The Best of British

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A little bit rich

Tony Abbott was far too slow off the mark in condemning the resources tax. Andrew Robb, a former ABARE economist and the best political strategist the Liberal Party has, spotted this for the opportunity that it was and went after it hard.

When the Liberals slipped behind Labor in the polls in 2006, companies were less inclined to donate money to them. This affected the confidence of the Liberals, in governing and campaigning for re-election, which saw donations dry up in the face of that lack of confidence, and so it went: the Liberals lost office, elected an unsuitable leader who made capital-repelling mistakes, but then they turned it around.

Malcolm Turnbull was wealthy enough to fund an election campaign out of his own pocket: business, however, piled on the money and for a while the Liberals' financial position was looking rosy. In NSW, Labor finally ruled themselves out of contention at the state level and donations began to flow to the Libs. The came Grech, the ETS kerfuffle and the downfall of Turnbull, and any promise in the Liberals' financial position evaporated overnight.

The cautionary tale of Robert Tickner illustrates how Labor has become complacent and given their opponents a leg-up that wiser heads would never have given them.

From 1984 to 1996 the Federal electorate of Hughes (southern Sydney, northern Illawarra NSW) was held by Labor's Robert Tickner. By the mid '90s Tickner had become Aboriginal Affairs Minister, and was exploring a relatively radical agenda in his portfolio. The High Court decisions on Mabo and Wik, the Hindmarsh Island bridge cancellation, and the whims of his Prime Minister, forced a great deal of attention onto this portfolio: more than Tickner could bear, really. He didn't allay the fears of mining companies and others that a bit of recognition of Aboriginal rights was not some first step in a wider agenda.

Mining companies offered the Liberal Party a fortune to get rid of Tickner. In the leadup to the 1996 election, the Liberals targeted Hughes but it wasn't the difference between winning or losing government. Liberal strategists and fundraisers told their prospective donors that they should give the party money and it would spend it where it considered best: even if Tickner survived, he'd be in Opposition and thus redundant, so give us the money and we'll give you a Liberal government.

The miners/pastoralists/other companies relying on free and unfettered use of land sought a more direct return for their money, while the Liberals were reluctant to cede control over political strategy to those who had no knowledge or experience in this area. The Liberals got their money - not as much as they might have liked, but a lot. Tickner lost his seat too.

Those who eschew the centre of politics, on both the left and right, assume that political donations are a simple fee-for-service proposition: companies donate to political parties and they get what they want. The reality is more complex: a politician hustling for votes will make promises and sometimes deliver, sometimes not; so it is with donations. Occasionally a donor will wail publicly that they donated $A to B party in the expectation of C, but instead the policy delivered was D - quite the opposite of what they wanted. That sort of whingeing is of a piece with the sort of flat whine that eminates from this blog, or many others. Suck it up baby, that's politics. The tireless activist who sees their beloved program trashed is the same as the millionaire donor who has given a leg-up to some politician, only to end up with nothing but the after-effects of a rubber-chicken meal.

In 2010, the Liberals' financial worries are over. If they want $10m for a you-beaut targeted marginal seats campaign, that money will be found. The wide boys from Sussex Street who run the ALP federal campaign will not know where to start. Kevin Rudd will be tearing his hair out as marginal seats in Adelaide, NSW and Queensland fall to the Liberals - when he could've had an increase in his number of seats and a compliant Senate.

The minerals tax is an idea that could have been introduced next year - and then safely backed away from, once the heat became too great. There's no backing away from this, not now, not after all those double-turn-and-pikes over "the greatest moral challenge". Any of those ideas that were actually in the Henry report would have been better - it would have reinforced the comforting idea of the policy nerd beetling away at stuff that makes a big splash in Canberra but doesn't stop the rest of us making a dollar. People liked that Rudd, and would have voted for him again and again. Instead, we get Red Tape Man who can't and won't make a decision but still wants everyone to like him. Stuff him and stuff the party that plonks him out in front like a bonnet ornament.

It's still true that the Liberals are policy-lazy and that swinging voters will revert to Labor once this becomes more obvious. It's also true that they have the wrong leader: John Howard would have been all over this in a flash, and so would Turnbull. These things used to be clearer than they are now, though.

Vindictive bastards

It is clear that this hack has to go. It is equally clear that Labor would lose Penrith in a landslide, and that the Federal Libs would win the corresponding seat of Lindsay to boot. What will happen is that Palluzzano will be forced to resign but that there won't be a byelection for the Liberals to cut their teeth on; instead, the seat will be kept vacant and will swing with a vengeance next March, like the rest of the state.

