Paul Norton has a post at LP, summed up by the teaser
current poll support for the election of an Abbott-led Coalition government is soft and brittle. Yet it exists, and persists. And voter opinion of what the Federal Labor government has actually done is not all that unfavourable. Yet people don’t think the government deserves to be reelected. What are we to make of this?
I don’t think it takes a genius to work out that a sufficient explanation for this paradox is the personal unpopularity (among a large group of voters, detestation) of Julia Gillard. Other factors may be relevant, but most of them are exacerbated by the leadership problem. In particular, the Obeid scandal is made worse for Federal Labor by the perception that Gillard is beholden to the same machine operators (Arbib, Bitar, Conroy and ultimately Graeme Richardson) who put Obeid in a position to corrupt the entire NSW Party.
For the sake of argument, let’s grant that this is all the result of misperceptions and bad press and that Gillard is both likeable at a personal level and someone with a “steely determination” to get the job done for Labor. It’s obvious, by now (and regardless of marginal fluctuations in polls) that this perception is not going away within six months. In these circumstances, wouldn’t a leader who cared about her colleagues, or one who was determined to do the best thing for the country, decide that this was the time to talk a walk into the snow, and give the rest of the party a shot at survival?
John Quiggin 
In fairness to Conroy, I don’t think he had anything to do with Obeid’s rise to power.
Undoubtably true JQ, and if there was a Bob Hawke waiting in the wings, it would happen. But Rudd pissed off so many of his colleagues in two and half near wasted years in the Lodge that it beggars belief they’d go back to him. Maybe I am wrong, I don’t know. But who is there that doesn’t owe it all to factions and patronage? There’s even less “dynamic range” in the Opposition. There’s something in the structural side of politics now (I guess the steep decline in party membership and activism through party structures, in large part caused by the way our members are elected in a media saturated world) that selects for people who are not strong on policy or originality. There’s a dire need for something fresh to come along. Can’t see it.
@Uncle Milton
He’s a machine operator on whom Gillard depends and who is compromised by his association with Obeid, but I agree he didn’t actually help Obeid’s rise.
you know my thought on this so i’ll get to the point.
in my opinion, gillard did her country a grave disserve when she toppled rudd & then caved in totally to the multinational mining corporations. i don’t know how many voters see it this way but i sure as hell do – its my idee fixe, its the albatross around her neck as far as i’m concerned. she also did her career, her reputation, and her legacy a disservice at the same time, but i couldn’t give a flying eff in rolling donut for them.
in my opinion, rudd was for standing firm & would certainly have prevailed if he hadn’t been removed as the crisis peaked & the public’s attention waned.
in my opinion, the conspirators & their patrons knew this & knew they had to stop rudd before it was too late – before the caravan of public opinion followed the pipers of the press on to the next issue & rudd would win by default.
in my opinion, gillard’s ambition was their tool & they chose their tool well.
the reason i despise gillard, and will never reconcile to her participation in the removal of rudd by low life in the service of multinationals, is because, effectively, she wittingly or unwittingly, sold out her country in a crisis to further her career. tanner was right, she’s an amoral careerist, nothing more. -a.v.
Labour and its policies and brand are unpopular. 66% of voters want someone else.
As usual your facts are wrong. The latest poll puts Labor at 48%. And the rightwing capitalists are particularly rejected, see:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-03-12/gillard-regains-preferred-pm-title-newspoll/4566466
62% of adults want someone else than Abbott.
In Canberra, things are worse, no-one wants Liberal rat, Zed Selselja, except perhaps for 114 Liberal Party members he managed to corral into his covert power-play.
I reject the notion that the Liberals are capitalists. People who truly believed in capitalism wouldn’t do half the stuff the Liberals do.
I would object on a number of grounds to the claims you make in this topic Professor.
1. It’s not clear that Rudd’s ostensible relative popularity owes anything to circumstances peculiar to him. The guns of the media have been trained unrelentingly on Gillard and those same guns would be turned on Rudd, were he to be reinstated. He could no more ‘run on his record’ than Gillard could in 2010, and perhaps less so, since she had been in 2010 a key member of the leadership group.
