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.
G20 gaffe: Australian public say “whatever”
|
Well, just in case anyone was wondering whether the whole G20 phonecallgate story wasn’t an extended piece of navel-gazing by the Press Gallery, the weekend papers settled it. Laurie Oakes had a go at The Oz in his (invariably excellent) Telegraph column. Dennis Shanahan had a go at Annabel Crabb, Media Watch and Michelle Grattan in his Weekend Australian column. And the Weekend Oz editorial had a go at Oakes, Paul Bongiorno and, as if to confirm there’s no love lost within the News Ltd stable, Glenn Milne and Malcolm Farr. That was a bit harsh on Milne, who at least tried to gauge the actual consequences of the leak when he wrote about it in his Sunday Telegraph column a fortnight ago. Oh and they had a go at Crikey as well. We’re a “lame goose”. Yes, a “lame goose”. Don’t laugh. You’d be surprised how much a mixed metaphor can hurt when it’s thrown in anger. The Australian has now devoted almost as much space to defending itself as it gave to the actual coverage. It’s a full-on fight in the Press Gallery sandpit, with toys and dirt being chucked, kids being dobbed on and tears and sulks galore. Meantime, the adults get on with life. Judging by the reaction of Crikey commenters last week, there seems to be a widespread view that no one cares about the Prime Minister leaking a conversation with the US President to big-note himself, then refusing to own up when caught out. Radio segments I did last week seemed to confirm this view isn’t confined to Crikey’s readership. People, it seems, don’t want to know that their Prime Minister has an ego so large it unbalances his judgement. Or perhaps they know and don’t care. There’s a peculiar relationship between Australians and their Prime Minister, one the media can only speculate about, not influence. Australians will put up with hugely flawed individuals in the highest office, as long as they believe they’re producing the goods. Tendencies to egocentrism, a reluctance to tell the truth, or a contempt for basic standards of political decency are tolerated. Leaders have to stick around for several terms for Australians to get sick of them, as Bob Hawke and John Howard found. In the scheme of things, Kevin Rudd having some fun at the expense of President Bush is pretty minor stuff. Rudd was probably irrelevant in Bush’s consideration of whether to have a G8 or a G20 summit but he was right to push for a wider gathering. The G20 communique — a rare such document in actually justifying its length — reflects a strong push, doubtless by the Europeans, for greater regulation, including in two areas nominated by Kevin Rudd beforehand – executive salaries and regulation of ratings agencies. But it is hard to imagine that the G8 would have produced such a clear statement in favour of free trade, the need to avoid the false appeal of protectionism and a rapid and successful conclusion of the Doha Round. Were that to come to fruition, in however limited a form, the financial crisis won’t have been for nothing, and humankind will have demonstrated at least a semblance of a capacity to learn from its mistakes. It would also mean that George W. Bush will leave office with at least one significant achievement to his name amidst the wreckage he has inflicted on his own country and the rest of us. President Obama would not have been so forthright about the need to resist protectionist impulses. Worse, a successful conclusion to Doha might yet founder on a Democrat-controlled Congress. The overall tenor of the communiqué, however, seems to lean more heavily toward more regulation rather than better regulation. We’re in for a proliferation of international regulators, fora and “colleges”. The issue is dormant now, but eventually there’ll be problems over how much national regulatory sovereignty is ceded to these bodies, and the extent to which they’ll become political footballs in domestic politics. Australia’s politicians already play games over the OECD, which only exists to churn out pointless piles of paper. Nonetheless, the world’s leading economies held a talkfest and managed to produce something faintly resembling an outcome, even if it is more or less an extensive to-do list. Treasury and finance bureaucrats from Canberra to Beijing to Paris to Tokyo won’t be having much time off this Christmas. |
|
|
10 Comments
We are left with the inexorable conclusion that the Prime Minister of this country gave a journalist a false account of a telephone conversation between himself and the President of the United States, where he denigrated the President of the United States and in order to make himself look good.
It says much about Rudd’s character and judgment and none of it good.
Difficult to gauge about how much harm it has done Australia’s ability to relate with the international community at this level but by op-ed accounts of retired diplomats and journos in the know it would seem quite serious.
I think Bernard is correct. People do not care. Though they should.
The other thing to note is that the Gillard/Tanner- understudy team shine in the absence of Rudd and Swan
Could Bernard Keane get it into his head that he is right in only one thing, nobody, here or in America, cares. Nor does anyone with a brain draw the illogical conclusion from such facts as we know that Keane abusively does, that the incident tells us anything about Rudd’s character, except that he’s human. Keane’s conclusions and abuse are baseless. His conclusions simply do not follow. Leave it alone, Bernard, this stupid farce that continues day after day and gets extremely irritating. Bill Priestley
I tend to think it was a staffer just as certain machine guys were ramping the crowd against Nelson on Sorry Day speech.