This is what happens when you have two governments run by the fading, failing, flailing NSW Labor right: poor candidate selection (loyalty to some factional clown), timid risk-averse policy, and a political "solution" that treats democracy and constituent service as priority last. Rudd harnessed the power of NSW Labor Right when they were the nation's most powerful political machine; the rapid fade of the Carr gloss and the arid state of the NSW government after the departure of a few spivs key people to Canberra shows how low the stocks of this once-great political machine have become.

Palluzzano is only in Parliament because of the ALP machine. She is not there because she is the Authentic Voice of Penrith, The People's Champion, as independent MPs have to be to their communities. Labor feminists like Meredith Burgmann who sought to create the same opportunities for mediocre women as there are for mediocre men can look upon Palluzzano with great satisfaction. Labor might want to distance themselves from her but they can't because she, and others like her, would have no access to various parliamentary funding schemes without that party. Penrith people who work for the ALP in whatever capacity cannot seriously distance themselves from Palluzzano: in Penrith anyway, she is Labor and Labor is her. The Labor Federal MP for Lindsay will not succeed entirely in distancing himself from Palluzzano, even if he wins (though with the "Ala Akba!" pamphleteers still around, found by courts to lack conviction and reduced to plaintively eyeballing passers-by at railway stations - it's a distinct possibility).

It will be interesting to see what will happen to Tim Horan, the whistleblower: probably the same thing that happened to Milton Orkopoulos' staff (except, of course, Nathan Rees), i.e. he'll get screwed. The rugby legend of the same name must be livid.

Labor can, however, take some comfort in the ineptitude of whoever advised Barry O'Farrell to say this:

... Karyn Paluzzano should be suspended from Labor Party membership," Mr O'Farrell said yesterday.

No: it's neither here nor there whom an organisation wants (or doesn't want) as a member unless you are also a member. If Palluzzano ceases to be a member of the ALP, you can't tar them all with that brush (which is why they'll do it). Palluzzano is a symbol of NSW Labor's last, desperate lunge for the trough, and the least you can do is draw attention to this.

Down but not out

I'm pleased that Malcolm Turnbull is staying in politics. Not giddy, but pleased (is that the reverse of "alert but not alarmed"?). Nobody else has the ability to eclipse Howard's legacy in the Liberal Party as completely as he did to Malcolm Fraser's.

I had to laugh at the idea of Abbott holding out on Turnbull's return to the frontbench while he supports an ETS. Firstly, Joyce crossed the floor 29 times and got Finance handed to him. Secondly, where does a bear sleep? Anywhere it wants to, anywhere it wants. Abbott is the Ghost of Liberal Governments Past and will be cut down once the Liberal Party finally moves on from Howard.

What would a Turnbull Second Coming look like? Christopher Joye has some thoughts and he's known Turnbull all his life. Let's look at Joye's opinions from a position of sheer ignorance and see if they stand up:

• Decision-making - Joye's right, and j'accuse Minchin and Abetz in particular. He can only build that reputation for effective decision-making after a long march through the branches, getting the parliamentary party he needs rather than the fag end of Howard's lot. If people owe their position to Turnbull they are more likely to trust his judgment. Whether or not he can remake the Liberal Party in his image is the operative question.


• Assimilation - Turnbull lost votes by the truckload when he came over all smarmy. The reason why he could not position the Liberals as an alternative government is that he had a policy-lazy frontbench, which put too much responsibility on the rapid-fire pronouncements coming out of his own office.


• Risk-taking - Here Joye is spot on. "The visionary Malcolm Turnbull as policy-making maven is by far your best lever. You are never going to progress on the basis of a jocular, man-in-the-street appeal like Joe Hockey. When all is said and done, your interneuronal connections still remain your most effective calling card. The risk, of course, is that you once again fail. So be it. That is life. Risk-taking is the single most important explanation for success."

Before he can go on his long march though, Turnbull needs to keep breathing and registering a pulse. Today, he's lifted himself off the slab. You can be "thrilled" or not, but Turnbull's back - let's just hope Minchin doesn't reverse his decision.

