Kevin Rudd’s appointment of Peter Costello to the Future Fund sends two signals.
The first is that Rudd wants to be seen as a national leader, rather than a Labor leader — above partisanship and self-interest.
The second is that the Coalition should give up — its best and brightest have left politics and now work for him.
Peter Costello is, after all, the man whom every Coalition MP expected (hoped!) would lead them against Rudd at the election next year.
Despite the ostensible bipartisanship of the appointment, both signals reinforce Rudd’s dominance of the Australian political landscape, even as some on his own side complain about handing out jobs to their most hated opponents, and Paul Keating rages about disloyalty to Labor.
Whether Costello is the best man for the job is another question. He established the Fund, but he has no expertise in funds management, which is the Future Fund’s primary role. But he is the best man for Kevin Rudd’s purposes. If the Prime Minister can take on the mantle of national leader, his strong political position will be unassailable.
The Coalition should give up? What on earth does this mean – allow Australia to become a one-party state?
It is, kind of. The ALP seemed to win the election by impersonating the Libs, which means it was more of a change of management than a change of government.
In the lead up to the 1996 election, Howard tried to play down some of the differences between himself and the Keating government – implying that he was maybe not as much of a social conservative as he had been in the 1980s.
After Howard established himself in government, it turned out that he was still essentially the same person as in the 1980s.
Then in the lead up to the 2007 election, Kevin Rudd used similar tactics – saying that he was an ‘economic conservative’.
With Kevin Rudd, it didn’t take long at all for him to drop any serious idea of being an economic conservative and to start competing strongly with the Whitlam government to be as economically irresponsible as possible – at least in terms of running up massive debts.