Tanya Plibersek’s corridor encounter with Craig Kelly may have been contrived, but it was no less welcome for that. Quite the contrary. As Plibersek’s inner-city progressive visage towered, Kelly had the demeanour of a wombat pulled from its hole by scientists to have its arse microchipped.
Jamming up Scotty From Marketing by further exposing Kelly’s backwoods craziness may or may not have been a cheap stunt, but at least it was landing a blow on the government. That was enough to make it a rare moment — something arggggh we’re talking about Labor again. Yes, it can’t be avoided.
The year must have started. The holidays are over and the true business of Australian politics — going “whut?” at Labor — has begun.
Before the gotcha of Kelly, Labor’s first go of the year had been Anthony Albanese’s intervention on January 26, to wit: we should honour it by having a referendum on the day of it, about what day to change it to.
Well that got our attention at least, because amid the bitter clashes over the meaning of the day, Labor found a solution guaranteed to please absolutely no one. This was unerring, heat-seeking.
Reaction was near unanimous: they had found the one answer to this vexed question which could unite the country, by despairing of the opposition. OK, by everyone we mean a few hundred Twitter degenerates.
Nevertheless it seemed designed to exasperate those looking for a clear position and irritate those who didn’t much care. Bewildering it was, as any sort of outward-facing strategy, yet also clearly not, as an act of internal party signalling by the leadership — a feint to the right to show that Albo wasn’t going all “Invasion Day”, a message to the left that he was keeping the faith.
All done as a new push against his leadership gets under way, with pot shots from the op-ed pages of the Oz, the Otis group piping Bill Shorten on board, Jim Chalmers getting soft-focus features, etc.
Once again, Labor’s external actions are a product of its internal conflicts, a continuity with the 2016-19 period that the mere fact of losing an election hasn’t put a stop to. Then the problem was a grab bag of policies, some quite leftish, adopted by a right-dominated leadership without much conviction and no core narrative.
Now the prospect of winning an election appears to have been abandoned altogether, as all attention is turned to blasting Albanese out of the leadership, roadrunner-coyote style.
This would be easier to condemn if Albanese’s leadership had not been, to many of us, well, bewildering is the word again — a period in which Labor has launched no substantial or striking initiatives program- or policy-wise, has failed to take the fight to the right, and has hedged its bets all the way from emissions to JobSeeker to jacked-up tertiary fees.
After refusing these chances to make a stand, it’s now rolled out the slogan “On your side”. It doesn’t feel like that, to umpteen swing voters. “We’re right behind you, you go ahead” is more the mood.
This is all said more in sorrow than etc, because the accession of Albo could have been a chance for a more fighting party to come off the block.
What happened? OK, Albanese couldn’t be, in leadership, the drive-by shooter he had been in the previous period. But after the living death of the Shorten era we expected some sign of life. Instead some fake idea of gravitas seems to have been imposed.
As Morrison leaned heavier on the ScoMo thing, the blue singlet, the daggy grin, etc, Albanese, like Shorten, appeared to retreat into a suit, like they were both aldermen from 1910, pictured in sepia.
From Labor’s brains trust — which appears to consist of ex-movement figures who have started up consultancies when they didn’t win power, and are then hired by the people they lost with — this seems to be a basic misunderstanding of what’s required by the era in a politician.
Progressives repeatedly bemoan Morrison’s have-a-go image, as they sneer at his social piety (“The promise of Australia”), failing to understand that they work in tandem. No one really believes Morrison is a weekend DIY tradie type. But they respect his commitment to pretending to be one, which is seen as a politician’s job.
The test of commitment has become a postmodern one, and the Coalition is well ahead on the twists and turns of an image society. Labor’s boomer/gen X crew have fallen behind.
But underneath that there has been no reckoning in the past two years as to what Labor should be for. First and foremost to work it out for their own sakes. After all, Australia has become — under 25 years of only briefly interrupted Coalition rule — a land of broken promises. Prosperity and social mobility for a core 50% or so has obscured the steady grinding down of what our mission appeared to be from the ’40s into the ’90s: to build an equal and good society that left as few as possible behind.
Now an acceptance of stratification, corruption and decline has set in. The professions have once again become dominated by the elites. Your birth class dictates your life conditions. Even those in the middle ranges who do well live lives perpetually squeezed by high costs, from health to childcare.
