Top StoriesMay’s sharp fall in jobless numbers added to the greenness of the ‘recovery’ (or less bad) thesis; overnight June’s unemployment figures were so awful that they could have stunted at least, the wavering shoots.
Maybe this will be the book that gives Costello a spine
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Sweet timing indeed for Peter Costello and MUP, to announce his memoirs on the day polling shows 38% of Coalition voters - presumably they polled all eight of them - preferred him as Opposition Leader. This prompted Costello to break his near-monastic vow of silence to utter standard words of support for his leader. Presumably Costello figured the sooner he did the whole memoirs thing the better, because his value declines every day that passes. However, it doesn’t signal the end of his political career. Liberal insiders are no clearer on Costello’s intentions now than before, which is to say entirely unclear. He’s not saying what he’s doing, except that he’s being Member for Higgins. And memoirs are not necessarily an insurmountable barrier to further political success. Memoirs can be a Latham-like torrent of bile, settling old scores and dumping on the ungrateful party that failed to see the author’s self-evident brilliance. But they’re also a way of rewriting history and the subject’s place in it. While Labor is busily rewriting the Howard years as ones of social brutality and policy indolence, Costello’s real fight over the narrative of the Coalition’s decade-plus in power is with John Howard. Costello’s memoirs won’t just be a chance to let fly at the latter’s failings. They’ll be an opportunity to re-cast himself in a more favourable light. We might learn about how a Costello Government would’ve signed Kyoto, issued a proper apology to the stolen generation, removed legal discrimination against same-sex couples or left Iraq earlier. Don’t expect to see much of the Costello who begged off a fight for the leadership after Downer imploded, or who spent 11 years as Treasurer without a serious policy agenda, who let his Prime Minister turn a Coalition Government into the most appallingly profligate pack of porkbarrelers in Australian history, who didn’t have the stomach to seriously pursue his leadership ambitions even after being repeatedly snubbed and insulted by Howard. Even after it was clear Howard was leading the party over the precipice. Costello has spilled his guts before, of course. Chiefly for Van Onselen and Errington’s book on Howard, and for Four Corners earlier this year. But in neither case did he control the process. This time he’ll have his own father-in-law writing it for him (who said only footballers needed ghostwriters). If he returns to the leadership, the memoirs will have done a nice job of repositioning him. And, really, unless they contain some hitherto-unrevealed shocks about the Howard Government, they’re unlikely to provide a great deal of additional ammunition for Kevin Rudd, who’ll be sitting opposite Costello at the Despatch Box with a marked-up copy. Labor’s attack lines on Costello are already well-prepared: the gutlessness, the policy laziness, the profligacy of a Treasurer who wasted the minerals boom. And if he doesn’t return, if he walks out tomorrow into corporate life, he’ll remain the unknown possibility, on whom every Liberal can project their if-only fantasies as they endure the long years of Opposition under Rudd. It’s typical of Costello, though, that even months after declaring he was pulling the pin, he still hovers at the edges of the political scene, unwilling to plunge in but seemingly unable to walk away. Can this bloke EVER make up his mind? If there’s one great unknown that everyone would love to see in his memoirs, it’s an explanation for his Hamlet-like indecisiveness, the apparent reluctance to commit, to sit back and wait. But maybe he himself doesn’t understand it. |
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19 Comments
Exposed form would suggest we will get a whinning, whimpy story from Costello. His version of how he was so badly mistreated and how we are the poorer for his political passing.
“Exposed form” - means what?
I thought that was the whole point about Peter Costello. He doesn’t have any guts, credibility or honesty.
Costello was an outstanding Treasurer and a stark contrast to the incumbent who can barely count. It is going to be interesting watching this first Labour budget. I hope for Australia’s sake that Swan has got his head around his portfolio over the past few weeks.
It’s good to reflect on the record of the present government when in opposition and realise that every major economic reform introduced by Howard and Costello was opposed by Swan: Reserve bank independence, broadening the indirect tax base, budget surpluses and bilateral free trade agreements.
Labour has taken Australia backwards with its determination to centralsie our Industrial relations system and its reintroduction of Unfair dismissal legislation at a time when productivity increases are essential.
Meanwhile the Trade Union movement slides in its membership. So we see restored to a central role an organisation which most Australians eschew.
At least he had the nous to retain his seat, unlike the greatest greatest PM of all time according to some.
Yes, it is amazing John James isn’t it, how, given all those fabulous qualities of the Howrad govt that you offer here for our consideration, they were given a mother of a hiding at the poll that mattered most. Costello needs to take his share of responsibility for that defeat and in allowing the deceitful meglomaniac that was John Howard to rule the party with unfettered disdain for the community they were meant to govern. Get used to being a supporter of the Opposition, sunshine.
I for one can’t wait to read all about Costello’s secretly bleeding, secretly breaking heart circa the Howard years. Really what is it about Johnny that scared the bejeezus out of them all so much? It’s like the Libs from Costello down were suffering from Stockholm syndrome or somesuch. And where is Tony P to complain about Bernard’s latent Communism?
