The Problem With Beazley
October 18th 2006 07:14
I have a problem with Kim Beazley.
His has been a fairly odd political career. He has been a Labor MP for decades, and helped draft some of our country's finest laws – along with some of the most blatantly politically self-serving - under the Hawke and Keating governments. After Keating's defeat at the hands of John Howard in 1996, he assumed control of the Labor party and managed to lead it to defeat in two subsequent elections. Following this, he announced that he was stepping down as Labor leader.
Which, frankly, was the smart move on his part. Howard was still riding high in his first election as Prime Minister. The reek of guilt had not yet begun to seep from his gaudy tracksuit. But in the second election, with so many promises broken and so many lies exposed, it seemed almost impossible for Labor to lose.
Beazley managed, though.
After this, the Labor party went through a weird, sickening downward spiral. Simon Crean was basically elected by default as leader – there was nobody else willing and able to do the job. Turns out Crean wasn't willing or able either, though, so after he imploded there was a brief power vacuum which fueled speculation of all kinds in the media. Then, swinging in from the rafters like the second coming of Whitlam, came Mark Latham. His story is uglier and more depressing than anybody else's in the past several decades of Australian federal politics.
Latham seemed unstoppable. While prone to inappropriate outbursts of emotion, he had the youth, intelligence and passion that the party so desperately needed after the limp-wristed guidance of Beazley and the utter black hole that was Crean. Finally, many of us thought, that little shyster Howard has met his match. It seemed unthinkable that someone with Howard's utter lack of charisma could ever stand against a sound-byte powerhouse like Latham – the protege of Gough Whitlam, one of the most beloved figures in Australian political history. He even adopted Whitlam's campaign slogan - “It's time”.
In the home stretch, he fumbled at crucial times and lost by a relatively narrow margin. After quitting politics in disgrace, he turned out to be an unstable freak, an attention-seeking hatchet man who tried to take the entire party down with him through sensational allegations in a book which I'm sure he was very well paid for.
After yet another power vacuum featuring some very questionable behavior by a number of key Labor MPs, Beazley announced his shock return to the forefront of the Labor party. And the same people who had been despairing over the state of Labor since 1996 tore our hair out by the roots and headbutted our pets.
I'd like to make something clear, here – I don't have any major issues with Beazley as a politician. He seems to have a keen sense of social justice, and is much more stable than Mark Latham could ever hope to be without consuming a dose of Valium worthy of Jim Morrison. He makes all the right gestures. He's smart enough. In fact, he belongs on the front bench – the sort of person who could do some serious political damage to the Liberal party in matters regarding his portfolio.
But therein lies the problem – my problem – with Beazley.
He seems capable of developing a sensible and informed opinion about certain things, but he does not have John Howard's fiendish craving for news. Every single day, Howard has a veritable army of gibbering minions scouring every major news source in the country, analysing every political piece for content and emphasis, constantly advising him as to how he is perceived by the media and the people on every conceivable issue. This obsessive practice is why he is never caught off-guard – although his responses to questions are rarely very succinct or direct, he has never had to face the humiliation of looking into the camera and saying, “I don't know what you're talking about.” And that's about goddamn right, too. If you're going to lead the whole country, you have a certain obligation to be up to speed on every issue facing your electorate.
In this area, Beazley falls down. As leader of the Labor party, he has been caught out on several occasions, by journalists, as being totally unaware of certain issues. A journalist explaining a current issue to the politician he is questioning about it is a very surreal scene, and the kind of ignorant slip-up you cannot afford to make if you are trying to lead our country – and it's not merely wrong in terms of public image, either. It's a disconcerting trait in the leader of a nation.
While showing more charisma and power than Howard, Beazley is still not a terribly gifted orator. His second consecutive loss to Howard was unforgivable – Howard had been caught red-handed lying to the people about the Tampa refugee crisis, and trying to float an entire campaign on the fear vote. The victory was practically handed to Beazley on a silver platter. If he had seized upon that one undeniable dishonesty – taken it in his mouth and shaken it like a mongoose on a goddamn carpet snake – there would have been carnage. The voters – particularly those with small-l liberal tendencies and those who are not avid followers of politics – would have been very nettled at that blatant dishonesty, and all the others.
This one issue alone would not have won the election, but it is a perfect example of Beazley's lack of teeth. His failure to seize on opportunities such as the Tampa incident were responsible for his downfall, and despite his nice-guy image, we were not sorry to see him go.
