Time to take back politics
|
So, how have you enjoyed the show? Not a lot, judging by the level of profound disengagement of voters toward this election, and the fact that on election eve the polls are locked up tight, as if we can’t work which side we dislike less. But too bad, we’re paying for it anyway. Attendance is compulsory — fortunately for the major parties, because otherwise we’d be looking at an historically low turnout. And no matter how much you dislike it, the major parties end up with your money, courtesy of public political funding, and your vote, courtesy of compulsory preferential voting. Remember the last bloke who tried to encourage voters to evade preferencing was put in gaol. That’s how seriously Labor and the Coalition take this elaborate, publicly-funded pantomime. There’s no escape. The media’s been doing its bit to keep the show going, but it, better than the party apparatchiks and political tragics, can see the disengagement, the lack of interest, the plain tedium, in the eyes of the audience. So, like any performers, they’ve instinctively hammed it up. The great Press Gallery tradition of thinking you’re a player, not just an observer, is in rude health, and luckily we now have social media to see the egos at play. “Tweet tweet tweet,” as Julia Gillard said yesterday, the sort of cold, dead-on line that she should have been using far more often over the last five weeks. Even the actual voters with a walk-on role have disappointed. Not since George Romero subtly set a zombie film in a shopping mall has brain-dead consumerism got such an elaborate outing as we saw in News Ltd’s “community forum” events. They were plugged by the conservatariat as “real” political events (in opposition to debates, interviews, and other self-pleasurings of the chattering classes), but they only served as a pointed highlight of how both electoral tactics and, one suspects, simple intellectual torpor, meant both parties ignored 80% of Australians in favour of voters in outer western Sydney and regional Queensland. And those lucky recipients of the slavish attention of the major parties, at least as far as their would-be benefactors are concerned, are obsessed with not letting anyone into Australia and how much money they can get from the Government because they have difficulty funding their lifestyle choices. Thus the election was summarized by small businessman Peter, in his question to Ms Gillard on Wednesday, when he demanded to know
The non-sequitur is only comprehensible as the thinking of someone who has faintly received the Coalition’s message of debt ’n deficits, and yet can only process politics through a prism of self-interest, rather than the national interest, however poorly understood. I laboured the performance metaphor because, well, 1. I labour metaphors all the time but 2. because it’s an apt description of what our politics was reduced to when we outsourced it. One of the duties of our new class of government professionals is to act like political leaders are supposed to behave, to “lead”, to “reform”, to do what politicians traditionally do. That’s why Labor, which is further along the path of professionalization than the Liberals, seems full of people who know what they’re supposed to do – manage the media, sell policies, attack their opponents – but not quite why they are doing it and how to do it as if it matters. For these people, most of them too young to remember, and certainly too young to have worked in, a real Labor government, the practice of political tactics is akin to an elaborate but poorly-understood ritual. They know what incantations to utter (taken from that blood-soaked grimoire, Whatever It Takes) and what gestures to makes, but not their purpose or rationale. That, I suspect, accounts for much of why Labor now finds itself about to be tossed out of power by even as clumsy and unfit an opposition as this one. Tony Abbott and the Liberals retain enough basic grasp of politics to outwit a party increasingly dominated by apparatchiks, nurtured within the party since their teenage years, who dispatched the only figure with experience of leading a successful election campaign, Kevin Rudd, and have been driving the campaign of Julia Gillard, once upon a time a formidable, dominating political presence, with the finesse of someone driving a sports car into a wall at high speed. Like Labor, however, an Abbott Government will be playing at governing, unwilling and intellectually unable to tackle the key issues facing Australia, which have been present only in parodic form in the campaign: housing supply, the infrastructure deficit, a two-speed economy and the need to commence decarbonising the Australian economy. These issues aren’t amenable to politics 2010-style, but, alas for us, won’t wait for a new generation of more capable politicians to emerge. Climate change globally is tracking worst-case scenarios, and yet we’re becoming more dependent on carbon, not less. Housing supply will continue to fall below even our current declining levels of population growth, further driving housing affordability down. A return to resources boom conditions will again drive inflation and interest rates up for the rest of us. Millions of Australians will endure worsening congestion as an integral part of their working lives. That’ll all happen regardless of the utterances of politicians, embedding not just inefficiency into the economy – hey, we can all put up with some inefficiency – but making the lives of Australians materially worse. Where to from here? While we’re switched off en masse from engagement in public life, content to contract out government to professionals who offer the political equivalent of all care and no responsibility, it’s hard to see how it will change. I received several emails from people after I raved at length about the outsourcing of politics a fortnight ago, saying they’d been prompted to join a political party. That was most heartening. Reluctantly, one must conclude that given the enormous advantage the current electoral funding system hands established parties, it is probably only by using the established structure that the newly-engaged can best make a difference. The Greens, for example, have needed 30 years of grassroots development to be on the cusp of a balance of power role that will mean they can play a serious legislative and oversight role. You can go out and start your