2. The February 2011 challenge commentary would be trotted out. ALP in-fighting and hatred would be the key theme, and they could not avoid claims of being purely poll and media driven.
3. If the ALP lost — as they surely would in such circumstances, they’d have self-inflicted an existential wound, having in successive elections tossed aside their leader on the eve of an election to satisfy the Murdoch press. It is one thing to lose, and even, lose badly, and quite another to be revealed by one’s own acts as standing for nothing and being in organisational terms, entirely a creature of the MBCM. Who with any self-respect could stay in such a party? It would be profoundly shameful.
4. Rudd was as much a creature of factions linked to Obeid as Gillard. He was only chosen because the factions trusted each other not at all and accepted a marketable candidate who was of neither. The ‘left’ faction accepted Rudd as a compromise at the behest of the right. Rudd fell when the right deserted him. Nobody in the leadership group of the ALP can be above factions.
They’re buggered either way. If she left, it would cement the feeling of Labor not being in control of itself. Either way, it’s probably terminal.
@TerjeP
Capitalism is too incoherent to be something in which one can ‘truly believe’. It’s a set of ill-defined appetites and impulses and fear and loathing mapped onto the existing structures of private property and their associated governance.
People who ‘believe in’ capitalism believe that it should work to serve them alone, and if only they knew what it was exactly that would serve them best, they would know what they truly believed. Sadly, we have only the words of such folk rather than their beliefs, and they are in sharp contrast with the words of other ‘true-believing’ capitalists.
The two major parties are full of such believers and they appear to be able to agree only in the necessity of shoving others far enough away from the trough to scarf down more than their share. That’s as true a belief in capitalism as one can expect of them.
@Jim Rose
Jim Rose is right for once.
Labor and its neo-liberal, xenophobic, cruel, warmongering, climate-destroying, free-market fundamentalist, rabidly pro-Israel/US, news ltd toadying policies – are unpopular.
Very unpopular.
The faceless men know this and couldn’t care less. They are serving ‘higher’ masters than we simple citizens. I still can’t fathom why there are any Labor supporters out there at all.
What is it? Nostalgia? Blind faith? Hope prevailing over decades of experience? Unthinking team loyalty?
PS: re Rudd having another go – two wrongs don’t make a right. It’s precisely that sort of shadowy backroom stuff that the electorate despises about this crowd. In a fairy world far far away perhaps Gillard would do a public ‘mea culpa’ and gracefully hand the leadership back to Rudd. A kind of bloodless abdication for the greater good etc..
Megan – people so dislike neo-liberal market fundamentalism that they are prepared to vote for the Liberals. I suppose that stands to reason.
Julia Gillard is far from terminal as a Prime Minister. There are fair men and women who realise that the Murdoch media dump on every initiative she undertakes and also that the Newspoll cycle is often the lead story. However the MSM seems to be out of touch with a lot of what is being thought.
I know that Prof Q is a Kevin Rudd man but he is also yesterday’s man. There is no going back.
Tony Abbott, as a man’s man who is unwilling and unable to call his supporters to heel despite the use of dog whistles, has shown clearly that women will not feature in any policies of a government he leads. Women who have always been conservative voters are worried about the way that the Liberals are behaving towards Julia Gillard. There will be many women who will change their votes based on the fear of changes to Medicare in relation to abortion or superannuation or school payments.
The hate campaign in the MSM is doing damage to the PM but it is also being seen by more people as bilious. The election results are far from assured despite the MSM and many male commentators singing from the same song sheet.
Obeid not only infected the NSW Labor right but rich people connected to the Liberal Party. His particular kind of poison is something that the rest of the country abhores but sees as a NSW disease. That is a pox on everyone’s house.
Tony Abbott may well regret the fact that he didn’t complain today in Parliament when the PM was subjected to nasty name calling based on gender. He is no gentleman and is the best thing going for the PM.