I'm not pro-Liberal, you see. As a matter of fact, I'm not remotely pro-Labor either. As I've said before, I despise politics; it's a weasel's game. But the one thing that saves me from total political neutrality is the fact that I am so unspeakably disgusted and appalled with the modern Liberal party. It makes me a Labor man by default.
So why do I care so much who's leading Labor? It's simple. This is no longer about politics, about ticker-tape parades, baby-kissing, sound bytes and empty slogans. It's not about Reserve bank interest rates, or the price of petrol, or outback Aboriginal slums. I firmly believe that the Labor Party, as the only other major party in the country, has a duty to the Australian people to get John Howard out of office. This insidious, lying, unprincipled little man has sandbagged our country for long enough.
Democracy depends on pluralism. Simply put, there needs to be more than one political party on the ballot. And right now, there is not. On one hand we have a Liberal party which pisses in the face of the legacy of its true sons like Menzies and Fraser, men of principle who were passionate about democracy and free speech. And on the other hand we have a Labor party so laughably weak and indecisive that sometimes you're tempted to suspect that some of them must be on Howard's payroll – James Bond-style political sabotage.
The Labor party under Beazley is too weak to win without a miracle; elections are not frequent enough to give somebody three shots to get their shit together. Howard has no charisma or principles, but he is a very shrewd politician (something his supporters somehow construe as being a positive quality) and his party is very well-entrenched. To win the next election, Labor needs, for a start, some goddamned camaraderie. Enough of the infighting and petty bullshit. A unified front can only be achieved by a leader who has what it takes to sweep the next election. It will take someone with a head full of brains, a belly full of fire, a mouth full of fangs, and one huge motherfucker of an axe to grind.
Beazley seems like a decent man. But he has none of these things. And for the Labor party to do its job, he needs to step out of the ring and make way for a real heavy hitter.
For example, much can be made of the recent conscience vote which saw Howard's new border-protection bill defeated in the senate on the votes of his own party members. Such a thing has not happened to Howard in 10 years of “leadership”, and it may be a sign that his iron grip on his cabinet is slipping slightly. The importance of an occurrence like this can hardly be overstated to the party in Opposition – there is serious tension in the ranks when a Liberal party MP will make so strong a move as to vote with his conscience against his party's leader. After all, a federal politician with a conscience is harder to find than an invisible ninja, particularly amongst the mass of bottom-feeding scum in the Liberal party today. But if fractures like this are to be capitalised upon, Labor needs to move now, to hit fast and hit hard....and to keep issues like that in the public's mind until the election.
A Labor leader should make the next election a vote from the nation's conscience. Who can do this, and provoke sufficient outrage to oust Howard? That's a good question, which I don't have an answer for. For someone with enough guts to take on the biblical shitfight that I'm talking about, Labor would probably have to pilfer someone from another party, or an independent. I'd be pretty pleased to see independent MP Brian Harradine step up to the plate. He has a quiet, powerful dignity which could shame Howard in ways that Latham's tirades never could. But of course, that won't happen.
Who, then? Let the speculation begin. Throw some ideas around. Don't be afraid to suggest something wacky. In fact, bring on the wackiness, I say. But please, for the good of the nation and indeed the world, Beazley has to go.
By the way, this post heralds the loss of my blog's cherry. I tried to be gentle. Just in case anybody is in danger of taking me seriously, the next blog will be a dumb, sexy story about getting drunk in the face of adversity...
Bang.
His has been a fairly odd political career. He has been a Labor MP for decades, and helped draft some of our country's finest laws – along with some of the most blatantly politically self-serving - under the Hawke and Keating governments. After Keating's defeat at the hands of John Howard in 1996, he assumed control of the Labor party and managed to lead it to defeat in two subsequent elections. Following this, he announced that he was stepping down as Labor leader.
Which, frankly, was the smart move on his part. Howard was still riding high in his first election as Prime Minister. The reek of guilt had not yet begun to seep from his gaudy tracksuit. But in the second election, with so many promises broken and so many lies exposed, it seemed almost impossible for Labor to lose.
Beazley managed, though.
After this, the Labor party went through a weird, sickening downward spiral. Simon Crean was basically elected by default as leader – there was nobody else willing and able to do the job. Turns out Crean wasn't willing or able either, though, so after he imploded there was a brief power vacuum which fueled speculation of all kinds in the media. Then, swinging in from the rafters like the second coming of Whitlam, came Mark Latham. His story is uglier and more depressing than anybody else's in the past several decades of Australian federal politics.
