Victorian Premier 'Big' Ted Baillieu announced this week that the 'Acknowledgement of Ownership' ceremony, acknowledging an area's traditional indigenous owners, would no longer be a compulsory part of Victorian Government functions.
The acknowledgment, first introduced by Labor Premier Steve Bracks and then made compulsory by Big Ted's predecessor, John Brumby, had been part of all Victorian Government functions since 2005.
At the time of making it compulsory, Brumby described the ceremony as a 'very positive' thing to do. A handful of local elders also gave the move their approval, indicating it was an 'inclusive' policy that showed 'respect' and 'courtesy.'
So you can see why we'd want to do away with something like that.
Positive? Bah! Inclusive? Courteous? What a load of shit! The State Liberal Government doesn't want to bother with any of that sort of nonsense, as it may distract them from their real business in this state; cutting services to working class suburbs and locking up as many people as possible.
After the announcement, Big Ted attempted to spell out exactly why he had made the change, by being as vague and elusive as possible. He cited only the fact that he felt that making the acknowledgment compulsory was 'too politically correct' and that his ministers had enough 'maturity' to decide for themselves when it was appropriate.
And he wasn't completely alone in this view.
Baillieu's political mentor and long term spruiker Jeff Kennett - another Liberal Premier with a scant regard for political correctness and a liking for hacking into services - immediately sprang to his protege's defence. Kennett said he agreed with the decision, on the grounds that forcing people to make the acknowledgment was 'disrespectful' to the local Indigenous population, as they would be doing it 'without any feeling.'
Which is an interesting way of looking at it, as it's basically Mr Kennett indicating he knows more about how Indigenous people feel about the situation then they do themselves:
INTERVIEWER: Indigenous leaders are angry about this change.
KENNETT: Nah, what they really think is...
And, as such, puts Kennett firmly in a well established local political tradition.
If the State Liberal Party had bothered to consult local Indigenous leadership, they would have found that they were, pretty strongly, in favour of keeping the acknowledgement. Joy Murphy, senior elder of Melbourne area Wurrundjeri tribe, said:
'They really wiped us off the map, so to speak, by not acknowledging traditional owners.'
So she obviously feels pretty strongly about it. It should also be noted that Murphy's 'Welcome to Country' video appears on the 'Visit Victoria' tourism website, indicating that the Government has not yet decided to forgo these ceremonies and acknowledgements when they can help them make some money.
Interviewed before the 'Dreamtime at the 'G' game on Saturday night, Michael Long, former champion Essendon footballer and instigator of 'The Long March' reconciliation walk that is a highlight evening, also expressed his unhappiness with the decision, saying he was 'bitterly disappointed':
'I'd like to ask the Premier what his values are,' Long said. 'Has he truly embraced Indigenous culture?'
To which we can supply the answers in advance. They being:
a) Duuuuhhhhhhh....
and
b) No.
The timing of Big Ted's announcement, on the eve of the AFL's Indigenous Round in a football obsessed city, and a week before National Reconciliation Week, could scarcely have been worse and only added an additional note of total disrespect.
As Michael Long noted at the end of his comments:
'We still have a long way to go when we talk about some of these issues that effect this country.'
'The Age' editorial yesterday made the point that Victoria's new-ish Premier, 'Big' Ted Baillieu, was a bit of a slack arse.
Well, not in so many words, of course. Even as it sacks people and moves as much of it's content online as possible, the Melbourne broadsheet is still pretty conservative.
But it did make the point, more delicately, thet Big Ted has been Premier for a few months now and that there aren't many signs of life emanating from the Premier's office. In fact, the only tangible thing that Baillieu seems to have acheived since being elected is that he managed to make the Premier's Christmas Party an alcohol free event, so ruining the day for everyone attending (Baillieu is a tee-totaller and so marks himself out as unique in Australian political history).
In terms of what he's managed to do in relation to the big issues facing the state; public transport, health, education, crime, the economy and so on to infinity, you'd struggle to find any Governmental movement on any front. Which may surprise people. Especially the people that voted for him.
I may be wrong, but I seem to remember Big Ted going on at some length about all the problems facing Victoria during last years election campaign. I mean, he had a pretty extensive list - which, well, I've already written out in the previous paragragph, so I won't redo it here - which he talked about at mind boggling length and which his party put all over every availabe media outlet in negative campaign ads:
And this worked well for him.
People took notice, or were just sick of being told that waiting 4 hours for a train was 'Part of the Plan,' and turfed Labor out on the back of a 6% statewide swing to the conservatives. The era of Big Ted had arrived!
Aaargh! What is that thing with him? Kill it!
Anyway, at least we thought his era had begun.
Some of his supporters are now starting to look like people waiting for an overdue plane; it was meant to be here two hours ago and they've moved from mild disinterest, to annoyance, to concern, to a growing certainty in their hearts that terrorists have blown it up over the Pacific.
Did Big Ted's supporters take the wrong message from the election campaign? Was all that talk about late trains and hospital waiting lists and crazed gangs of homeowner hating youth criminals meant to be... I dunno, reportage? Just to let us know that things were bad? In case we hadn't noticed that the train we were waiting for never showed up or that our aunty was hobbling around while waiting for corrective surgery?
If it was, well, nice of them to point it out. But maybe a little disappointing.
Although anyone that did actually pay attention to the last election campaign would not have been surprised that solutions to Victoria's problems are not materialising. For none were proposed. From either side.
John Brumby stuck doggedly to the same unpopular, universally derided policies that he'd been pushing for several years, and so committed political suicide. And Baillieu and the Liberal Party mainly just nodded and smiled and made sure everyone knew that Jeff Kennett was no longer a candidate.