So Rudd would have to either sack ‘em or wear it. I think he is right to wear it for at least two reasons.
1. It engenders even more loyalty in the crew when you take the knocks for someone who has demonstrably stuffed up. Staff really love that. Here’s an example: Josh Lyman attacks a Christian conservative annoys millions of voters and gets a reprieve: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pilot_(The_West_Wing)
2. Also people don’t realise Howard’s attack on Obama was outrageous. I think it was even actionable but in the culture of politics it was dealt with politically by Obama’s stinging reply about ginned up passengers playing armchair general while the African American soldiers were taking the hit, the anglo Americans too. And the Iraqis. We benefit from a cut through that breaks with Howard’s smear.
So all in all it serves the purpose of the nation to let it travel out there.
Lastly LO’s piece last weekend was a balancer for playing soft on Swan and the ALP weekend before. Rein launching his book to me was unwise. Now it’s back to tors with that rough headline on Rudd.
Yawn!!!!!!!!!!!!
I personally think that the President of the United States of American not knowing what a G20 is something that Kevin Rudd is obliged to tell the entire world about. And you are right I don’t give two figs that Mr Rudd or someone else leaked the story. I don’t even think that it matters that there was a leak. To command respect and loyalty you need to earn it and I don’t see anything that the Bush has done for Australia or our Prime Minister to owe him the respect and or loyalty of keeping his stupidity hushed up. It is not like it is a suprise.
George Bush would have wanted a Strine interpretor with him when he spoke to Kevin Rudd and who would be more suitable than his Strine assistant, what’s-his-face, that sprog of Howard’s. Got onto the payroll way back for services rendered by the Deputy Sheriff.
If there was a leak perhaps it came from the other end of the pipeline.
Go for it, Bernard. Ignore the gobsmackingly shallow professions of boredom by those who think that leaking a private conversation between two world leaders is perfectly OK, simply because the contents of the leak reinforce their ideological prejudices.
JamesK: (This isn’t specifically aimed at you, or the old righty Bernard) If people want to have a shot at Kevin Rudd they should do so. However, do so fair and square without the necessity of invoking the ‘Now you’ll think I’m awful’ clause. It seems the greatest crime is always. “What will the world think of us?” So sorry, but after a fair amount of travel, to a very wide selection of countries, I can honestly say that the world has many more things to do than think about the land of Oz. Doubtless we may get the occasional comment on the diplomatic/foreign affairs circuit. But as conversation amongst the billions of the world’s people Rudd’s pretentiousness wouldn’t rate a murmer.
I know I’d rather have the arrogance of Kevin Rudd, leading a fairly cohesive government, than I would have the arrogance, hubris and madness of Malcolm Turnbull leading a party who still have failed to realize they are no longer the party in power. They actually blo*dy think theirs is the divine right to rule.
Every time my eyes glaze over whilst listening to our Prime Minister, or our Treasurer, the one and only Wayne Swan; I force myself to think of Turnbull ripping off his glasses hauling out his spectral scatter-gun to accuse the Rudd Government of everything up to serial raping the Rape crops, humping the Hospitals to trivializing the Treasury. If this mind-numbingly boring performance wasn’t enough to torture me, the camera pans across the BACKBENCH to reveal the superficial little whatshername? Bishop. Then it covers (?) Joe Hockey-all of him. His bulk is as huge as his intelligence is small. Then the little figure scrabbling for attention, the guy with the jug-ears. Abbott. Finally I’m forced to think of Peter Costello, the greatest waste of space-but paid for by us-in living memory. With an alternative government like this, Kevin Rudd can do almost anything he wants with impunity.
‘People, it seems, don’t want to know that their Prime Minister has an ego so large it unbalances his judgement.’ References to Rudd’s ego are now becoming cliche. Bernard you are alone in finding ego to be a dirty word in politics. Its a sine qua non of any successful pollie and a fairly basic part of the structure of the psyche according to Freud. Strongly suggest you get over it.
Bernard is teetering on the precipice. The big hole yawning before him is a pit of contempt for Australian voters. Bernard, we are not stupid, bored by it all or blinded by our love for Kevin into ignoring the matters of great principle at the heart of this manufactured debate. We just have a frikkin’ sense of proportion (unlike most “media commentators”). Lots of important, interesting things going on these days, Bernard. Let’s focus on them, eh? Actually, why don’t we trim down the vast numbers of so-called journalists now spruiking their waffly, uninteresting opinions and get in some people actually willing to do some investigative legwork instead?