Leadership

It was organised as a celebration of Australian car makers but the 250 people in the Great Hall of Parliament House found themselves witnessing a reunion of Veterans of Labor Leadership Wars.

A big chunk of the event became what one attendee called “a festival of Kevin”. Kevin Rudd that is, of course.

What was designed as a rousing salute to the automotive industry had to share the focus with anti-Gillard comrades-in-arms uniting on a stage, and in videos.

Continue reading "The festival of Kevin is not over yet" »

On Saturdays, British PM David Cameron shops at his local Sainsbury’s supermarket. The rest of the week, his wife Samantha buys the family groceries online. Mr Cameron pays under 50p for a pint of milk and has very little time to pick up his kids from school.

If you found that information important, you probably think a political leader should have a full life beyond their day job. By extension, you are then interested in what sort of a real person they are. For example, where do they shop and what do they buy.

However, if you found it frustrating and irrelevant, you probably think people like David Cameron have a busy enough time running the country to worry about saving 10 pence on a bottle of milk.  He’s Britain’s prime minister - who cares how or where he does his shopping?

Continue reading "We need our pollies in parliament, not Woolworths" »

Since the huge news of Bob Brown’s retirement last week, new leader Christine Milne has emerged as a leader just as canny as her predecessor, crafting her own stamp on the party leadership rather than walking in anyone’s shadow.

Despite her somewhat school matronly exterior, the new leader is emerging as a tough, razor sharp and sophisticated player in Federal politics.

Bob Brown has left the party in its strongest ever position. The reality facing the Labor Party now is that it can’t survive without the Greens. With the latest polls showing the ALP at 29 percent and the Greens around 14, there are only 15 percentage points now separating the two parties in terms of popularity among voters. The Greens have cemented themselves as the third political party in Australia, and the ALP had better look out the Greens don’t swallow them up.

Continue reading "Who wants to be a Milne heir?" »

Welcome to The Punch team’s live blog of the Labor leadership showdown. All times are in AEDT. Refresh your browser for updates.

Head over to news.com.au for a blow-by-blow of the ballot, and check out The Punch’s Labor leadership coverage to date, then stick around here for all the blood, guts, glory and nerdy political chatter.

1.30pm: We’re signing off this blog. Will see you in our Question Time Live coverage from 2pm. Happy non-spill day…

1.13pm: Gillard is now being very nice about Kevin Rudd, saying his legacy as PM deserves to be honoured. If she’d done this a little while ago this whole debacle may not have become so nasty. Perhaps in the ugliness of the past few days Gillard realised the public doesn’t hate Kevin Rudd as much as she does. TMaguire

1.11pm: In a delightful piece of understatement Julia Gillard says “Australians have had a gut-full of seeing us focus on ourselves” and promises “that this political drama is over.”

12.59pm: Gillard has called a press conference for 1.10pm.

12.57pm: So Kevin Rudd has pledged to remain the Member for Griffith, both for now and after the next election. Anyone fearing he would quit his seat and blow-up the Government would be relieved, but as long as he’s sitting there on the back bench, he’ll be a thorn in the side of the Prime Minister. TMaguire

Continue reading "Live blog: The Rudd/Gillard leadership showdown" »

The existential threat to Julia Gillard’s prime ministership has now passed but the price in political terms will be colossal.

To the extent that a path out of the woods exists at all, it will be narrow, precarious and often hard to discern.

For an error-prone minority government, that’s a big ask. The depth of the problem is exemplified by the dilemma of its chief attack-dog and most effective advocate, Labor’s favourite son, Anthony Albanese.

Continue reading "Why is Labor’s favourite son backing the pretender?" »

Most of you political junkies might skip over this piece because it doesn’t involve a hard-edged analysis of who-hates-who in the ALP or speculation about where numbers will fall at 10am this morning. The reason I’m not writing that is because for me, it’s not the main game.

Despite the myths about the influence of unions on the Labor caucus, what really motivates me and my colleagues is representing Australia’s workers and improving their lives, regardless of who runs the government.

In the end the decision will be made by 103 elected Labor members of Parliament. I don’t envy their position. The level of internal anger, now spilling into the public arena, has made it harder for Labor to win the next election. The jibe “if you can’t govern yourselves, how can you govern the county?” is one of the hardest for any political party to shake. The 90 per cent of the population that is too busy to pay more than casual attention to politics sees the unholy mess the ALP is in and turns away.

