In the wake of the Super Saturday byelections, and the entirely unsurprising result — seats did not swing towards the government, and the Liberal v minor party contest in Mayo went exactly as polled — there has been a bit of open season, from the left, or from the Labor Left, anyway, about any sort of speculation about leadership, internal party movements, etc, etc.
The attacks on News Corp are fair enough — the attacks on News Corp are always fair enough — because the coverage was as mendacious as usual, tying the particular contests to the very abstract “most preferred PM” rating, and suggesting an apocalypse was innocent. But several news outlets made the trek to Longman and Braddon and found the same thing: the major parties were on the nose, the same rank dissatisfaction spreading through the country and the Western world.
That failed to materialise in Longman because Ms Reliable, Pauline Hanson, stuffed it again: taking the Norse heritage discovery cruise she’d promised herself before the small inconvenience of a byelection in the heartland of her heartland was called. The 100 cardboard cutouts, reminding everyone of the insult? That has to be an Ashby masterstroke, Australia’s campaigning anti-genius strikes again.
The minor party prospect were shown by Craig Garland in Braddon, basically the western half of Tasmania. Garland, a fisherman, ran to raise awareness of the depredation happening in western Tasmania — from forest lockouts for private contractors, residual logging of old growth in the Tarkine, and the despoliation of harbours (and native fishing) by quick-bucks salmon farming — but decided not to campaign, beyond Facebook and media (“I’d feel like a goose”, he said when I contacted to see if he might be doing some doorknocking). Well fair enough. You do what you’re capable of. Word was that Garland was wilting late in the day, due to publicity around a small altercation decades ago, with a cop who happened to be a policewoman. “He’s down to 5%,” they said. In fact he got 13%. With a full campaign, a local hero of such type could get above 20%; in the manner of Clive Palmer in Fairfax, they could split others’ preferences and win the seat from third spot.
So plenty to think about. Plenty to think about inside the major parties, too. Speculation that presumed Labor was in trouble is propaganda. Speculation that games out various scenarios is perfectly legitimate. Some of us are now being slated for asking what a bad result for Labor would have meant for Shorten’s leadership; the suggestion that Anthony Albanese might be stroking his field-marshal’s baton was held to be utterly out of bounds (in the same way that multiply-sourced stories about the possibility that Emma Husar might be the Imelda Marcos of Labor were verboten).
Listen. No one is saying that Albo is “white-anting” Shorten in the way that Abbott is Turnbull. But you’d have to still have the lens cap on, to not see that Labor’s factions have been moving across the battlefield for a good 18 months. As this correspondent has noted, the whole thing appears to have started with a split in the Shorten-Conroy right-side alliance, the willingness of Conroy’s remnant force to ally with the official Left, and the split away of an Industrial Left, to partner with — and support — Billy Bob Shorten’s leadership.
Is Albo running? Hoh yes, he’s running. Which matters for the form Labor might take and the policies it might take — even in these ideologically denuded times. And it is right and proper for us to write about the possibilities of it, in the context of a set of elections which could have gone any which way. That’s politics, that’s commentary, and we’re going to keep doing it honestly, even if others do it otherwise, and major party results turn out as expected, and a fly ma’am holds Mayo.
Nurse! Mr Rundle has cracked, he couldn’t take it that Labor did not in fact come crashing down around Shorten’s ears after “Super Saturday” as he and 90% of the media have spent two months obsessively telling us was going to happen, and so he’s STILL gabbling on about an Albo leadership challenge which is plainly not going to happen unless Shorten loses the next election, instead of scrutinising policies, scrutinising the government, or doing something else vaguely worthy of column space.
Guy, even Katharine Murphy has managed to find it within herself to do something other than obsessively talk up a challenge against Shorten in the immediate aftermath of the byelections.
We the public are far more interested in policies and things which affect us than in internal jockeying for position which 99% of the time comes to nothing. The amount of attention you and yours have given to the idea of a Labor leadership challenge over the past few years generally and the past couple of month specifically is indefensibly out of whack with the amount of attention given to policy, and the amount of attention given to government scrutiny.
