2007 Election

Lindsay Tanner isn’t happy with the mainstream media’s treatment of politics and politicians. The mainstream media is lazy, superficial, biased, banal. It has a pack mentality and a short attention span. It cooks up or makes up stories, fails to correct errors, and can be easily conned. It is unwilling or unable to examine big ideas and serious policy debate.

As for social media, well, that’s just frivolous nonsense. All those people writing their silly tweets. And politicians shouldn’t have fun or show their lighter side. Costello dancing the Macarena – what was that about? Just stupid.

With his furrowed brow, his Brylcreemed widow’s peak and his dark and dated suits, Lindsay Tanner has long had the demeanour of someone who is 50 going on 75. It befits him to have authored such a grumpy and meandering book, Sideshow: Dumbing Down Democracy. This crotchety polemic combines random anecdotes from federal politics with haphazardly-selected quotes from professional haters of mainstream journalism to bolster his thesis that politics is stuffed, and that it’s (almost) all the media’s fault. 

Continue reading "Tanner’s one-sided sideshow lets the pollies off the hook" »

It’s instructive to go back to the Kevin07 campaign advertisements, not least because the man himself seemed so confident and so damned chirpy.

The ads underline the fact it wasn’t long ago that many voters were prepared to place their trust in the abilities of the Labor Party.

Nielsen polling released Monday found Kevin Rudd was preferred leader of the Labor Party, 55 per cent to incumbent Julia Gillard’s 38 per cent. It was more a comment on Ms Gillard than a sign the mob wanted Kevin back, but the comparison was stark.

Even as Foreign Minister - even though he seems rarely in the country - Rudd retains the ability to connect that he mobilised so devastatingly against John Howard in 2007.

Continue reading "Video killed the Ruddio star" »

It is all a bit hazy now. But this time three years ago there was a real buzz around Kevin Rudd, a sense of excitement on the part of many voters that the Howard era was coming to an end, making way for a fresh, modern, forward-thinking leader who better suited the times.

Someone who recognised and would act on the challenge of climate change, who understood the importance of broadband, wanted a more humane approach to border protection, believed working families deserved a better deal on issues such as childcare. Someone who was also a self-described fiscal conservative who understood the importance of maintaining a surplus and not driving the nation into debt.

Superficially at least, Rudd’s 2007 campaign had a similar vibe to the victories of Bill Clinton and Tony Blair in the United States and the UK – Clinton after 12 years of Republican rule, Blair after 18 years of Tory domination, both of them young men, Clinton, saxophone in hand, jiving on stage to Fleetwood Mac’s “Don’t Stop”, Blair in shirt sleeves, smiling broadly and looking upwards as if to a better future to the sounds of “Things Can Only Get Better”.

Continue reading "How Rudd took out an AVO against Kevin07" »

UPDATE: As of 5pm all four banks have already passed on the interest rate increase.

For the second time in as many years, the Reserve Bank has helped cement the banking community’s reputation as a cuddly bunch of warm-hearted funsters by using Melbourne Cup Day to stick it to home-owners.

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While you were munching on some prawns the RBA increased rates from 3.25 per cent to 3.5 per cent, resisting the temptation to go for a much more dramatic and painful 0.5 per cent rise, but still sticking by its warning that there would be more more pain to come.

Many people with mortgages will shrug this one off – we’re still about $700 a month better off in terms of repayments than we were when the GFC hit.

Continue reading "Kevin Rudd does not want to own these rate increases" »

“You lying Labor bastard” read the mail from north-west Tasmania, “Piss off”. It was hate mail from heaven. Let me explain.

It was mid 2007 and I was Labor’s National Campaign Director. We had started a nation wide campaign about a less popular aspect of the Howard Government’s policy agenda. Part of that campaign was an informative pamphlet about the finer points of the policy. It was, of course, sprinkled with the odd bit of political rhetoric and carefully constructed messages.
The hate mail was return mail.  A loyal Coalition voter had decided to give me a bit of “what-for” with a thick black pen. It was heavenly because I knew the pamphlets were actually going out to voters (a constant anxiety for any campaign director). I became even happier as the weeks rolled on and the Coalition hate mail intensified from across the country.

Continue reading "Heavenly hate mail and the Lindsay pamphlet scandal" »