Continue reading "While Labor self-immolates, workers want answers" »

I really wanted to write about My Kitchen Rules this week, but it turns out there’s even more distasteful backstabbing, strategy and deluded egomania to be had in federal politics.

After 18 months of reassurances that our Foreign Minister is a happy little vegemite in a united ALP team, it now seems clear that Prime Minister Julia Gillard has been battling two formidable adversaries: TAbbs and KRudd.

I’ve got to admit, for months I thought the Labor leadership tussle was little more than Canberra commentators feeding off a limp carcass.

Continue reading "Knives are out and I wish they’d chop chop" »

Early last year, a former Rudd Government insider sat down to write about the experience. The resulting document - he called it “a reflection in all seriousness once the period of madness was over” - has never been published.

But in the current climate, where the way Kevin Rudd operated as prime minister has become the central issue in Labor’s bitter leadership contest, it makes fascinating reading.

The author, who operated in a key role and observed much of the discussion and decision making, says  he would not bother to set down his recollections “except that they are such a powerful warning for future governments”.  

Continue reading "The World According to Rudd: an insider’s guide" »

It’s really quite surprising that Prime Minister Julia Gillard’s head has not yet exploded, spraying reform-flavoured bits of grey matter all over her minders.

Whether you’re a lover or a loather, you have to admire how she stands up to pressure – which is one of the things those close to her often comment on.

This morning in a little courtyard, flanked by the outdoor SA Parliament loos, pot-bound ficuses, baby bamboo, and the stench of over-excited journos, she gave quite an impressive performance - read all about it at news.com.au and check out the Punch blog here.

Continue reading "If only Julia Gillard was always this convincing" »

Sometimes, you’d swear a higher power was trying to tell us all something. Not that the universe would trouble itself over anything as trivial as Australian politics, but all the same.

On the weekend, former Australian cricket captain Ricky Ponting was brought back as a fill-in for the injured Michael Clarke. Ponting proceeded to do his customary lousy job, and was duly punted for good. Could the message be any clearer? Do we really need to spell this thing out?

The Ponting return was a screaming reminder for Kevin Rudd to stay the hell clear of a leadership challenge. Second stints don’t work. As the American novelist Thomas Wolfe once nearly wrote: “You Can’t Go Home to the Lodge Again”.

Continue reading "What Rudd can learn from Ricky Ponting" »

Monday, 13 Feb 2012

Morning

A lot of my constituents have been writing to me re: concerns over interest rates and housing prices. Plan to spend the week kicking around policy ideas with the gang. Really hope leadership speculation is over – is getting in way of governing.

Afternoon

Gillard Press Secretary (GPS) drops in. Just wanted to remind me to watch tonight’s Four Corners retrospective on Rudd’s Prime Ministership. Says Rudd won’t have 26 supporters by tomorrow morning. Laughs.

Laugh with him. In times like these, not laughing can be an act of disloyalty.

Continue reading "Minister’s journal: The return of K-Rudd" »

Conspiracy theorists should adjust their tin-foil hats if they think Julia Gillard was personally involved in the release of the Sweary Kevin video.

Today she is attending a function where she is able to look every centimeter a national leader, the commemoration of the WWII bombing of Darwin. This is an important occasion at which a Prime Minister can look like a Prime Minister and not an MP down in the ruck of scrapping politicians.

No way would she have wanted the moment ruined by nasty internal Labor Party head kicking.
However, the video release did just that.

Continue reading "Leaking of Rudd outburst does Gillard no favours" »

When a victorious Julia Gillard walked in to a packed press conference on the morning of June 24 2010, she faced a daunting task. Even before dashing to Yarralumla to be sworn in as the nation’s 27th prime minister, she needed to justify a radical midnight solution was necessary without ever properly quantifying what the problem was.

Worse, she had to do it in such a way that would preserve maximum confidence in a government about to face voters.

And as a final trick, all this had to be done without naming names or listing specific faults (ie: that Kevin Rudd was out of control, that Labor’s primary vote had tumbled, that many could not work with him a day longer; that the mining tax fight was terminal).

