I’m not generally a fan of political scandals: at worst, they are spurious, at best, they involve random exposure and punishment of misdeeds that usually go unchecked. But there’s one big exception for me, and that’s when political scandals intersect my sporting interests.
Last year, the high-profile case was that of Republican VP nominee, Paul Ryan, who claimed to have run marathons in his younger days, with times in the 2:50s, an impressive achievement at any age. It turned out that he had run a single marathon, in 4:01:25. As all runners know, no one who has put the effort to run a marathon makes that kind of mistake. Ryan’s time is better than either of mine (4:37 and 4:24), but I’m aiming to break four hours in the next year or two, and I have a good few decades on him.
Now there’s Tony Abbott, who seems to have claimed expenses for everything from weddings to music festivals. But the only one that really interests me is the $2100 he claimed when he went in the 2011 Port Macquarie Ironman. I couldn’t find a time for 2011, but he did the 2010 event (3.8 km swim, 180 km cycle 42.2 k run) in 14 hours, whereas I took 8 hours to do half as much in the Cairns 70.3 in June.
What strikes me about this is not so only the expenses issue (although that obviously irks me) as the training time that must be involved, and the implications for the rest of Abbott’s commitments. Preparing for a marathon or a 70.3 while working full time, even in a flexible job like mine, requires putting most other things, like social engagements, on hold. If he’s training for a full ironman and managing the commitments inherent in being a politician, it’s hard to believe he can have any significant amount of time free to study policy issues and consider the best responses (as I know, you can’t think about these things while you’re running an endurance event – there’s not enough blood flow to the brain to think about much more than keeping your legs moving).
Looking at Abbott’s actual approach to policy, the three-word slogan approach is unsurprising. He can’t have had the spare time or energy for anything better. That worked fine in Opposition, but it hasn’t been great preparation for government.
John Quiggin 
@Fran Barlow
As I said above, I haven’t read his book (“Battlelines” from memory) – it doesn’t even sit on a shelf accusing me – but it seems reasonable to expect someone to have read it before expressing views about Abbott’s intellect or ideas as confidently as you do. You do after all spend time on important subjects and the mind and character of the PM for the next three years is important as you have been pointing out.
Hi Fran,
You might be thinking of Mark Riley (neither of the Kenny’s would ask Abbott anything remotely challenging).
After the Ros Kelly ‘fiasco’ above you’re not looking too good with names 🙂
@Chris W
Fiasco? Only for people who focus on trivia – do you work in the media? Isn’t this your first comment on this thread? Nothing of substance to say yet?
Calm down kevin1 … it was a joke. I make it a point to read Fran Barlow’s posts wherever I find them (here at JQ’s, Deltoid, LP, I won’t mention Cata .. etc) because I like her take on things.
Relax mate.
@Fran Barlow
I guess my point is that for Tony Abbott at least, it suits him to stick to words most of his followers can spell, and it would cost him to speak eruditely. From what I’ve seen of him, I have no particular reason to think he could care less about academic interests, or art—perhaps music of some sort. To the extent that he has contested the technical details of something, he distilled it into the bald statement “Climate Change is crap.” What little justification he has provided for such a conclusion, it has come from a mate’s book, “Heaven and Earth,”^fn1 and then only as talking points someone handed him. So, while I think it is a mistake to conclude that his outward demeanour is definitely his private one, it is a very good act if he is faking an inability to intellectualise, given the sheer duration of the act.
fn1: A tedious and intellectually nihilistic piece of work. The pages are the perfect size for the littlest room in the house…
@Chris W
Well Mark surely more likely than Chris. 😉 Still, yes, now that you mention it — I recalled the Channel 7 connection.
It seems so. I suppose Kelly and Ryan are ethnically similar — perhaps that’s it. I was watching Todd Sampson’s first show this evening and he mistakenly recalled an “Elias” as “Ben”. I suspect I know how he made that error, but you probably have to be from a Rugby League playing state to spot it.
