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.
Leader and the Swan: how they called the budget media tune
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There’s something seriously askew in a Western democracy when the media provides the only serious scrutiny of the Government in the lead-up to the most important economic policy event for a number of years. With its retreat out onto the narrow limb of economic populism, the Coalition has abandoned its role of placing genuine policy and political pressure on the Government and gifted Rudd and Swan the mantle of economic responsibility, regardless of the nature of the measures served up tonight. That leaves the press and the economic commentariat as the only source of genuine pressure at the new Government’s most vulnerable moment. Press management via Budget leak has therefore been the Government’s key strategy for the last few days. Some in the media are on to it. Insiders considered the issue at length on Sunday, and last night Kerry O’Brien got stuck into Nicola Roxon over the leaking of the increase in Medicare surcharge levels. But others have been happy to take the leaks for what was, until late last week, a tightly-controlled Budget process. The Government’s doling out of leaks wasn’t accidental, and in fact highly revelatory of how they assess the readership of various mastheads. The biggest leak so far, the Medicare surcharge change, was handed to both Fairfax and News, to avoid charges of partiality. The rise in luxury car taxes was given to Glenn Milne for the battlers at The Sunday Telegraph, along with an interview with Swan. Fairfax’s Kerry-Anne Walsh got the climate change package for the more bourgeois types reading the Sun Herald and Sunday Age. There’s also been some management on the fly. After Access Economic’s Friday claims that the Government was rolling in cash, The Australian got detailed assurances on Saturday about the collapse in revenue faced by the Government, while the national broadsheet’s best economic analyst, George Megalogenis, got a scoop on the Government’s assault on taxation expenditures (one of the key areas of Howard profligacy, and worth the attention). None of the leaks had a press release, or supporting information, or firm costings, except the Government’s announcement of its alcopops excise increase back in April, which was sold in part as providing funding for preventative health programs. What they did have was headlines, and different messages for different constituencies, as part of a deliberate ploy to ensure that as many people as possible would see something they liked amidst a “tough as all hell” budget. Crikey and others have been lamenting the Government’s mixed Budget messages, but we were missing the point. The messages were only mixed for the commentariat itself, which analyses everything the Government says. The media diet of most people is far more limited, and they would’ve only heard what the Government targeted at them. The Coalition, meanwhile, is hopelessly distracted. They may face a long stretch before they get back into Government, but Liberal MPs have a responsibility to provide an effective opposition until they get competitive again. But the Liberal brand is being trashed with an enthusiasm that has to be seen to be believed. There is argument over the Queensland merger, there are blog wars and anti-semitism in Victoria, in NSW, the least incompetent Liberal leader in the country has managed to turn electricity privatisation, on which he was coasting effortlessly, into a serious problem for his own side, and the WA Liberals are either a joke or obscene, depending on your offence threshold. Amid it all, current and future leaders of the Federal Liberal Party have been trying to mount the most complex and counter-intuitive economic argument in years, and failing miserably. Kevin Rudd and Wayne Swan mustn’t be able to believe their luck. They’ve played the media effortlessly, Rudd’s riding a wave of popularity, and the official Opposition is utterly hopeless. At 7.30 tonight, we’ll find out whether they’ve used that opportunity to undertake serious fiscal reform, or whether they don’t want to spoil their opinion poll standing by taking some tough decisions. Popularity can be a terrible trap sometimes. |
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8 Comments
“Bourgeois types” reading the Sun-Herald? Have you read that obese lump of gossip and trivia recently? If that is a bourgeois paper the bourgeoisie ain’t at all what they used to be.
All half (!) true I reckon JJ. Swan was angsty in his big role to begin and is looking quite settled now - you left that out., tsk tsk. Also when he was looking shaky how quickly people forgot the Rudd budget in reply speech as Opposition leader with Swan at his elbow smiling benevolently having helped cook the speech. And why mid 2007 so happy? Only a week earlier Costello had headlines like “Masterclass” but 10 minutes into the reply the visages of shock, pain anger as Rudd’s speech launched his election win was plain to see even 6 months before the hammer blow. I took screen shots of all this and good blogger grist it was too, thankyou thankyou thankyou net streaming of parliament - usually boring but not that day. As for Big Mal, yeah he was good on Sunday Insiders which is sort of like his younger self. He will need more of that nostalgic verve, age and jaded weariness has taken a toll.
JJ, the public are sick to death of the bullying antics of Cossie that he disguised as saying something useful or funny.
Swan is a qualified professor of Civil Administration, he helps to run a $100 million ALP fund that was started from almost nothing in Queensland, he has 7 qualified economists on his front bench.
Howard had the lawyer Costello whose only claim to fame in his life was to do almost nothing and be a junior chair on the Dollar Sweets case.
I agree entirely with Mr. Keane’s assessment. It is a great pity that so many, pleased to see the back of Howard, triumph in the appalling state of the Liberal party. It is bad for all, Labor, Liberal and non-aligned voter alike. It’s bad for the country. Moreover the ‘slick’ media management of Rudd ala Tony Blair is truly nauseating and indeed, worrisome.
I agree entirely with Mr. Keane’s assessment. It is a great pity that so many, pleased to see the back of Howard, triumph in the appalling state of the Liberal party. It is bad for all, Labor, Liberal and non-aligned voter alike. It’s bad for the country. Moreover the ‘slick’ media management of Rudd ala Tony Blair is truly nauseating and indeed, worrisome.
I agree entirely with Mr. Keane’s assessment. It is a great pity that so many, pleased to see the back of Howard, triumph in the appalling state of the Liberal party. It is bad for all, Labor, Liberal and non-aligned voter alike. It’s bad for the country. Moreover the ‘slick’ media management of Rudd ala Tony Blair is truly nauseating and indeed, worrisome.
Media putting pressure on Labor - that’s so pathetic it does not even rate as a bad joke. Is the pressure put on after the dorothy dixers have been faxed through? Are we talking about the same brain dead lefty media that applauds almost everything from the left, the same media that ignored the decitful and superficial Rudd campaign? OZ MEDIA MOTTO: Any excuse will do to bash the right, even if we have to make it up.
I agree with Marilyn about the media - the massive egos on display on Insiders on Sunday - with them all complaining about being ‘pushed about’ by the AFP at the community cabinet was nauseating - they couldn’t stand the fact that the community could get infront of them for once to ask a question of the government. Also todays hysteria about the Medicare surcharge pushing ‘millions of people onto the public health system’ - garbage! If the journos did their job properly then they would report that huge taxpayer subsidies to inefficient health insurance companies is totally stupid - let them compete on the open market and provide good services for fair premiums then they might not lose members and the government funding can go where it should - to improve the public health system.