@Jim Rose
the point is that the labor brand is less unpopular when its sold without the lightening rod. -a.v.
@TerjeP
Yes, strange isn’t it? Apart from the binary nature of our democracy – agrarian socialists still seem to hold residual cache as being the lesser of the two neo-liberal machines on offer to those voters.
rudd’s the only one with charisma & sufficient gravitas. he’s made it clear they have to ask him back. the biggest impediment to that is gillard’s ego. he could run on the fact of his return: odysseus comes home. and socks it to whom among the suitors? to the multinationals? maybe, could he do worse than gillard? to the factions, of course! to be credible he needs to be asked back & given a mandate to clean up the factions. that’s sellable. and the voters who followed his rise on sunrise know he was cut down before his work was finished, before his time. -a.v.
Oh goodnes alfred venison Julia Gillard has an ego. Of course not one of the previous PMs has ever had that. Nor has Tony Abbott, Malcolm Turnbull or Kevin Rudd. Rudd won’t be asked back because although he has charisma he has some other failures of personality which his colleagues saw up close.
There’s a lot to not like about Gillard, both in politics and in policy, but consider the alternatives – under Abbott
No to climate change/ETS
No to equality in education (Gonsky)
No to equality in health
No to FTTH
Yes to austerity
@Fran If Gillard stepped aside voluntarily, then these negatives would be avoided and there would be some chance of victory (a good one, according to the polls) or at least of stopping Abbott from controlling the Senate.
@Jill When would say she becomes terminal? After September 14.? As I said in the post, fair or not, the mass of the public have written her off. If you want to make a case for some third candidate feel free, but misguided loyalty to a doomed leader will lead to disaster, as we’ve seen in several elections recently
One thing very much in Rudds favour (and probably what had him deposed) is that he is against the factions incl those that supported Obeid.
@Jill Rush
“personality which his colleagues saw up close.”
i’m more intersted in the personality seen by those other colleagues who support him now.
and none of those other egos you cite have yet sold out their country in a crisis to take a job that was theirs anyway in the fullness of time & when doing so gives multinationals a free ticket out of the crisis with their super profits intact. your country was rolled by multinationals & gillard was the tool their thanes used to do it. that’s what’s special about her ego. -a.v.
Julia Gillard isn’t a gallant gentleman.
Prof Q, It may be terminal after Sept 14 or not. John Howard was written off in the months leading up to elections too and even went on to win occasionally. I am not showing misguided loyalty but thinking about political realities.
However your push for Kevin Rudd does appear to be of the misguided loyalty kind. There are certainly a lot of men who seem to be uncomfortable with a female in the lodge judging by the sexist and violent language that has become the norm when discussing the PM.
Whilst you say that people have written her off I know that many decent conservative people are most uncomfortable at the baying of the hounds of the press as they answer their dog whistle.
alfred venison – It seems that you haven’t heard about the sales to Japan by Pig Iron Bob which was certainly selling out the country. It seems however that having an egotistical leader is only wrong when that leader is female.
OK, the ‘John Howard’ defence:
http://www.marinetraffic.com/ais/shipdetails.aspx?MMSI=257497000
Well the “Tampa” isn’t too far away. Perhaps the ALP could organise a 2013 re-run to get them across the line. Worked for Howard! (At least he was original-ish, and actually stood for bigotry, racism, refugee-bashing, illegal wars, environmental destruction etc.. rather than pretending he didn’t).
The MSM are talking well of Rudd because it suits their purposes. If Rudd took over the leadership it would not change their reporting style imho. Rupert wants the party in that will get rid of the NBN’s FTTH. Gina et al wants the party in that will get rid of the MRRT and market based emissions trading. The fact that the party they are trying to get elected will impose idelogically driven austerity on the population is irrelevant to the media barons. They only care about their profits and will do whatever it takes to secure them.
“It seems however that having an egotistical leader is only wrong when that leader is female.”
oh bollocks, not that tired old trope again! -a.v.