Dr Henderson and the Liberals

Gerard Henderson has long bemoaned the poverty of intellectual discourse within the Liberal Party but his perceptions of the major issues facing the Liberal Party, and the motivations behind those issues, are not as clear as they once were. This piece is the sort of thing Henderson is increasingly putting out, his new norm: mostly wrong, but not (yet) so risible that you can dismiss him out of hand.

The decision not to make Turnbull shadow finance minister cannot be viewed in isolation from the decision as to whom that position was actually awarded. Senator Joyce is not an unintelligent man, but it is not only in retrospect that we can see that he was a poor choice for this key position. He had crossed the floor 29 times and was known for ill-considered outbursts that put Coalition unity at peril to enhance his own profile, yet even with such a record he was preferred over someone who had never done so but who might (have).

The Liberals are not adequately prepared for the Henry tax review or the coming budget; this is because of the Joyce choice and despite the efforts of Hockey, and to a lesser extent Robb.

Consider the fact that Abbott as an Opposition frontbencher would regularly cast doubt over Coalition policy by contradicting the leader and shadow ministers, and writing a book in isolation from the consultative processes of the party room and shadow cabinet.

Henderson is also wrong to make much of the Henson case, an arty storm in a teacup if ever there was one. If you have a problem with David Marr, Gerard, that's your problem. The Henson case was much less significant culturally than the Ern Malley affair - and it is far, far less important as a social issue than the arrogant approaches of churches toward actual sexual abuse of children. If Henderson is going to act as some sort of tribune for people in marginal seats and what they want, try the big and real issues Gerard. Really.

Hockey was right to question the idea that anti-terrorism legislation diminishes our rights under law in the interest of protecting our rights under law more generally. Henderson was wrong to claim that questions about our rights under our laws ought only be investigated by members of a (minor) party.

You can quote a minister in support of your arguments if you like, but there are two issues missed by self-serving Henderson: firstly, Tanner isn't the Attorney General or some other minister concerned with the justice system, and secondly Tanner didn't disagree with Hockey. The question of convictions merely means that some aspects of the laws work while others don't; there is a wider question of whether our legal protections against terror should be such a curate's egg/dog's breakfast/Gerard Henderson column.

Stephen Conroy is not trying to stop child pornography on the internet. He is deliberately avoiding real measures that real pedophiles actually use, and deliberately acting in ways known by those who work in this area to be completely ineffectual. He is doing this because he wants to create an impression that he is taking action when he is not in fact doing so. He is playing on the ignorance of people like Henderson (and Tony Smith) who think they have excuses for failing to inform themselves about this policy area (internet policy is no more complicated than, other areas of economic or national security policy). Hockey didn't go far enough in criticising Conroy: it is not true that any criticism of Conroy is a permissive one that allows for child pornography. It's not true, and it's not fair of Henderson to slur Hockey in this way, but he'll probably do so again.

Where Henderson is right, though, is Turnbull's failure to adopt Menzies' humility in the 1940s. Henderson might also profitably have raised Menzies' traversing the country during that time, making speeches and consulting about what a postwar non-Labor force might and should look like, another comparison that reflects poorly on Turnbull. It appears that Turnbull lacks this drive (however much he might have demonstrated in other fields), and the country (and its non-Labor politics) is poorer for it. Henderson can't imagine a post-Howard Liberal Party, one not fixated on trade unions and culture wars, and doesn't wish to; any attempts at reconsideration, any signs whatsoever of intellectual activity, will attract his increasingly feeble ire.

Henderson started his piece by asking - rhetorically - whether Turnbull should reconsider his decision not to recontest Wentworth for the Liberal Party. Those who want Turnbull to recontest fear that it may be lost to the Liberal Party unless he is its candidate. The Liberal Party, by electing Abbott as its leader, has cemented in place a deliberate strategy to repel people who would have voted Liberal in the past. It must follow through that strategic vision and, if they continue to lose seats like Wentworth, Bennelong and even North Sydney, so be it; there will come a time for the Liberal Party to decide how committed it is to voter-repellent policies, notwithstanding Henderson The People's Tribune.

When Henderson encourages Turnbull to "stick to his guns", it is only because Turnbull has those guns trained on himself. Where Turnbull had those guns trained on issues that Henderson barely understands but adopts positions in The People's Name, Henderson does not pause to examine the issues but lunges for barricades which aren't there, and certainly aren't actually blocking anything.