In terms of specifics, Baillieu offered us two new train lines, a handful of new trains, about a gazillion more police and that was about it. And even this minimal 'agenda' has been pretty much glossed over, forgotten about and obfuscated since Big Ted was elected and Liquorland had their state parliament contract terminated.
The counter agrument to all this, of course, is that the Liberals were only elected a few months ago and that time will be required for them to enact their policies. Or, for starters, for them to figure out what their policies are. And additionally, Labor ran the state for a long time and the public service is intrinsically slow in responding to change, so even when the Liberals are ready to move in key policy areas, we will need to be patient in order to see results.
But this is no reason for inertia.
Baillieu was given a clear mandate by the electorate and he enjoys a majority in both houses of Parliament. He has far fewer obstacles in his path than, say, Steve Bracks had when he took over a Premier. So there is no excuse not to get on with it. Especially since the same people that were unhappy with transport and health and so ended Brumby's career, will quickly turn on the new bunch if they sense that they're sitting on their hands.
'Well after 12 years of Labor neglect...'
Will only work for so long. Baillieu and co need only look at the Rudd/Gillard government to see how popular a timid, do nothing style of governance is with the punters. Baillieu needs to outline his agenda, properly, and nominate his policy priorities as soon as he can. And then actually move forward with some boldness to legislate for them.
The fact that the same issue of 'The Age' that featured the critical editorial contained not one story of what the Baillieu government was doing is not a good sign.
Really, it had everything; sex, violence, hit tunes... well, maybe it didn't have those things, but this isn't America. Even so, we had elections, changes of Government, a deposed Prime Minister, a deposed Prime Minister resurfacing as foreign minister, our first female PM, scandals, angry debate, boat people, cowboy hats and more budgie smugglers than anyone would've thought possible:
And so I wonder why, thinking back over the year that was, that I'm not filled with a sense of excitement, but mostly with a sense of disappointment... disillusionment... even self loathing. It almost reminds me of the time I went to see a Russ Meyer film at ACMI here in Melbourne; yeah it was great fun and I cackled like a goon at the camp hilarity of it all, but afterwards I felt like I needed a wash or, at least, two tickets to a Noel Coward play with some Proust to read afterward (this didn't stop me going and seeing another Russ Meyer film the following week, of course).
For rarely, if ever, have we had a year where there was so much political activity, so much political noise (to call it 'sound and fury' would be to imbue it with undeserved lofty qualities), that cost so much money (tax payers money for the most part), that lead to so little in the way of identifiable outcomes that would be of benefit to anyone.
The major political event of the year was, of course, the Federal election.
And you'd be hard pressed to find anyone who didn't get a bit of a jolt out of that one. I mean, it was so action packed that even people with no interest in politics - i.e. most people - were forced to pay attention as the leaks, backstabbing and vitriol mounted up. And that was just members of the ALP turning on each other! To say nothing of the result, which saw the two major parties effectively shadow box each other into a coma, leaving the outcome to be decided by a handful of Parliamentary independents in the House of Representatives; the nutjob in the hat, the crusty old timer, the serial candidate trying his luck in Hobart and the boyishly enthusiastic windbag who no one seemed to like very much.
To understand the election outcome it is instructive to look at the opposite trajectories of two of the major players in it; Kevin Rudd and Tony Abbott. The Ruddbot started the year miles ahead in the polls and appeared certain to stroll into a second term whenever he decided to call the election. But a strange kind of paralysis seemed to overcome his programming as the year progressed and he began to malfunction so badly that his party decided to disconnect him and destroy his CPU before he could even get back to the polls, making him the first Prime Minister to be kyboshed before facing re-election. This stands in stark contrast to the trajectory of the Opposition Leader, Tony 'Action Man' Abbott, who started the year as a Speedo wearing national joke, but came so close to becoming Prime Minister that many of my facebook friends posted status updates about leaving the country. Abbott lost the election but somehow seemed to convey the impression that he'd actually won it, or, that he'd rather be a respectable Opposition leader than Prime Minister of a coalition of misfits and weirdos.
This left the person who actually won the election, Julia 'Wavy Hands' Gillard, trailing badly behind Abbott and Rudd, in both interest and nickname stakes. To be as fair as possible to Gillard, she certainly tried hard once Labor's backroom head kickers had installed her in place of Rudd. But her efforts on the campaign trail were seriously handicapped by a hatful of factors, chief among them the fact that Labor's backroom headkickers had installed her in place of Rudd. It's quite hard to go to the electorate pledging yourself as trustworthy and safe when you've just conspired to overthrow your boss after a few bad polls.
Gillard also handicapped herself with a largely policy free election platform. I mean, what was she pledging again? Her vision for Australia? An unfunded promise to build a rail line in Western Sydney and an unbuildable refugee processing centre in East Timor. And something about broadband internet, coming to a suburb near you in 2035. Not that she was alone in the policy-lite stakes, as the Action Man took up the do-nothing-shout-loudly style of politics with gusto. He really seemed to enjoy it too, rushing around the country like the Loony Tunes devil in rolled up shirtsleeves, only pausing to yell 'Stop the Boats!' at any country fair, primary school, CWA meeting, small business, gas station, residence, warehouse, farmhouse, henhouse, outhouse and doghouse that would have him:
The Action Man was rewarded for his shrill, one note, intelligence insulting campaign with truckloads of votes from all corners of the country, proving that people in the suburbs are just as easy to convince that darkies are about to invade the country and drive up electricity prices as they were when John Howard was in charge. Sadly, you can bet we'll hear more about this issue, in the same overblown fashion, in 2011.