Security demands mortgage enslavement. Regional living is a passport to exclusion. The future is being desperately underinvested in. The continent’s natural bounty is being trashed by apathy from the top. And so on.
There should be plenty to join up into a narrative, a prosecution case. Labor has renounced that on the grounds that such big picture stuff makes them a target given the hostile media sphere. Yet there seems no other way for Labor to succeed but to tell some sort of story about what we are not, about what didn’t happen here.
This is not simply a question of electoral strategy; Labor needs to tell this story in order to continue to exist as any sort of movement as such.
If its leaders can’t bring forth anger at what a large section of the population is not getting from decades of prosperity, is it a sign they have accepted and internalised a great complacency, have renounced one task of progressive parties: to inspire an idea that life could be better, fairer, richer in experience for the mass of people?
If you thought what we had was basically alright, why wouldn’t you vote for Scotty From Marketing who’s delivering it?
Maybe the corridor gotcha against Kelly is the start of something — other than Plibersek’s leadership drive, which of course it is.
But as the possibility of an early election draws close, it feels like two wasted years, with more to come, and no clear sign as to how social democratic parties here or across the world shake their complacency and their torpor and offer people something they might really want from a government except more of the same.
On your side? At the moment, still, sadly, on their arse.
Hopefully, the Plibersek hallway ambush of the odious Kelly is not a one-off. Labor need to ditch the ‘jobs, jobs, jobs’ marketing blancmange and articulate the WTFness many average Australians feel every day watching the Morrison travelling circus.
I know Guy is a sceptic of the Morrison as a Trump mini-me theory, but there is genuine disquiet in even nominally conservative circles about this government’s drift to the reality-is-optional radical right.
Plibersek’s outright mockery of the crazies (no doubt making the ALP brains trust nervous of a ‘basket of deplorables’ moment) was the most astute political observation Labor has made since the last election.
You’re right that they need a big picture narrative, but they need to get away from the 1950s blue-collar jobs for everyone (well at least the blokes) imagery they’re pushing and fight back on the culture wars.
Australia does not want to be America. We don’t want crazy libertarians and religious fundamentalists making our laws. We don’t want ever increasing levels of inequality and the marketisation of every inch of our lives. We don’t want the coal industry running our energy policy. We don’t want angry uncle crackpots and medieval torturers running our social policy.
We want Tanya telling Uncle Craig to sit down and STFU.
Agree. Great comment!! 🙂
Nailed it.
Well a lot of us don’t want it but that’s what we’ve got so obviously, there are many who don’t care. But when you put the suggestions here in the comments together and add in the Labor shaped hole so well pinned by Rundle, it’s pretty obvious what’s needed. If Labor won’t step up it’s because it’s a good life in opposition, lots of benefits, no reponsiblities and we need to make waves in their key electorates through independents.
Too late, we’re almost there.
And this ‘they need to get away from the 1950s blue-collar jobs for everyone (well at least the blokes) imagery they’re pushing‘.
Plus allow shadow ministers to take on issues in public to oppose minsters and govt. policy, to also show up the invisibility of cabinet beyond Morrison (with policy strings pulled by external influencers).
Best deflation of a mansplainer I’ve seen in many a long while.
The first step would be to unequivocally repudiate neo-liberal economic theory, and the policies that have accompanied it for the past thirty years.
It means acknowledging that much of what they did in the Hawke/Keating years created environmental, social and economic costs far greater than any supposed benefits.
It means encouraging and enabling the growth of democratic and accountable unions to protect and enhance the interests of working people – as an essential feature in a modern democracy.
It means calling out and slapping down the rent seekers as the parasites they are.
It means smashing the gig economy and pursuing the wage-thieves under every rock.
It means policies to grow and develop well-run and profitable public sector enterprises across the commanding heights of the economy.