own movement, but factor in a similar timeframe for achieving anything. Fortunately the role of the media is more within our control. The media has been scrutinized like never before in this campaign, and journalists haven’t liked it. But the performance of the media – and there are of course a number of exceptions across all outlets, including News Ltd’s – has only served to confirm the emerging and unpleasant reality that the mainstream media, including the ABC, is increasingly an impediment to quality political debate and the cause of good government. And it’s because of unthinking partisanship, unreflective he-said-she-said reporting, and lack of support and resourcing for journalists who want to focus on issues of substance over a lower-cost emphasis on ephemera. And that’s the good news; the bad news is newspapers continue to lose readers hand over fist, meaning less support for good journalists – of which there are plenty – and less editorial interest in public policy. The only positive in all that is that, by the time the “quality media” dies, we’ll have gotten used to its absence anyway because we’ve seen less and less of it. But I’d suggest that Gallery journalists lifted their game quite a bit in response to the bucketing they copped online. While the second half of the campaign had fewer of the distractions that were a feature of the first half, there was a greater emphasis on policy in the questioning of the leaders. If nothing else, that suggests that online scrutiny and criticism from ‘armchair critics’ has results. The only problem is that scrutiny needs to be maintained and applied right through the political cycle, not just in the frenzy of an election campaign, if there’s to be a reversal of the dumbing-down of policy debate that has been going on since, in my view, the 1980s. The best result tomorrow would be a repudiation of the apparatchiks on both sides, but particularly within Labor. A hung Parliament is ostensibly a recipe for instability and uncertainty — one awaits the AFR piece on how a hung Parliament is a “sovereign risk” — and Tony Windsor, Rob Oakeshott and Bob Katter are not exactly my idea of the public policy magi. But anything that puts the frighteners on professional politicians, and yanks politics back closer to the community that has so unwisely subcontracted its operation, is for the betterment of Australia at this point. |
|
|
|
58 Comments
Below is a copy of an email I sent off this morning that echoes some of what you’re saying Bernard.
To Julia Gillard, the caucus and the back room boys,
I will vote Labor tomorrow and I voted Labor in 2007 after not voting Labor during the Beazley years. Prior to that I always voted Labor. I have never voted for Howard or the Liberals.
Labor failed to capture my vote, the vote of a rusted on former Labor Party member, for nearly a decade over one simple issue. The inhumane policies of the Labor Party in relation to asylum seekers coming to Australia by boat and the conflation and politicising of the issue in a race to the gutter with the Liberals.
I have written many times to Labor leaders about this and they have consistently ignored me and the Australian people and underestimated the power of the issue as a critical part of brand “Labor”. It will lose them this election, it now appears.
By joining the anti-boat people position, in presenting “The Indian Ocean Solution” as an alternative to Abbott’s (Ruddock’s) “Pacific Solution”, Julia Gillard threw in her ace. She handed over the agenda to the xenophobes, the haters, the racists and the Sydney shock jocks (and the NSW Right). She became the mistress of the dog-whistle. “A big Australia” clearly meant an Australia with too many Muslims, or too many refugees or too many boat people or too many people who are not like us.
She will pay dearly for that and so will the country.
Those many hundreds of thousands, many of them former Liberal supporters, who voted for Kevin Rudd to end the “Pacific Solution” were suddenly stabbed in the back. Ruddock resurfaced immediately as a Liberal player and Labor could do nothing to expose him and his past, because they were now either on his team or else they were traitors opening our borders to who-knows-what. All for a couple of Western Sydney seats and to appease the Arbibs of this world.
Such a terrible betrayal meant Julia Gillard came to the election with her hands soiled and tied behind her back, the easy target of the media and powerless to combat them.
Chris Evans, one of the few moderate and measured voices on asylum seeker and refugee issues, disappeared from sight. The distinction between Howard’s ruthless and regimented detention camps and Labor’s more humane detention treatment could not be mentioned for fear of the accusation of being “soft”. And Tony Burke was back, but without the commitment of the pre 2007 days. Boat people had been thrown overboard in a futile attempt to match the Abbott position.
It would have been more principled and courageous to make a stand and expose it as a fraud from the start. Julian Burnside offered his strong support as would have thousands of others who are well equipped with mountains of evidence to attack the failed Howard policies. But no. In one fell swoop the entire discourse suddenly turned back ten years. Soft=treacherous. Caring=bleeding heart. Tough=protecting our borders. Refugees =illegals or queue jumpers. The language of the past again current and Labor suddenly again relinquishing one of its few bases for support.
When Kevin Rudd said “I will not shift to the right on asylum seekers” it was a warning to his party. They ignored it and now they’re about to be defeated for it AND THEY DESERVE TO BE.
Labor only regained power in 2007 after a massive campaign , the “Your Rights At Work” campaign, over months in which Greg Combet (Who? He’s now a forgotten shadow, outgunned by NSW union leaders) took a leading role. And from there, relegated to the shadows, he landed the job of cleaning up the insulation mess!
What is it that the NSW union leaders have then that is so good? Or are they simply powerful? Why is their state in disarrary? And who wants to see this disarray spread Australia wide under their sway? Rudd at least offered some hope of dislocation from these power brokers. Now all thrown out. The status quo restored, but for what? To hand power back to the Coaliton by seeking to match its policy positions?