Continue reading "From the moment of victory Gillard headed for defeat" »

It came as a surprise to some that Bob Brown was acknowledged as our most influential politician in The Australian‘s Top 50 survey of Australia’s most powerful figures in politics. If the claim had been made by the ABC or Fairfax it might have been easily dismissed as preferential bias - but coming from the Oz it can only be taken as a disgruntled admission of the Green leader’s success and political prowess.

Despite what we might personally think about the Greens’ policies, if we look at the current state of play in Canberra its hard to argue with The Australian‘s assessment. The Greens leader is the most stable and secure party leader in the Australian parliament.

Despite being just a few years younger than John Howard, Brown appears to be in his political prime. His status is international - as the man who founded the world’s first ever Green Party in Tasmania in the 1970s and took his vision all the way to the national stage. As a politician, he has outlived them all. Bob Brown has even been described by Tony Abbott as the “real Prime Minister” of Australia.

Continue reading "Bob Brown must face down the extreme Greens" »

There is a touch of Lleyton Hewitt about Julia Gillard. It is not merely that both are redheads or that they hail from South Australia. It is that both have a curious tendency to produce their best only when staring at defeat.

Hewitt fans are used to their man dropping a set or two before pulling out his A-game.

Ms Gillard too seems best when her back is against the wall. This was clear in the last election campaign following Cabinet leaks aimed at destroying her - she held a doorstop press conference and impressed with a purposeful denial stripped of all the lame scripting and woodiness of her usual approach.

Continue reading "Wrap of the week: It’s the economy, stupid" »

It all started with the empty fruit bowl on a stark kitchen bench in Altona. The Fairfax profile of Julia Gillard in her first early days of prime ministership was a sign of times to come. Being Australia’s first female PM was going to be far from easy.

From grooming, decorum and the sound of her voice, to the appropriateness of her relationship with de facto partner, Tim Mathieson. To the lack of emotion displayed on cue from the devastation of the Queensland floods. 

When it comes to scrutiny of the personal nature, as a politician Julia Gillard has copped more than most.  As a prime minster it’s been unprecedented. The only real question is why.

Continue reading "Is it sexist? We’ve got nothing to compare it to" »

As key moments go, it ranked with Gough Whitlam’s dramatic dismissal speech branding Malcolm Fraser “Kerr’s cur’’ or the latter’s lip-quivering concession on election night, 1983.

It was June 24, 2010. Before a huge media throng, a teary Kevin Rudd, his composure failing, his bewildered family staring awkwardly forward, detailed his achievements one by one. Long silences exacerbated the tension.

It was excruciating.

Continue reading "Kevin 2.0 could be better. Or it could be even KRuddier." »

Typically, leadership contests have that nagging chicken-or-egg feel about them.

They usually involve a period of intense public speculation with various insiders anonymously cited as backing this option or that.

It is a process which can leave voters suspicious of motives if only because change, division, and conflict, make great news copy.

Continue reading "Julia Gillard is on the highway to the danger zone" »

“She gave us nothing really, no inspiration and no feeling for the party’s mood. She calls Abbott ‘Dr No’ but it’s Julia who’s going to be known for saying no, and sometimes for things she later praises like emissions trading and probably gay marriage.”

This damning critique came not from an Opposition MP or conservative commentator, but a moderate member of the ALP’s Left.

It speaks to a growing frustration that was all too evident in Sydney last weekend when the PM had to be rescued from the membership following the embarrassing “we are us” opening address to National Conference.

Continue reading "She robs Rudd of office, then rubs him from history" »

Leadership has become one of the central questions of our time. Since the beginning of the 21st century, the demand for strong authoritative leadership has been palpable. I remember participating in a NATO sponsored workshop in 2002 on the psychological impact of terrorism.

One of the challenges thrown at the participants was to imagine they were facing a major incident akin to 9/11 and to decide who could be trusted with the task of informing the public about what had happened and what needed to be done. In other words, who would provide communicative leadership at a time when society was facing an unprecedented catastrophe?

The very posing of this question caught most of the participants unaware. It was evident that many of the elected leaders of European nations would prove unsuitable for this task. Could the Italian people trust the reassurances of a Berlusconi? How would the Greeks or the Belgians respond to the instructions of their prime ministers?

Continue reading "Leadership, liberty and the crisis of authority" »

To me, what limits many of today’s leaders is obsessiveness with personal preservation. Whether it’s in politics or business, leaders who make decisions based solely on retaining their position of power are both weak and selfish.