His pre-emptive attacks on the prospect of Liberals re-examining the Howard legacy shows that he has gone from attacking an unsustainable status quo within the Liberal Party to defending one, with little to show in the way of policy or political achievement in the interim. Much less than, say, Phillip Adams, or even Andrew Peacock. The more time passes and the more the issues of the 1980s recede, the less important Henderson will become - but that won't stop Fairfax retaining him.

Learned helplessness

THE federal opposition is yet to formulate a position on the proposed internet filter despite Labor flagging its intention to introduce the measure before the last election.

The failure of Coalition leader Tony Abbott or his communications spokesman Tony Smith to indicate whether they would support the bill reflects divisions within the party about the government's plan to block access to internet sites banned under Australia's classification rules.

The Greens are opposed to the filter, giving the Liberals the crucial votes in the Senate that determine the success of Communications Minister Stephen Conroy's plan ...

Success criteria for shadow ministers are fairly nebulous. Even those that force a minister to resign enjoy a brief moment in the sun, but rarely do they translate this to any sort of reputation as a giant-killer. However, the criteria for failure is clear: failure to engage with the issues and stakeholders in your portfolio area, to the point where your leaders look ignorant and incompetent.

Tony Smith has been Shadow Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy for two years. He shadows the rebarbative and potentially highly vulnerable Stephen Conroy. Conroy is a political animal first and foremost and not necessarily that strong on detail. There are two ways of getting to someone like Conroy:

• Trip him up on detail. Somewhere in that maelstrom of activity surrounding internet filtering, NBN, digital television and what have you, there is an "i" undotted and a "t" uncrossed. Find it, build a narrative of why it matters, and beat Conroy with it in every forum available.


• Go for his strong suit: politics. Graham Richardson was brought down by a silly piece of influence-pulling, and surely Conroy is similarly vulnerable. He is a big cheese in the Victorian ALP, why has he escaped the opprobrium that has beset his comrades there?

Journalists tend to be leery about attacking the minister that regulates their employers. What they're reluctant to do is wound him: if you're going to go the Minister for Communications you want to pole-axe his political career, or at least make him chastened and unable to wreak career-ending havoc on you and your bosses. Shadow Ministers have the investigative resources that media outlets increasingly lack: do some digging, then hand it to a friendly journalist (not the hopeless Milney) and enjoy the fireworks, push forward to punch a hole in the Rudd and Brumby Governments that may not fully mend.

Tony Smith didn't get where he is today by upsetting the apple cart. Tony Smith ran errands for Peter Costello and eventually started writing press releases, and then won a safe seat in Victoria because everyone else on Costello's staff was getting these handed to them. By this time Tony had absorbed Costello's vocal and physical mannerisms to the point where it isn't clear what differentiation existed between Smith and his old boss. We at the Politically Homeless Institute came to refer to him in previous posts as Tony Smith Costello; the apple that didn't fall far from the tree and doesn't look like producing much fruit in his own right.

The difference is that Peter Costello was not afraid to be part of the great debates of his day, on industrial relations and related issues. Tony Smith is shirking the debates over our digital future, quibbling about cost while lacking any capacity to link cost to value.

The whole BCDE area is rich with information about where the government is going right, where it is going wrong. From the ratbaggiest website to the most considered and wide-ranging analysis, information on the background, current state and future directions on this area all freeely available in a way that it isn't with, say, health or defence issues. Yes, those issues are complex but they are only unfathomable if you have nothing better to do than sit back and smirk at it all.

Take, for example, this article. It praises Helen Coonan's work as Communications Minister and explains why she deserves that praise: ring her, Tony Smith, and ask for some tips. It shows how and why Conroy is vulnerable: follow those threads and you might start earning your pay, Tony Smith, in a way that you didn't with episodes like this.

Mind you, this is scarcely better. Transcripts from the MSM quoted verbatim (see Tony go one-on-one with Ron Wilson!). Transcripts quoted verbatim with no indications of the thought processes that led out Tone to such positions. Or this: no recognition for BCDE work done in Casey? No recognition for the impact a fast broadband network will have on Caseyans (yes, yes, but what if it generates so much new business that the $43b outlay is soon made up)? None at all?

The small-scale techie media is not as beholden to stale interests like the other mainstream media are. They are more likely to give your press releases a run and, if you show a bit of interest, help you navigate the complexities of this area. ICT is an important sector of the economy, and people who work in this area are a demographic that could, with a bit of careful cultivation, be an attractive source of votes for the Liberals going forward.

