Michael Pascoe's views on the current state of Australian politics

I recommend anyone who's interested (or disgusted?) by the current state of Australian politik, to have a read of business commentator Michael Pascoe's latest article on the topic. I was struggling to find anything in it that I didn't agree with.
Have a read of it here .

Gillard (finally) fires up

From the reported remarks at the Victorian ALP Conference today see here it appears that PM Gillard has finally found the right way to attack her conservative opponent. Instead of bland sloganeering and focus group tested catchphrases we finally saw here a Keatingesque line of attack, which was exactly what was required to deal with a political animal like Abbott.
I think she was channeling Keating when she came out with phrases like "acting like the love child of Sarah Palin and Donald Trump", and "the fight was not between right and left, but between right and wrong", while getting stuck into the self-important "shock jocks", and devastatingly, praising up Conservative Prime Ministers Cameron and Key. This is a key point for me, she's clearly showing that climate change is not some trendy lefty cause, but a REAL issue that needs REAL answers from serious people. And the recently released Australian Election Study see here clearly highlights that Abbott is generally reviled by the electorate, in fact rating lower than Keating at the disastrous 1996 election landslide.
So the lesson in all this is that it's all in Gillard's hands; she has to sell this tax, stand firm on her beliefs (assuming she has any?), and stare down and ridicule the Opposition's obstructionism.
The Australian electorate will usually reward conviction politics; they don't like Abbott, and they're scared of the Carbon Tax, so it's up to Gillard to explain to us why we need it....and why we don't need Abbott!

Abbott's (quiet) embarrassment

A funny thing happened today when I opened up the News Ltd tabloid - The Herald-Sun - I flicked through pages of waffle before hitting page 10, where I saw what I would've thought was a hugely embarrassing headline of Malcolm Turnbull rubbishing and (essentially) ridiculing his leader's "direct action" climate change plan read the follow up here .
Make no mistake, to have a senior front bencher of substance come out and make those remarks is devastating for Abbott....or at least it should be? And what page of the newspaper do you think a similar contradiction by Labor would've ended up on?
Unfortunately this incompetent Prime Minister doesn't have the ability to take full advantage of the opportunity presented, and once again it's been left to Greg Combet to do the heavy lifting on behalf of the Government.
And perhaps Combet's star will really get a chance to shine when Gillard (eventually) gets around to actually releasing the Carbox Tax detail? Combet may even in fact be in the position to almost single handedly save the Government from defeat, getting the detail (and sales pitch) right are THAT important.

Gillard out of her depth.....again

While having a read of this opinion piece on Gillard the other day see it here , I just couldn't help but shake my head at how incompetent and out of her depth she is in relation to foreign affairs (and generally for that matter).
After her embarrassing performance in Washington while addressing Congress, she then goes and makes a (diplomatic) fool of herself in Beijing, as was perfectly summed up by the correspondent, "if she was serious about improving human rights in China and the defence co-operation proposal was on the agenda she should have made it conditional on verifiable improvement in China’s human rights record".
The Gillard Government really is an amateur hour operation, and the really sad thing is that hiding in the shadows to take full advantage is none other than the dark lord himself - Tony Abbott......sad indeed.

Tony Abbott's "Latham moment"

While I had some sympathy for Tony Abbott following the initial furore over his "shit happens" comments regarding the death of an Australian soldier in Afghanistan - I mean after all shit does happen in a war zone, and there's no reason to doubt Abbott's sincerity over the death - his follow up deer in the spotlights interview  see here was just about the most embarrassing thing I've seen from a major party leader since Alexander Downer's "things that batter" gaffe.
I would even go as far as to say that this is a career ending performance? A Beazley or a Turnbull may've survived that type of performance because they were at least considered politicians of substance, but Abbott has so many question marks against him already that he just couldn't afford such an embarrassment. For a man who's considered a dangerous ideologue and a bully, to do a Latham and look like you want to punch the reporter in the face is a horrible mis-step.
And this performance comes at a time when Abbott is defending the insensitive Liberal Party donation campaign to stop the flood levy (you know, any money you have to donate to a worthy cause, don't give it to the flood charity, donate it to us instead so we can use it to score political points).
So while the Prime Minister shakes off her wooden image with that cynical use of the flag as a prop in the Lower House (which undoubtedly will play well to the masses, but not with me), Abbott just comes across as nasty and mean spirited.
Like I've said previously, I don't expect either of them to be leading their parties at the next election.

Gillard, Abbott, the flood levy....and the lack of leadership

Ross Gittins of the Sydney Morning Herald recently wrote a piece bemoaning the destructive partisanship in the federal political sphere at present read it here , with comments along the line of "what he's saying (Tony Abbott) to the nation is: I'll do all in my power to make Parliament unworkable until you make me leader".
Well Gittins is certainly correct in criticizing Abbott - just about the most objectionable Opposition Leader we've had in modern memory - and the public in general for not supporting the quite mild flood levy. But in order to understand why that's happening, we have to look at the other side of the political divide, and there I think lies our answer?
In power at present we have the extraordinarily lightweight Prime Minister Julia Gillard, who since rolling Kevin Rudd last year for the top job has gone on to underwhelm us all with her performance. While Deputy Prime Minister, she took on the role of Question Time comedian in chief, and revelled in the all puff piece profiles of our lady in waiting by the journalistic sisterhood. So as the speculation continued to mount about a possible challenge, I naively held to the belief that the factional warlords wouldn't roll a first term PM who led Australia successfully through the GFC. And I didn't want to listen to my contact (who likes to ingratiate himself with those same warlords) who prophesized that Gillard would come to power with enormous fanfare, and be swept to victory in a honeymoon election a few months later.
Well he got the first part right, she successfully knifed Rudd, but only fell over the line in a hung parliament election, and this only because the Opposition were led by the unelectable ideologue Abbott.
So she came into the job a pragmatic centrist with no strong ideological views (a careerist in my view), and with me being a cynic my expectations for her were very low to begin with, but since taking over she has managed to prove to everyone that even I had overestimated her talents! She is showing the nation with every passing day that she is dangerously out of her depth, and her wooden, scripted responses to issues are certainly not endearing her to the electorate.
So getting back to Gittins' point, I believe the reason that Gillard has suffered such blow back to the levy, with Abbott feeling empowered to attack it, is because everyone can so clearly see through her; she inspires NO ONE, with confidence in the institutions of Government being at historic lows.
I came to the conclusion that after her embarrassing wikileaks comments late last year that her position was now terminal, and only a matter of time before her demise. This of course doesn't necessarily mean that Abbott will be the next Prime Minister, it's quite possible that there'll be two new people sitting in the PM and Opposition Leader's chairs by the time of the next election?
And Gillard?.....well she may take up her rightful place as a Madame Tussauds exhibit?