If Labor wants to ever regain power in Canberra (and in fact a growing number of states) it will have to reignite the light on the hill. It will have to stop standing for nothing and again stand for humanity, equality and decency. As long as it merely shadows the polls and the Opposition, there is little reason to choose Labor over the Coalition, beyond the past allegiances and nostalgia that its supporters may grimly cling to. These hold no sway on the uncommmitted. They’re looking to be convinced why their votes should be handed over. If there is nothing to convince them, they’ll hand them to others.
Had Labor made a strong stand in the name of humanity, decency and the nation’s international commitments, had it presented a legitimate case for being “soft” meaning “humane” in its treatment of asylum seekers arriving by boat, had it got the truth out, such as that they make up only 1% of all asylum seekers, they at least would have had something to offer. The “Work Choices” scare, true or not, isn’t going to wash again. But the votes going to the Greens are either boat people supporters or those wanting climate change action or both. Both reflect the fundamental failures of current Labor policy.
Labor will be out of office until it can stand up with honour and decency as a party for the underdog, the oppressed, the persecuted, the vilified and demonised. Whether it be the disabled, the mentally ill, boat people, the homeless, the disenfranchised, Labor must again stand strong and proud for them. There was a time when unions represented these interests. But not any more. And Australia knows it.
You will get my vote this time and it will make no difference whatsoever to the outcome. But it may be the last time unless Labor gets back to its roots and away from the self-interested bunch of career politicians fixated on polls. I will vote for a party that has the guts to stand up for change, to restore basic humane values and to end the nation’s neurotic fear of boat people, to scour away this tired stain of racism and fear that has plagued this nation almost since the first boat arrived in the first invasion from the north from Great Britain. Make no mistake, the stain will spread to darken and shame this nation yet again with the reopening of Nauru and it will be happening with Labor’s tacit support. Shameful and utterly appalling.
Labor threw out Rudd. Very clever, but it simply didn’t notice that it also threw out some of the reasons uncommitted or wavering voters chose him. And you handed power back to the very shock-jocks and union leaders who are repugnant to those who would have supported you.
Try to consider some of this in your post mortem examinations.
Could not agree more, Bernard.
I am hoping, hoping HOPING for a hung parliament such as you describe. How else will those *!@%* people, those Torquemada twins, the likes of Abbot and Abetz, or the fair Julia’s cabal of lovelies, get the message that they need to acquire some skills in order to work for the nation’s good, not their own “I really want this job” patheticness.
Glad to hear the press gallery woke up to their responsibilities. They must take their share of responsibility for this abysmal state of affairs we find ourselves in.
Agreed Bernard
I wrote to my first term local labour member as soon as Faulkner was caught like a rabbit in a spotlight regarding the June 24 putsch, letting her know that disunity was death - but her mentor Don Farrell and his acolyte Kate Ellis knew better.
As a rusted on Labor Voter of 33 years now spalled off by the bomb the machine placed under Rudd’s leadership, I will be voting to ensure my preferences flow to Labor last - so as to teach the machine one small lesson.
Best summary of the election I’ve read so far! What a complete mess this election has been. God help us if we have to send Abbott to the next climate change conference in South Africa. What the hell would he say? “An extra 6 degrees; bring it on! You should see me in speedos!”. Perhaps - “I haven’t noticed it getting any warmer. Yesterday was actually quite ccol. My wife told me to put on a jumper. Yes - I listen to women now”
Hear, Hear, Bernard…agree with you this time. The coverage by journalists has been appalling and all about framing their opinion pieces from their biased political point of view rather than fair and balanced reporting….even Age journo’s have been very guilty of this. They have also failed to scrutinise all party’s policies with a fine tooth comb. They say the election has been a soap opera…if it has -its been perpetuated by soap opera journalism…vacuous, churlish, self- opinionated articles that have only fed the ignorant and politically uneducated mindset. Poor poor journalism.
As far as apparatchiks go - I have been saying for the last few years the advisers Labor in particular have too much power….26 year olds with no life skills and no common sense (but a Uni degree) telling MP’s what they can and cant do and what they can and cant say and berating them if they dont do as they are told. I cant believe intelligent MP’s both State and Federal have allowed these advisers to have so much power and allowed them the ‘control’. Also - the problem with mainstream party’s…both Labor and liberal is if an MP stands up for the people against party policy the Party hates you - if the MP stands up for party policy against the people the people hate you - they cant win. Labor also needs to get rid of the NSW right wing and bring the party back to its grass roots…back to Chifleys Light on the Hill…(Chifley must be turning in his grave - I know my father is!) they need to start listening to the people…as a member of an electorate they are all - regardless of party - the representative of up 40000 people…but so many become mute in response to the electorates concerns and also allow themselves to be seduced by the power…that said I hope to God Julia wins tomorrow….
Agree also.
But I don’t believe this campaign as been any more as insincere and plastic as have others in the last 15/20 years. What has changed is us!
We are not conned anymore. Not by politicians, not by pathetic ‘journalism’/news reporting.
If indeed voting were not compulsory-a drover’s dog might just wander by a booth-and take a pee!