Latham seemed unstoppable. While prone to inappropriate outbursts of emotion, he had the youth, intelligence and passion that the party so desperately needed after the limp-wristed guidance of Beazley and the utter black hole that was Crean. Finally, many of us thought, that little shyster Howard has met his match. It seemed unthinkable that someone with Howard's utter lack of charisma could ever stand against a sound-byte powerhouse like Latham – the protege of Gough Whitlam, one of the most beloved figures in Australian political history. He even adopted Whitlam's campaign slogan - “It's time”.
In the home stretch, he fumbled at crucial times and lost by a relatively narrow margin. After quitting politics in disgrace, he turned out to be an unstable freak, an attention-seeking hatchet man who tried to take the entire party down with him through sensational allegations in a book which I'm sure he was very well paid for.
After yet another power vacuum featuring some very questionable behavior by a number of key Labor MPs, Beazley announced his shock return to the forefront of the Labor party. And the same people who had been despairing over the state of Labor since 1996 tore our hair out by the roots and headbutted our pets.
I'd like to make something clear, here – I don't have any major issues with Beazley as a politician. He seems to have a keen sense of social justice, and is much more stable than Mark Latham could ever hope to be without consuming a dose of Valium worthy of Jim Morrison. He makes all the right gestures. He's smart enough. In fact, he belongs on the front bench – the sort of person who could do some serious political damage to the Liberal party in matters regarding his portfolio.
But therein lies the problem – my problem – with Beazley.
He seems capable of developing a sensible and informed opinion about certain things, but he does not have John Howard's fiendish craving for news. Every single day, Howard has a veritable army of gibbering minions scouring every major news source in the country, analysing every political piece for content and emphasis, constantly advising him as to how he is perceived by the media and the people on every conceivable issue. This obsessive practice is why he is never caught off-guard – although his responses to questions are rarely very succinct or direct, he has never had to face the humiliation of looking into the camera and saying, “I don't know what you're talking about.” And that's about goddamn right, too. If you're going to lead the whole country, you have a certain obligation to be up to speed on every issue facing your electorate.
In this area, Beazley falls down. As leader of the Labor party, he has been caught out on several occasions, by journalists, as being totally unaware of certain issues. A journalist explaining a current issue to the politician he is questioning about it is a very surreal scene, and the kind of ignorant slip-up you cannot afford to make if you are trying to lead our country – and it's not merely wrong in terms of public image, either. It's a disconcerting trait in the leader of a nation.
While showing more charisma and power than Howard, Beazley is still not a terribly gifted orator. His second consecutive loss to Howard was unforgivable – Howard had been caught red-handed lying to the people about the Tampa refugee crisis, and trying to float an entire campaign on the fear vote. The victory was practically handed to Beazley on a silver platter. If he had seized upon that one undeniable dishonesty – taken it in his mouth and shaken it like a mongoose on a goddamn carpet snake – there would have been carnage. The voters – particularly those with small-l liberal tendencies and those who are not avid followers of politics – would have been very nettled at that blatant dishonesty, and all the others.
This one issue alone would not have won the election, but it is a perfect example of Beazley's lack of teeth. His failure to seize on opportunities such as the Tampa incident were responsible for his downfall, and despite his nice-guy image, we were not sorry to see him go.
I'm not pro-Liberal, you see. As a matter of fact, I'm not remotely pro-Labor either. As I've said before, I despise politics; it's a weasel's game. But the one thing that saves me from total political neutrality is the fact that I am so unspeakably disgusted and appalled with the modern Liberal party. It makes me a Labor man by default.
So why do I care so much who's leading Labor? It's simple. This is no longer about politics, about ticker-tape parades, baby-kissing, sound bytes and empty slogans. It's not about Reserve bank interest rates, or the price of petrol, or outback Aboriginal slums. I firmly believe that the Labor Party, as the only other major party in the country, has a duty to the Australian people to get John Howard out of office. This insidious, lying, unprincipled little man has sandbagged our country for long enough.
Democracy depends on pluralism. Simply put, there needs to be more than one political party on the ballot. And right now, there is not. On one hand we have a Liberal party which pisses in the face of the legacy of its true sons like Menzies and Fraser, men of principle who were passionate about democracy and free speech. And on the other hand we have a Labor party so laughably weak and indecisive that sometimes you're tempted to suspect that some of them must be on Howard's payroll – James Bond-style political sabotage.