It frustrates me that there are ever increasing examples of this populist approach in Australia and around the world. It’s a mentality that blinds those from taking the best course of action on the behalf of who they represent.

How can a leader inspire those around them if they’re constantly worried about themselves?

Continue reading "Real leaders possess the courage to fail" »

The polls show that he is the people’s choice for prime minister.

And Kevin Rudd believes that, if the Labor Party still has a soul, it will soon heed the will of the people by committing an act of mass contrition, recognising that the factions were wrong, and reinstalling him to the job he secured so comprehensively at the 2007 election.

Rudd’s mind at the moment is driven by two things. One is personal, the other is pragmatic.

Continue reading "A behind-the-scenes look at Kevin Rudd: The Sequel" »

In an interview discussing his increasing philanthropy late last year, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg noted that “when you give everyone a voice and give people power, the system usually ends up in a really good place. So, what we view our role as, is giving people that power.”

Facebook, for Zuckerberg, has a role to play in power systems. It can be a political tool for leaders. And he’s right, but only conditionally; a number of other groups need to come to the party before we can consider social media a tool for good.

I spent a recent weekend helping Year 11 students understand what it means to be a leader, and I can safely say that I don’t share the pessimism about our future that the majority of headlines concerning ‘young Australians’ seems to show. But nor can I say in good conscience that the future is all roses.

Continue reading "We don’t expect much from youth so that’s what we get" »

“Always forgive your enemies,” wrote Oscar Wilde, “nothing annoys them so much”. And no advice could be more prescient for Kevin Rudd, who must be feeling positively Churchillian at the prospect of being drafted back in to the Labor leadership.

The former ALP headkicker Graham Richardson, who is by his own admission more of an outsider these days than an insider, has claimed that Victorian backbencher Alan Griffin and West Australian senator Mark Bishop are running the numbers for Mr Rudd.

Commenting on the suggestion, the former PM mixed requisite denial with a rather heavy dose of aggression, attacking “factional bullies” and taking every opportunity to put the focus back on Tony Abbott. He is, quite literally, on the campaign trail – but the electorate is only an afterthought here. The voters that matter are in caucus.

Continue reading "The caucus dominoes could soon be falling Rudd’s way…" »

It’s not compulsory, but it is usual practice that when gathering gossip on a possible leadership change one concentrates on the rumours coming from the party whose leader might be about to change the embossed title on their business cards.

This increases the possibility that the scuttlebutt will have at least a pebble of fact at its base, and that the carriers of loose talk will have to explain their personal stakes in removal or retention.

Not so, says Tony Abbott, rewriting the books on political intrigue.

Continue reading "Has Abbott got the inside goss on Rudd vs. Gillard?" »

The Gillard Government has taken the middle road in making changes to the national school chaplaincy program; $222 million has been committed to extend the program until 2014. But now schools can elect to have non-religious person fill the role as a secular worker and still use the $20,000 grant scheme.

Chaplains have really become budget student counsellors under the program. Since 2006, it has been rolled out to 2681 schools, 28 per cent are public schools. While the school applies for a chaplain to DEEWR, the funding is administered to a third party employer, in most cases a Christian organisation like Access Ministries who then engage a person to be a chaplain at the school. 

Chaplains have a set of guidelines from the Government which prohibit proselytising, which they adhere to by signing a code of conduct. 

Continue reading "Why the Christian right don’t like Gillard" »

Outstanding leaders successfully integrate authenticity, authorship and authority, giving them a triple A rating for leadership.  When we apply the paradigm of Triple A leadership to Julia Gillard we find that she falls short on all three counts.

Julia Gillard’s authority was weakened, rather than strengthened, by the manner in which she came to power.  She was installed by “faceless men”, with little input from those with considerable investment in the Labor Party, in what appeared to be an overnight coup. 

She is on record as being reluctant to step up to the top job, believing she was not quite ready.

Continue reading "No Triple A rating for Gillard" »

Exquisite for some, bitter for others, the irony or perhaps karma of Labor’s current dilemma cannot have escaped members of Julia Gillard’s embattled caucus.

Last year, out of the blue and with no warning, they moved on a popular prime minister in what for most Australians was the dead of night.