Thanks for the interest in my posts. Glad you find them engaging.
@Fergus Cameron
I skimmed Battlelines in a major bookstore at Hornsby in 2009 — it was irredeemably banal. FTR, I rather doubt Abbott has 3 years to go. I doubt he will be PM in mid-2015 and I’m not even confident his party will still be in office then. I suppose we will see, but his early performance doesn’t recommend his political endurance.
Years ago (well before Abbott entered parliament) I was astonished to discover, by accident, that Abbott was conversant with the writings of Christopher Dawson. Few if any other politicians in Australia during recent years would have heard of Dawson, much less read any of his historiography. He was a big wheel in Catholic circles during the mid-20th century (he died in 1970) but I’m willing to bet that these days even most Catholics in Australia with a university background would not know him from a bar of soap. Anyway I must admit that I was impressed, despite my natural inclinations, by the fact that Abbott was familiar with a historian so off the beaten track. It led me to a view I have held consistently since, that Abbott’s monosyllabic demagogy is basically just an act.
The Dawson connection is pretty easy when you consider that Abbot was heavily involved in DLP circles at one time. It’s more of a tribal tag than anything else.
@Fran Barlow
You are, I note, #46, still effectually saying that Abbott is deficient in more than what you regard as proper morals or political Weltanschauung or ideology which seems to mean is ain’t too bright.
However, to move on, would you please sign up for Betfair where your bets can most clearly influence the odds available to those betting against you, or, of course making the same bets.
I have made quite a lot of money betting on elections, often when I am properly tuned up by the need to consider voting against my personal preference. I would be pleased if you would fatten the odds that I might get if I bet, as I would, that contra your comment which has reached my Inbox but I don’t see above, the government will run its full term (even if Abbott takes the risk, which he shouldn’t, of going to a double dissolution election) and that Abbott will lead the Coalition into the next election. What I read from you was:
“I skimmed Battlelines in a major bookstore at Hornsby in 2009 — it was irredeemably banal. FTR, I rather doubt Abbott has 3 years to go. I doubt he will be PM in mid-2015 [sic, or did you mean 2016?] and I’m not even confident his party will still be in office then. I suppose we will see, but his early performance doesn’t recommend his political endurance.”
I got in early to bet that Howard would lost Bennelong so got quite good odds. Likewise with Obama beating Romney though the first debate made me wish I had waited for slightly better odds. Not that anyone who had seen “The Book of Mormon” and then pictured Romney as one of the goofy 19 year old Mormon missionaries could possibly have bet otherwise. I have treated it as quite a nice mark of wisdom and maturity in my political friends that they don’t snarl when I tell them that I still love them but I have made money betting that they would lose. So I can say, completely dispassionately, though I do like the idea of taking your money, if you bet against Abbott on Betfair I shall be happy to bet for him and the Coalition’s lasting at least till – yes, I go so far as to say, 2019. If Abbott isn’t PM up to the 2019 election that probably means it is because the Coalition government is in trouble. (Or maybe he will have run into a truck on his bike).
@Fergus Cameron
1. Yes, I did mean “mid-2015”.
2. I won’t be betting on anything this far out. At this stage, I doubt Abbott wil make three years. That’s not a prediction. As things stand, Abbott is living down to expectations. We will need to see how quickly this provokes dissent in the LNP and a narrative about LNP incompetence. Much turns on the position of the Murdochracy of course. It’s quite possible Murdoch won’t be in charge of “News” in three years either of course.
@Alan
Well, I’ve never encountered any other DLP activist who had heard of Christopher Dawson, much less read him, unless he was at least 75 years old.
@Robert (not from UK)
Abbott had attemded a seminary for a time though. Doubtless they discussed something there beyond the number of angels that can fit on the head of a pin and what the appropriate care of orphaned children entailed.
oops … attended …
The angels on the head of a pin debate is actually a bit of a myth.
