Two weeks ago, it emerged the Rudd Government announced it had no intention of making good on a pre-election pledge to move Australia Day to a date that’s more inclusive of all Australians, black and white.
Instead, the ALP’s National Platform would be rewritten to “remove any ambiguity” on the issue, announced ALP national secretary Karl Bitar.
Well this week, Kevin Rudd is back out breaking more black promises to Indigenous Australia. Welcome to the ‘Big-Kev-Crazy-Crazy-Crazy-Patriot-Everything’s-Gotta-Go-Black-Promises-Sale!’ Fair dinkum Aussie bargains! Never to be repeated pledges! No promise is too sacred! I’m excited!!
Last year, Rudd told the Progressive Governance Conference in London:
I have decided that each year in Australia’s Federal Parliament the first working day will be marked by a Prime Ministerial statement reporting on progress in closing the life expectancy gap, progress in closing the gap on infant mortality and mortality of children up to five, and progress on closing the literacy and numeracy gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians.
Well, yesterday was the first working day of parliament for the year. No report from Rudd. And, pointedly, no questions from journalists about why not. And no outrage about yet another broken promise to Aboriginal people. It seems the global financial crisis is more useful than we all thought after all.
What’s so extraordinary about this story is that the promise wasn’t just a passing ‘No Australian child will live in poverty’ style pledge delivered during an ad-hoc ‘freestylin’ session with ‘MC Rudd’.
This was a pledge that the PM went to some trouble to emphasise. “Each year we must know as a Government, as a people, and as a country if we have made progress closing this gap,” Rudd told the conference.
“We should not underestimate the size of this challenge. Many Governments with the best of intentions have failed in their attempts in the past. But the time has come for the debate to move on from intentions and focus on outcomes, because in this endeavour outcomes are what really matters.”
Rudd’s office backed up the speech with a media release the following day, officially announcing the annual report to parliament and adding: “Closing the life expectancy gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians is a core priority of the Government I lead.”
Back in Australia, Rudd Ministers dutifully praised their leader for the pledge, media gave the story a good run, and the government even received praise for the initiative from Tom Calma, Social Justice Commissioner with the Human Rights Commission and a tough critic of government inaction.
It was all warm and fuzzy stuff for a Prime Minister who had achieved international statesman status just months into the job by delivering the National Apology to the Stolen Generations.
My personal favourite part of Rudd’s pledge was this line: “This annual statement will greatly increase pressure on my Government to make progress towards closing the gap. That is exactly why I am announcing it.”
And then promptly forgetting it. Which of course the PM’s office was yesterday vehemently denying.
A spokesperson for Rudd told the National Indigenous Times there was a risk the report “would not get the attention it deserved” because of the financial crisis. But apart from anything else, it was being moved to 12 February because that’s the day before the “one year anniversary of when the promise was first made.”
And how do we know that this simply panicked spin created when Rudd’s office realised, “Oh sh-t, look what we forgot”? Because the pledge was actually delivered in April 2008, three months after the National Apology.
Not only had Rudd’s office forgotten to prepare a report for parliament, but in seeking to excuse the blunder, his office didn’t even bother to go back and check when the promise was actually made.
It’s all a pretty ugly look for a government that has spent the better part of a year trying to milk the National Apology for all its worth on the international stage.
Speaking of which, here’s Rudd during the 13 February speech: “Australians are a passionate lot. We are also a very practical lot. For us, symbolism is important but, unless the great symbolism of reconciliation is accompanied by an even greater substance, it is little more than a clanging gong. It is not sentiment that makes history; it is our actions that make history.”
All sizzle. No sausage.
sorry jargon, Global Financial Crisis. It’s fairly common usage in some parts.
GFC?
I also wonder about the effect these slips have on social hope. A lot of people voted for Rudd (similarly to Obama) because he came across as an agent of change (of course, that’s good spin). So many people who voted for him had renewed hope that social issues would be addressed ethically and transparently. Apparently not, as this article makes clear. Ruddy has himself in a spin, and some policies have flown off the ride. Personally I felt more optimistic 12 months ago that Rudd could handle the many social issues to which he had committed. I hope his memory improves and his policies follow suit.
Great story there Chris. I can imagine they would rationalise the slippage as all Black folks will be depending on getting the response to the GFC right along with everyone else in society, and maybe that’s a fair point too.
Even so, I wrote elsewhere Rudd has alot of issues possibly of second order real politik significance (as distinct from morality) which are like the strings holding Gulliver down in Lilliput. This would be another one of them. Each not strong enough to hold him back but in combo could completely entrap him, so I think there some merit in Stephen Mayne’s comment yesterday he needed a big big big political strategy to be seen to be breaking free of these other problem issues – Stanley Ho donations, bank deposit guarrantee etc etc.
One worrying aspect is that this actually was a Bob Carr model of governance in NSW for especially the last 7 of his 10 or so years. Well crafted media packages. Really very convincing with plausible answers to most somewhat shallow questions. But not well implemented policy.
And then it’s later when you get the full picture from a real policy expert (like you) in a subject area who is unusual in being brave enough to speak their mind above the chorus of ALP bovver boys and girls, well the house of cards gets shaky and bits collapse.
What might be good is if they openly stated, it was an unintended mistake because they were distracted by the GFC and they will seek to rectify the problem in the next few weeks.
Sorry, but you messed this one up.
Rudd’s been given a chance to worm himself out of this, that is he’ll now use the anniversary of the “Sorry” event.
I know hindsight’s great but maybe just have kept quiet about it for 3 months or so?