At some point early on in the election campaign, Labor must have opened up the policy cupboards and, shocked at how bare they were, began scrambling to come up with anything that could be portrayed as a positive vision.
That yielded the thought balloon about northern Australia, with tax differentials and irrigation and growth plans, all off in the, in budget terms, distant future. Then there was shifting Garden Island to Brisbane, a proposal with a truly huge price tag, also off in the never-never. That was followed by an announcement to waste actual money — $50 million — on planning for a Sydney-Canberra-Melbourne high-speed rail line, again off in the future. Part of that $50 million will be spent on further Herculean efforts to get the numbers to add up for a project that can’t be commercially viable unless you write off the tens of billions in construction costs.
Then there was Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s blatant pitch to economic nationalism last night in expressing his uneasiness about foreign investment. In response to a question that might have come straight from Pauline Hanson, Opposition Leader Tony Abbott did the right thing and said he welcomed foreign investment, while noting the Coalition proposed to keep better track of it. Rudd, however, spotted an opening and went for it. His stab at folksy populism is worth quoting at length:
“I’m a bit old-fashioned on these questions and I’m not quite as free market as Tony on this stuff and I’ll just explain to you, maybe it’s because I grew up on a farm, I’m not sure. I think in the future if I see a good model for how we should develop some of our undeveloped agricultural lands, or some which need a whole lot more investment, I reckon joint venture approaches are much better, where you’ve got equity in it from farmers, maybe even through farming co-operatives and if you need a whole bunch of capital to develop the land further, domestic investment or some external investment. But I am a bit nervous, a bit anxious, frankly, about simply an open slather on this. So your question is, what would our policy approach be? I am looking very carefully at how this affects the overall balance of ownership in Australia. I’m thinking particularly of our agricultural sector, but the impact in certain cities also of these sorts of acquisitions.”
Rudd’s anti-foreign investment sentiments might have been delivered without the blunt xenophobia of a Barnaby Joyce or Bob Katter, but it’s the same core message. Tony Abbott, who successfully fought off an effort by the Nationals to exploit this issue, was left holding what used to be a consensus between the major parties that foreign investment was to be encouraged (then again, Abbott’s walked away from a consensus or two in his time as well).
Maybe this is Rudd’s own variant of campaigning in poetry and governing in prose. Campaigning with a fair shake of the sauce bottle and governing with programmatic specificity, perhaps. The high-speed rail boondoggle will never be built. The Navy will remain at Garden Island, drawing on the vast services support network that Australia’s largest city provides. No further impediments will be placed in the way of foreign investment. The northern Australian vision will turn out merely to have been a tactic to secure Bob Katter’s preferences. It will all have been rhetoric to get re-elected.
But none of it relates clearly to Labor’s core election campaign message. Indeed, it’s no longer clear what that message is. Initially it was roughly similar to what Julia Gillard’s campaign message would have been: about managing economic transition, about education, about health and disability care. It may have been unambitious, but it was a solid foundation because voters at least recognised that Labor had done the work in all three areas. Instead, Rudd and the campaign brainstrust appear to have decided that’s not enough to sustain a five-week campaign, and turned to a bunch of balloons to hoist it aloft.
One of the persistent criticisms of Rudd during his first period as PM was his inability to stick to a core message for any sort of extended period. He only did it once, when he tried to make health funding a key issue in 2010. He has visibly failed to do it during this election campaign, preferring instead to shift from one distant vision to the next.
Excellent analysis. Rudd should have focussed on the fundamentals that Labor are good at – in this case, Education (Gonski), DisabilityCare and the environment. He’ll never win on economic issues with the Coalition, people just don’t believe Labor can manage the economy better. The problem seems to me is that he hasn’t campaigned strongly on the real Labor strengths as these were Julia Gillard’s reforms and he had no active role in implementing them. If he had any sense, he would do so anyway.
2nd last paragraph is spot on, BK.
Sigh…
Rudd also campaigned hard on the NBN in 2007. It was one of the glaring differences between him and Howard – the latter still content with the range of services originally provided by the Postmaster-General’s Department (PMG) way back when.
[A dying national media extracts the last of its depleting rents via a monolithic culture that routinely marginalises critics as “doomsayers” despite their superior forecasting and analysis]
There is truth to what BK writes but it is hardly the full story. The quote above is from David Llewellyn-Smith in another story in todays Crikey. Not mentioned is that 70% of readership is dictated by one organisation and, worse, a few of these manage to set the daily agenda–for the ABC including its News & News24 and all broadcast current affairs. Australian voters certainly cannot escape blame themselves but undoubtedly the domination by News Ltd is a key toxic driver.
BK is correct that Rudd has not managed a coherent message. Llewellyn-Smith suggests what it should have been but not how would it survive or fight thru the fog of obstruction and distortion by the media? BK himself pores scorn on anything remotely touching on “vision” like his sneer at Labor’s plan “to waste actual money — $50 million — on planning for a Sydney-Canberra-Melbourne high-speed rail line, again off in the future”. (en passant, BK could explain to us how any vision can be anything other than “off in the future”?)
Meanwhile has BK wrote anything at all on Abbott’s policy-void on the issue of transport infrastructure as he expounded vacuously at yesterday’s debate:
[“The government has been talking about spending hundreds of billions of dollars in 30 or 40 years’ time,” the Opposition Leader said. “I’d much rather spend money now to get better outcomes tomorrow rather than 40 years’ time”.]
Apparently BK agrees with this retro policy of roads, more roads and then when they inevitably fail (as they have and are), yet more roads. Even many business types and their thinktanks say that Australia has a $700bn to $1tn deficit in infrastructure but when any politician–whether Labor or Greens–begins the business of articulating a vision to fix it commentators including BK, get out their best sneer. It is this sneer that has killed almost any vision for anything in Australia, from adequate public transport, to HSR, to Sydney’s second airport or of course any policy to counter climate change.
On those other “thought bubbles” of KRs, it is easy to sneer, and certainly it is hard to understand how Rudd believes they can shift a single vote at this stage of the game. But there is something to each of these issues unless BK profoundly believes the top half of our continent should be ignored forever or that a significant Naval base–for the country with the longest coastline in the world–can never, ever be located, or even relocated, in the part that actually faces our most significant neighbours.
I am getting a sneaking suspicion that BK might hark from Western Sydney where apparently the only things that matter are immediate consumerism, footie and gambling at the footie club. Oh, and of course more roads for their 3 SUVs and utes.
That’s enough sneering for the day from me.
Rudd’ failure to build on Julia Gillard’s success may well loose Labor this election, but its hardly surprising given the complete lack of attention shown by the media to anything that Gillard ever tried to do. Far more interested in her voice, hair, glasses or arse.
It’s also a bit rich to accuse Rudd of shifting from one position to another when Abbott can do the same a number of times in one day, or more easily just adopt Labor’s position.
The real failure of this election & the last 6 years of government rests substantially with you Bernard & your ilk. The media have failed the Australian people by not reporting in fairness & accuracy & waved the Abbott led Coalition through to forming what could quite possible be the worst federal government in the history of this country. I suppose at least when Abbott & he’s sycophants are destroying the social fabric & the environment you will have something meaningful to write about, at last.