Pr. Quiggin I think that you are flogging a dead horse – a Rudd push now is going to be damaging, not healing. After the damage of his last long drawn out “I’m not challenging” challenge I think Rudd lost a lot of his lustre. With a hostile media determined to portray every difference within Labor as major division – and itching to see Gillard brought low – a rerun of leadership ructions is something they would fall on with glee. It’s not like they have to make it up completely when there are ongoing calls for Rudd to replace Gillard. They won’t spin it into a “Labor reborn, hopes revived” story but into a Labor is self-destructing and can’t function one.
I thought his position on climate was flawed – a carbon trading scheme that he wasn’t prepared to fight for on top of unwavering support for the coal boom. I still recall his address to the UN urging the rapid development of clean coal technology – which I read as code for Australia isn’t going to stop digging up and selling coal, no matter what, so you (others) better come up with a solution that doesn’t involve replacing coal or leaving it in the ground.
At least the ALP will fall on a principle – the principle of sticking with a Leader through thick and thin – you know, like Julia did.
Alfred venison – dismissing something as a trope does not change the fact that the criticism you made of the PM is that she has an ego as if this isn’t a prerequisite for the job. In and of itself it is not the problem.
The push for the re-installation of Kevin Rudd is something that is being heavily pushed by the News Corporation. It sells papers and destabilises the government. If Kevin Rudd was re-installed it would be a nano second before they would cut him down too. He is an incredible speaker and I appreciate his intelligence and he certainly would make a great senior diplomat in the next phase of his career. However he is not the saviour.
Reinforcing the denigration that papers such as the Australian have made their daily breakfast for angry old white men by taking the criticisms as valid and repeating them as if they are set in stone is stupid. We saw that last year when there was such an uproar when Tony Abbott pretended that he was a friend of women and the PM called him out. The MSM were as usual of one voice as they were last week about the trip of the PM to the Western Suburbs of Sydney.
There are problems in the country and one of them is that there is too little critical thought and too much repetition of limited points of view. It surprises me to find them on this blog.
To repeat myself, if
(1) Labor is doomed under Gillard, barring a miracle; and
(2) A contested ballot to bring back Rudd would be as disastrous as claimed
then why is Gillard hanging on? Even making way for a third candidate like Stephen Smith would reduce the likely damage. By far the best thing she could do for the party is to go quietly. Can her supporters here explain why she doesn’t.
Labor is not doomed under Gillard, Prof Q. They can win from 52:48 six months out. You are allowing your support for Rudd to cloud your judgement of poll numbers.
Last time Rudd challenged, he got wiped by 40 votes. The only way Rudd can regain the leadership is if his opponent withdraws, which is what you’re agitating for. That would be like Michael Clarke asking the English cricket team to forfeit the Ashes. No, that’s not going to happen.
Gillard does not need a miracle. She needs to keep delivering on popular policies, chief among them the NBN. She needs to wait for Abbott and his terrible front bench to stuff up, and minimise her own side’s mistakes.
She also needs Rudd backers to stop destabilising the leadership. I could ask you a question: given Rudd is zero chance to be elected leader of the ALP prior to the election, why are you holding on to supporting him? By far the best thing you Rudd backers could do for the party is work towards the re-election of Labor. Can you explain why you don’t?
The key word in your question is “if”. What you propose is far from certain and Tony Abbot will come under increased scrutiny as the potential PM as time goes on. He certainly didn’t produce the goods yesterday when he said nothing about the sexist abuse directed at the PM. In fact he enjoyed it. The MSM is leading you down a path to disaster by helping Rudd destabilise Labor. It gives no-one any faith that he understands why he was forced out as PM.
I’m not sure I rate as a Gillard supporter, just that no-one really stands out as significantly better. Would Smith get the unanimity of support, even if Gillard resigned? Or want to risk his future opportunities by taking over a party in trouble? There isn’t the party discipline to make such a passing of the baton smooth and free of stumbles. It’s a rare leader that thinks others can do the job better – no doubt such self-confidence is a prerequisite to aspiring to lead. I think Gillard is competent enough but not so noble as that.
