Australia’s refugee problem has attracted global attention. This from the New York Times.
Stephen Mayne: How we killed the Democrats
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Former Democrats Senator John Cherry and ex staffer Vivienne Wynter were on the money with this obituary about the Democrats in Crikey shortly before the last Federal election. The comments section at the bottom of their piece included a few terse jibes about Cherry’s part in the “gang of four” rolling Natasha Stott Despoja back in 2002. The demise of the Democrats remains Crikey’s biggest contribution to Australian politics and it is worth reflecting on how it happened. Christian Kerr and Natasha were old Adelaide buddies who spent part of the 1996 federal campaign partying in Melbourne, but then drifted apart. Christian developed a view that Natasha was more interested in social climbing and mass media exposure than serious reform, a point that Meg Lees raised in her AM interview last Thursday when she attributed the party’s demise to “people who were in politics for things other than the political outcome.” Christian’s early Hillary Bray columns in Crikey ripped into Natasha, labelling her “the impossible princess”, “Ah Satan” (Natasha backwards) and then, after legal noises over that one, “Britney”. This in turn attracted the disaffected Meg Lees supporters like moths to a light and we had this self-perpetuating torrent of largely accurate but usually bilious anti-Natasha material flowing into Crikey. This all stayed below the radar until the spectacular developments in mid-2002. Australianpolitics.com has a good summary of what happened with Meg Lees getting summonsed to the national executive meeting on the weekend of June 22-23, 2002, to explain some comments she made about Telstra and whether she would support Natasha as leader. Lees didn’t turn up and instead sent her explosive letter which was first published on Crikey on June 24. Cheryl Kernot is getting blamed by some for killing the Democrats but it should be remembered that her affair with Gareth Evans became public two weeks later on July 3. This should have been a windfall for the Democrats but the infighting was so intense that by August 21, 2002, she was on her feet in the Senate resigning. Natasha would have best served her party by actually resigning from Parliament at that point. Lees also told AM last week that the Democrats were finished once the party blocked Aden Ridgeway from replacing Natasha as leader, instead first installing the lamentable Brian Greig and then later the utterly colourless Natasha loyalist Andrew Bartlett, whose drunken Senate performance in December 2003 was the final nail in the coffin for the party. It is not too big a stretch to imagine Senator Ridgeway as Democrats leader playing a prominent role in Kevin Rudd’s apology. Instead, he lost his seat in 2004. I reckon the Democrats would still be represented today if the 26-year-old Natasha hadn’t duchessed her former boss, Senator John Coulter, to fill the casual vacancy created by his departure in 1995. Unfortunately, it was all about Natasha, who used her maiden speech to declare herself the youngest ever Senator and her farewell speech to trumpet herself as the longest-serving Democrat senator. Of course, Meg Lees spent 15 years in the Senate, but the last two were with the Progressive Alliance. |
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18 Comments
Don’t get to carried away. It was the GST that lost their electorial appeal, plain and simple. The Libs seem to have finally accepted their loss factor was WorkChoises.
yes a pretty delusional article. Let’s take a step back and look at the Dems strategy and there we can see why they failed. It was ALL about the senate. All about the media coverage that would take them to victory. And it was working for a while there. The turning point was obviously the unpopular GST but the weakness of the party against the might of the pollies and their staff was the real issue. The strategy - get senators elected missed the whole grass roots building strategy the Greens pursued. Below the senators it was pretty empty. Just look at their representation in local communites on shire and municipal councils. One or two councillors if they were lucky. The Greens? Scores of the buggers all over the place. So the balance in the Dems was all top heavy and when the house of cards began to come unstuck the party didnt have the capacity to hold it together. It was all about the leadership. I mean they could hardly even get registered in NSW and they only needed 750 members!
For mine its a lesson about organisation and strategy not about Natasha. The infighting was just a symptom of a strategy that had to fail sooner or later. With no base and no active membership, no real presence in the community - doomed to failure.
Sorry Stephen, it was the GST that did them in and it was Meg Lees who was being Duchessed - by John Howard! Or did you forget that bit.
Natasha had a lot going for her and she still has my respect - far more than virtually any of the others.
I was a member of the Democrats until the leadership challenge between Meg and Nat. I went to the meeting in Perth to hear a balanced, intelligent presentation from Meg countered by an irrational, slovenly, emotional piece of attempted button-pushing by Nat. From the outcome of that meeting, I knew I would be leaving the Party.
I thought Meg Lees had done as good a job as possible about the GST. The Howard Government had the power to do whatever it damned well pleased and at least Meg forced it to remove basic foodstuffs from the GST. I think she forced a small concession in a situation where John W. didn’t have to concede at all.
The Democrats have had so many chances, have attracted so many talented members. So sad that a party created to keep the bastard honest should have been brough down by a political Barbie-doll.