@Robert (not from UK)
Santamaria adored Christopher Dawson and Abbot famously described Santamaria ‘the greatest living Australian’. A willingness to declare yourself a fanboi to an eccentric and theocratic historian is not necessarily the same as profound intellectual understanding. After all a guy who thinks Pell a great Catholic leader and Palin better qualified than Obama or McCain has a way to go to establish his credentials as a deep thinker.
@Alan
Abbott’s reverence for Santamaria doesn’t seem to have been reciprocated, to judge by the fact that when Abbott asked BAS for a reference (in the early stages of his preselection campaign) he didn’t get one.
@Robert (not from UK)
Santamaria was definitely not the greatest living Australian or anywhere near it. His version of Catholic integralism would be familiar to people like Salazar and Franco. That does not mean he was unable to tell a fanboi when he met one.
Santamaria’s intellectual contribution and politics sic, which both Abbot and Pell celebrate, was a dreary dogmatic conformism and his organisations were run on the strictest lines of undemocratic centralism.
@Alan
Oh dear! Oh really? But can you give chapter and verse on Abbott on Palin v. McCain and Obama?
Those with reservations about Obama seem to be gathering a bit of evidence over the long haul of his presidency and McCain’s critics certainly score some hits but Palin would have to be positively justified as being, perhaps, in the tradition of successful provincial politicians whom quite sensible people have applauded despite their offputting features like Joh B-P, Jeff Kennett to name just a couple of local examples.
Perhaps it was just a part of Abbott’s instinct for PR first in most of his political utterances and part of the (intuitive) thinking would be that it was shocking and a way to bore it up his opponents. That is supported in my mind by hearing that a venerable former mandarin of forceful views and personality had expressed approval of Palin (as he has I believe of the Tea Party). It’s a kind of letting the hair down for them perhaps, also. And remember that McCain, a survivor of great experience in politics, chose Palin as his running mate. Mind you, I would concede that it was a last desperate throw and actually showed his realism: he knew he wasn’t going to win unless he took a one in twenty chance which came off.
Robert Manne writing in The Monthly
@Alan
What should an Australian politician of any consequence say about foreign politicians 1. that they judge extremely unlikely ever to be heard of again in a serious context [like Palin whom we went on hearing too much about but only Oprah style] 2. that might be important in the future?
It certainly wasn’t wise of John Howard to speak as derogatorily as he did of Obama but maybe Abbott was simply doing a sensible diplomatic job on relations with the Republican Party. Of course she did have more experience of executive office than either Obama (who hadn’t even been long in the Senate and never held significant executive office) or McCain….. literally true!
Or maybe, just like his absurd praise of other rightwing notables, he was believing what he wanted to believe. Your argument might have a chance but for Santamaria, the greatest living Australian’ and all the other other clangers. Your argument also might have a chance if there was any diplomatic practice of intervening in the elections of other countries, but the wiser practice has always been to keep quiet and not interfere.
There’s also a chance he is incapable of speaking any language but hyperbole, after all Australia has acquitted half a dozen or so best friends and closest allies and that is only in the last week.
@Alan
Yes the constant hyperbole business is odd and a bit worrying. I’m not particularly worried about his “greatest living Australian” for Santamaria given that one has to accept that he was once a seminarian and Santamaria acolyte. That sort of hyperbole is pretty commonplace and not silly like saying Japan was our best friend publicly. (The standard formula is “No greater friend than” for Americans about us or the Brits, or probably the Germans or……).
I didn’t intend to imply that it was sensible to comment at all on elections in other countries but I think a bit of upbeat guff is probably acceptable unless you make people think that you really see Sarah Palin as an acceptable vice-presidential candidate!
In what possible universe is characterising an obscure ultramontanist as “greatest living Australian” not hyperbole? Perhaps Santamaria refused the reference out of sheer embarrassment.