In any case I’m dubious that swapping leaders will do the job as I’m not sure the problem resides in Gillard – and therefore won’t be solved that way. Even when not stabbing their leader in the back, too many look inclined to shoot themselves and their party in the foot. There really doesn’t appear to be any viable alternative but making the ‘getting on with the job’ rhetoric as real as possible.
It would help if Labor actually appeared to have their hearts in some of their policies and were not so apt to jump at their opponent’s dog whistles. Carbon pricing is something they have every appearance of wishing they’d never done and even if putting the boot into asylum seekers seems to get more cheers than boo’s there’s more respect to be had by showing some heart and backbone than by trying to be noted for kicking hardest.
JQ, on the evidence this bunch i) really want to go into opposition; ii) believe in miracles; and/or iii) exhibit (as I said above) a loyalty to those who themselves showed none of it.
JQ – I doubt she will go quietly even if it is the best thing for her parties fortunes.
@Fran Barlow
Hear, hear! In response to your question, Prof Q, Fran’s point 3. See NSW for illustration of how well leadership changes work out in the electorate.
I don’t believe Gillard has no chance, and counselling despair is to wish for a self-fulfilling prophesy. There is every reason to believe that this quarter’s MMRT receipts will be substantial, and this will focus attention on what Abbott plans to do – i.e. tax wage earners and cut services to pensioners in order to gift money to the likes of Rinehart. There is still plenty can and indeed may happen between now and the time voters actually start to think about voting.
Just because the media focus on leadership to the total exclusion of all else does not mean leadership is the only or indeed major issue. It is generally true to say that leadership popularity polls tell you nothing at all about actual voting – Howard was never popular, for example. Moreover, 2pp voting intention polls were as dire for Howard as they are for Gillard this far out from an election on at least two occasions I’m aware of.
If anyone needs to be jettisoned now, it’s Swan. The man is congenitally incapable of communicating anything except confusion and petulance, and gives a faultless impersonation of someone who does not understand his subject matter.
@John Quiggin
Disclaimer: I am NOT a Gillard supporter, or even a friend of the ALP.
1. I don’t agree that anything like a miracle is required for the ALP to win on Septmeber 14. All it requires is for the part of the election where the Liberals are forced to account for their policies specifically and incontrovertibly to arrive. If that occurs, (it didn’t really arrive in 2010, which is largely why they did so well) then the coalition which is (hanging together entirely on a “not ALP, hate Julia Gillard” + tribal Liberals basis) will fracture and their unfitness to govern will become clear to enough people to either return the ALp or protect them from a major loss.
2. It is very clear that the LNP will not be able to govern effectively even if they do win, as they have done no policy work — a consequence of the media running interference for them. They are going to have to devise policy while implementing it. That will in short order reveal them as the misanthropic divided empty-headed or dogmatic blusterers they are. They probably won’t see out their term, but even if they do, the lesson should be salutary. In such circumstances, what the ALP needs is to be able to point to their record of implementing policy and build on this for the future. One thing that opposition will allow is for them to revisit key areas where they’ve had problems — asylum seekers, the MRRT and of course carbon pricing. Not all losses are bad.
Also, it would allow the ALP to act to finally remove their running sores — Rudd and the corrupt elements in the NSW ALP.
What they must do, in their own interest, is stand or fall by the current leadership. To declare that their leadership team can be vetted by Murdoch and the baying bands of yappy puppies trailing after his howling dogs would be the worst of all worlds, not merely for the ALP but for the left–of-centre cause fore generally in Australia. If even the generals abandon the field and beging offering up their leaders to the enemy, why should the infantry bother to care about the army?
When Gillard was elected, I was initially pleased and thought she would be a great prime minister. She had lost me by the end of the 2-1-election campaign with the ridiculous positions on climate change (remember the Citizens Assembly?), refugees, and marriage equality. The campaign itself is widely regarded as the feeblest in living memory.