Replace it with an understanding of Modern economics!! It’s called MMT, and Alan Kohler is on board, as are many others. Read “The Deficit Myth” by Professor Stephanie Kelton. and embrace a job guarantee, expand all public services to their full potential, make the NDIS far more responsive to it’s clients needs and stop the penny pinching. Create demand by spending run the economy HOT. Ignore the wealthy, but embrace the middle and lower incomes, by raising the tax free threshold, and lowering and flattening the tax rates to help abolish the politics of envy. Be generous to people instead of mealy mouthed and mean like our current Government. Simplify ALL the Assistance programs so that people with age, mental, or health issues can EASILY get help…….and I could go on and on.
All true LM – the basis of a better narrative that can beat the discredited neolib nonsense LNP is locked into.
Well stated
Yep, they still seem to be in thrall to the neoliberal Thatcher’s ‘there is no alternative’, which is BS, of course – there is always an alternative. You just have to be smart enough and courageous enough to envision it, embrace it, and sell it. But first you have to believe it – and that’s where the problem lies for the ALP.
The most problematic thrall they remain stuck in, Pete, is that of the Yanks.
Continuing to think the Oz polity is best served by knocking on the back door of the US embassy, and seeking Demorat regime approval, and personal acclaim, is the m.o. of the sell out, at best, and traitor, at worst.
Most ALP ‘heavyweights’ named here have followed the exact same m.o., be it Hawke, Beazley or the Shorten crew.
Just not on, a major disconnect the real ‘true believers’ cannot reconcile.
That too.
I like this too! If Labour had a leader who could really spruik stuff like this they’d piss it in. After Howard’s early failures he just thought, sod it, I’ll simply tell them what they want to hear. And he did, and the LNP have been doing it ever since and never looked back. So what if it’s all lies, so what if it screws almost everyone, so what if it even destroys the planet, who cares so long as we get back in. And it works, they do! They ain’t gonna change, ever. For Labour to have a hope they’ve got to ram Cloud 9 stuff down people’s throat – anything from free beer to naughties on medicare, whatever it takes. Can Albo and Tanya do that? Nup. How hard can it be, tho? The LNP front bench look like the cast of the next zombie movie and if you’re not quick with the mute button you go insane. If only Jesus would come back and give us proportional representation! Couldn’t we clone a cross between Gandhi and Gillard? Or how about JFK and whatsisname, Mandela? That might work. Just give me someone to follow. Who’s not a total joke.
Working people sell their labour
Or would sell their labour if they could find a buyer
Exactly, and the proletariat, already up shit creek without a paddle, will suffer even more in the coming years as AI takes hold. Then where are profits going to come from?
Exactly, and the proletariat, already up sh*t creek without a paddle, will suffer even more in the coming years as AI takes hold. Then where are profits going to come from?
In a word Bref? Automation.
Electric cars were an option in the early 1920s but it was the oil companies that airbrushed that technology. Ever wondered why an effective rail system was never introduced into the Western states of the USA?
Do you really think that electric (and solar) vehicles have something (anything?) to do with climate change? F. A. in fact – but it does make us feel better.
I would agree that currently EVs, unless charged at homes with solar panels, don’t have a great impact on climate change.
But as our electricity infrastructure changes to renewables over the next ten years, the equation will change enormously. While slow on the uptake, I hope hydrogen based fuel cells will come to dominate the market, but the market is still out on this…
But EVs are coming and will dominate, as are self driving EVs that will put hundreds of millions of drivers out of work worldwide within 10 years.
Bref, the possibilities for alternatively powed machines are unbounded as the technology improves. It is about facilitating automated automation and diagnostics. Climate change is an afterthought here.
It doesn’t matter what is true – it’s how one feels that is paramount.
Hence the synthetic soporifics & euphorics that abound.
It seems, while Crikey journos can say the word sh*t with impunity, when commenters do so we’re ‘awaiting approval’. Grow up Crikey!
It has often been pointed out that even copying a few words of the text of an article can trip the ModBot.
All are still members of the proletariat. Their class consciousness might be obscured by a (mostly futile) faith in bourgeois uplift, however they also benefit from a strong floor.
No, they do occupy a position of precariousness in the market and certainly many experience what Galbraith called self exploitation but their economic conditions/existence will not be conducive to what Marx called class consciousness arising from the experience of collective (and in 19-20th C blue collar) labour for a wage or salary. Indeed, this group traditionally supply much of the social base for fascism. Doesn’t mean they have too be that or that there is not a community or ethical discourse and shared interest that could join them to a reforming progressive policies.