@Alan
Well the link doesn’t quite say that it’s somewhat mythological. It speculates that it may have been a parody of abstruse and pointless speculation aimed at ridiculing the early ecclesiastics. These days the connotation of the term “ivory tower” comes from much the same motivation — though it is, ironically from a Biblical source that is surprisingly ribald. 😉
I should point out that although I’m clearly having a dig at seminarian life, I have no objection to abstruse debates. They are useful mental exercises and given the utter banality of much of modern discourse, I’m reluctant to be critical, even if the notion of ‘angels’ is silly. In maths we imagine lines as having no width and composed of an infinite number of points that take up no space at all. One can have a lot of fun with purely conceptual stuff.
My usage:
isn’t really an attack on discussing such things but the concession that they surely discussed some more prosaic matters in seminary as well.
Greg Sheridan is running with the ‘global climate action’ is a myth meme which raises a coupe of queries.
One is, has Sheridan allowed for current legislation and plans? I somehow doubt it.
Importantly, should Australian Govt policy benchmarks be only as high as the global minimum? Sheridan suggests that we only need to follow the lead of nations such as India and Indonesia.
Sheridan says that
he may or may not be right but his opinion, which is unsupported, conflicts with others
Japan has nationwide taxes on fossil fuels. And I’ll mention that Japan, which already had a decent amount of solar capacity by world standards, has been installing solar capacity at a prodigious rate since Fukushima. They have installed over 10 gigawatts so far. At this rate they could overtake Australia in terms of solar capacity per capitia in under two years. Solar power also matches Japanese demand much better than nuclear power ever did. In fact, Japan built a very large amount of pumped storage capacity in order to help deal with nuclear’s inability to match demand and this will make it very easy to integrate more wind and solar capacity.
Also, I’ll menton any arguement that goes, “Australia should do little about CO2 emissions because Japan,” when Japan’s emissions per capita are almost half of Australia’s, is really idiotic.
I have decided to stop paying taxes. My taxes are a tiny fraction of what goes into the treasury so it will have no impact at all. Tomorrow I think I’ll stop following the traffic laws. It may be the criminal code the day after…
@Alan
If you’re that fired up Alan, may I suggest you consider the “tempered radical” way and take the James Hansen route http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/02/science/james-e-hansen-retiring-from-nasa-to-fight-global-warming.html
Thanks for the post Prof Q. Some thought-provoking points & subsequent comments. I agree with the post but have to say I’m a little perplexed by a few of the comments expressed or implied (not always rebutted), namely:
1. the expenses scandal is not really that important, or is quite complex with some grey areas
2. Labor have a worse record than the Coalition with ethics & propriety in public office (Jack Strocchi, but not seriously challenged by anyone)
3. the devotion of several, perhaps dozens, of hours a week to hardcore fitness is potentially an acceptable thing for a PM to do and may not impact on their time needed to tackle policy
4. the projection of a virile, athletic, anti-intellectual image is not only successful but acceptable in a PM.
Am I being too harsh? Because I think:
1. The expenses stuff goes right to the heart of the pitch the Coalition made to get into govt (ie ‘adult govt’, not being like Slipper, Thomson, HSU etc). How could it not be important? After all the screeching the Tories did about such minor or non-existent scandals, why would a left-leaning site let the Abbott Govt off the hook here?
2. I am amazed that anyone would have such short memory of the Howard era & its scandals. I refer the Faulkner speech to Parliament in late 2006 to mark the 10 yr anniversary of the Howard Govt.
3. Surely there gets to be a point where you say ‘this many hours is keeping you from doing yr job’ – it’s just commonsense & I acknowledge most of you agree with this. I don’t sense a huge outrage about it though.
4. Nothing wrong with a bit of indulgence in physical prowess & action stuff, but I would have thought on a thought-provoking, intellectual site there should be no acceptance whatsoever of any ‘anti-intellectual’ approach to policy & running a country. This anti-intellectual stuff is what the US conservatives have fed on for 40+ yrs, & I don’t want to even brush with it.
