders of the heady days just after the 2007 election. Let’s hope Rudd gets a little honeymoon to settle the team in before the election campaign proper gets firing and the media blood-sport starts again in earnest.

The frustrating spectacle of Julia Gillard and Wayne Swan mangling perfectly defendable positions into hopelessly spun quicksand, is over. Now the business of injecting hope into the despairing government and disillusioned voters, begins.

Good luck Kevin 13.

More
See video and transcript of Kevin’s press conference here:
• Kevin Rudd aims to ‘forge consensus’ in politics after victory over Julia Gillard, 26 June 2013

See the transcript of Tony Abbott’s press conference remarks here:
• Tony Abbott Press Conference, 26 June 2013

So sad that Australia’s first female prime minister wasn’t able to translate the relaxed and sometimes witty Education Minister into an articulate and publicly effective Prime Minister. At least she’ll always be the first, so her place in history is secured.

Let’s hope Kevin can pull even a mangy rabbit out of the hat. What are your thoughts on today’s explosive events?

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