Is Phil Koperberg right about the nature of politics?

Reg says:

10:22am | 09/10/10

He’s right though isn’t he, it does require a certain degree of mongrel. Probably there are some here whose skeletal cupboards prevent them from displaying the true depth of their talent.

Adam says:

12:29pm | 08/10/10

Plus One!

No denying it’s a damn shame though - must it be that way?

fairsfair says:

12:39pm | 08/10/10

Well we need to change the game then. Because that “savvy” is so far out of touch with the real world it is killing our country. I am so sick and tired of repeated attempts to baffle with bullsh*t. We see through it, but those of us who reject the notion of being spoon fed sh*t on a red or blue utensil are hogtied by bureaucracy to the point where we are simply powerless.

“Real” people who genuinely come from their electorates and refuse to play the game rarely survive. They are eccentric or idiots or fat or a woman or downtrodden by the masses for some other irrelevant reason - because they refuse to conform to the “politics”. They are pushed or “step” aside.

Bob Katter is an example of the contrary. However on Four Corners on Monday he demonstrated to me that he did not pander to the circus that Oakshott and Windsor created. He went along to the beat of his own drum - he was ridiculed for that.

Politics is full of losers - the ones who don’t win and the ones in charge.

The Badger says:

01:00pm | 08/10/10

Very funny fairsfair

Your observation about 4 corners leads me to believe you were watching a different 4 corners to the rest of us.

Obviously, Katter was an independent until the Liberal minders surrounded him and he saw the light. (Scientology style)
Katter was always going to go conservative. When they haned him hsi 20 point lib /nat plan.

The other two not sure they had a predisposition.

I think what convinced them go Labor was that the coalition:
Screwed their costings up and deceived the Australian public
Haven’t got a clue about Broadband and believe that the private sector can solve all the bush problems.
Wanted to further erode education and health in the bush through budget cuts.
Treat the Nationals who are supposed to represent the bush - like their bitches.

persephone says:

02:04pm | 08/10/10

Agree with both Adams. It is a craft which has rules which must be learnt if you are to operate effectively.

Fairsfair

since man crawled out of the primeval swamp and formed the first government, it’s been this way.

Read any commentary on government , any place, any time, and you’ll find the same complaints and criticisms - out of touch, lying, power driven, etc etc. And you’ll also find people saying that ‘it doesn’t have to be that way.’

The evidence suggest it does. That politics has rules, and they work. Mess with them at your peril.

For these reasons, I distrust pollies who run on a ‘Change Politics’ agenda - they never do, and usually (like Stott Despoja and Obama) they crash and burn fairly quickly.

Effective politicians understand the rules of the game and understand why these exist. Ineffective politicians want the system changed.

fairsfair says:

02:47pm | 08/10/10

I am talking about the nature of party politics, not the ideological focus of whichever party. Which is afterall, the focus of this article.

dovif says:

03:31pm | 08/10/10

The Badger

Actually Windsor had already said that he and Oakshoot want to milk the next 4 years for all it is worth.

They thinks the Liberals will win the next election convincingly and therefore want a government which will last the next 4 years

They choose the government less competent to govern, so that the government will less likely to want to go to the polls and can milk it as much as it could

Reg says:

03:24pm | 10/10/10

You slid across an interesting detail there AdamC. In my experience Union members are not all Labor supporters and “Union bearpits” require more than the average discretion from those who would be leaders. Not at all like the right-wing club where the biggest mongrel gets to take control, rather than lead.

Jim says:

11:52am | 11/10/10

Badger says “Your observation about 4 corners leads me to believe you were watching a different 4 corners to the rest of us”. You have your opinions mate, I respect that, though it appears you do not respect opinions that differ from your party spin. But don’t for one single minute dream that you speak “for the rest of us”. You do not speak for me - or anyone else.

Will Y says:

02:48pm | 08/10/10

Come the Labor decimation at the March poll, no doubt Phil will be sitting at home scratching his head and thinking how did I ever join up with that bunch? The NSW Labor Right is a great example of how poo can float. There are too few local politician of any consequence in the ALP these days. The high flyers all want to be the boss, and if they can’t be the Premier, then a faction means they think they can be the Premier’s boss. Given the number of Labor Premiers we’ve had over the past coupla years, my guess is everyone will get a turn before the whole bunch are tossed out. I’m really looking forward to the ICAC investigations into the “jobs for the ALP boys” mentality that demonstrates the contempt these representative have for, we the working class. 
Thank heavens they’re all such a nice bunch of guys n gals on the other side of politics. I hear these days everyone on the other side of Easy Street is behind Barry, and no longer even bother looking in his bottom drawer for that little bit of titilation

Super D says:

03:48pm | 08/10/10

Spot on Macca.  The NSW Labor Party is an absolute disgrace and well and truly deserves to be annihilated.  For the past decade it has been run by absolute frauds interested in rewarding their cronies with the spoils of office rather than governing in the interests of the state - or indeed the battlers who naively elected them.

Nafe says:

12:34pm | 08/10/10

Richard, I agree 100% but where i live, there is a bit of a problem. For decades Newcastle has been neglected by our Labor seat warming pollies, but our current member, Jody McKay is actually working and getting things happening around the place. She really has no chance of loosing her seat as Newcastle is probably the safest Labor seat in NSW, but it would be disapointing to see Jody lose her sead because of her parties incompetance. But on the other hand, the Liberals need a good decade to even start to get NSW back on the right track.

Then in a decades time, we will get the same old crap that shot JHW in the foot by not spending enough on infusructure etc. Little do these leftist realise that you must undo the mess before you have the money to invest.