I’ll wait until there’s an open sandpit for further discussion of energy that is neither renewable nor fossil fuel.
@Ronald Brak
Have you seen this pro nuclear Pandoras Promise film? Would be interested in yr comments.
Who will rid me of this lack of a pit of sand?
@Fergus Cameron
If we applied that to global conflicts there would be no wars. When it comes to the military the “against all odds” mythology prevails* along with the precautionary principle.
*the Simpson donkey myth springs to mind.
@Fergus Cameron
If you take all of the countries that emit around the same as Australia (<2%), that adds up to around 1/4 of global carbon emissions. Enough to make a significant difference to world's future temperature trajectory. Get the point?
Sockpuppet of banned poster, deleted. No further responses, please
Fergus, I’ll write a whole treatise for you on windfarms and there expensive electricity for you. Get back to you in a couple of days.
@Fergus Cameron
I have carefully read your post explaining what I think I mean a number of times. Unfortunately I have no idea what you think I meant, although i do have a fair idea of what I think I meant.
I think we really should expect more honesty from PM Abbott. Especially on climate. I tend to see climate change as a litmus test for our elected representatives; gullible on climate being indicative of lack of good judgment overall.
I can’t understand how our MSM journalists and interviewers can be consistently incapable of drawing Abbott or key team members out on this or why they are prepared to let the obvious – that Abbott thinks climate change science is crap and is surrounded by a team that thinks the same – is simply allowed to pass by unchallenged. Like it’s an open secret but everyone agrees not to make a fuss about it. Ultimately we the public should be shown such disrespect and contempt from our Prime Minister that he would telll us he accepts the science on climate and has full confidence in Australian scientists when he does not. If our government and it’s policies are predicated on the assumption that all the formal advice on climate is wrong and only dissenting views are considered trustworthy – and all indications that is the case – we deserve to know.
Oops “… should not be shown such disrespect and contempt from our Prime Minister…”
@Martin Spalding
I suspect the reason no-one has challenged Jack’s assertion that Labor are more corrupt that the Libs or the Nats is because no-one reads Jack’s assertions. (I certainly don’t bother.) I agree it’s risible.
@Ken Fabian
“I can’t understand how our MSM journalists and interviewers can be consistently incapable of drawing Abbott or key team members out on this or why they are prepared to let the obvious – that Abbott thinks climate change science is crap and is surrounded by a team that thinks the same – is simply allowed to pass by unchallenged.”
Journalists and MSM have repeatedly described their role is to provide “balanced” reporting. In my opinion, when they say “balanced”, it does not matter to them even if the debate is between scientists and religious fundamentalists/political hacks. In this sense, they are being extremely honest in the sense that they do not care about the truth.
As there’s no sandpit …
I came into work this morning only to learn that a colleague had lost a house to fire in the Blue Mountains. We’d all been worried yesterday afternoon but over night she had heard the worst.
It’s very sad. Fortunately for her, as she volunteered, it wasn’t her only house, but it was the one she and her partner had been building for 25 years, had stayed at every second weekend and holidays for most of that time and were planning to retire to in the coming few years. She had formed close bonds with her neighbours over that time and most of them were longstanding residents for whom this was their only home. They too had lost everything and she was even more upset for them.
I saw on the net that some people in Springwood, who had been fostering four children, had also lost their house. It’s hard to grasp fully the pain these fires cause. It goes way beyond money. You hope that these kids, who had found a caring stable place can be kept together, but you just never know.