The worst gaffe out of many was the ‘real Julia’ trope,made worse by the fact that there was no difference at all between the robotic performances of pre-real Julia and post-real Julia. The very fact of the leadership coup made it impossible for Labor to play its strongest card, the GFC response, both because Gillard initially opposed those measures in cabinet and it would concede the obvious truth that in a major crisis Rudd conducted his government with nothing like the weaknesses the Gillard clique accused him of. Candidates were actively instructed not to mention the GFC and you ended up with a purely negative focus on WorkChoices.
Since that time the great negotiator has reduced the mining tax to a joke by concessions to the mining sector, adopted all and more of the ‘deterrent’ measures that Howard applied to refugees arriving by boat, agreed to US basing in the Northern Territory, and continued and expanded Howard’s income management schemes, agreed to return environmental regulation to the States, and more or less strangled Gonski at birth. Only a caucus revolt prevented Gillard from casting Australia’s vote in favour of Israel at the UN in a way that no Australian government has ever done. Even she had lost the debate in the cabinet, Gillard at first simply declared it was a matter of the ‘leader’s prerogative’, whatever that may be. It took a caucus vote to instruct her to abstain.
Although Gonski legislation has passed it includes a peculiar clause that makes the law meaningless until a funding model is amended into the law and there is no prospect of that happening before the election.
Gillard’s sole contribution tot he art of government may prove to be the Gonski clause where you pass legislation that provides it has no legislative effect. The NSW Right’s passion for announceables lives on.
Some Gillard supporters are pointing to the latest Newspoll as evidence that the government has a chance. That accepts the validity of the numbers in that poll. One of the numbers in that poll is that if Rudd were leader the labor primary vote would be 47% instead of 32%. That would be a landslide victory to Labor. Another number is that the opposition would win the election by a large majority. That result was supported by a poll of 4 electorates in Western Sydney, published last week in the fairfax press, where Gilalrd would lose all 4 and Rudd would retain 2.
It’s said that if Rudd were leader he would be shitstormed by the Murdoch press, The weakness in that argument is that he has already been shitstormed by the Gillard clique and it has not significantly reduced his electoral standing. I agree completely that eh would be shitstormed by the Murdochracy. It hasn’t worked so far and there’s no reason to think it would work any better if he were leader.
The other thing about Rudd is that he is capable of change. When first elected to parliament, he was a shocker at campaigning. He taught himself how to campaign with the results we saw in 2007 and the results we see now. MPs run like rabbits when the prime minister comes near their electorate. Ditto opposition leaders in state elections. Rudd is avalanched with requests to campaign with MHRs. My hope is that Rudd can learn how to run a more cohesive government. His great advantage over his last try is that he would not have a deputy like the present prime minister.
Leaders don’t get the advantage of the stick to the leader principle when they shafted a previous leader in 2010. The most spectacular case of not sticking to the leader was 1983 when Hawke became opposition leader the day the house of representatives was dissolved. As we all know that led to be an electoral disaster and ensured a Labor loss. Um. not so much.
PS: IMO, whether Gillard stood aside and invited her supporters to choose Rudd or were rolled seems to me a distinction without a difference. I doubt the caucus would choose Rudd anyway. Gillard’s supporters — those most likely to accept her direction — would surely be aggrieved that she had fallen on her sword in large part because the trolling campaign of the Rudd supporters had whiteanted here into an irretrievable position. Cheats shouldn’t prosper would surely apply.
Of course in that case, the stepping aside would achieve nought and simply underline the ‘dysfunction’ memes that would are already running in the MBCM.
Nobody serious would step up — and by that I mean Crean — who would come as the insipid man to oversee the defeat.
calling ” old trope ” doesn’t stop the layered perceptions
1) that the prime minister is operating from an egoist centre.
2) that the prime minister is in the eyes of (dare i say all) religion flouting gods law.
3) that the prime minister is an especially bad liar,worse than any politition ever.