The Federal election was also good for at least one minor party, with the Greens obtaining their first lower house seat won at a general election, when they took Melbourne from the Labor Party (Michael Organ won the Federal seat of Cunningham at a by election in 2002, only to lose it back to Labor at the 2004 poll). There were a variety of factors behind this result, chief among them the retirement of popular Labor sitting member Lindsay Tanner and the decision of the Liberals to preference the Greens ahead of Labor. But it also shouldn't be forgotten that the Greens selected a well known local candidate - Melbourne based lawyer Adam Bandt - and had him run on a progressive program choc full of fresh ideas. Hopefully Labor and Liberal alike will take notice of these radical initiatives.
2010 also brought a State election to Victoria, with an even more surprising outcome than that of the federal poll.
Boosted by landslide victories in 2002 and 2006, the John Brumby lead Labor Government appeared to have an impossibly safe and intractable buffer to prevent them from losing at the November poll. That they managed to do so, coughing up a dozen seats and suffering a swing against of above 6% state wide, is more a tribute to some bizarrely inept campaigning and a stubborn refusal to address any of Victoria's problems than anything that Opposition leader 'Big Ted' Baillieu and the Liberal Party came up with.
Based on the Labor campaign, you'd have thought that the chief priorities of the outgoing Government were making sure everyone knew that Brumby sheared sheep occasionally in his spare time:
That, and the fact that he wanted to spend about a squillion dollars forcing every Year 9 student in the state to go to some kind of combination karate/army fantasy camp. And all while the demountable classrooms at the states public schools remained unairconditioned and slowly fell apart, and the trains running to the schools and everywhere else regularly broke down on hot days while the Transport Minister expressed amazement that it was hot in summer time. I mean, again? Geez, that seems to happen every year.
Coming to the rescue of Victorians, then, was Big Ted, with his well documented plan to fix the state's problems by... doing things exactly the same. Which is certainly a radical idea, if not very inspiring. Well, 'doing things exactly the same' may not be exactly correct. Victoria's new government will buy a massive 8 - 8!!!!!!!!! - new trains over the next four years, so there'll be a handful more to break down on hot days. And they're going to give us a new state slogan too, to replace the old one that has been the bane of everyone's life for sooo long. What was it again? The old slogan? 'Victoria: Something something.' Man, am I ever tired of that thing. It's good to see that Big Ted has got his priorities straight.
2010 was also a rare year, in that an Australian managed to make a mark on the world political stage. We're talking, of course, about 'WikiLeaks' founder Julian Assange, who caused such a stir worldwide and was so widely discussed that he probably should've been 'Time' magazine's 'Person of the Tear.' I mean, Mark Zuckerberg? They know that he founded facebook about 8 years ago, right? All that happened to Zuck this year was that a film got made about him.
Anyways, Assange's website published thousands of secret diplomatic cables that had been leaked to it, managing to embarrass pretty much everyone with any association to politics in the process. He also found himself threatened, broke, jailed and facing sexual assault charges and so had pretty effortlessly acquired all the trappings of a major modern celebrity. We'll know that the transformation is complete if he releases his own line of underwear this year, or starts talking about his 'brand.'
And so 2010 came to an end, with neither a bang nor a whimper, but a kind of unsettled feeling, a bit like indigestion. And for all the disappointment and disillusionment and self loathing that comes from following the political debate in this country (and I smashed things several times listening to our leaders speak), there's no doubt that I'll do it all over again this year. After all, I need something to fill the gaps in the week and year when there's no footy or cricket on.
Which could serve as the theme song for any post election period. For once the polls are closed and votes are counted and Anthony Green has called the election, it's time for members of the losing side to rip into each other. After all, they've been holding their breath and pretending that they all like each other for the duration of the campaign, for the sake of unity, and are pretty much ready to explode by the morning after the night before.
Fans of any type of 'bloodsport' would be attracted to the spectacle; middle aged, geeky, pale political operatives getting their power suits, ties and lanyards off to get all 'Fight Club' with their soon to be ex colleagues.
Along these lines then, former Senior Victorian Labor Campaign Officer George Droutsas took to 'The Age' yesterday to lay the blame for Labor's upset defeat in the state election firmly at the feat of John Brumby. Droutsas describes the former Premier as an 'abrupt,' 'arrogant' man who was a 'poor listener' and 'dismissive' and one who, as he 'didn't like hearing bad news,' had surrounded himself 'with people who were afraid to challenge him.' No wonder then that the Victorian electorate 'just did not warm to the man.'
Pow, eh? BLAM!
Odd then, that Labor's election campaign would center almost entirely around Brumby, with him featured heavily in the principal advertising and Labor's campaign launch almost entirely focused on the man, his history, dreams and love of shearing sheep. Odd until you consider Droutsas' assessment of Brumby's hand picked campaign team, a bunch of people with 'zero' political expertise, who made several 'lethal' mistakes, who thought 'that Ted Baillieu was unelectable' and who were little more than 'sycophants.'
Of course, it's worth pointing out that a key to this assessment could be the 'Former' in the authors title of 'Former Senior Campaign Officer.' Obviously Brumby, or one of his sycophants, did not like the advice they were getting from Mr Droutsas. And Mr Droutsas, by way of payback, has hit a large scale broadsheet to paint himself as a combination of Machiavelli and James Carville and his ex boss as something like Dick Cheney on a bad brain day.
Labor seem much better at this type of thing than the Liberals, who mostly keep their blood stained laundry behind closed doors. I mean, after their humiliating Federal election defeat in 2007 they were comfortable turning to a man - Tony Abbott - who had been the just deposed Prime Ministers pet and who pretty quickly set to the task of restoring all the old leaders policies and Parliamentary supporters.
Something that it would be hard to imagine Victorian Labor doing.