Col, mate, I’m happy to be in the back seat of the car! We’re all Australians. All I ask is that you give me and the rest of Australia some advanced warning before you and your Labour mates take it over the cliff!
I don’t believe he thinks there’s anything latent about it.
“But maybe he himself doesn’t understand it [commit, sit back, wait].”
… is to me the most salient point of this sorry affair.
I really doubt if at all he understands the why’s or wherefor’s, or even if his Liberal colleagues have been privy to any of them. If he does then surely we will at last have a bit of insight into the man. However, i doubt it.
How long was he in Parliament? How long he was in government? What do we [and he] know of the man if these questions still remain unanswered. During all this time he’s squandered enormous opportunities for both country and self.
i doubt we’ll ever see or hear any true motivations in this book or any other nor from any of his colleagues; if they don’t know him, how can we?
What an enigma and after all this time.
Just had to commed Lucy on her comment…particularly the the Stockholm syndrome..hehe
It sounds like you’re trying to describe someone who is mentally ill. In a former comment I mentioned people I know who know Costello and describe his intellect as high quality but I fear whatever it was its decline is symptomatic of severe chronic traumatic stress syndrome caused by work place abuse (bullying) by his former boss. He’s not the only one that was affected. The decades worth of psychologically significant incessant chants (rants) inflicted on us all by the former government, ‘best PM’, ‘best Treasurer ever’, ‘Peter Costello is a very – the most – intelligent person points to or signals this malady & he may actually be quite dumb now which would explain your comprehension difficulties and frustrations at trying to understand him.
Kindergarten psychology says a person as Costello will remain undiagnosed for many reasons especially by the blinding bright light reflected from the bullsh-t of being touted as he WAS.
John James raises 2 valid achievements in his list but it is never right to commercially justify unfair dismissal or unfair anything else. The Aus – US free trade thing is a one sided joke that it is really a free feeding of Piggy US for 18 years (the many industrial interests I have are all affected adversely by it) and it’s the suckhole’s fault (JH) no decadent Australian would have betrayed us that way.
I’d like to know how he sees the Nationals/agrarian socialists/land abusers especially in terms of dogmatic support for Howard’s leadership against his own. The Nats and similar rural Libs could always rely on Howard to dress up so many grants and regional boon doggles as pragmatic price of power. But not on Costello. And especially given they pretty much lost the election for pandering to the Nats (and their major donors to Nats in the mining industry) on the realistic fear of dangerous climate change and Australia being marginalised from most all other western economies. How does he feel about increasing ecological pressures on a world approaching 9 billion people, affect on Lib and Labor Party? Does he feel the generational rejection of dinosaur attitudes to sustainability on either major party?
I love this rewriting of history by the Left. Costello never moved against Howard because he didn’t have majority support in his own party, never mind the Nats, because Howard had cleaned up 4 labour leaders in 4 elections. One was so bad he never got to an election. Now, he’s the Minister for Trade ( God save us!)
In desperation , Labour picked a Howard clone who said, ” Hi I’m Kevin, I’m here to help, I’m an economic conservative, and anything he( JH) says, well, me too!”
I know you Lefties dream of a Republic with a Lesbian for President, a sanctuary for whales, writing by candlelight, shutting down the Coal industry and killing unborn children ‘cause its your ‘choice’ but I dont think its going to happen anytime soon, despite Bernards ‘latent’ efforts, while Kev’s in the chair. He’s not that sort of guy, latent or otherwise.
JJ#3, I dislike your generalizations of Kruddy. Is Kevin Rudd John Howard in disguise? The clear answer is NO and the electorate thought so too. Kyoto? Workchoices? Sorry? Middle-class welfare? Iraq? The Kruddy answers are opposite to the Howard answers so far. As the Americans are finding after 8 long years of a half-wit President, there’s nearly nothing they won’t do to get rid of him. As was the case for Australia’s worst ever Prime Minister; John Howard. BTW, Lucy has the best comment so far.
I dunno JJ. I thought that if only he could rule Labor that we’d be alright, however, he’s makin’ me nervous. Are you sure he’s not latent….?
How on earth could Costello resurrect a political career when he didn’t have one in the first place? He’s like all the Liberals that Howard coralled in his very own Party/government Workchoices model. All rights to the boss and none to the workers. As a worker, Costello clung onto the Howard wheel of fortune and his spin got stuck on ‘Treasurer’. No matter how he’d like to remember those years of use and abuse, he was done over and re-writing the history book in a fanciful memoir, is only another attempt by PC to exit with his dignity intact.
How on earth could Costello resurrect a political career when he didn’t have one in the first place? He’s like all the Liberals that Howard coralled in his very own Party/government Workchoices model. All rights to the boss and none to the workers. As a worker, Costello clung onto the Howard wheel of fortune and his spin got stuck on ‘Treasurer’. No matter how he’d like to remember those years of use and abuse, he was done over and re-writing the history book in a fanciful memoir, is only another attempt by PC to exit with his dignity intact.