The Labor party under Beazley is too weak to win without a miracle; elections are not frequent enough to give somebody three shots to get their shit together. Howard has no charisma or principles, but he is a very shrewd politician (something his supporters somehow construe as being a positive quality) and his party is very well-entrenched. To win the next election, Labor needs, for a start, some goddamned camaraderie. Enough of the infighting and petty bullshit. A unified front can only be achieved by a leader who has what it takes to sweep the next election. It will take someone with a head full of brains, a belly full of fire, a mouth full of fangs, and one huge motherfucker of an axe to grind.
Beazley seems like a decent man. But he has none of these things. And for the Labor party to do its job, he needs to step out of the ring and make way for a real heavy hitter.
For example, much can be made of the recent conscience vote which saw Howard's new border-protection bill defeated in the senate on the votes of his own party members. Such a thing has not happened to Howard in 10 years of “leadership”, and it may be a sign that his iron grip on his cabinet is slipping slightly. The importance of an occurrence like this can hardly be overstated to the party in Opposition – there is serious tension in the ranks when a Liberal party MP will make so strong a move as to vote with his conscience against his party's leader. After all, a federal politician with a conscience is harder to find than an invisible ninja, particularly amongst the mass of bottom-feeding scum in the Liberal party today. But if fractures like this are to be capitalised upon, Labor needs to move now, to hit fast and hit hard....and to keep issues like that in the public's mind until the election.
A Labor leader should make the next election a vote from the nation's conscience. Who can do this, and provoke sufficient outrage to oust Howard? That's a good question, which I don't have an answer for. For someone with enough guts to take on the biblical shitfight that I'm talking about, Labor would probably have to pilfer someone from another party, or an independent. I'd be pretty pleased to see independent MP Brian Harradine step up to the plate. He has a quiet, powerful dignity which could shame Howard in ways that Latham's tirades never could. But of course, that won't happen.
Who, then? Let the speculation begin. Throw some ideas around. Don't be afraid to suggest something wacky. In fact, bring on the wackiness, I say. But please, for the good of the nation and indeed the world, Beazley has to go.
By the way, this post heralds the loss of my blog's cherry. I tried to be gentle. Just in case anybody is in danger of taking me seriously, the next blog will be a dumb, sexy story about getting drunk in the face of adversity...
Bang.
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Comment by J-Dogg
Comment by Ben not part of this site lol!
Comment by Derik
I think most people would agree that you criticism of Latham as an unstable freak is a bit unfair. Most would agree Latham did not have the cunningness or the profess to stand up to the filth in the Labor caucus and generally in the Labor institution.
Your criticism of Liberals and indeed John Howard is your opinion. Just as i would consider you red blood, you can consider me blue.
But let me just point out one thing too you. Love him or hate him John Howard has been voted in 3 times. Each time going to the election with controversial policies such as GST, Border Patrol, Sale of Telstra, Work Place relations. Each time the Australian people knowing very well what his intentions are have voted him in. In the next election, no doubt he will go to it with wanting to introduce Australia to nuclear energy.
Therein lies Labor problem, to date most labor policies have been reactive. They lack vision and do not aim to solve the problem Australia will potentially have in the future.
Most importantly labor seems to heed to the few that make the most noise. This very issue could unsettle Labor at the next election on the issue of work place relations. I mean in the media, the reports coming out seem to be against work place relations. But talk to a few factory workers and they will tell you nothing has changed. Talk to employers and they will tell you they have the freedom now to higher people and offer them tailored incentives to suit their needs.
At the risk of making this sound like an advertisement for the liberals let me cut it short.
Get rid of Beazley, Wayne Swan (The Snake), Stephen Smith (Sanke Number Two)
Kevin Rudd - The only man i can see as opposition Leader at this point. As opp Foreign Minister is brilliant and has the intellectual capacity and attitude to be a good prime minister.
Julia Gillard - Fiestly and brilliant - will be a great deputy opposition leader, unlike Jenny....ammm Jenny Who?
Simon Crean - Very smart politician, carnt be opposition leader again but give him a high profile portfolio.
Comment by Connor
Middle Class Guilt
- All policies about anything after 10 years out of office are necessarily reactive, to a degree. But basically, that's my point - nothing the Labor party ever does makes much of a splash. They never really take much of a stand about anything. Except, for some inscrutable reason, the IR reforms.
- I'm not crazy about Rudd OR Gillard, although I'd take either over Beazley. But I still don't think they could win the election.
Comment by Whislter
whom I considered an upper class monarchistic snob with a social conscience of minus 50.