On an otherwise non-descript Wednesday in June, the nation turned out the lights with one PM and awoke on Thursday with another. It was not foreshadowed in any way and has never been adequately explained.

Continue reading "Labor’s karma not dogma their own worst enema" »

Should Julia Gillard just cut her losses and quit? Or should Caucus make the decision for her and just put her out of her misery?

With the High Court striking down the Malaysian solution on asylum seekers as an unconstitutional non-solution, the perception that the Gillard Government is listless and unable to deliver has never been more pronounced.

Some of the names being bandied about to step in save the party from electoral Armageddon now border on the absurd. There has been speculation for months about a leadership change involving everyone from Stephen Smith and Bill Shorten to Greg Combet and Simon Crean, all of which make a kind of sense on paper.

Continue reading "Should Gillard go?" »

A quarter of a century after Neville Wran showed how it could be done with elegance, the Labor Party still hasn’t settled on a leadership succession process that doesn’t involve embarrassing conflict.

The strange events following the move-on order given to South Australian Premier Mike Rann by his Caucus last Friday shows the ALP is, in fact, capable of coming up with fresh ways to humiliate itself in the eyes of voters.

Leadership change is never easy, but might be considered again by the ALP should Prime Minister Julia Gillard lose internal support by the end of the year.

Continue reading "It’s the way the blood spatters that matters" »

It was not until I recently heard an art historian visiting Australia to talk about Guernica – the iconic anti-war painting by Pablo Picasso – that I connected the dots of why the 9/11 attacks had such a penetrating impact on the global community.

Art historian Professor Timothy J Clark was explaining in a Sydney Ideas lecture why Picasso’s depiction of the world’s first terrorist air-raid continues to have political currency in the post-9/11 era, despite the existence of more “real” forms of media than existed in 1937.

Clark said that in essence Picasso managed to communicate what it is really like to be bombed. He told me after the speech that “Guernica wouldn’t have its continuing political relevance if it didn’t somehow manage to wrench the material reality of suffering out of that black and white virtual world”.

Continue reading "Cool heads are needed when horror is writ large" »

It loomed like an end of year exam. Threatening. Dreary. Ominous. And completely necessary in order to proceed into the next year.  As Labor MPs braced for the anniversary of the most tumultuous day in Australian politics since the dismissal of Gough Whitlam, they already knew it would be tough. But what really ate away at them was what Tony Abbott had been skilfully exploiting for months.

The switch to Julia Gillard had failed. The Government had spiralled downwards.Yes it had survived an election, but even that “win’‘, by way of backroom negotiation after the fact (hardly the Australian way) was a poison chalice.

At around 27 per cent, Labor’s primary vote is now at the lowest level for any federal government in the 39 years of Nielsen Poll and the first time one of the major parties had dipped below 30 per cent. Equally galling was that twice as many voters prefer the man Ms Gillard had displaced. If an election were held now, the ALP would have been decimated.

Continue reading "Doom! Gloom! Gillard celebrates one year" »

Adelaide Crows coach Neil Craig is a man of unique vision. We know this because he has told the public as much on several occasions. Where Crows’ fans see a rabble who currently sit 14th on the AFL ladder with three wins from 12 games, Craig sees great things ahead.

“It’s the most exciting group I think this club has ever had. I can just see this group of players doing great things,” Craig said in April, after his side’s loss to the Blues. Even this weekend, after yet another loss, he was largely upbeat. “It’s an inexperienced team that I think is showing some really good signs,” he babbled.

Visionaries are great. Without them, the oceans would never have been sailed, the heavens conquered, nor the Snowy dammed for hydro power and water. But true visionaries are rare. It’s one thing to claim to be able to see over the horizon. Another entirely to fail to see the bleeding obvious two feet in front of your face. Which brings us to Julia Gillard…

Continue reading "Real leaders have vision the rest of us can see too" »

The Presidents of Tunisia and Egypt have gone, the President of Yemen is going. The dictator of Libya has lost control of half of his country and is being bombed out of the other half.

But the revolutionary tidal wave of the Arab Spring has now come up against a tougher opponent – the 40-year-old dictatorship of the Assad family in Syria.

It’s clear that President Bashar al-Assad and his security forces have no intention of giving up power, and are now engaged in a violent and bloody crackdown on dissent.

