Moving Forward: Where To?

Glenn Milne is a Canberra journalist and political commentator. He has worked as chief political correspondent and as political editor of The Australian. and is a former columnist for The Australian newspaper. Since July 2010, Milne has been writing for the ABC’s Unleashed site. On 16 September 2010, Glenn Milne addressed The Sydney Institute to share his analysis of the 2010 federal election and commented on the future of the new minority government.

POLITICS: WHERE TO NOW?

GLENN MILNE

Welcome to the future.

Today we throw out the old templates – most of them anyway – and deal with a new, radical shift in the complexion of Australian politics, what Tony Blair has christened globally “an era of low predictability”.

Bismark once famously remarked that: “Politics is like sausages. You should never see how it is made.” Well I put it to you that today we are all in the sausage factory, and however the sausages turn out, we all, as voters, bear responsible for what’s now going into the mix.

To a degree never before witnessed, we are privy to a blow by blow account of how our democracy is going to put itself together again for the next three years… or maybe three months… or maybe three weeks.

And we got the sausages we intended. Not enough of us thought that Julia Gillard ought to be returned. Not enough of us thought Tony Abbott deserved to be Prime Minister. We wanted some new ideas and some new directions and now we have them.

For the moment, though, what strikes me most about the current political process is its utter transparency. To a degree never before witnessed, we are privy to a blow by blow account of how our democracy is going to put itself together again for the next three years… or maybe three months… or maybe three weeks.

I’ll give you an example of what I mean by transparency. Before this election campaign, who knew about the “faceless men”? This was a term largely reserved to the political class. It is, of course, a reference to a description coined by Prime Minister Robert Menzies referring to the ALP national executive who, while completely unelected and unknown to the electorate, dictated policy to the then Labor leader Arthur Caldwell and his ambitious deputy, one Edward Gough Whitlam. The blogosphere has certainly caught up with the term since Messrs Arbib, Shorten, Feeney and others decided Kevin Rudd’s time was up and dispatched him at the witching hour.

A former Labor staffer sent me a link the other day to a website called “Faceless Men”. It defines them as “a religious society of assassins who worship the god of death”. This guild apparently performs religious duties such as “tending the dead”. That’s Kevin Rudd you can hear stirring.

“For a price,” the site says – read election victory – “the guild will kill anyone in the world, considering this contract killing to be a sacrament to their god. An elite group of followers within the guild, called the faceless men, are trained to perform this task. Despite their name, the men are occasionally women”. Okay – Julia Gillard. At this point I shut down the site.

But there you have it. I couldn’t have given you a more accurate account of the drama surrounding the assassination of Kevin Rudd.

The Rudd-Gillard dynamic will be pivotal to the future of the government. Indeed it may determine if it has a future.

Let’s take the opportunity here to talk about Kevin. He remains relevant, not only because his ghost haunted and framed the election campaign, undermining Julia Gillard’s claims to legitimacy, but also because he’s now a major player in the minority Gillard Government.

The Rudd-Gillard dynamic will be pivotal to the future of the government. Indeed it may determine if it has a future. It will also be elemental to the nature of the relationship with Washington and on the issue of a regional solution to the perceived problem of asylum seekers.

As shadow Attorney General George Brandis is fond of telling me, the key to character lies in repeated patterns of behaviour. So, I’d contend, it will be with Kevin.

With that in mind, in January I was a delegate to the Australian American Leadership Dialogue. For those of you who aren’t familiar with the program, the Dialogue is the premiere public-private policy exchange between the US and Australia. Its clout and reach are tangible; this year we received private briefings from Hilary Clinton, World Bank President Bob Zoellick and former Bush Administration security chief, John Negroponte.

Kevin Rudd was also a delegate – though no-one thought he would come being so soon after his emotion charged disposal as leader. Wrong. Kevin was there will bells on. What’s not widely known is the depth of Labor’s representation at the meeting… and the depth of antagonism that Rudd generated by his behaviour.

It doesn’t seem possible but it is true; his actions at the dialogue actually deepened the contempt and anger Labor ministers and MPs felt for him at the time they dispatched his leadership.