Even if you're not enamoured by all that policy wonkery about the digital economy, and if you can't be arsed building a political constituency, it is an unavoidable sign of political failure as a shadow minister that you haven't even examined the issues in your portfolio. In this piece, Smith's leader and treasury spokesman are clearly winging it, displaying a weak grasp of issues which are important to the nation, issues to which they did not turn to Tony Smith about, because why bother? If he had let Peter Costello down like that, he'd be so insignificant that he wouldn't even be history.

In the late 1980s there was a Liberal MP named Peter Shack, who was spoken of highly and who was also then in shadow cabinet, as shadow minister for health. In the leadup to the 1990 election he called a press conference to say that, well, there was no health policy. He couldn't get it to add up and the whole thing hadn't been thought through at all, terribly sorry. This is the point Tony Smith is at now, the point of abject failure. The internet filter should now be a thing of the past, dismantled on technical, moral and ethical grounds, with Conroy left without a skerrick of that Guardian Of Our Families nonsense that Tony Smith is too timid to take from him.

The Liberals have no policy in this area because they have no clue, and they have no clue because Tony Smith is too dumb and too lazy to do his job. Tony Smith followed all of the other sheep out of Turnbull's frontbench and was put straight back into the BCDE portfolio until he gets it right. He hasn't. He's failed, and has thus let down Abbott, Hockey and the whole Coalition.

The whole thrust of the Abbott campaign in this year's election is one of competence. The Liberals would have you believe that Labor are incompetent to run the government and the Liberals are competent to do so. Having Tony Smith on the frontbench is incompatible with a competency-based agenda.

What goes with Turnbull

Plenty has been written and said (and there's more yet to come) about how Turnbull did this and didn't do that, but what follows here is what could have happened had Turnbull stayed in politics.

Malcolm Turnbull's only hope of becoming Prime Minister was to build a base, to go through the dull grind of meeting small groups in obscure places to convince them to get active within the Liberal Party to support the two things he represented:

• A concern for the environment and a willingness to spend money to address environmental concerns. Yes, he was careful to the point where he came out with that appalling series of compromises over the ETS. But let's go with him out on a limb, in Liberal Party terms, and what might we see: a post-agricultural vision for Australia, a way of appreciating our country for what it is and what it might be rather than just assessing how much we might extract from it if those bastards in Canberra gave us a subsidy. You could even get all giddy and say that this leads you to a better understanding of Aborigines and Aboriginal societies and cultures, and from there you can start talking about a republic ... but let's not;


• A more liberal way of governing, whereby people got the services they expect from government without it intruding into their lives too much. It could have been possible to represent civil liberties as something other than anachronisms, and to encourage people to define and embrace them as first steps toward a republic we deserve ... sorry.

Turnbull's idea of building a base was to cultivate highly-placed sponsors who could lift him upwards, rather than to rally the mob to take on those already entrenched. It's unfair to project one's own hopes and wishes, but when there's the prospect of some real leadership that's just what happens, the odd burnout on the road to the sunlit uplands.

The longer he stayed in politics after being ditched (by a single vote!), the more likely it seemed that Turnbull would, like Menzies, use his wit and resources to build that base with a view to catching Labor at a moment of weakness and overreach. Not so, and understandable: the prospect of spending more time than is absolutely necessary with the clowns and jerks who make up the "National Right" of the Liberal Party is genuinely appalling, and the promises of this (Big!) country gleams through the arch like an untravelled world to Turnbull and his wife. Good luck to them both.

The departure of Malcolm Turnbull is another of those factors that the journosphere will insist is good for Tony Abbott, and indeed he does now have a freer hand than he did when Mr 41 Votes was still a potent threat. In reality it will make bugger-all difference and you can bet that Abbott will blow what little opportunity it presents to him. Abbott has seen off both Turnbull and Costello, both better men than he; this didn't do Brendan Nelson or Minchin any good and it won't help Abbott.

This is not to say that Labor is in for some sort of thousand-year reich, and it is certainly not true that the next Liberal government will be a slightly more polished version of the shambles that Abbott has decided is good enough for the likes of us. It places a lot of the onus on Joe Hockey to decide what a liberal government might mean, and to encourage people to vote and act in other ways to bring it about; probably more than Joe can bear.

Like Bonnie Prince Charlie, Malcolm Turnbull was unworthy of - and incapable of realising - the hopes projected onto him. Realising those hopes will not come soon or easily, and what will happen along the way, is the stuff of both pathos and bathos ...