Which should prove entertaining for the rest of us, if nothing else, as Labor's former top people get stuck into each other in public.
Big Ted Baillieu, enjoying a mineral water or a banana or whatever non stimulating thing he has in hand, will probably allow himself a smile at this... before he gets back to his more immediate task of sending most of the electorate off to a newly constructed jail.
In any election, state or Federal, there's always a certain cache attached to which electoral boffin is the first to 'call' the election. As in, which pundit is the first to get onto some sort of media outlet and declare the winner. And there's even more cache attached to doing this and getting the answer correct.
And the winner this time? For last weekend's state election in Victoria? If you're thinking ABC Election obsessive Anthony Green you'd be...dead wrong.
Incredible as it may seem, long forgotten British electro pop duo 'Bentley Rhythm Ace' were the first to call the outcome this time around. Even more incredible is that they called it 13 years ago!
For their 1997 song 'Bentley's Gonna Sort You Out!' pretty accurately describes the outcome of the poll and also what soon to be no more Premier John Brumby faced up to on Sudnay, the morning after.
In that the election was close, in terms of the number of seats won, with the ultimate winner to be decided by whichever of the major parties managed to win the seat of 'Bentleigh' (so the spelling's different, so what? BRA were artists, man).
The day after the poll, most media commentary had Labor on 43 seats (out of 88) and Liberal on 44. Well, that's not true. Most media had already called the election for Big Ted Baillieu and had the final result 45 - 43 in favour of the conservatives. But Brumby is not a man to let go easily. He waited a long time in the shadow of that likeable goofball, Steve Bracks, doing the Government's heavy lifting in Treasury while Bracksy rode around in the car with the flag on the bonnet, and he wasn't going to vacate the Premier's office until he was absolutely certain, beyond the shadow of any sort of doubt, that there was no way that defeat could be turned into victory.
Hence his election night prediction that a hung Parliament was 'the most likely outcome.' As predictions go well, optimistic is probably the wrong word. 'Creatively unrealistic' is probably closer to the mark (and people had said that the soon to be no more Premier was a dour man, with no creative side).
Which brings us back to Bentley/Bentleigh, as this was the last of the electorates in the 'too close to call' bracket. Nevermind the fact that, again, most followers of the election had this one already falling to the Liberals' Elizabeth Miller. The soon to be no more Premier was determined to soldier on, stating in a press conference on Sunday arvo that there were any number of pre-poll, postal and absentee votes left to count that could still get him over the line, although by this time the Liberal lead was about 400 votes and that was enough to extinguish any hope.
He then went on to point out that even if Labor did lose the election, and the soon to be no more Premier felt this unlikely, Labor really hadn't done too badly. I mean, the Liberals would only win by one seat. And Labor had won at least 43 seats, which was one more than Bracksy won in 1999 when he took office. He’d outdone Bracksy, see. And, and, and, Labor had held all of their inner city seats against the Greens. So really, you know, when you think about it, it was a pretty good result, overall.
So if the soon to be no more Premier's election night prediction was unrealistic, this analysis of the outcome was a bit like the captain of the Titanic saying 'Yes, well, the ship may have sunk and a few people may have drowned, but we were making incredible time!'
For the fact of the matter is that this election result is a disaster for the ALP. Pre election, they looked more or less impregnable having had two large victories in 2002 and 2006 which gave them a buffer of 6.5% and 13 seats statewide. Which really ought to have been enough. Especially when you consider that Brumby's opponent was Big Ted, who's never been the sort of person to inspire any emotion from the public previously, unless mild disinterest counts as an emotion.
But despite these factors, JB has still succeeded in leading State Labor over a cliff. The anti Government swing in the suburbs ran as high as 10 - 12% (JB himself suffered the ignominy of a 12% swing against him in his own electorate of Broadmeadows), and those are the sort of numbers that sweep even well entrenched Governments from office. The ‘It’s Time’ factor was a large part of this, the feeling that the Government had been there too long, but Labor had also had a series of legitimate policy failures – myki, public transport generally, hospital wait lists and water among them – for which the public were calling them to account.
All that was left was for JB to formally concede, which he finally did yesterday afternoon, this time mostly restraining himself from offering up all the same lunatic excuses listed above. However, the soon to be ex Premier couldn't resist putting on the record how he thought Labor had campaigned well and, if given his time over, he wouldn't have changed a thing. If this is really what he thinks, then we can expect a chapter in the ex Premier's memoirs about how he and Ted Baillieu are best mates and he was always a Liberal double agent.
Inept campaigner - and aloof, arrogant bugger - he may be, it was hard not to feel a bit sorry for JB yesterday. His dream of actually being elected Premier and riding in the car with the flag on the bonnet:
is over.
And after a lifetime dedicated to Labor politics; junior staff lickspittle, backroom apparatchik, Federal backbencher, State Opposition leader, State Treasurer and unelected Premier, he now has to find something else to do with his time. It makes a person's eyes moist to be sure…
Due to powers beyond my control, I was unable to write any sort of prediction about the State election outcome before polling day. And by 'Powers beyond my control' I mean a combination of 'Friday night' and 'pub.'
But I don't see this as a big problem. I mean for starters, my wishy-washy prediction, something along the lines of:
Labor will lose seats in the East of Melbourne put probably hold enough of their rural and regional marginals to retain Government by a slim margin.
would have been dead wrong, making me look as stupid as every other political pundit in this town. Well, probably not quite as stupid as most of them... most of them are paid a large salary to be wrong.
Failing a prediction then, there's still the other stock standard piece of election day commentary available to me, which is the morning after analysis. The key points from last nights surprise election outcome then:
1. THE LABOR PARTY HAD BEEN IN POWER FOR 11 YEARS: And people were sick of them.
And that's it really. As John Keats would have put it, 'that is all ye know on Earth, and all ye need to know.' (I've left out the bits about beauty and truth, these have no place in any sort of political discussion).