4) that the cave in to the mining business political party brought in less revenue than the first edition.
as far as the NSW corruption saga goes.
isn’t it amazing how quiet the broadcasting industry has gone now the ripples have spread to “respected business identities”and related monies paid to the conservative political election campaign and both QLD and federal upper echelon conservative identities have been shown to be connected.
as far as “what to make of this” goes there is in todays nufin a small eye tweak at the bottom of an article would seem to cover it.
two words had (inadvertantly) been run together.
the eye tweak?
abbot steam
soh
it seems a red herring strategy of leading scrutiny away from coalition policies is the conservative policy.
in the west the public transport system is in for a rough time,another three years of cost savings via maintainance reduction/elimination.
a train broke down in an inner city suburb the other day,the people had to pull the doors open to get out.
(inadvertantly)
or
(inadvertantly?)
@Ken Fabian #34
“It would help if Labor actually appeared to have their hearts in some of their policies and were not so apt to jump at their opponent’s dog whistles.”
Gillard barrackers here think if we all stopped talking about leadership the problem would go away and a miracle will result, but from where? I didn’t see the footage, but it is reported that when asked for examples of 457 visa manipulation, she couldn’t give an example! This should be a sackable offence for the adviser, but Gillard’s unpreparedness shows no political nous on her part. Who believes the idea that the masses respond to grand declarations pulled out of the air without stories illustrating the problem? A problem which seems to one be of enforcement under her watch, and according to the Canberra narrative it has emerged overnight – is this going to be credible with voters?
Yet I can give her an example from her own electorate: on a number of occasions recently, TV in Melb showed a picket line of skilled workers watching helicopters flying in foreign workers for jobs they had been excluded from consideration for, possibly they were blacklisted. How big the incidence is is another issue. Without the govt sharing more info., many voters will conclude it is an example of fakery and confected outrage for political mileage.
Yes Rudd was found out to be mortal, but the polls continue to put him up on a pedestal. On this blog as elsewhere, we mostly spend time divining the meaning of poll numbers, including how fluid they are. What can we know about the national mood? I don’t have survey figures at hand but I think there have been psychological measures done – is anybody aware of this? My subjective impression (I invite evidence to the contrary) is that there is a secular rise in feelings of uncertainty and fear of the future, perhaps connected to the political powerlessness people feel and the “chaos and confusion” meme promoted. Remember how Workchoices was the winning factor in 2007 – the LNP couldn’t see that power distribution in the workplace was a strong motivator. My impression is that this is a large part of Rudd’s contemporary appeal – he sounds like he cares and can be trusted. In this respect he brings something Abbott and Gillard clearly lack.
I agree that there is a risk that G stepping down and R coming back as PM is a bad look and manipulative because it lacks a rationale other than winning. Yet he does not undermine G in public and that should be regarded as important by Labor MPs– he’s not a Latham lashing out against all and sundry. Is it at all possible that the peace pipe could be smoked, and Gillard find a way to get him back on the front bench? For example, if Bob Carr’s prevarications about Eddie Obeid tarnish him sufficiently and he goes, Rudd should be restored. If MPs really believe as most of us do that Abbott could dismantle so many good things, then they will need to find a way to get their house in order. If Keating and Hawke could put on a public face for so long….
Unlike others on this blog, I think the power of Murdoch’s gang is on the wane – today’s hysteria over the new media laws is a case of “they dost protesteth too much”, revealing to more people the self-interested defence of their power, and helping Labor’s cause. Labor’s prospects are firmly in its own hands.
“See NSW for illustration of how well leadership changes work out in the electorate. ”
That’s what they told us in Queensland. The Gillard loyalists here are using exactly the same arguments as those who urged Qld Labor to stick with Bligh, Fraser and their privatisation program.
In response to Monty, if the poll average were 52-48 (which would mean some polls going Labor’s way) I’d agree there was some chance of a win – something like 25 per cent. But to pick out the single best poll in months and use that as the basis of the analysis is the kind of thinking that put Mitt Romney in the White House.
At least Fran appears to concede that Labor will lose with Gillard. Why she prefers this remains unanswered.