The irony of Latham’s reporting was his own hypocrisy;-his message was lost in that. But he showed electioneering/politicking up for what it is, and that came as no surprise to anyone.
Dammit! the falsity is so glaring that we have radio comps for the best cliché/political cartoons in their droves/..Yes We Canberra.
This is all we can do to protest this asinine crap.
A hung Parliament will suit me too. NEVER allowing either of these two rrrrrswipe Parties a solid majority is almost a bounden duty! , and the only shot at getting something of an alternative to the Tweedle Syndrome.
The shame of it all is that Arbib, Farrell and Feeney are not up for re-election this year.
And that Shorten has one of the safest seats.
They should all be kicked because Rudd would have won an election on a canter because he was always the one in the room with brains and ideas.
After a year of bagging out this man based on nothing at all they brought him down.
Well if we have the moron Abbott and his bunch of relics in tow for the next 3 years then god help us.
And the morons have been as bad as each other.
Outsourcing our “on-shore” protection system and not one fucking journo has asked if it is legal.
A hung parliament is but a short term solution to this horrid electoral impasse.
We need to have multi member electorates of say 5 or 6 current electorates so that local issues are still represented but the whole nation isn’t held hostage to the ridiculous largesse handed over to outer suburbs.
MMP like the Kiwi’s do I say!
I’ve never been convinced that hung parliaments are a bad thing for the electorate. The damage from governments that have a majority in Senate is a matter of record and not just WorkChoices. I think the best result we could have from this appalling election campaign is a truly hung parliament but our electoral system acts against small parties and independents. Hung parliaments are very inconvenient for the politicians who are required to negotiate and make compromises which may not suit them. Apart from the UK, USA and Australia, most liberal, western democracies operate entirely within the bounds of parliaments where all results are negotiated. Probably messy but certainly more democratic.
During the whole of this election campaign it has become obvious that reporters are simply embedded with one or other of the major party campaigns. Coverage of the campaign resembles press coverage of the Iraq invasion and the following war. As someone who can recall Vietnam War coverage, I have often wondered if Iraq really happened. There is a similar “special effects” aura around political reporting here, particularly evident during this campaign.
All campaigning is so stage managed that it’s a waste of public resources. Campaign schedules should be published in the newspapers so interested voters can attend and wave placards or complain directly to these highly protected species that call themselves our politicians.
Our polity is reduced to politicians reacting to press coverage and “managing” their PR. I don’t vote for the media to run the country. I vote for my local representative and I expect that representative to represent the interests of all their constituents not a party media machine.
Maybe the press gallery should be unglued from the hothouse seclusion zone of Parliament House. That seclusion only operates to separate the electorate from their representatives. Works well doesn’t it? How many Australians have ever met their MP I wonder.
Labor might like to mourn the loss of their progressive and young voters and meditate on where we went and why. The Liberals could think about how much closer they can bear right before Ghengis Khan is on their left. Both major parties have an opportunity to remove the thugs and apparatchiks from their ranks but both have chosen instead to alienate those that think in favour of those that don’t.
denise allen basically said it all.
I am completely appalled at the media tripe that has been dished up to us for the past few weeks.
The media drove the get Rudd campaign and anyone who is foolish enough to vote on the strength of Rudd’s demise at the hands of Labor is a fool.
He won’t thank you and why would he ?. Deliver him into Opposition ?-now there is a clever idea. Make his government the first one-term government and really rub it in !
But the media must be punished for their part in all this and the only way is to abandon them and their gutless journos.
Some of the longest serving or most influential Prime Ministers in this country have had personalities as exciting as a dish cloth including John Curtain and R.G Menzies.
Newspapers have sunk to the level of New Idea and New Weekly. Punish them-not politicians. Broadcast media gave up the game long ago.
And Labor will win..why wouldn’t they ?
“Politicians don’t’ create. And most of them have never spent a productive day of their life in private enterprise trying to create value. They wouldn’t understand the relentless spirit that drives people to improve their lives or go into business to accomplish their personal ambition and passion in life.”
Well said Bernard. You have put into words many of the things that I have been mulling over about this election campaign. But our politics reflects our society - “What’s in it for me?” is not a question just asked of politicians. At a time when political parties have record low membership, voters revert to what’s in it for me, because they have no party, or community, or social perspective.
Many decry the lack of the “vision thing” in politics. Where is the “vision thing” in our society? Not many people, it seems, subscribe to an ideology these days, much less a political ideology. So the parties hang on to the threads of what was once their charter, and voters desperate to believe that the parties still subscribe to that charter, vote for that party. The Liberal Party is no longer a liberal party. It is a party that supports globalisation, economic rationalism, deregulation of industrial relations and the maximisation of profit for big business. Sometimes they remember there is such a thing as small business. The Labor Party has the socialisation of industry in its objectives but does nothing to move towards that objective. And the Greens, who are becoming more like the major parties as they mature as a party, proud though they are of their independence, still have done a deal with Labor for preferences. It seems that this is what is being sold to us as politics is in this country. If citizens/voters don’t like what politics has become, then we have to change it!
I doubt a ‘hung’ parliament would benefit anyone. What would benefit would be for The Greens to get overwhelming support in the Senate.