Much else will be said and written about the election in the coming days, particularly as the final outcome is still undecided as I write, but you need to look little further than 'Point 1' for an explanation as to the outcome. Labor had been in power for more than a decade in Victoria and was past it's use by date. Even a casual study of recent Governments in this country, state and Federal, will bear out the fact that once a party has been in power for 10 plus years, they live on borrowed time (see John Howard as a prime recent example of this).
So that's it.
I'd like to alert our network affiliates that we'll be finishing a little early tonight, tune in tomorrow when our topic will be 'What is the one true faith?'
(Brief Pause)
Well, actually, it's raining out and I've got nothing else to do right now, so let's have a few of the minor points from the election night result as well:
2. BIG TED - SUPER GENIUS: Big Ted Baillieu's do-nothin', say-nothin', propose nothin', smile politely campaign strategy frightened no one and so was enough for him to edge over the line once the voters had decided to give the incumbent mob a kicking. But you can expect his content-lite campaign to be described in the most glowing of terms and the man himself to be praised as some kind of modern day political superman, like a contemporary Napoleon on a roll after a big pot of coffee. I'm sure he'll be getting about in one of these soon (at least in his own time):
3. SERVICES, SERVICES, SERVICES: A companion piece to 'Point 2.' Liberal egghead analysis on election night had them winning the election based on voter dis-satisfaction with Brumby Labor's performance in delivering basic public services - public transport and health chief among these - and the Liberals superior plans to improve them. Half of which is fair enough. Labor had failed to deliver in these areas. Where we have a problem is with the other half, the bit where the Liberals enact their plans to rapidly fix these problem areas up. Because unless I was following a different election, the Liberals have no real, concrete plans to fix public transport delays, hospital waiting lists, sham urban planning processes, myki or anything else that's wrong in this state. In fact, for anyone who's interested, I'll bet a hundred bucks that these self same issues are what we'll be talking about in four years time, when Baillieu faces re-election against new Labor leader Randy the Purple Puppet:
(no one will want the job, see). I mean, wasn't Steve Bracks elected Premier largely on a promise to restore public services - public transport and health chief among them - that Jeff Kennett had neglected?
4. FEELING BLUE, I MEAN, GREEN: That the Greens pre election polling of 16 - 18% evaporated as the punters went into the booths to mark their cards should surprise no one. Relentlessly hostile press and a pseudo boycott from both major parties will do that, particularly to an under-resourced minor party largely run by well meaning volunteers.
5. THE END OF THE KENNETT ERA: Ummm... wasn't he voted out, like, 11 years ago? I remember getting drunk and partying all night as they carried his bleeding corpse out of Liberal HQ! Well, this may be but it hasn't stopped the ALP fighting every election since like Kennett was still tormenting all of us and not just the members of Hawthorn FC. But I doubt we'll see any more posters about how Kennett ruined the state at the next election. I mean... right? It's over... right?
6. THE ELECTION IS STILL UNDECIDED: Forget it, it's over.
Big Ted will be Premier, people who have committed minor criminal offences will go to jail and have their lives ruined and the States Year 9 students will rejoice that they've been spared two weeks of 'motivational camp.' Anyone who's waiting in the rain for an overdue train, or hoping that their life saving surgery will soon be approved, or watching while a large corporation builds an ugly apartment block in their midst without consulting them can expect more of the same, only with a different logo on the accompanying form letter:
There's something fitting about the fact that, on the morning before the election, the Liberal Party have a large ad on the front page of 'The Age' newspaper featuring a piece of rotten fruit.
No doubt they mean it to represent the Labor Government (or maybe, I thought in a moment of half awake delirium, John Brumby's brain) but it would be more appropriate to stand as a metaphor for the previous five weeks of desultory campaigning. What we've been given in Victoria, across the course of this election run up, has been a contest between 'More of the Same' and 'Doing Things Similar.' A sham choice really, between two political 'parties' that long ago abandoned ideoglogy and are more or less in agreement about how the business of government should be conducted.
For an example of this, we can return to the rotten fruit ad. Alongside the picture is a list of issues that the Liberals are claiming the Labor Government has mishandled during their time in office. There is no mention in the ad as to what the Liberal Party would do to correct these problems if we make Big Ted Premier and there's a reason for this: With the exception of the 'law and order' stuff, they have none. The list then, followed by a summary of what the Liberals would do in each policy area:
* UNSAFE STREETS: (Loudly) Longer sentences, more police, bigger jails!!!!!
* PUBLIC TRANSPORT MESS: (Quietly) 7... ahem... 7 new trains. Ummm, have people been watching the Ashes?.
* MYKI FIASCO: Keep it in exactly it's current form with no changes whatsoever.
* SOARING WATER AND POWER BILLS: These are bad.
* TRAFFIC GRIDLOCK: This is also bad. But, you know, we're buying 7 new trains... And The Ashes! What about that Peter Siddle! He's Victorian, you know.
* HEALTH & AMBULANCE CRISIS: ........... (crickets chirping)...........
As a political manifesto for change, you might feel that this list is a bit lacklustre. I mean, say what you want about Jeff Kennett, but at least he floated a few ideas about how he'd do things differently if we were foolish enough to elect him:
Sack Everyone! Kill everyone else! Poison the wells! Scorch the earth!
And he even delivered on those promises.
But his successors in the Liberal Party have failed to really articulate much of a case for change this time around. They have clung to the hope that the public were sick of Labor after 11 years and would turf them out without them, the Liberals, having to do very much. Just smile and nod, roll some lawn bowls, roll up the shirt sleeves, avoid saying anything much about anything and hope to sneak in on the back of voter dislike of the other mob.
