Honestly, the heavy panting from the press gallery over the possibility of another Labor leadership spill has been quite repellent, so I’ve avoided most of it, a part of me hoping that surely the ALP couldn’t be seriously thinking of yet another leadership switch just to reinstall a former leader whose well they themselves have so thoroughly poisoned, and that it would just be a blip in the news-cycle.
Maybe they’re just building a confected spill-plot higher and higher because even they are bored with the repeated ALP groupspeak soundbites. Maybe the gallery really is onto something, although perhaps the caucus favourite isn’t actually Rudd.
Either way, Labor gives more and more evidence of losing the plot. It’s intensely disappointing to see a once highly principled party lose the ideals and determination that once made it groundbreaking.
The way things are going it looks like about the best I can hope for is an Abbott minority government. Do Not Want.
Categories: media, parties and factions
QOTD: on the blaming of progressive scolds/shamers for the rise of Trumpists 
Media Circus: 4chan meltdown has begun #electionday edition 
QOTD: @DigbyParton on who Americans trust less than politicians 
Media Circus: Parliament Resumes Edition 
Hoyden About Town 
Do you think Abbott could manage to set up a minority government? I mean he tried pretty hard last time and only got Bob Katter on his side.
And seriously? Is there more talk of leadership spills? I haven’t been following the news much at all in the last week.
The LNP only need to gain a couple of seats to get majority government. Unless the polls are way off there’s no way that will happen.
I think the main difference this time is that its Barrie Cassidy bringing it up and he has a long history of being anti-Rudd. Also I don’t think the leadership instability has ever really been just a press gallery thing. The internal talk has always been there, especially when the poll numbers have been low, they’ve just been unable to accurately judge what the numbers look like.
I’m starting to get the strong impression the ALP doesn’t want to be re-elected at the next Federal election. Instead, they seem to have decided we deserve to deal with Tony Abbott PM and lump it all (look out for a lot of “well, we have to go with the will of the Australian people). Presumably someone mentioned the cynical crack that democracy is the theory of government which says the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.
Chris:
Yep. You’re probably right. Just because I always see the spill as unlikely due to what appears logical to me, has not historically shown me to be correct about such things!
Megpie, According to the thread discussing this over at LP, some folks who crunch numbers reckon that Rudd’s leadership might not win the election, but would probably keep more seats than Gillard’s leadership would. There’s also speculation that a spill to Rudd might appeal to Shorten, since the leadership is a poisoned chalice right now, and his own ambitions are better served waiting for some post-election fallout leadership shuffling. Honestly, I have no idea.
Feeling a bit disgusted with Leigh Sales for this piece just up in the drum.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-06-10/sales-labor-questions/4744564
If the people who are supposedly our best journalists can’t keep the conversation on policy, what hope?
This morning on ABC 24 Abbott was in Qld, Gillard was ‘selling’ Gonski in schools. Then we went live to Abbott on the Gold Coast. Hubby turned off the TV. Chivvied the kids get dressed and clean their teeth – at least 5 minutes worth. Then they were allowed to turn the TV back on to watch cartoons. Abbott was still having his live press conference. The PM never gets that sort of free coverage.
Really? ABC24 nearly always provides live coverage of community cabinet sessions (cancelling normally scheduled programs). It’s an hour plus long opportunity for the government alone to push their point of view. The PM and all of the ministers in attendance plus the local ALP members get to do a bit of spruiking at the start as well answer questions from the public. And while there are some difficult questions there are also a few dorothy dixers for them. AFAIK there is no equivalent opportunity for the opposition or minor parties to get equivalent coverage.
In the morning slot where people like me, getting ready for work, switch on for a quick catch up before leaving for work?
Wow, talk of another labour leadership spill? When will it end?
I’ve also increasingly felt that Labour is getting quite lost in terms of policy and just general functionality. However, the alternative? Is still so much worse. At least I think it is. And this is going to be the first federal election I get to vote in as well. 😦 It’s all rather sad.
Mindy – well if you narrow the criteria enough you’ll be able to find bias everywhere. Community cabinet for example is during a prime time slot.
The ABC cops so much criticism of bias from all sides I’d be surprised if there wasn’t some poor intern who has the task of adding up the minutes of airtime that all political viewpoints get to ensure everyone gets a reasonable time slice.
Look it’s my bloody ABC and I will whinge about it being biased! My 8c a day buys me at least 4 whinges.
I just don’t like TA on my breakfast TV. I’m sure they show equal amounts of all politicians but it is the difference in commentary that really bugs me. Abbott is doing stuff, Gillard is selling stuff.
But as I said yesterday I am sick of leadershit, unless they are talking about the Liberals in which case I am all ears 😉
Heh if the IPA get their way you’ll get your 8c/day back 😦
Though I think it’s pretty unlikely that Abbott would do that given I think the ABC is still pretty popular amongst mainstream LNP voters.
I find accusations of bias on the ABC quite fascinating. Because I think in most cases both from the left and right the views are quite genuine and not people just trying to policitally influence the ABC. I think we tend to remember the things which we disagree with a lot more than the things we agree with. My view is that they generally speaking have a bit of a left-wing/progressive bias (not necessarily pro ALP mind you), not so much balanced, but a balance to what you see on the commercial channels which is a good thing. And that their news and especially current affairs/documentaries are pretty good.
Well the next election should put an end to all of that one way or another!
In some ways the next election can’t come soon enough. I see Turnbull is back on TV saying that he doesn’t think that the Libs asylum seeker policy will work. He has to have leadership ambitions. I just wish he would rock the boat a little bit more. The Libs are just a little to cocky and complacent for mine.