If the unthinkable happens and Abbott wins, you can be sure he will go down in a faster heap than the Rudd/Gillard government and not only be another one-termer but a spectacular failure.
Labor has succeeded but stumbled like any government always will unless they can accurately predict the future.
An inability to not deliver the message as in Rudd and the mining tax is the media’s failure-not the government’s
Actually there has been one stand-out reporter.
Ross Gittins has always examined in detail financial aspects of policies but the tragedy is he now seems bizarrely unique because he does.
One lesson we should all learn is that Howard’s divisive use of issues like refugees has been evil. We still live with it.
One of your best Bernard.
If anything good can be said to have occurred in this shemozzle it’s that for the first time no stakeholders have escaped scrutiny.
A very fine article Bernard.
I wondered why you never seem to appear on The Insiders, or Q & A or Murdoch’s Sky News. The quality of this analysis is one possible answer.
I see Julia has gone for the sympathy vote now, the barrel must surely be empty
Thank you Bernard.
We all know what you have said here is the guts of what has been going on.
It seems no matter what happens tomorrow, Australia lurches steadily towards being a lesser country. We are seeing Howard’s legacy, myopic self-interested self obsessed polity.
The scariest thing about that, is that is usually the sort of conditions that lead to the kinds of political changes no-one wants to see in this country
Another ABC Journalist busted for being boased to Labor
“Perth’s ABC morning radio presenter Geoff Hutchison has been reprimanded by the national broadcaster for his comments on Twitter attacking Opposition Leader Tony Abbott.
While Mr Abbott appeared on the ABC’s Q and A program on Monday night, Hutchison used his Twitter account @hutchabc to unleash several tweets criticising the Liberal leader.
Hutchison made fun of Mr Abbott on Twitter, saying: “I have gay Muslim friends says Tony. But I don’t really like them.”
He also wrote that Mr Abbott had said homosexuals were “morally dubious, but big tobacco is all right by me”.
The ABC ordered Hutchison to delete his Twitter account, saying it breached the broadcaster’s social media policy which states employees “should not mix professional and personal in ways likely to bring the ABC into disrepute”.
“Geoff has been reminded of his obligations under the ABC’s social media guidelines and that any future use of Twitter should be in accordance with ABC policy,” an ABC spokesman said.
“Geoff’s comments, posted on a personal Twitter account, do not meet ABC social media guidelines and do not represent the views of the ABC.”
The policy also stipulates that employees should not imply ABC endorsement of their personal views, which Hutchison had breached by including ABC in his Twitter username.
The national broadcaster states in its policy it only accepts responsibility for offensive tweets if they come from an official ABC account and not from a personal account.
During a series of tweets on Monday night, Hutchison also made the tongue-in-cheek comment: “Tony, why are you frightened of intercourse with Julia? Is it because we will be watching and measuring?”
Hutchison’s tweets became quite popular among followers with one commenting: “Geoff doesn’t tweet often, but when he does, it is worth waiting for”.
Another wrote: “I am happy to jump on the @hutchabc bandwagon. In general ABC people on twitter are good value.”
Agree with your article Bernard apart from the Gallery Jurnos. Even if they did change their ways for a short time after giving Abbott an armchair ride from the outset, this morning they were like hungry wolves, snapping and snarling at Ms Gillard, with one ABC senior jounalist completely overstepping the line and calling the PM a liar. Well he may think so, well may he also remember standards of good manners, decency and respect. I was appalled at his comment and he owes the PM a public apology in similar fashion to his disgraceful outburst.
It has been said previously the 4th estate seem to be of the opinion they are more entertainers than journalists, or a combination of both.
If they were judged on their performances throughout most of the last 5 weeks, the large majority would qualify as neither.
What has been evident is the alarming influence the Murdoch gutter standards are having on sections of the media here.
All sections of news will be the better for his permanent departure, the sooner the better.
Both major party’s demand MP’s be “team players”…well if you are a “team player” it means mindlessly following the decisions that are made by a few…and being made to publicly support many decisions that you dont agree with - for the sake of “party unity” - on one hand I get the “party unity”…on the other I dont get people not having the courage of their convictions….I loathe the Liberal Party but at least they let their members cross the floor according to conscience and if they believe in something…mind you…they will never get a Ministry if the do (Petro Georgio et al proved that) but they dont get excommunicated!
And to all that…I have no idea what the answer is…
I haven’t read the mainstream media in Australia for about 18 months: and sparingly before that. Crikey is my news source (occassionally Yahoo or MSN, if I happen to catch a headline that I don’t think will disappoint me (yet to not have disappointment.) The MSM are speaking to an increasingly smaller pool of people.
I can’t watch Insiders anymore - a circle jerk of narcissists. I can’t read opinion anymore. I can’t even read the straight stories because of the spin given to them.
So, Bernard. I agree. But is this not a reversal of your view a few weeks ago when you tried to blame the public?
Not bad, Bernard, but allow me one quibble:
You often mention the shortage of housing supply as though this is real and important. It is neither.