Continue reading "Syria: the dictator fights back" »

Australian politics took on a Groundhog Day feel today as an old debate returned over human-induced climate change, nuclear power, and perhaps, the Liberal leadership.

Leading the backwards march were courageous and revealing comments from Opposition Leader, Tony Abbott questioning the role of C02 in driving global warming.

``Courageous’’ because Mr Abbott had gone to great lengths as leader to live down his earlier assertion that man-made climate change was ``absolute crap’.

Continue reading "Groundhog Day in Australian politics" »

Peter Costello has been busy, by all accounts, since leaving politics. Yet somehow, he just seems like a guy kicking cans at the moment.

All that talent. All that fight. All that political nous. And there he is now, not in the Capital Hill moshpit, but on all those advisory boards… Sigh.

Costello’s website states, with uncharacteristic blandness, that he is currently managing director of a thing called BKK Partners, and that he reports to the World Bank and a bunch of other worthy entities. Point is, no one really knows what he does. But it’s clear that he’s spoiling for a fight, any fight, with anyone.

Continue reading "Someone, pleeease give this man a meaningful job" »

The Real Julia could do with a few lessons on real leadership. One of the great leaders of the 20th century was the late President Ronald Reagan. This week we celebrate the anniversary of his 100th birthday.

Abraham Lincoln once said, “Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man’s character, give him power.”

It is difficult to reconcile the two different perceptions of Ronald Reagan. On the one hand, the modest former actor who revelled in self-deprecation; and on the other, the conqueror of communism who said, “Democracy is worth dying for, because it’s the most deeply honourable form of government ever devised by man.”

Continue reading "Reagan’s 100th anniversary reminds me of Julia’s failings" »

There was a moment during the English first innings in the Perth test when, just before the batting collapse, Andrew Strauss responded to a full ball by one of Australia’s four quicks by undertaking a casual pull shot. With a mere flick of the wrist, Strauss guided the ball down to the boundary – one bounce over the rope.

The Channel 9 camera gave us a close up of Ricky Ponting, who seemed surprised that such a thing could happen. After briefly consulting his bowler, Ponting reacted by removing one of his in-close fieldsmen and placing him down to the onside boundary.

The next three balls where delivered wide of the off-stump – leaving Strauss, the moved fieldsman and the rest of us wondering what exactly the captain and the bowler had discussed.

Continue reading "Gillard runs the country the way Ponting captains Tests" »

Should other than Caucus members of Parliament determine the leadership of an Australian political party?

We have all known that despite all the talk, the leadership of political parties are not determined solely by Caucus members of Parliament, they are influenced by a range of factors including public sentiment and in the case of the Labor party, the leaders of relevant trade unions.

The release of Paul Howes’ book, In Confessions Of a Faceless Man, does not diminish those assertions.

Continue reading "We might follow leaders we got to pick ourselves" »

As a social researcher, you always try to keep your mind open and your ears alert to any slightly change in public sentiment.

While it’s rare to hear anything new when you are listening to voters talk about politics, you have to allow yourself the opportunity to be surprised.

The week after Labor secured the necessary support to form government, we were in field conducting research for our bi-annual Mind & Mood report.

Continue reading "The mood altering effect of the new paradigm" »

At the start of this year, the Greens were huddled in a little cottage in the Tasmanian wilderness, admiring some magnificent trees.

But someone spoilt the serenity and raised an uncomfortable topic for a left-wing environmental party. “What are our economic policies?”

“I hadn’t given it much thought”, Greens leader, Bob Brown said.

“But we should have economic policies. We are Australia’s third largest political party and may hold the balance of power in the Senate after the next election. We need to say something on the economy.”

“True”, said Brown, still distracted by an exquisite Gum tree out the window. “Does anyone in the room know anything about economics?”

There was an uncomfortable silence in the room.

Continue reading "Left-wing Greens grapple with economics" »

Perhaps the lack of bold vision for Australia in the election campaign thus far can be understood by looking at what happened to Kevin Rudd. He was the last mainstream political leader to stand before the country making bold promises about the future, and look where he ended up.

John Howard may have been victim of a tired electorate looking for a change in 2007, but he was also hobbled by the thousand pin-pricks sustained in attacks by left-wingers on a range of issues.

The “Howard haters” were angry about the Iraq war, reconciliation, asylum seekers, and climate change. Rudd said he would do something about all of these. In what is now one of the great political parables about the dangers of overpromising, Rudd’s efforts in some of these areas would ultimately prove his undoing.