And on one level, it's hard to blame them for this. After all, the same tactic worked for Rudd in 2007 and Bracksy in 1999 and Howard in 1996. The old adage about Opposition's not winning elections but Government's losing them.
But even if this is so, that doesn't mean we can't whinge about it. For the biggest loser in all of this cynical, small target, do nothin' politickin' is you and I. By which I mean, us! An ineffective, risk adverse, policy-lite Opposition simply means that the Government does not get held properly to account and so does not need to improve in areas where it's performance has been poor.
Imagine, as one example, that the Liberal Party in 2006 had gone to the polls with a policy to roll back Labor's broken promise on the Eastlink Freeway, and make it free to use as it was initially intended. Such a policy would have had one of two outcomes:
a) Labor would have been forced to match this policy. Or,
b) The Liberals would have been elected and would have enacted their policy.
The result, in either case, would be a free road for us to use. So the winners, whether Labor or Liberal won the election, would have been you and I. By which I mean, us!
Come to think of it, Big Ted was the Liberal leader then too, so I guess it's no surprise that a different policy from Labor was just a bit too hard, a bit too radical, a bit too alien for him to try. But if you take the example of the road toll issue above and then apply it to public transport, health, planning or whatever you like from this current campaign then it's not a long stretch to see that a properly functioning Opposition, putting forward some new policies of their own and opposing the Governments bad ones, delivers better functioning services for the community at large.
And so the ultimate loser from Big Ted's insipid performance in this election campaign, much more than the Liberal Party, is you and I. By which I mean... well, you get the idea.
And finally, a note of comedy in this otherwise grim State Election Campaign.
Well, that's probably unfair. Truthfully, the leaders have done their best to make us laugh over the past four weeks. Ted Baillieu's plan to fix the Melbourne transport system by buying seven new trains was a great example of absurdest humour, while the Premier's policy of sending all the State's Year 9 students to camp was probably the most laughable big campaign launch announcement in the history of Australian politics. And the sight of both of them with shirt sleeves rolled up and ties tucked into pockets while they try and play cricket or weld doors or anything else that their advisors have told them that 'regular' folk do, never fails to make me laugh.
But Big Ted and JB have been outdone in the comedy stakes, by none other than Australia's favourite annoying busy body, Harold Bishop. Or, should I say, Australia's former favourite busy body (see below), AKA Logie winning actor Ian Smith.
Former independent MP Phil Cleary, a mate of Smiths, is having a tilt at reliving his glory days and running for the State seat of Brunswick. He's long odds to snatch the seat, which is seen as a two way contest between Labor and the Greens (with Labor favoured).
To try and drum up some media attention for his outsider campaign, Cleary asked his acting mate to come with him to a media event on Tuesday morning. Cleary would be talking about rural planning policy, the TV networks and major newspapers would be there, and having Harold Bishop alongside would add a little juice to the event.
Except the TV networks didn't show. Nor did the newspapers. At least, not at first. One newspaper photographer finally came, 40 minutes late, and started taking photos of Cleary (who is something of a minor Melbourne celebrity himself). After taking a few pics, the photographer was set to leave, without having photographed Harold at all. When Harold complained about this, in classic hissy fit fashion apparently, the photographer told him that:
'He hadn't recognised him.'
Yowch!
Even for someone who spent their whole career on 'Neighbours,' and so has to be something of an industry joke, that's gotta hurt! But Phil and his mate are undaunted. They'll be back again on Saturday, handing out how to vote cards at the Brunswick Town Hall. They'll be there all week folks, don't forget to tip your waitress.
Credit to Victorian Labor leader John Brumby, he does things his own way.
When it came to the Labor Party's State election campaign launch this week -r ridiculously late in the campaign for the usual reason - he followed the template of neither his Victorian Liberal Opponent nor either of his Federal counterparts. Whereas Liberal leader Ted Baillieu had, in his campaign launch earlier in the week, delivered up a series of minimal policies designed to change as little as possible, and Julia Gillard and Tony Abbott had, earlier in the year, delivered up policy free launches devoid of anything even remotely resembling a policy of any description, the Labor Premier had something tangible for us. An actual policy! Different to his opponents and everything!
Things got even more original when the Labor leader declared just what this policy was: He was going to send all the states year 9 public school kids to 'Brumby Camp.'
And much like the time when Homer decided to go to Clown College, I don't think any of us had expected the Premier to say that:
Most people, press and public alike, had probably expected any major policy announcements to be in the 'Law and Order' area, so countering whatever Big Ted had announced at the Liberal Party do. Or, if not that, than maybe something about the economy or the environment or health or, if on the topic of education, something about more schools, more teachers, better access for country kids to quality facilities.
Instead, we got 'Brumby Camps.'
Put simply, this is a proposal by the Premier to make compulsory a two week Government funded camp for all Year 9 students. Details were a little vaguer on what this 'camp' would actually entail, but Brumby created the impression that it would be a bit like a fortnight of Army basic training, karate school and one of those wilderness survival things, where people get left in the forest with a spork and a compass, all rolled into one. Further hints could, perhaps, be taken from a short biographical video about the Premier, also played at the launch, which showed Brumby shearing sheep, planting trees and playing sport:
The cost of the program, dubbed with the usual ridiculous Government spin style moniker of 'Education for Life' (or something) was about $2000 per child per year, or some $208 million across the next term of the Government.
Now, you can undoubtedly make a case as to the value of this sort of program. Something that engages with kids outside of the staid classroom environment and shows them something of the world beyond high school. The Australian Education Union, to cite just one example, was in favour of the plan.