Just like the wharfies on the Melbourne docks 100 years ago. The lessons of solidarity must be learned again each generation
Well it seems at least the following generation are getting some essential learning from FriendlyJordies… I don’t quite get the humour all the time but I do the message …. his take no prisoners version of current events and history on his Youtube videos are viewed by very high numbers of young people for an Australian political humorist and his sobriquets for LNP grifters are becoming common parlance…..his short take on Jack Lang was great and no doubt a revelation for the younger generation ….. so I was inspired to buy a T-Shirt…. not great value but I wanted to support him… I think we may be in the times for a new Jack Lang but a slightly more sophisticated version…
It’s not just youngsters getting the friendlyjordies message. I’m 62 and got an enthusiastic message, ‘you gotta watch this” from a 51 year old mate.
And “Labor” sells out working people since those class traitors HawKeating came to power.
Thanks Griselda, well put.
The points you make and the necessary debate that makes clear the reasoning has to be executed on Neoconservative media outlets. That is the environment that this labor party is unable or unwilling to take on, this has to be accepted as part of the campaign, deride it ,highlight it’s lack of support for egalitarianism, it’s profit motive driven ideology. They have to take it on.
In that context, it’s probably a good idea to remember Mark Twain’s stricture about wrestling with a pig, “Don’t wrestle with pigs. You both get dirty and the pig likes it.”
Dan Andrews proved remarkably successful by simply ignoring the enemy media except at press conferences. For one, I would like to see ALL members of the parliamentary ALP eschewing ANY contact with the Murdocracy. They are an enemy of the common good and should be treated exactly as such.
In this case Griselda the message is sent via the pig, and can only be communicated via the pigs vocal chords. whether wrestled or not. But I take your point, however the unevenness of the playing field should be explained, the pig has to be wrestled,a pressure washer and fly paper gloves…?
Case in point, Stu – National Press Club, this week. Morrison’s smirking dismissal of Tingle’s reasoned questions (as ‘elected’ head of the Press Club).
Morrison’s smirking punchline greeted with almost riotous approval by Tingle’s peers (if they could be bothered looking up from the lobster).
The disconnect is system wide, and until the joint is smashed into reflection, nothing will change.
And, be in no doubt, it will be the Chinamen who smash the joint into reflection – if it’s capable of reflecting – that’s the worry.
The all round smugness of the club is the nation’s greatest vulnerability.
The world is not only changing, it’s already changed.
Can we keep up?
I have thought about it long and hand David and it seems to me that the “solution” (i.e. what solution exists) rests with Hegel. That is : a “solution” will present itself ONLY from a major head-butt of two contrary (polar) forces. Similarly for the USA as with Oz on the domestic and foreign policy domains.
To an increasingly accurate approximation, no-one is listening to the pig. That is the lesson that the ALP must internalize. That is the lesson that Dan Andrews showed to work.
Per DT’s anecdote about Laura Tingle at the National Press Club: who knew? His comment was the first I’d heard of it, and I spend a lot of time reading news (on the web). Just not any from News or Nine (or their sub-eds). I may yet be in a minority, but I don’t think it’s a small one.
Let them bark away in their darkness. There are plenty of other ways to get the message out, now.
I sincerely hope you’re right, it’s just that our ageing population are used to getting information/ news from the mainstream, when neoconservatives didn’t hold an absolute majority and news was less manipulated and a story more balanced. While I agree getting into a full whinge ala conservatives and the ABC since about 2000, is useless , pointing out the imbalance and who benefits most is worthwhile.
Hear, hear. Well said.
One of the first lessons learned by NewsCorpse cub reporters was to tell the target “if you don’t talk to me, I’ll make it up!”
I’d prefer that “Labor” never spoke to Moloch’s minions but, on the off chance that they ever again come to office, the first action should be a blanket ban on government advertising in his rags. (Personally, my fear is that its next PM is probably not yet in school.)
Especially SES Appointments which only helps the OZ appear to e slightly less of a money pit.
I like this!
The good news GS, is that neoliberal inspired and maintained economic theories of equilibrium, rational expectations and optimising behaviour are empirically false. Taxes for the rich pay for themselves etc are what Paul Krugman calls ” zombie theories”, they are dead but still eat people’s brains. The real challenge is to educate enough voters re the above – a necessary prerequisite for the much needed changs you are suggesting.