I’m not in a position to dig out the stats right now, but such contentions should be backed by statistics along the following lines:
1. How many people, on average, live in each house? Home unit?
2. What were the comparable figures ten years ago? 20? 50?
3. How large is the average home these days?
4. Ditto 10, 20, 50 years ago?
5. How large is the average home unit today?
6. Ditto 10, 20, 50 years ago?
That is the data which determines relative housing availability over time.
If you think that price is relevant to this, then please consider that, in my lifetime, death duties and probate duty on estates have been discarded, real wages have risen, capital gains taxes on principal residences have been dropped, negative gearing has risen to an art form. These are matters which bear directly on the market price of available homes, whether new or 2nd hand.
My recollection is that the answers to Q1 to Q6 above were shown recently to indicate that there is more than enough housing to go around, by comparison with previous years. The real issue relates to cost, availability of loan money (100% loans, anybody?), taxation systems, middle class welfare and increasing expectation of luxurious life styles for bogans.
David…hear hear..but I have also been stunned by the viciousness of some of the Age journalists…(Michelle Grattan, Peter Hartcher, Tony Wright…have all written appallingly biased sarcastic and sometimes quite cruel articles) that had nothing to do with analysing policy…and ABC reporting…I have been studying the daily reporting particularly on ABC radio…in the majority of cases on the World Today, AM, and news they have nearly always led with an Abbott story for far longer length of time than a Gillard story… the tone of Abbott’s stories has been softer and less adversarial…Gillard’s stories are tinged with sarcasm and a sarcastic derogatory tone…the only time Abbott has been challenged has been on the 7.30 Report by Kerry O’Brien…who has been equally savage on both leaders. Abbott has had a fairy floss ride from journalists…none of his past decisions or current policies have been scrutinised…and comments made by Hockey, Joyce and Robb have not been questioned or challenged. In the Herald Sun last Saturday there was not one story or photo of Julia Gillard but a two page spread on Abbott (mind you - I would expect that from the Herald Scum..but nevertheless extremely bad form in regard to respect for position of Prime Minister) Serious policy decisions by Abbott - eg…(among a myriad of examples) wanting COMPULSORY reading of the Bible in public schools (religion should be kept in Churches and homes) has been ignored by talk back hosts even though it has been brought to their attention. Get Up rightly got credit for succeeding in the High Court for eligibility to vote but there was no mention that Labor tried to get this same result through legislation and it was voted down by the liberals…because journalists have been more concerned about Julia’s ear lobes, her hair, her marital status…they haven’t told the Australian people that 97% of the stimulus was successful…they have just concentrated on the 3% that was unsuccessful…it has been appalling journalism - the lowest I have ever seen in this country.
I also cannot believe that this election will decided by rednecks from Queenslandand bogans from the Western Suburbs of Sydney….to bad about the rest of Australia….
@ Denise Allen
Trust you hail from Tassie!!
Second time in two days crikey users have had a shot at marginal seaters. David from ALP Spin Room, called us similar words yesterday
With the 24/7 News cycle and the internet, the media only has a few minutes to write a story, which means a recipe for poor journalism.
Labor made a fatal mistake with the CPRS. Beyond being a wedge issue for the LNP, dropping the scheme also got the ‘liberal media’ offside, and left the election campaign without a narrative.
Most Australian are illiterate when it comes to economic, and their idea of ‘good economic management’ is boil down to this : Surplus Good, Deficit bad. Kevin Rudd saved Australia from the GFC with the Government stimulus spending, but it didn’t register in the mind of the ordinary voter at all. All they can see is the deficit.
The root of the ALP is best summed up by a quote from Gough Whitlam’s speech in 1974 : “to lift the standards of our people and help our less fortunate neighbours to a fuller and better life.” This is the basic tenant of a social justice party. For the LNP, Robert Menzi’s speech on ‘The Forgotten People’ pretty much sums it up. Somewhere along the way, both parties have developed into a political animal with no principle whose only purpose is to get elected.
And we, the voters, prefer it that way, for the bribe they pay us.
Ah…no…I am not from Tassie….beautiful state that is
@ Astro “David from ALP Spin Room, called us similar words yesterday” (‘us’ being the operative word in your comment…)
Saying “rednecks from Queensland” and “bogans from western suburbs from Sydney” is not saying ALL Queenslanders are rednecks and ALL people from western suburbs from Sydney are bogans…but if you took it such - well…if the shoe fits wear it….
A fine analysis and commentary, Bernard. Thankfully, I am mature enough to remember the days of good newspapers and vibrant election campaigns with politicians who, demonstrably, had human qualities. Not to mention guts.
In summation, if the Coalition wins I shall be inconsolable. And if the ALP wins I shall be inconsolable.
@ Zut Alors
You are destined to be inconsolable
@ Denise Allen
Neither, Central Coast - but David from ALP Spin Room says we are low lifes , or words to that affect. Dont worry, I emailed his comment the other day to aound 170 people in my electorate and this will sent to another few thousand, so the ALP view of Robertson is spreading.
Might even spread to Dobell and Macquarie.
astro, who is this David from ALP Spin Room you keep ranting on about? Another of your imaginary friends, you poor thing.