@John Quiggin
A loss with Gillard may be better than a loss with a recycled Rudd.
Given the striking loyalty to Gillard displayed here, I have to ask why? The policies on which I’ve paid attention to her are
1. Equal marriage rights
2. Government support for religion
3. Refugees (and now 457 visas)
4. Carbon pricing (We got the carbon price in the end, but only by the purest fluke)
5. Mining tax
6. Fiscal policy (the surplus promise and similar)
On every one of these she’s been not only bad in substance, but either inconsistent or blatantly hypocritical. Her general rhetoric about values is pretty much the same as that of John Howard, except that she says nice things about unions (in fact, only blue collar unions like the AWU and CFMEU).
So, what is the basis of her appeal? Given that you’re willing to see Abbott take the Senate rather than try to salvage the situation, there must be something I’m missing.
@TerjeP
They’re too unpopular to win elections alone, so they allied with the rural socialist party.
Actually, while I concede that a loss is a serious possibility, I believe a win is at least equally possible. It’s hard to believe that when people are forced to make a choice that most will choose a party merely because they have been urged to hate the alternative. The country just can’t have that many witless people, surely?
Perhaps this estimation is overly optimistic. Perhaps I’m doing ‘argument from incredulity’ here. Perhaps I just want to think most people aren’t that easily manipulated. Truthfully, I’m not that sure.
However this may be, to suggest that I ‘prefer this result’ is clearly wrong. I’ve made clear in this place in very strong and colourful terms and quite recently how scandalised I’d be at that — to the chagrin of at least one poster. OTOH, I don’t imagine my sentiment will be decisive in the result, and can’t imagine that the replacement of Julia Gillard with Kevin Rudd or any other leader would predispose something better than what will occur with the status quo. Indeed, I see the downside risk as palpable in such a move.
Worse still, losing with Kevin Rudd would be worse than losing under Julia Gillard because then the party really would have no basis for touting its achievements over the last three years, since by definition, they’d have repudiated them or would be forced to admit they’d dumped a leader based on nothing but fear of loss.
“I can’t imagine that the replacement of Julia Gillard with Kevin Rudd or any other leader would predispose something better than what will occur with the status quo.”
This is what I don’t get. The opinion polls have consistently said that replacing Gillard will help, a lot, and the opinion polls are much more often right than wrong in these matters. The rejection of polling evidence as ‘skewed’ was what did Romney in, and Queensland Labor (the polls predicted the NSW wipeout too, but NSW Labor were beyond salvation). Why do you imagine that your imagination is a better guide to how people will vote than their own statements on the matter?
Note – this isn’t just to Fran but to anyone who wants to argue that replacing Gillard won’t help. Why do you think the polls are so consistently wrong?
@John Quiggin
Well yes … this is the ALP we are discussing, rather than some left-of-centre party. Rudd (2007) ran as Howard-lite, much as Howard ran as Keating-lite. Rudd was {is?} the head of the Parliamentary Christian Group. I’m not sure but I suspect he might have coined the phrase “people smugglers’ business model”. There’s not a struck match between his style of right-of-centre xenophobic humbug and that of Ms Gillard.
All that is in question here is how the ALP can avoid avoid losing to an ostensibly even more right-of-centre party than it is, apparently.
I’d regard it as most unlikely that Abbott will take the senate, given that more Libs are up for re-election than ALP/Greens, AIUI. The more troubling probability if they lose is that he won’t take the Senate but that the ALP will roll over and attempt once again to pander to the Liberals right-wing base in an attempt to look ‘responsible’.
IMO, this is about retaining both the right to claim the last three years of policy as one’s own, and some self-respect — whether they win or not. It has nothing to do with whether Gillard is personally more appealing than Rudd. I find them both egregious.
Yet I regarded the ouster of Rudd in June of 2010 as mad and shameful with knobs on and would regard the departure of Gillard in exactly the same way, only more so, since we know that the ouster of an elected first term PM did the party nothing but harm.
Mind you, it perversely helped us Greens. I doubt it would achieve this a second time though.