Present in Washington were Cabinet ministers Stephen Conroy and Chris Bowen, Mark Bishop, one of the key anti-Rudd plotters, along with probable future Labor leader, and now newly sworn minister, Jason Clare. Paul Howes, the 28 year old AWU national secretary and “enfant terrible” who was the first to unsheathe the leadership knife against Rudd on national television was there. It was a body language expert’s dream.

For the Labor cohort arriving at the meeting there was no doubt this was Rudd’s calling card delivered via Hartcher. The message was clear:  ”I’m still relevant. And I’m here.”

Other influential Labor characters included Stephen Loosley, David Epstein and Geoff Walsh. Just to add to the frisson that only the ALP can generate, Kim Beazley, the leader Rudd despatched was there in his ambassadorial capacity.

It started badly and finished worse. Delegates arrived to a story running in the Sydney Morning Herald written by the paper’s political editor, Peter Hartcher revealing that Barak Obama had made a bereavement phone call to Rudd after he lost the prime ministership.

Peter, who spoke to this forum just recently was in the US capital to address the Dialogue on Australian domestic politics. He’s regarded as close to Rudd. Perceptions are reality in politics. For the Labor cohort arriving at the meeting there was no doubt this was Rudd’s calling card delivered via Hartcher. The message was clear:  ”I’m still relevant. And I’m here.”

Rudd may as well have hired a skywriter. As the week drew to a close he had made several key interventions in the Dialogue including a speech to delegates at a social function at the Library of Congress where he also happened to reveal that the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, had also called to commiserate over his lost leadership. During the conversation they joked in biblical terms about political “resurrections”. You get the message.

And if his intent by that time wasn’t absolutely clear Rudd also had a “drop by” meeting with US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton. He then rushed ahead of the dialogue as it headed for New York to meet UN Secretary General, Ban Ki Moon, who announced Rudd’s arrival via Twitter.

If Rudd behaves like this as foreign minister, you had better fasten your seatbelts.

The disbelief at his behaviour among Labor representatives, both in Washington and back home in Australia, was palpable. Unconfirmed reports swirled through the corridors outside the formal dialogue sessions that when Rudd and wife Therese, vacated the lodge he had told staff “we’ll be back”.

The anger was unsuppressed. As Rudd upped the ante, Beazley was heard to remark in the surrounds of the Dialogue that Rudd still believed he was “alive” politically.

Well so he is. But so is the revilement in the Labor party towards him. If Rudd behaves like this as foreign minister, you had better fasten your seatbelts. Already he’s representing Gillard in a major speech to the UN. The press release making the announcement was revealing. It began: “the prime minister and the incoming foreign minister have agreed that Mr Rudd will visit Washington and New York from 17 September to 25 September.”

Well, as if Rudd would rush off and impersonate the prime minister at the UN… then again …  It’s extraordinary that Gillard has to state that Rudd’s movements as foreign minister are the subject of agreement. What this phraseology suggests is that the relationship between Rudd and Gillard has all the characteristics of an unexploded bomb.

Abbott is actually in a much stronger position within his own party than Gillard is as a winning Prime Minister.

Asked this week for his assessment of the Gillard campaign, Rudd said he would not be commenting on its conduct. He could have of course. He could have said how well she performed. But he didn’t. Watch this space.

On the Opposition side the key relationship will be between Tony Abbott and Malcolm Turnbull. It’s an irony, but as a losing opposition leader, Abbott is actually in a much stronger position within his own party than Gillard is as a winning prime minister.

The shock absorber of his highly effective campaign – though not as effective as it needed to be – will protect Abbott in the medium term from any threat. But there are unresolved issues with Malcolm Turnbull, the most pertinent and potentially dangerous of which is that he remains in favour of a carbon price. It’s hard to see him giving this position away, given it cost him his leadership to Abbott by a mere one vote.

When crunch time comes on this – and Maruis Kloppers’ intervention today has accelerated things – Malcolm may have no alternative but to resign from the shadow cabinet. Either that or ditch his pro-carbon price stance – and end up looking like Kevin Rudd.