Stop fighting a lost battle and start writing something useful already.
Arky said what I was thinking. Labor won Longman by a big margin led by Bill Shorten. Like him or not, his judgement has seemed to be working ever since he became leader. He is enunciating policies even when they appear risky and still getting through to the voters. Everything Mr Turnbull and his team touches seems to turn to dust.
Mr. Rundle – please. If I want to read endless speculation about Labor’s woes I can go to any MSM outlet. They do not comprehend that most of us don’t give a toss who the party leader is, it is about the policies. For God’s sake give it a rest – reminds me of the endless speculation about Julia Gillard when she was PM and the frothing at the mouth from many commentators, including on the ABC, that there were shady things in her past when she worked for a legal firm. Nothing was ever discovered, or proved, but on and on and on and on they went.
Hear, hear!
Right on, as usual, Arky! And I join with the others here who support your comments.
I agree. You’re wasting your talents on leadership speculation Guy.
You could have slipped a couple or three of your articles into the Australian under a different name and got away with it. We don’t read Crikey for shite like that Guy Rundle.
Bollocks! There is and was no move on from Albanese. Talk about jumping at shadows!
Crikey, and Guardian were no less inclined to read like gossip rags than the rest of the MSM were.
At least while Crikey were indulging in the personality stuff in parallel you do look at policy detail. The Guardian on the other hand have gone full tabloid over the last 6 months..no policy analysis an full “Kill Bill” from their political editor.
Is this informed comment on Super Saturday or some attempt at arse-covering on the silly nonsense written by journalists prior to Saturday? Like, I dunno, “A ‘September surprise’ might be Turnbull’s best bet.” or maybe “How disastrous could the Super Saturday byelections be for Bill Shorten?” Pretty ordinary stuff from a usually thought provoking journalist.
guy, I suggest you might want to borrow K.M`s towel to wipe the egg off your face as well, its pretty grubby tho, there was heaps of egg on K.M`s face too, you pathetic soon to be redundant journo`s just don’t get it, shorten has trumble`s measure at every level, and don’t waste your time applying to news crap for a job, they`ll be laying off too, suggest you get your forms from centre link soon as they`ll be very busy.
Yawn.
The problem with attempting to justify possible scenarios is that it ignores the cumulative effect of constant propaganda.
We all expect News to do what they do, but Murphy (whose arrogance is staggering) has written more about Shortens leadership and his political failures than all LNP issues combined, and has not written a single commentary of Turnbull’s failings. One period of 3 days produced 5 articles critical of Shorten, that is enough for her to be employed by the Telegraph, the quality was appropriate also. Kenny has been the same.
The adage of throw enough mud and some sticks is appropriate, and this is what has been happening.
Morrison, Dutton, Bishop, Pyne and others would all like to be PM, probably Albanese would also. He has denied lobbying for a change and he is actually believable (the same wankers who write about him undermining Shorten use his honesty as the criteria, then ignore his honesty when it suits their headline grabbing – figure that one out).
So discussing options is one thing, actively working to undermine Shorten so Turnbull can retain his job is something else.
I accept Crikey reports and comments without fear or favor, the same cannot be said of Fairfax and The Guardian, they post some good articles but their political leaning are there for their own readership to observe. Even today 3 puff pieces about Turnbull/Frydenburg intended to present the Turnbull government as caring and attentive. And yesterday morning on Insiders, well what an embarrassment, though, to be fair, Cassidy was reasonable.
In the leadup to the Batman byelection Murphy was writing daily (sometimes more frequently) hit pieces about Shorten re: Adani.
In the leadup to this one it has been alleged leadership plots.
In each case, the entire press gallery spends a month or two focussing solely on the ALP and giving Turnbull a scrutiny-free zone, which always perks his numbers up a bit, fool’s gold which goes away once voters get the slightest reminder of what a dog of a leader Turnbull is. I don’t think I’ve heard more than 30 seconds about the banking royal commission in the past 8 weeks… that’s about to change.