In some ways the next election can’t come soon enough. I see Turnbull is back on TV saying that he doesn’t think that the Libs asylum seeker policy will work. He has to have leadership ambitions. I just wish he would rock the boat a little bit more. The Libs are just a little to cocky and complacent for mine.
In some ways the next election can’t come soon enough. I see Turnbull is back on TV saying that he doesn’t think that the Libs asylum seeker policy will work. He has to have leadership ambitions. I just wish he would rock the boat a little bit more. The Libs are just a little to cocky and complacent for mine.
My partner and I both hate Tony Abbott, and I’d hate to see him win government. So would my partner, but he’s starting to think that it might be best, so the Australian people can see what they’ll actually get for voting that way. Perhaps it would only be a one-term government, or perhaps collapse in a screaming heap mid-term.
Interestingly enough on the 9News at 4.30 the anchor crossed to the parliamentary reporter to discuss the Labour leadership and the descriptor used by the anchor was “hype”. A moment of unintentional awareness??
It has all gone a bit quiet again after Gillard said she wasn’t going anywhere. But I see there is some new comment she is being slammed for tonight. I don’t know what it was.
@Chris: re our earlier discussion – there was a time there when any announcement about the Govt on ABC 24 was immediately commented on by someone from the Opposition, but there was no right of reply from the Govt. Anything about the Opposition was discussed with the Opposition again with no right of reply from the Govt. Then we stopped watching ABC 24 for a while because it made me so angry.
They seemed to have stopped this atm and Govt people get their opportunity to do their own spin.
Mindy @ 15 – I’ve no doubt that if Abbott’s poll numbers drop significantly during his first term there will be many rumours of a Turnbull challenge. I’d greratly prefer Turnbull as PM to Abbott, but given what has happened to the ALP I think they’d be pretty stupid to replace Abbott in his first term.
Mindy @ 18 – I think we’ll have to agree to disagree – for your example above I think it can be reasonably argued that the government were represented once by the initial coverage and then the opposition perspective was given. Yes there’s an advantage to going last, but someone has to go last, and the government has a pretty big advantage in being able to set the agenda in the first place. I guess we’ll see how the ABC treat the LNP after the next election to see if there is a party bias, or a government/opposition bias in how they behave. My guess is that the LNP supporters will be complaining about exactly the same thing as the ALP supporters are now.
I meant that the ABC 24 reporters would comment on something the Govt did, not that the Govt got to spin their own line. So if the coverage from the reporters was skewed, as I often perceived it to be, then there was nothing to balance the anti-Govt stuff. But they have improved lately.
It will be interesting to see how they treat the next Govt. I half hope that they keep it up if it is a Coalition Govt just so those bastards know how it feels. Strangely enough the LNP supporters do complain about the same things now.
I think Turbull will be sensible enough to let Abbott really bugger things up for himself and then step in. We just have to hope that Abbott really stuffs things up. Although with his refusal to do things like listen when Indonesia says no to accepting asylum seeker boats back I do think it might come sooner rather than later.
I don’t like him on the evening news, or in the papers, or on the internet, or anywhere, ever. My telly’s lucky not to have things thrown at it every time that grinning lout appears. I’ve reached the point where I loathe him even more than Howard, and I had a decade of enduring him as PM to refine those feelings.
Did anyone see the PM’s talk on the news this evening? Loved her comment about how women would be edged out under the Liberals – she described the PM, a man in a blue tie, going on holiday and being replaced by … another man in a blue tie. Just as importantly, she said we really don’t need to be fighting for the right to abortion again.
@Kitteh – the smirk if he wins just doesn’t bear thinking about does it?
Arrgh – today’s talking points chastising JG for centreing abortion in the election debate – “making this political” – when in the past century at least has abortion NOT been a political issue?
I do find myself in the interesting position of agreeing both with JG that an Abbott government is likely to engage in anti-abortion practices (which despite Julie Bishop’s soundbite for the day they won’t have to “change any laws” to do because abortion is still mostly not decriminalised, it’s just not prosecuted) and agreeing with various critics that JG bringing it up now has the hallmarks of a cynical political ploy – not that I don’t think she’s thoroughly pro-choice, just why wait until now to make a point of it?
I don’t think she did anything wrong at all. Abortion has always been a political issue and I don’t see the problem with pointing out that it could be a big issue under an Abbott government. Someone has to because the media sure isn’t looking into any of the Libs policies or lack thereof.
Gillard might be getting caned for it now but at least we can’t say we weren’t warned.
@angharad – I know – it’s too frightening.
Wonder how hard it is to migrate to Tierra del Fuego …
The Conscience Vote: Why the Menu Matters
That menu was disgusting. I can’t describe how it makes me feel, as a (cis) woman. It’s not just an attack on the PM (which is bad enough) but on everyone with a “box” or who is assumed to have certain anatomy bits. And while fatphobia is not okay (and something I live with everyday), Joe Hockey’s response was pathetic.
Good rant on YaThink?
Sattler said he had no regrets over the incident.
“She should have known it was coming,” he said.
“She agreed she’d stop me at any stage if it went too far.” (from an article listed as “howard-saddler-sacked” on Our ABC).
He’s talking about a radio interview. But doesn’t he sound like so many different rape apologists over the years explaining why what happened wasn’t actually rape?
Like most so-called shock jocks, it’s all about desensitising the audience and interviewees through repeated boundary micro-encroachments and then, when he pushes it that bit too far, taking a step back from the crossed boundary and saying “but I did nothing different from what I normally do, and nobody said anything before!”.
Over the last year or so I’ve been astoundingly demoralised to realise just how much of what is considered “normal” public and social interactions actually consists of pervasive gaslighting of varying degrees.
P.S. that this escalation of boundary-testing etiquette-breaches is a well-known/studied/promulgated technique used by PUAs and other con artists only makes it creepier.