St. Michael says:

01:15pm | 08/10/10

@ Richard: you might want to evaluate the state of the WA hospital system, its education system and the criminal justice system before loading plaudits on the Liberal government there.  There is a very big two speed economy going on particularly in WA.  Not everybody out here is happy to have their children dying from lack of staff in country hospitals for the sake of the assurance that the Oakajee Port will Keep Our Future Running Smoothly.

“Lean, Efficient, Economic Wealth Producing Machine” describes mining corporations.  It does not describe the Liberal government in WA, which seems more and more content to screw its lowest paid staff because, unlike the police and nurses, they can’t shut down the entire justice or health system in one fell swoop.

Rose says:

06:13pm | 08/10/10

I seriously worry about you if you truly believe what you have written. The Liberal governments of the past have generally neglected things like infrastructure, services (health and education) and social policy. The Howard government wasted billions on middle class welfare, expensive and inefficient (but politically popular) border protection, ill-advised wars and general incompetence and inefficiencies. The money in the bank came from selling off everything that wasn’t nailed down, extraordinarily high tax receipts and failing to adequately provide for future Australians.
Granted the Labor government has had some spectacular failures, but no more than Howard. The difference for me is intent. Howard and Abbott have never shown that they give a damn about Australians, except those in high income brackets, they have never shown any ounce of empathy for those for whom life dealt a rough hand, there was no real long term social policy to improve Australia for ALL Australians. Howard used to go on about Australians have never been better off, CRAP!! The divide between the haves and the have nots increased and his policies made it incredibly difficult for the have nots to get a piece of the pie, no matter how hard they tried. The Liberal party would like every one to believe that the disadvantaged only have themselves to blame, that there is a level playing field and their inability to catch up is their own fault, again, CRAP.
As for New South Wales, I understand there is a push to get rid of an unpopular Labor Government, why I don’t know and honestly, I don’t much care, that’s for you lot to sort out. What I do know is that a government is only as good as it’s opposition forces it to be, and whatever is said about Labor governments is also true of the oppositions. This country needs new talent on both sides of the house, we’re literally screaming for it. That’s why people toyed with Family First last time around, it’s why The Greens had a good showing in nearly all recent elections. We want new ideas, new policies and we want them NOW, but what did we get, the worst political campaign in history in the last Federal election, on both sides. That’s why last election threw up no winners, no one deserved to win. I can’t see the NSW election being any better!!

marley says:

07:03pm | 08/10/10

@Rose - I don’t want to get into national politics on this, but at the State level, the ALP has spent the last x number of years in NSW doing those things which would help it stay in power, rather than those things which would be good for the State and its populace.  They got an unexpected victory in the last election, due to an incompetent opposition - and haven’t they been making hay ever since then?

The neglect of the infrastructure here is entirely their responsibility - I you can’t hold the federal government, whether Howard or Rudd/Gillard responsible for years of neglect of NSW roads, hospitals and power systems, nor for the fact that the state government seems to be entirely in the pocket of developers.  That’s on the state ALP, and no one else.

Dave C says:

06:53am | 09/10/10

I agree but to all the Liberal haters out there there is another reason the Opposition couldn’t get their message through.. its called Govt Spin. The Libs and Nats had to fight with one hand tied behind their back.

Bob Carr ran NSW using the mantra Spin the message first, govern second. All good news was amplified all bad news covered up or announced the same day as a big new event.  The report into the cross city tunnel cost blowout was released at 3.00pm on Melbourne Cup Day,  The waterfall train tragedy for example, the Govt had guards stopping the media going to the dead drivers families house, this was so they could get the message out that the driver had a heart attack and not that the train system was at fault.

Every six months or so there is a new announcement that schools have a wonderful new discipline policy to deal with unruly students.. nothing has changed in the system at all its all spin. As for transport every 2 years a new railway extension is announced for Western Sydney and then its quietly dropped again nothing has happened.

As for elections, in both 2003 and 2007 the ALP spent 4 times as much in advertising than the coalition using money donated from unions, pub owners (thanks for letting pokies into the pubs mate) and developers. Now of course the ALP are going to lose NOW they decide to clean up developer donations so the next Govt doesnt get that advantage they got.

In rural NSW seats held by Independents such as Dubbo, Tamworth, Port Mac and Northern Tablelands got preference in Govt spending with the independent member there to claim credit every time. This again help the Nats back.

The best example of media spin ever is of course in 2003 where during an election Bob Carr called a press conference to say he didn’t like sausage rolls and preferred pies and that was the story on the evening news.

Essentially Carr used the media to starve the opposition of oxygen with the help of the public sector unions and developers, while he got ALP people in the media to say the Libs/Nats are run by the religious right with absolutely no actual tested proof whatsoever. 

BUT…. its all going to come to an end next March isnt it?

mickijo says:

02:30pm | 09/10/10

I have a feeling that the ALP is on a slide out and down. It is no longer the “working man’s party” or even the “working mum’s and dad’s ” party. It is a party of lawyers and union retired leaders. It has lost its heart, it has lost its soul. The Greens will step up for a while but people will soon work out that there are really NO fairies at the bottom of the garden. Politics in Oz is stale, we need some new ideas, we need some new blood.

Reg says:

10:59am | 10/10/10

Richard you belong to another generation and would have felt very much at home in the Germany or Italy of the 1930s. You must be feeling quite frustrated by Democracy.

Lousia says:

06:32pm | 08/10/10

Koperberg is weak and always has been - even in his previous position

stephen says:

10:59am | 09/10/10

I remember his name being mentioned a few years ago as an incompetent fire-fighter by the NSW Fire Authority.
I mean, if you can’t actually do anything, how can you expect to even be a pretender ?