You can tell how bad they are, because the purest expression of them, the Pinochet regimen in Chile, required dissenters to be dropped into the ocean from helicopters, in mass numbers, often after being tortured.
Any political or economic theory that contains the principle that all of the “other” people must go away deserves to ultimately wind up in front of a war-crimes or human rights tribunal.
Read the article about the Hoppean Snake on theintercept for a bit of context.
Or the discussion about the removal of minorities from Myanmar on this morning’s RN.
Yep, AR. US neolibs are no better than fascists because they remove democracy from the workplace as well as the political sphere. Look out if you disagree or resist in both business and the ballot box. Chalmers Johnson’ s ” Sorrows of Empire” says it all.
Hi PB, in answer to your first question, plenty to replace it with, ie some form of MMT, as outlined in other responses.
But I agree with the thrust of your second question. A party which was formed to look after the interests of unionised working men is doomed if it can’t become a party to look after the needs of society’s vulnerable, most of whom are not unionised, not working (at least for a salary) and not men!
On the evidence so far, “the living death of the Shorten years” was the Roaring 20s & Mao’s Cultural Revolution combined compared to the featureless blob of Albumen Agonistes’ “leadership”.
Many aristocratic houses fell as a result of inbreeding but they didn’t have a sclerotic party structure which benefitted and reinforced incompetence, venality and meretricious mediocrity.
Excellent comment.
Labor went to the last election with the biggest raft of policy initiatives since Whitlam. If they had won, and they had reason to think they would, they would have had a powerful mandate. Instead, we saw the power of the establishment targeting them with everything they had and yet still just squeaking home. As usual, given the way the media and conservatives frame things, all the onus for failure was on the Labor leader. And it is true Shorten struggled.
What to do is complicated, but one thing that has been clear is that successive Labor leaders have been Strat commed and image managed into wooden death masks with all possible charisma bleached from them. Rudd the folksy smart arsed nerd, Julia the laughing engaging woman with a sharp mind and wit, Bill the earnest and often emotionally honest working class boy made good, they all disappeared into a hole of managed set pieces and messaging of the day, don’t get caught out, media engagement “strategy”. Understandable they would fall for this pseudo science flimflam, given the hostile media environment, but disastrous since it just kept the game on the enemy’s turf while wrecking their ability to connect to wider than party circles.
Albo is going/has gone, the same way. Sometimes I think all that is left of his appeal is his nickname. Labor needs talented communicators. Some might argue they don’t have them but I think it’s clear any they have will be buried by control freak media managers before they get started. It looks fake, it is fake and it does not resonate or connect. They need good policy but they also need to have someone talk about the policy who people can trust and relate to. Robots won’t cut it.
In reality the LNP did much better than just squeak home in the last election. Yes, they only have a majority of 2 in their own right, however 4 of the 6 cross-benchers are right -leaning, so they could have lost 4 more seats to the ALP and still had a working majority
Agreed. The greatest example of saying what you like and winning in recent memory would have to be D.J Trump in 2016.
Does it matter? We just had a perfect example of the difference between perceptions of Liberal and Labor with the Kelly Morrison moment. Kelly just broke ranks and told his leader to get stuffed. If that had been Labor the headlines would still be appearing next week. With the Libs it’s move on, nothing to see here. The one similarity I can see between Australia and the USA is we use one scandal to progress to the next, with no accountability involved.
Labor should also call the media out. The rusted on keep waffling about how ‘nice and lovely’ Albo is. Nice guys don’t win. Alot of people who aren’t deep into political news just want a strong leader. Albo looks just weak, too nice. A nice guy who barely stands up for himself, how is he going to stand up for me?
Much of how he comes across is appeasing. Appeasing to the gov’t. Appeasing to the media. It doesn’t work.
They can say as much as they want that Labor needs to inspire and the coalition always fear mongers, but when Labor was making a big deal on medicare in 2016, they really were close to winning.
They need to walk and chew bubblegum at the same time. Have good policies AND give reasons to vote AGAINST the coalition. Albo is doing neither.
