In the first few weeks of the Abbott government, when all seemed right for conservatives, when long years in government loomed, the government’s brains trust decided to nickname Bill Shorten, the newly minted Opposition Leader, “Electricity Bill”. Because, you know, carbon prices, etc. This was back in the day when the Coalition still promised that electricity prices would fall off a cliff once they removed the carbon price. Back before things went to hell at high speed under Abbott.
Unfortunately, you can’t call MPs by their names in the House of Representatives; you must refer to them by their electorates. But so eager was newly appointed Speaker Bronwyn Bishop to stick the boot into the opposition, she overrode Labor objections to the use of “Electricity Bill” in the chamber. Almost immediately, the government realised they’d created a dreadful precedent, so Abbott called Shorten around for a word behind the speaker’s chair to tell him they wouldn’t be using “Electricity Bill” in the chamber.
[Great Australian political insults — a Crikey list]
Now, four years later, Malcolm Turnbull is trying a variant. “Blackout Bill” he calls Shorten, in an attempt to blame Shorten and Labor for the energy crisis. At least it has alliteration, unlike the previous effort. The Turnbull brains trust devised “Blackout Bill” over last summer and tried it when Parliament returned at the start of the year, then gave up on it, only to return to it in recent weeks. It’s possible that it will stick — opponents can sometimes produce a moniker that ends up sticking with a politician.
“Pig Iron Bob” was coined by unionists about Robert Menzies during the Dalfram dispute at the end of 1938 (the claim that Menzies allowed pig iron to be sold to Japan to be made into weapons is a left-wing lie, if for no other reason than pig iron is of too poor quality to be made into weaponry). Labor (allegedly, accounts vary) stuck John Howard with “Honest John Howard” after Howard lied about tax cuts ahead of the 1977 election. Neither nickname prevented their owners from serving multiple terms as prime minister. Paul Keating copped “the undertaker” and was frequently drawn as such by cartoonists, but neither his political successes nor failures had much to do with it.
The trick with a good political nickname is not just to slap a degrading moniker on someone — “Blackout Bill” — and hope that the media and voters somehow, by osmosis, pick it up, but to find something that reflects some quintessential aspect of the target’s personality. The “Mad Monk” stuck to Abbott because, in addition to his Catholicism, it was clear there was something unnervingly zealot-like about him.
The spectacularly uncreative “Juliar” had resonance for Gillard’s critics because of the perception — now acknowledged by her opponents as false — that she had lied about a carbon price. “Kevin 747” made sense because of his incessant travel and pretensions to international statesmanship (and its source, Kevin 24/7, also accurately reflected his work habits, or more accurately the work habits he expected of staff).
[Crikey list: political nicknames]
Nicknames only have stickability if there’s something to stick to. Peta Credlin’s “Mr Harbourside Mansion” crack at Malcolm Turnbull, however clunky, also struck a chord because Turnbull isn’t merely wealthy — there are plenty of wealthy politicians on both sides, though none probably as rich as the Prime Minister — but he is (quite rightly) unashamed of it.
If the Liberals want a derogatory nickname that will stick to Shorten, they could do worse than Backstabbing Bill, a name occasionally used by Christopher Pyne back in 2013 but rarely deployed since. Shorten isn’t much more of a backstabber than most politicians, but one of the few things that the electorate closely associates with Shorten is his 2010 engineering of the coup that removed Kevin Rudd and then his shift in 2013 to back Rudd. That, at least, has a chance of resonating in a way that “Blackout Bill” probably won’t.
As Menzies, Howard and even Abbott show, however, a negative nickname won’t count for much either way at the ballot box. At best, “Blackout Bill” might keep the electorate thinking about the electricity issue. But the longer that goes on without the government even having an energy policy worthy of the name, the less likely it is that that will be a good thing.
Well nick-names and slogans sure beat policy work.
Policy is, like, so hard!
It is really difficult to come up with a nickname that adequately captures the slimy nature of Turnbull & Co’s current efforts to promote fracking…I wonder if Turnbull would be game to use his personal wealth to guarantee the safety of that horrible process….
I’ve no idea what the Japanese did with all that pig iron, except maybe make it into steel, which of course could then be used for making weapons, ships etc.
So why write a story about something that doesn’t matter?
It’s a common political tactic, Brian, so it deserves some consideration. I’m just not persuaded that it’s without effect. A pejorative name doesn’t have to be effective with the whole electorate — just with some of the 1-3% that typically swing a result, and it doesn’t have to be effective for long: just close to the polling date, as voting is the only action it has to influence. It’s used more often than that, and perhaps for other reasons (to feed sympathetic media on specific policy issues, for example, or to vent animosity), but Bernard’s contention that it’s ineffective hinges on what happens to votes, and how that correlates.
Here, Mr Keane has ventured an opinion but hasn’t researched psephology or sociology to see what systematic empirical studies have been conducted. So while his extensive political experience confirms that slur-names are a popular tactic, he doesn’t really know that it’s broadly ineffective because he has no way of knowing what’s influencing voters on the day unless he researches that. He just thinks it probably isn’t effective due to some national leaders outliving popular and well-known examples. Which might be true in general too — or it might not.
The Coalition have no idea at all on what a energy policy even is as they find it easier to just call people names and blame others for their own ineptness like no CET etc all would help but no we can’t have these because the dinosaurs in the coalition would spit their collective dummies big time and have a sooky
I suspect “the electorate” wouldn’t have a clue about the role of Bill Shorten in Rudd’s demise. The political cognoscenti, yes; the general public would neither know nor care.
Pig iron can be used to produce cast iron engine blocks or casings such as those for gearboxes and pumps.