Aah the irony of Stephen claiming this scalp. By the late 90’s, the Dems were clearly the only small-l liberal political party in Australia, the Libs were well on their way to drowning all their wets. If Stephen never voted Democrat, it was only because he’d retained faith in the Libs to show some of their genuinely liberal traditions (and, lets face it, it was always hard not to think of them as the fairies at the bottom of the garden as Keating joked). Certainly, Stephen’s campaign against Costello in Higgins had more than a touch of Dem about it. I’ll miss them. The Greens (and I confess I was actually a Greens member for about three months during a horribly confused period in my life) are just too creepy.
Oh dear yet another example of why women don’t bother trying to get into politics. I have never read such a load of complete rubbish in my life - what’s the matter Stephen, wouldn’t Natasha bat her eyelashes at you? So Natasha was in politics for ‘things other than the political outcome’ - give me a f*****g break! So Hawke, Keating, Howard, Downer etc etc were all in it for the ‘political outcome’ were they - with never a thought for their own ‘social climbing’. Pathetic! Bob Hawke admits to affairs and his ratings go up, Cheryl Kernot has an affair with Gareth Evans (notice it wasn’t Gareth Evans has an affair with Cheryl Kernot) and she’s a slut who has to go. The reason the Democrats declined was that the men took over from more effective women. Aden Ridgeway was useless. This article made me sick - shame on you and Crikey.
I’m no major fan of the Tash but Meg Lees blew it for me and lots of others who had sympathies with (and occasional votes for) the Dems. Her GST deal then constant carping and whingeing did nothing to endear her or the democrats to many voters. Whatever NSD did or didn’t do behind the scenes should have stayed behind the scenes. Lees’ decision to stay on with the Progressive Alliance Party (or PAP) was a blatant contravention of Democrat policy to get out of Parliament when you’re out of the party.
Give Lees the blame she deserves- and not just for the GST. May she stew in her own bitterness.
I m with Jean (although I would like to see Aden Ridgeway back now) . And Stephen shame shame
Natasha was young and intelligent and beautiful. And that made her your victim. She didn’t bat her eyelashes at Christian perhaps..so when he embarked on a crucifixion campaign he was encouraged?? You didnt think fairgo at any stage? No no fair go required for women. To the point of demonizing her YES demonizing, just because she was ambitious ???. Stephen what were you thinking when you wrote this? I am so ashamed. So disappointed. I too feel sickened by it.
More opinions than facts.
Yes, thoroughly delusional. The Democrats withered on the vine because of Lees’ GST manouevres, and because of the rise of the Greens in almost equal parts. Effectively two parties - a centre-right genuinely liberal one a la Andrew Murray, and a pseudo-Green party. Those who voted for the latter went to the Greens, those for the former went back to Labor, by and large. Still, if Christian had assisted the Greens in taking the third party slot, how sweet the irony would be.
Stephen, name me one politician who isn’t interested in social ladder climbing and gratuitous self promotion, and I’ll buy a Collingwood membership. Bob Brown? (Wait, sorry I’m laughing too much), Nick Xenephon, (sorry I’ve set myself off again), Steve Fielding, (he is a joke in an of himself). Stephen, you’re good for a laugh. And what a laugh. Let me know when you’re ready to re-enter the real world.
“More opinion than facts” just about sums up the Right at the best of times.
Get real Stephen. Crikey and Christian Kerr were a blip on the media radar in the days when the Democrats did themselves in. From suburban armchairs working Australian families saw Meg sell us out to an even then, hated and mistrusted Howard. En masse or online, Crikey didn’t really influence social or political opinion until recently. The Democrats demolished themselves. Kernot’s defection, the animosity between Lees and Nat Stot Des, the milk-sop Ridgeway and dopey Bartlett each contributed to a broadbased picture of inadequacy. I don’t think Crikey had much to do with the Democrats rise or fall at all.
Not sure who is more hilariously delusional in believing their own unjustified sense of importance: S Mayne or M Lees. Crikey had nothing to do with the final disillusion and exodus of traditional Dem voters. That dishonour belongs to Meg Lees when she got into John Howard’s GST bed. I can see her still, doing the old 5 minute handshake with her new best mate for the cameras and Howard grinning like the cat that got the silliest mouse. That was the beginning of the end for the Democrats. Incidentally, at the time I wrote a personal letter to each of the Dems senators setting out why what they were looking like doing (GST) was something Howard had promised not to do (silly me). The only reply was from guess who: the derided Natasha. None of the others bothered, not even St Aden of Ridgway.
“More opinion than facts” just about sums up the Left at the best of times.
What a pity she didn’t become leader in 97.
Don’t get to carried away. It was the GST that lost their electorial appeal, plain and simple. The Libs seem to have finally accepted their loss factor was WorkChoises.
What was that about imitation being a form of ..?