The executive aside, the parliament itself will be endlessly fascinating. The confusion over the constitutionality of Rob Oakeshott becoming Speaker is only a taste of things to come. When the MPs figure out how minority government is going to work effectively with the cross bench, I’ll know too.

There will be real reforms to the way Question Time, parliamentary business and the like are conducted. This will all be for the good. The energy with which it is prosecuted will depend on whether Oakeshott becomes Speaker.

Most focus has been on the changes to Question Time; the requirement for ministers’ answers to be short – four minutes – and, believe it or not, for them to be relevant.

But equally important has been the detail of the agreement Gillard has struck with Tony Windsor and Oakeshott. Private members bills are required to be accommodated – in the main chamber and with designated time allotted. They must be voted on.

There’s one cautionary lesson of history here. You may remember the Kevin Andrews’ private members bill of 1996, in which he successfully overturned the Northern Territory’s voluntary right to die legislation. This issue paralysed the parliament for months.

Neither the government nor the opposition could get their political message out while this highly emotional and controversial bill was before the house. Process was paralysed. This may also be a glimpse of the future.

There is one other piece of mere speculation here that I nevertheless think is interesting. The question is, will this lead to the Americanisation of Australian politics? Not only are Tony Windsor, Bob Katter and Rob Oakeshott powerful in a hung parliament. As Oakeshott continues to point out, so are the other 150 MPs. Potentially compliant and powerful individual MPs. Big money and influence politics may loom.

I will hazard some other predictions. Tasmanian independent Andrew Wilkie will be the weak link in the chain that is minority government. Despite acting against type by opting to support the government, Tony Windsor and Rob Oakeshott have some threads of ideological DNA; they’re both socially conservative for example. Their behaviour will be somewhat predictable.

Wilkie has no ideological consistency. He comes from the generally conservative intelligence community. He became a left wing celebrity among the “Howard haters” both for his opposition to the Iraq war and his personal campaign against the then prime minister in Bennelong. He then ran for the Greens in the Senate and finally washed up in Hobart as a carpet salesman and Independent.

In other words, Wilkie is thoroughly unpredictable. More than that, I think he enjoys the limelight. So, a dash of ego and a sprinkling of national notoriety and you have the recipe for someone who wants to stand out in the parliament; and the only way to do that is to constantly keep the Gillard Government on the knife edge of a lost vote.

Finally, by comparison with Wilkie, the Greens are very much in the tent. In fact Julia Gillard might not be aware how far. There was much rejoicing at the reasonableness of the deal Gillard signed with the Greens to enlist their co-operation in the Senate and secure Adam Bandt’s vote in the lower house.

Clearly the Greens believe that they can continue to move leftwards and take more of Labor’s high educated and high income vote.

It was British PM Harold Macmillan who, questioned by a young reporter as to the most difficult thing of his prime ministership, replied: “Events dear boy, events.” So I think it will be the Greens. The deal is not as important as how much Bob Brown’s overall philosophy will inform his weekly meetings with the prime minister and therefore the political and policy atmospherics of the new government.

The left vote in Australia has splintered between the Greens and the ALP. It is the Greens who are on the march. Gillard will be doing everything in her power to recover Labor’s diabolical primary vote. That may well mean embracing more Green positions.

You have to wonder how, though, when Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young today likened the Darwin refugee detention centre to Guantanamo Bay. Clearly the Greens believe that they can continue to move leftwards and take more of Labor’s high educated and high income vote. Gillard will have to pay the piper.

Sometimes it is informative in politics to go back to original sources. When you go to the Green’s policy website, “a sustainable economy” ranks number seven in their list of priorities, right after “media, arts and science”.

Under the economy “equity” is the emphasis, followed by themes of collectivism, industry policy, government ownership of natural monopolies, regulation of the market and opposition to the goods and services tax.

I did say out the outset, “welcome to the future”. Well that is the future Bob Brown sees it.

I hope tonight I’ve set a few straws in the wind. And I’d welcome your questions.