But it seems to me that this is something of an indulgence, given that there are many more urgent problems facing our education system in this state. Particularly in the public school system and, even more particularly, in the bush, children from the lower end of the socio economic spectrum are disadvantaged in terms of access to proper facilities.
Public school children in many areas still study in demountable classrooms. The Government has continually failed in its efforts to get high standard teachers into disadvantaged or rural areas (in fact, on that topic, the Government really refuses to admit that there are any differences between standards of teachers). Some under-resourced public schools continually fail to meet basic reading and writing benchmarks (while the government fights tooth and nail to with hold this information from the public). And, in areas of concentrated poverty and neglect, school drop outs rates remain disappointingly high.
These are all problems much more deserving of Labor's attention, than setting up a well meaning but essentially frivolous network of lifestyle camps.
There is also more than a little hubris about the proposal. 'The Age's' state political reporter, Paul Austin, noted the day after the announcement that, far from a gimmick, the 'Brumby Camp' proposal was 'a long-held Brumby dream, something he's been working on from the moment he became Premier.' His legacy to the state, in other words. Something for us all to remember him by. But really, there are more pressing needs for the state Government to address in regards to education, than the Premier's place in the history books.
- 89 per cent don't feel safe using public transport at night - 88 per cent don't feel safe in the CBD at night - 14 per cent have considered moving because of a crime - 36 per cent have experienced a crime at home - 55 per cent said violence is racially motivated - 42 per cent were disappointed with the government's initiatives on law and order
The information contained in the article came from a survey conducted for 3AW's Neil Mitchell. Approximately 6500 homes spread across Melbourne participated in the survey, a large sample size for this type of thing, so even though 3AW is a cartoonish outfit with only the most tenuous attachment to the idea of 'serious news,' the results cannot be easily dismissed.
But what this survey really tells us is less about the crime situation in Melbourne and more about the perception of the crime situation in Melbourne. In other words, people in the suburbs have already been convinced that crime is really out of control in our city and that they're unsafe unless they're at home with the doors and windows locked and a blanket over their heads.
And we've got people like Mitchell himself to thank for this.
Obviously, if you go on the radio everyday and talk in a LOUD VOICE about the law and order problem we have in this state - never trying to determine if there is one of course, just shouting about how bad the problem is - than a lot of your listeners are going to get it into their heads that the problem exists and is getting worse. This is really how Mitchell and his ilk define their existence: shouting about something loud and long enough so that people start talking about it so that they can then shout about it some more and companies that manufacture security doors and burglar alarms will advertise on their show.
'Yellow Journalism,' it's called, in the parlance of a completely different time.
Nevertheless, now that the self perpetuating machine that is the media has been set in motion on this topic, you can expect to hear about almost nothing else for the next three weeks. John Brumby and Ted Baillieu will fall all over themselves trying to outdo one another, trying to prove to us which of them will be toughest on crime.
Brumby will go on Neil Mitchell's show to state that serious crime figures have actually fallen in Victoria while he's been Premier (a fact, by the way)... before adding that nevertheless, he still thinks that we should have more police, tougher laws and longer sentences across the board.
Then Baillieu will give an interview to The Hun where he'll talk about a few of his constituents whose house was burgled and that he feels that suspended sentences should be done away with (Liberal party policy, by the way) and that he would legislate for more police, tougher laws and longer sentences than the Premier has proposed.
Then Brumby will be in The Hun stating that this just shows how weak his opponent has gotten on this important issue and that if he had his way than thieves and drunk drivers would be hung, drawn, quartered, guillotined, stoned, asphyxiated, buried in soft peat and recycled as firelighters.
Then Baillieu will be on Neil Mitchell's show yelling about how this merely highlights Labor's weakness when it comes to really cracking down on crime and that he feels that really everyone in the state who's ever littered or jaywalked or cut a loud fart in church should be sealed up in a block of concrete and buried somewhere in the desert.
Then... well, you get the idea.
Yet all this hyperbolic debate makes me think of is an old bit of Bill Hicks’(truncated, paraphrased and taken out of context, but still, you’ll get the drift):
'WAR, FAMINE, DEATH, AIDS, HOMELESS, RECESSION, DEPRESSION, WAR, FAMINE, DEATH, AIDS.' Over and over again. Then you look out your window - (crickets chirping) - where's all this shit going on, man?
And all this at a time when there are serious issues facing olur state, and mistakes the Government has made that they should be held to account over. As a tweet I saw after the leaders 'debate' last week put it:
'Did I miss the debate on public transport?'
(pause)
Allright! Anyone that made it this far deserves a treat: It's Bill!
Anyone who thought that The Great Debate held during the recent Federal Election Campaign was a bit disappointing and light-on for content, hopefully missed the Victorian State Election equivalent.
For Labor's John Brumby and the Liberals Ted Baillieu conspired to conjure up something quite remarkable when they faced up to each other last week: an hour long political debate without any political content. Well, perhaps saying the debate was entirely devoid of political discourse is unfair. Baillieu has got one issue on his mind and that's:
LAW AND ORDER!!!!!!!!!
And that's certainly the way he sought to present it: In fifty foot high letters with a googleplex of exclamation points after it. Really, either the opposition leader is a very nervous man or the focus groups are telling him that Victorians feel less safe than they used to.
As for Brumby, Labor's focus groups are clearly sending the message that the punters find him a bit dour and inhuman, a bit all work and no play, as the Premier spent the hour long debate trying to remember how to smile. You could almost see his clockwork like mind turning over in his head:
'Think about something nice like... ummm... smashing Ballieu in his fat, silver spoon fed face. No! Something else... Something wholesome... like... the kids! Brilliant! And puppies! Now I've got it! How about my kids playing with puppies! Boy, I'm going to be sore tomorrow.'