Sent it to all your ‘friends’ did you??? You keep taking it personally….any reason..or is just that you recognise yourself in there????
Yes Denise, we are very sensitive and angry people here.
We got ZIPPO (except BER, insulation that everyone got) thanks to our toxic local member Belinda Neal, who was outcast by ALP, which is why Rudd and Gillard were never here with her in 2008, 2009 and 2010.
We didnt even get pork barralled, except for funds for a sporting field.
With a 0.1% margin to ALP, we feel cheated. What do you think?
Oh… ok point taken…she was a bit of disaster wasn’t she???
I just remembered, Belinda Neal did send us a fridge magnet with her 2007 election photo and phone numbers., (I think photo was taken in 1994 when she ran for Senate), but did not reply to letters.
I am stunned the ALP did not move in to help her and at least try and make it work, even though they were probably planning to dump her. Especially with her husband Della Bosca (NSW ALP powerbroker), who had his own issues and resigned from parliament in NSW a month ago.
NSW Labor is toxic and I think that will be seen in the swings tomorrow, we say a 25% swing against ALP in Penrith the week before Rudd was executed.
Sad about that…but they should take their protest out at the State election…and not make the rest of suffer under Abbott…they are really not thinking this through intelligently….they will be shocked when the realise funding to education, pharmaceutical benefits, health, etc will be slashed by $B’s…and living in the western suburbs of Sydney -they will be among the ones to suffer the most…talk about cut of your nose to spite your face…just because they are pissed off with the State Govt doesn’t mean the rest of us have to suffer!~
Yes it is a sad state. Scandle after scandal
Minister jailed for terrible child offences
$500 million wasted on Sydney metro (on break fees and consultants)
3 premiers in 4 years
Corruption scandles
Busy Independant Corruption Commission
Member for Penrith sacked for fraud (*)
Transport issues
you name it we have had it
then 25% swing in western sydney at by election (*)
and by tomorrow there will have been two Federal elections and no State election, so a lot of anger to vent.
Gillard made a huge mistake doing a media interview with NSW Premier and making her biggest election spend the Epping - Parramatta rail link, that has been promised many times
Anyway, I think Gillard will get back in by a few seats.
News Ltd and in particular (“The Spinner”) The Australian, with its truckload of tragic opinionati, has set the agenda and won this campaign hands down. I wonder if it will also win the popular vote.
@ Ceteris
The Daily Telegraph today backed Abbott on front page, whereas they backed Rudd in 2007. So at least they have been fair in that respect.
Newspaper circulation has dropped Nationally I think every paper is down except a couple. I know people read online, but I think free view online Newspapers cant last (already happening in USA).
Papers like Fin review only circulate 77,000 per day Australia wide, thats $231,000 circulation revenue, less agents commission, plus advertising that must mean that they are hurting hard.
A good summation. The media , and in particular the ABC, have been bemoaning the lack of vision in this campaign. But the lack of decent political criticism from our media has fed this obsession. News Ltd. is little but a wailing wall of conservative bias, as typified by Bolt, Akerman, Albrechtsen and many others. Given that the conservative voting population is far smaller than the combined Left/Green population, where do they get the balls to front up as serious commentators?
Yep, the ultimate losers from this election will be the corporate media, as thousands of Australians turn away, resorting to either the alternative media or switching off completely. That equals lost income for them and LESS capacity to keep employing the journalists who fed us such complete rubbish during this election campaign.
I know I will NEVER again be turning to the corporate media for information. It’s over. I am officially repulsed by the entire industry. After all, why on earth would anyone CHOOSE to engage with a news service only to be fed a constant stream of lies, half-truths, and other propaganda in an attempt to manipulate their vote?!
Only a crazy person would willingly do that.
The only media that is supposedly ‘left leaning’ is the ABC and their radio commentators have been left wanting during this campaign. As I have I said before even though they are not allowed to express any personal opinion it has been done sublimely…through fairy floss treatment of Abbott and aggressive treatment of Julia…the psychology of how they have handled it is fascinating. We have no left wing shock jocks out there who can express an opinion and support and argue the issues from a left wing point of view. All commercial radio station are extreme right wing nasty shock jocks…and the ABC are useless in taking the fight up to the conservatives. What we need is left wing commercial radio stations to counteract the lies and misinformation from the right shock jocks…and to balance up the information that is given to the public. I believed it was journalists obligation to give fair and balanced reporting -but that has been totally missing during this campaign. (I know in a small country town the Editor of the only newspaper prints unfair and unbalanced - sometimes really nasty opinions about Labor when it is incumbent on him -as a supposedly professional journalist and being the only newspaper to give fair and balanced reporting so the people can make up their minds instead of being brainwashed - (as some people believe everything that is printed in the newspaper - Herald Sun readers for example) They are too powerful, their words taken as gospel (eg: Laurie Oakes, Alan Jones, Andrew Bolt etc) and can say whatever they like without any respect or recriminations.
noocat — spot on….
The media associations / watchdogs should mandate that ex politicians, ex staffers cannot work in political commentary. I know that wont happen in commercial networks, but should happen at the ABC, where we pay for them.