I teach year 7 Geography and yesterday and today I spoke to my classes, again, about climate change and why it is so important to act. I made it clear that I was not interested in telling them whom to vote for or to take shots at anyone in particular as that was not my role, but that climate change was an issue which nobody who cared about their own interests and that of their fellows or, one day, their children, could avoid, and on this day, with the sight and smell of smoke on the hills, it was exactly the right time to reflect on that. They needed, I said, to consider what kind of world they’d like to live in, and what shape they’d like the world’s ecosystem services, which we had examined in some detail over the last 12 weeks or so, to be in when they passed them onto their descendents. I remnded them that Australia is far from the only place that is being and will continue to be harmed by climate change. I reminded them of the challenges of securing food and clean water and defending against rising sea levels. I pointed them towards the piece of string encircling the room showing the time of the planet, the time of humans, the industrial age, the time of severe climate change and their lives and mine and asked them how much more string there should be and what we’d like to be able to write onto the ribbons attached to it.
I suggested that next time someone makes light of the challenges of climate change, they ask them why they care so little for the rest of humanity, or think that there’s no problem trashing the only place in the universe we know of that supports life.
Some say that we should not ‘politicise’ this issue. At best this is vapid populism but more commonly it’s arrant cant — uttered by people who out of stupidity, indolence, perceived personal gain or hatred say we should do nothing. As one of the kids pointed out, if someone was hurt at school and you could say that you predicted it and suggested how to change things to stop it happening, wouldn’t you be to blame if you said nothing because someone’s feelings might be hurt?
A lightbulb had gone on.
At times like that I am so glad to be teaching.
I have noticed that people who are disciplined / dedicated enough to train for ironman / triathalons etc tend to display that same level of discipline / dedication towards other aspects of work/life. (I dont!). Surely you can do better than attach Abbot because of his training?
@Ken Fabian
Let’s try and aim our arrows precisely. There is a serious logical difficulty about
“I think we really should expect more honesty from PM Abbott. Especially on climate. I tend to see climate change as a litmus test for our elected representatives; gullible on climate being indicative of lack of good judgment overall.”
Is he dishonest and saying things he doesn’t believe about climate science or is he “gullible” and making bad but not dishonest judgments accordingly?
@Tom
You quite Ken Fabian, I think, with apparent agreement but the premise is wrong. Greg Hunt has repeatedly affirmed the same view of the science as the Rudd and Gillard government’s stated views and he is the one official spokesman for the Coalition on the subject. Whatever fellow MPs (including some from all parties but the Greens) believe or suspect about the science your and Ken Fabian’s statements about Abbott would only be valid if you could quote him recently as contradicting Hunt. It would seem to follow that your views on the MSM’s approach to the Coaltion on the subject are flawed to some extent.
Fergus – what happened to your response to my four points at comment #32? I looked this morning and it was there. Refreshed the page just then and it was gone. IT problem?
From memory you went in hard against Slipper and Thomson, mainly based on the usual allegations as yet unproven in court, and in Slipper’s case amounting to a lot less than the total parliamentary expenses wrongly claimed by Coalition figures (I think the latter is $60,000 & counting isn’t it?).
The Faulkner speech is a must-read. Sums up the lies, broken promises, ethical breaches and dog decisions from the Howard era that many people tend to forget when trying to take the moral high-road on Labor.
As for your attempt to radically narrow the definition of who is a ‘conservative’, by excising various strains you don’t appear to approve of, that’s fine. I don’t want to get into that debate here. The fact remains that most of those strains, whether classical, neo, paleo or otherwise, have for 40+ yrs indulged to varying degrees in the ‘rugged action hero’ ideal of a leader, and disdained the value of the intellect in solving problems.
William F Buckley after all came up with the iconic statement: ‘I am obliged to confess I should sooner live in a society governed by the first 2,000 names in the Boston telephone directory than in a society governed by the 2,000 faculty members of Harvard University’.
David @ #46 – it’s not about the training per se, it’s about the sheer amount of it. Are you saying you can never have enough? Are you saying someone’s extracurricular passions can never impact on their job?
And it’s also the manipulation of the training to project an ‘ironman’/’action hero’ image, perhaps in a way that dissolves/absolves all other things that people might focus on. It’s part of a continuing dumbing-down strategy that fits in with the three-word slogans, the hi-vis vest photo opps, and the current strategy to stay largely invisible and keep politics off the front page.