And that was it really.
Baillieu tried to yell 'LAW AND ORDER!' as often as possible, even interrupting the Premier to do so, and Brumby tried to ignore Baillieu while walking a fine line between looking angry and looking like a statue. Anyone hoping for a serious discussion about any of the issues facing Victoria would have been much better turning their attention to the forums on crikey.com.
And the reason for this policy free election campaign have become clear, even after less than a week. In the areas where the State Government is vulnerable and facing a voter backlash:
* Public Transport. * Water Infrastructure. * Hospital waiting lists. * Development planning.
the Liberal Party either doesn't want to change the way things are done (planning) or has no ideas about how to change them (transport, water and hospitals).
Which leaves law and order, and you can expect to hear plenty more about how violent crime rates are 47 000% higher than they were four days ago and that anyone who's game enough to come out from hiding under their beds in this state is taking their lives into their hands. In fact, you can almost guarantee that this will be the only thing the two leaders do actually debate during this campaign; which one of them will be tougher on crime.
And this brings us to consider another possible parallel between the Federal Election of August and this current state campaign. The Federal election was also a policy free zone conducted by two leaders who were determined to talk about anything except serious political issues, and the voters responded to this by endorsing neither of them and leaving the country with a hung parliament. Is it any surprise then, that todays 'Age' has polling showing that Victoria is headed for a hung parliament as well?
You've got three weeks fellas, to show us something.
Like most long standing Governments, Victoria's state Labor government has got some baggage. As in, they've done quite a few things over their time in office that have pissed quite a few of us off. 12 Years is a long time.
A brief list of some of the major pieces of baggage, then:
- Consistantly late, unreliable trains that seem incapable of running when it's either too hot, too cold or too temperate.
- Over budget, unreliable electronic ticketing system for our public transport network.
- Lack of anything that could be straightfacedly called a 'public transport network,' with overlapping, non integrated organisations running different parts of the system (and usually throwing pies at each other).
- Actually, this was meant to be a short list of issues so why don't we just take the public transport system as a whole as a negative and move on.
- Water management projects (desaliantion plant, north-south pipeline) with questionable water management benefits, massive price tags and major environmental concerns attached to them.
Although that last one has become such a common feature of State Governance in this country that a lot of the juice seems to have gone out of it as an issue. I mean, some of the state governments seem to think that they're expected to deliver a hospital waiting list scandal as part of their party platform:
'And so my friends, if elected, we promise to deliver bigger, more scandalous, more nefarious and more deceptive hospital waiting list scandals than this state has ever seen before!'
Even leaving that one aside though, it's still quite a list. There's a lot of issues there that people living in this state can - and do - feel angry about. And so, therefore, a lot for the Opposition to get stuck into the Government about as well. Fertile ground for the Liberal Party to make a pitch to the voters in (or on... or, erm, under? Actually that 'fertile ground' metaphor has thrown me off a bit).
Or so you'd think.
So it strikes me a curious that since the campaign was officially launched - on Melbourne Cup Day, damn you 'Descarado'! - we've had very little in the way of rigorous back and forth between the two major parties. What we've had, for the most part, is the Labor Party getting stuck into the Greens.
This started more or less staright away, with state education Minister Brownyn Pike calling Brian Walters, her Green opponent for the marginal inner city seat of Melbourne, a 'hypocrite.' Other, less nameable, sections of the ALP added the tag 'anti-semite' to this. And what had Mr Walters done to earn the ire of the ALP? Well, it seems that Mr Walters, a barrister in the private sector, had defended both a suspected Nazi war criminal and a mining company that has some dealings in brown coal mining (in extradition and wrongful death cases, respectively). The Victorian Bar Council was quick to Mr Walters defence, stating that as a lwayer he had an ethical obligation to 'do his best' for his clients, 'regardless of his personal views.' Senior figures from both the Labor Party and the legal profession were quick to put their views on the matter out in public as well, ensuring both sides of the argument got an airing and the story kicked on for a few days.
Even so, this still scans as a fairly innocuous bit of political argy bargy, of the sort that occurs so regularly in national politics that, much like any debate over hospital waiting lists, the details are quickly lost on a voting public that goes glassyeyed when election season starts.
But what is important in this instance is what this occurrence tells us about the mindset of state Labor. And that is that the Government views the Liberal Party as pretty unlikely to win the election and that they are more worried about losing marginal inner city seats to the Greens, than they are losing outter suburban or rural seats to the conservatives. The ALP has got a fight on it's hand to hold at least four innner city seats against the Greens - Melbourne, Richmond, Brunwsick and Northcote - and they know it and now the Greens know that their nominally left of centre allies will play hard ball to keep all of those seats in tact.
The other thing that the above incident tells us is that the spirit of Lyndon Baines Johnson is alive and well in modern politics, even here.
The story goes like this: A young LBJ, in his first run for elected office, is struggling to get ahead of his opponent. In frustration he told his campaign manager to leak a story to the press that said opponent liked fucking pigs.
'Hell,' the campaign manager is alleged to have said, 'we can't honestly expect people to believe he's a pig fucker.'
'Naw,' Johnson is meant to have drawled, 'but let's make the sonnoffabitch deny it.'
The point being, lets get a little word association going in peoples minds, the key words being 'My Opponent' and 'pig fucker.'
Sooooo..... at the height of debate about Mr Walters' character, our education minister went back to the media to say that while she still thought her opponent was a hypocrite, whoever had called him antisemtic (and gee whiz, it really is a mystery who might have done that) was taking it too far:
'I know Brian walters and I think that it is very unfair to say that he is antisemitic.'