Having currently employeed spin doctors on air giving commentary turns people off.
That means I would never get work in the media!
Seems they has been a late swing to Coalition in last day or so to be confirmed in NewsPoll tomorrow. No wonder Gillard has seem rattled today.
With 2 million prepoll and postal votes, looks like it will be Wednesday before we know who has won
Seems they has been a late swing to Coalition in last day or so to be confirmed in NewsPoll tomorrow. No wonder Gillard has seemed rattled today.
With 2 million prepoll and postal votes, looks like it will be Wednesday before we know who has won
Astro, why do you try so continually to force your own private opinion upon us all? Is there an ANC commentator/personality with a past who you wish to skewer. or just the ABC as a whole?
I happen to trust the management team of those corporations in which I am a (minor) shareholder. There are occasions when I wish that shareholders would express their opinion robustly, but is there something concrete about the ABC which you have seen and I have not which justifies your call for a cull?
The ABC, in my opinion, has been tested and found wanting this year, but I have a soft spot for it due to the bias which John Winston Rodent Howard placed on its Board. This is not a major problem in my life - such things pass.
So, Astro, who exactly are those folk you wish to separate from the ABC and what are their crimes?
BTW, I do not now and never have listened to the likes of the Parrot or John Laws. The former is indeed worthy of being the target of a weeding program. The latter has, at last, subsided from view.
So, Astro, what is your gripe exactly about the ABC?
@ Astro
What you propose is impractical and naive. Any media commentator will always have a personal bias otherwise they would hold no opinions and not be human. The trick is to not reveal the bias publicly, especially if the ABC is the employer.
The comments on Crikey blogs over the past 5 weeks have been fairly even on where the ABC’s bias lies - roughly half have said they are a subsidiary of News Ltd, the other half accuse them of being rabid lefties. They can’t all be right.
It intrigued me this morning to see The Age endorse Gillard after the consistent pro-Abbott bias of their reportage. I imagine that endorsement is up to the editor, where the general tack of reportage might come from the financial end of the operation, from paper owners who might have roots in WA and/or some mates in the mining industry, perhaps.
Subjective, Objective or appealing to “click here” “read this”. This country has to start thinking and stop reacting. Any newspaper on the web is funded by ads or Murdoch or Fairfax etc.
How can we be objective? Independent media is needed, a body perhaps to govern it?
For Australia….
First step, become a country!
It’s a sad day for the “country” one we will be submissive to for next few years.
When will we think, when will we learn?
Well said Bernard. An interesting contrast to your assertion is the growth in minor party and non-party political activism. The majors would be lucky to have 50,000 members each across the country yet the Greens claim to have 100,000. Get Up, a non party political organisation, can draw upon 340,000 members. There is a obviously a power vacuum generated by the major parties journey to the right. If the left wing unions could cut the cord from the ALP and bring their economic clout and experience into a alliance with the progressive side of politics, a new third force could be created in Australia, and could quickly gain ground. An electoral loss today would hasten such a split, and it appears that disgust in NSW over Sussex Streets role in the assassination of Rudd and the QLD desire for revenge over the knifing of one of their own could see ten seats in each state be handed over to the LNP, so we may see the death of the apparatchiks sooner than you think.
Well, Im off to set up a booth. Its gonna be a long day, and for all us political junkies, an interesting one. For some, of course, its all gonna end in tears.
Hey Astro time to take your meddie Are you going to top yourself if phoney Tony and his rabble front bench gets beaten today?I reckon you work for the Tories and all your pro LNP dribble on here is pathetic.
For me it has been cause for laughter and for sorrow, this news media generated oligarchic, indeed anti-democratic pseudo presidential popularity poll. Sad, ‘cause I always hope for the development of democracy, not the demise of it. Then again, there seem to be many who want to be ruled - told what to do. That being so, I am available to start the Australian imperial lineage - as its first emperor. Maybe the observation of my fairly recently deceased Dad was accurate. He said “The populace will become more conservative and eventually reactionary. When that happens the next step will revolution - or melt down”.
I have just voted in Rudd’s electorate, Griffith, where there is always strong support for The Greens. However, I was dismayed by their how-to-vote sheet. It showed an example of the House of Reps’ ballot paper with ‘1’ next to The Greens candidate - but leaving the remaining boxes BLANK! That is, effectively, an informal vote. There was an instruction next to this saying all boxes had to be filled but it was very easy to miss that vital wording. I realise The Greens don’t wish to dictate to voters where to give their preferences and that’s why the boxes were not all numbered but some people would misconstrue that example and simply copy it.
Perhaps The Greens how-to-vote sheets are not similar throughout Australia and this was just a glitch in Griffith. In this electorate there will be no impact if a good percentage of Greens votes are informal and the preferences are lost by the ALP (Rudd’s seat is very safe) but in other seats around Australia the preferences would be crucial.
Zut:
Hunter (NSW). The Greens how-to-vote card numbered all squares. Safe Labor.
Astro enlighten me, were you excited receiving those 170 Emails loneliness is amplified when you live in a world with a population of one
Cant believe how long the queues are outside polling booths, never seen it this bad before. Some of the queue are 2 hours long.