To paraphrase Robert Frost, “A Labor party so broadminded that it won’t even take its own side in a debate.”
Look at the appalling line-up behind AA – Charmless the desiccated abacus, Dreyfus a failed QC, various exstaffers & apparatchiks just waiting for the opportunity to continue polishing the seat of their pants (suit).
Agree entirely. The media managers, whoever they are, are working off a very dated playbook. The emphasis is too much on sticking to robotic script and not messing up, instead of at least sounding legitimate. That explains the success of the populists like Trump and Morrison and Johnson. You have to speak plainly and you have to sound real. You can’t media manage that, unfortunately. Well, you can up to a point. But there has to be some core of a real human being still visible.
What Trump demonstrated is that passion trumps (sic!) coherence.
AA tries to put a reasonable face on unreasonable non policies.
A mug’s game.
If one can fake sincerity the world is an open oyster.
As with our politics, I’m sick of old cliches, let’s have some new ones.
Nicely dissected.
The last campaign confimed to the voters that Labor was reduced to a “ready to lead” bunch of curtain twitchers and micromanaged by incompetent campaign directors.
This will happen again and again.
Be interesting to see if your view changes over the next month or so, Guy Rundle – i have definitely detected a pick up in Labor ads in social media, quite well targetted too imo – the difference in Scomo’s approach to jobkeeper overpayments to business (easy come easy go) vs the ruthless hounding of robodebt victims (we will track you down and put you in jail), his paralysis over climate change, and his half-pregnant reactions to the nutty Craig Kelly posts to name a few. And the subtext of the campaign is not so much “we’re on your side”, it’s more “HE’S not on your side”. As to whether Albo can come across as a more powerful and compelling figure in interviews, i think that will be the clincher because the ALP have such a lot of ammo to put away Scomo at the next election…i don’t think they will countenance blowing the opportunity because of a wet leader who can’t use the weaponry available. But i still reckon Albo’s got a decent chance of keeping the top spot.
targeted not targetted! sorry 🙂
I agrees with Lamington and McGillicuddie – it is not a matter of marketing. I reckon if Albo came out of his shell a little more….he just look more sluggish.
You’re dreaming. Ammo they might have, but they’re not using it, because they don’t think it is ammunition.
totally with you there. The main problem Albanese has is not with his message – it’s out there if people bother to look – but the continuous lazy media spin which actually ignores that Albanese is frequently posting not only short pithy policy statements, but attacks on this appalling government.
Main stream media, including Rundle, seem to overlook his social media presence and make little or no effort to present him seriously. The ABC too have reduced Albanese to 10 sec sound bites – hardly in the interest of the balance that their current RW overlords demand. The government has got them by the short funding curlies, and even the way the party leaders are mentioned signals that.
If Labor lose the next election, it will be the media that has facilitated that loss, not party disquiet which only surfaces as a consequence of dodgy, biased reporting.
(I am not a member of any political party).
I’m a news junkie and read all sorts of media – yes, Albo has a generally hostile media, but he really doesn’t seem to know how to get the media’s attention with policy or even attacks on the gov’t. He’s boring, his social media must be managed by an inexperienced person with little idea of how to make something meme.
There is nothing that really catches the media’s attention apart from a quick mention. We’re no longer in the early 90’s. They need to stop being nice and force the media to talk about the coalition’s mismanagement.
There’s no passion, there’s no anger with regards how so many people are ‘left behind’ – it’s just like he’s reading his talking points in the same cadence as they all do.
He’s a very poor media performer and needs to step up.
Agree, but not only is Albo boring, the ALP platform is boring as batsh*t. Having done boring before (many times) surely they’re aware they need something stronger to excite the voter, specially the young voter, because let’s face it, there’s nothing for the younger generation here…
Agree, have noticed opposition shadow ministers lobbing a few at the govt. (but probably limited MSM coverage) while the PM has disappeared govt. ministers….. again.
Guy Rundle, as ever, has hit the spot… There is no room for Albo’s niceness when dealing with Scottie from Marketings appalling crew. The Labour party need to get some of the Keating mongrel back..and some of the vision..
First of all; aim to destroy the evil Murdoch monster and their minions; get some serious Climate change policies and articulate what they will do in government now, don’t wait until the next election…