Continue reading "Whither the loud lefties?" »

New leadership speeches inevitably have a shiny freshness about them that kicks off the honeymoon.

All speeches must contain some homespun vision of where the leader wants to take the country, and tales of some lessons learnt in their normal background: I come from a hard working family raised on a suburban farm, I reward the hardest workers, I too, have a border collie called Harold.

But what was important to take from Julia Gillard’s opening press conference as Prime Minister is that it made sense again. This is not to further twist the knife into Kevin Rudd, but there hasn’t been a Prime Ministerial press conference that made that much sense for a while.

Continue reading "Gillard has let the Government make sense" »

Another week, another set of bad polling numbers for the Prime Minister. This time it’s not so much about support for his party but something that has the potential to be a distraction, if only a niggling one: his leadership.

Two separate polls published today (Newspoll and Galaxy) show Deputy PM Julia Gillard is enjoying rapidly rising support among voters as preferred Labor leader.

The great lesson from the years of leadership speculation that dogged John Howard is leaders need a plan of attack when there is a clear successor-in-waiting. For the sake of party stability but also to be straight with voters, they need a strategy for handling the leadership questions. So what is Kevin Rudd’s?

Continue reading "The Gillard question" »

Would Australia’s sporting mainstream benefit from the introduction of a Rooney Rule?

In 2003, America’s NFL introduced the Rooney Rule to provide legitimate opportunities for minority candidates. The rule, named after Dan Rooney, owner of the Pittsburgh Steelers franchise and a strong advocate for the rule’s introduction, requires all NFL teams to interview at least one minority candidate for any vacant head coaching or front office position.

Concurrently the Fritz Pollard Alliance was established to identify candidates, submit names for vacancies and to prepare prospective applicants for the interview process.

Continue reading "A simple rule that could transform sport in Australia" »

Malcolm Turnbull has survived to fight another Question Time. At a Liberal Party meeting this afternoon a motion, moved by Wilson Tuckey, to spill the leadership was defeated in a secret ballot 48-35.

This result denied Kevin Andrews the chance to make his own run at the leadership. It does, however, mean that 35 MPs in the Liberal Party room expressed their wish to be given the chance to dump Mr Turnbull. The Opposition Leaders still faces the herculean task of getting some kind of cohesion in his party on the CPRS.

You can see our blow by blow coverage after the jump.

Continue reading "Question Time Live: 25/11/09" »

Highlights from this morning’s newspaper coverage of the Liberal leadership turmoil.

The Australian
Lead story: MALCOLM Turnbull last night threatened to quit the Liberal leadership ... Kevin Andrews, who has declared himself a leadership candidate, will today confirm his intention to stand against Mr Turnbull ... It is understood frontbencher Tony Abbott will also stand but Treasury spokesman Joe Hockey reportedly will not. Read it here.
Matthew Franklin: How Turnbull staged his own destruction
Dennis Shanahan: Leader enters the dead zone
Peter van Onselen: Turnbull now leader in name only

Continue reading "Reading roundup: Turnbull’s leadership in turmoil" »

UPDATED 6:20 PM Following valedictory speech:

A dignified and teary eyed Brendan Nelson bid farewell to Parliament today, but as it’s also the anniversary of the end of his leaderhsip his ghost will be determined to haunt Malcolm Turnbull for quite a while yet.

Like Jacob Marley to Ebenezer Scrooge, tonight the ghost of Brendan Nelson will wake Malcolm Turnbull rustling pages of a complex ETS policy that he has been tasked with finding appropriate amendments on for eternity.

At the end of the apparition Nelson tosses the bundles to petrified Turnbull and tells him in a spooky whisper “of course you could do better couldn’t you?” – cue a screaming Turnbull who wakes up with a pile of ETS legislation at the end of his bed.

Continue reading "The ghost of Brendan Nelson will haunt Turnbull" »

We read this morning the latest Hail Mary throw from some people in the Coalition is to install Andrew Robb as the next Liberal leader.

At first the news was somewhat startling. After all, Mr Robb is not known for his high-profile, media savvy or charisma.

But then the brilliance of the plan dawned on The Punch. Think about it: “Rudd for PM”, “Robb for PM”. Who’d know the difference?

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