Yesterday Prime Minister Julia Gillard opened the inaugural Gough Whitlam Oration with a few words “adopted from John Curtin, but ever identified with Gough Whitlam”. Set against an increasingly hostile political environment, this speech opened with a welcome gesture — Gillard sensibly pointed to the “politics of inclusion”.
Gillard pledged, that as “prime minister and federal Labor leader, it is my role to define what it means for Labor to be its best self”. She promised Labor has “always understood that we must be the interpreters of the future to the present and must shape the future so it is one of fairness”.
She used words such as “optimism” and terms like “tough decisions” and said “reform” at least five times.
But then she stopped borrowing from Labor luminaries and took out a loan on the politics of envy. Inexplicably, she also conjured up images of conjunctivitis:
“…we have always acknowledged that access to opportunity comes with obligations to seize that opportunity. To work hard, to set your alarm clocks early, to ensure your children are in school. We are the party of work not welfare, that’s why we respect the efforts of the brickie and look with a jaundiced eye at the lifestyle of the socialite.”
But she saved a special insult for the Greens — that party that now lays claim to a sizeable chunk of voters and are about to hold the balance of power in the Senate, one she would never throw at the Coalition. In fact, not even for the crowd who stood on her lawn a few weeks ago and proceeded to call her a “witch” a “bitch” and a “liar”. No, Gillard reserved her criticism for Abbott on that count. Of the Greens, she charged:
“The Greens will never embrace Labor’s delight at sharing the values of everyday Australians, in our cities, suburbs, towns and bush, who day after day do the right thing, leading purposeful and dignified lives, driven by love of family and nation.”
Greens leader Bob Brown has hit back this morning. And rightly so.
This kind of language is divisive, uninspiring and vaguely nonsensical. It also takes the fetishising of ordinariness to heights that John Howard never reached.
And the assumption that “everyday Australians” — whoever lays claim to wearing that label with pride — aspire to nothing greater than setting their alarm early insults everyone.
Dear me!!! Where does the Labor party think their progressive votes went? Tens of thousands of previous Labor voters with progressive views are now voting Green, or “other” because Labor no longer represents them or their communities.
Labor is in danger of losing those voters forever if they mistake the nasty, populist political rhetoric of the Abbott’s rabble for votes they must chase. Those voters probably were never Labor’s to lose. While ever they try and out-scrape Tony Abbott and his brand of “bottom of the barrel” politics, they will continue to lose the votes of those that couldn’t ever vote Liberal to the Greens, or anyone else that offers the sort of social and economic equity that Labor used to stand for.
The right wing of the Labor party in general, and the SDA backed factions in particular, are risking consigning Labor to the backbenches everywhere for a long time while the policy vacuum they pursue mindlessly falls further into a black hole.
Progressive voters will find someone else to vote for. Labor are no longer fighting for the middle road, centre or moderate position. They are mud-wrestling with no hope of beating those that don’t mind the mud.
I don’t think she said what you suggest at all. She said that’s what they do. I think you’re a bit jaundiced yourself.
….. And Tony Abbott’s response:-
“Well, if they [the Greens] are so extreme, why did she form a Government with them?” he said.
“I think what we’re really seeing is just a fake fight, a phoney lover’s tiff. The fact is that Labor’s in office but the Greens are in power. Julia Gillard might be in the Lodge but Bob Brown is the real Prime Minister of this country.”
….. Isn’t that line getting a little bit threadbare, Tony??
Isn’t Mr. Abbott getting sick of pandering to the lowest common denominator with this ludicrously oversimplified scaremongering view of politics?
Low hit about The Greens though… I mean as one of the approximately 10-15% of the population who votes green, is Julia inferring that I am in fact not an everyday Australian who has everyday Australian values like the “fair go” and a “fair day’s pay for a fair day’s work”!!??
A bit too much like Howard redux for my liking.
Patronising pap, playing politics – how can you second preference her party – better to vote Informal in a lower house getting lower, til they get the message “government is about all of us!”.