Political coverage in the first couple of weeks of the year has largely been dominated by state issues, with Queensland Premier Campbell Newman announcing an election for January 31, while the NSW opposition caucus, or according to some media reports, the NSW Labor Party administration, selected Luke Foley as leader with just three months to go before that state’s poll.
Queensland’s second campaign week was dominated by whether Prime Minister Tony Abbott was being deliberately kept away from the campaign, with Acting Prime Minister Warren Truss on hand to bar all non-Queensland politicians from crossing the border, while both sides started to hand out the pork with infrastructure and other spending announcements.
Meanwhile brand new Health Minister Sussan Ley has been dropped right in it, with cuts to GP rebates announced last year in place of the co-payment about to take effect, which is drawing strong criticism from most Senate crossbenchers. Trade Minister Andrew Robb mentioned those three little letters G, S and T, although the chances of a sensible wide-ranging debate on the issue still seem mighty thin.
Crikey Political Index – January 8-14
The Queensland election was the main political issue on talkback as you would expect, but Treasurer Joe Hockey still managed to get a few brickbats even during beach season.
Talkback Top Five
Campbell Newman was not that far behind the PM on social media, while the Acting PM is somewhat less visible to the Twitterati, racking up about 1/50th the coverage of the resting Tony Abbott.
Social Media Top Five
Golden Globes hosts Tina Fey and Amy Poehler got the appropriate laughter when they pointed out the career achievements of Amal Clooney just before her husband was given a Lifetime Achievement Award. All those celebrities know they’re not really very important in the grand scheme of things, don’t they?
Comparison of media mentions
Health was by my reckoning the number 2 issue after cost of living (energy costs in particular) in the last election. But neither party wanted to touch it and with good reason. It is the most emotive issue going because one death is a show stopper and it’s a state responsibility notwithstanding the desire by the Labor party to bring it under the control of the Feds. Problem is, no one has a clue how to run it which is why it gets itself into the trouble it does.
For one thing they need to get all of the corporate interests out of it or have them totally run it under penalty of death for deceit or fraud. Not gonna happen when under the present mishmash, the public can bail out the corporations if they get in too deep a do do. So the govt. will always have a role to play if only to spend our money to bail out their biggest donors.
Sadly, the winner is invariably the one who promises most and spends the next four years spinning the crummy job they are doing while attempting to keep all the bodies well hidden.
In the words of Warren Beatty in the political satire Bulworth when asked by the attendees of a local political meet and greet what their representatives had done since the last election when they promised a bunch of changes for their community: “Well we all came down here told you what you wanted to hear then pretty much forgot about it!” Ain’t politics grand!