Crikey says: Tony’s own goal
Ted quit, Denis (who?) got the job, and nobody seems to know how or why: Crikey gets behind the Victorian drama. Plus those other sagas in WA and NT. The Coalition’s budgetary magic pudding. And we name the ABC staffers banging on the boardroom door.
Tony Abbott, June 24, 2010: “A midnight knock on the door followed by political execution is no way that the Australian Prime Minister should be treated.”
Tony Abbott, June 25, 2010: “Oh, sure. It’s a magnificent thing to assume the highest office, elected office, in the land, although she hasn’t actually been elected by the people … “
Tony Abbott, July 23, 2010: “I don’t think the public are going to be conned again. I mean, we’ve seen right around Australia bad Labor governments change their leader and say, look, we’re all going to be different now. It’s never different. It’s just the same.”
Tony Abbott, March 6, 2013: “I congratulate Denis Napthine on his election as leader of the Victorian parliamentary Liberal Party and I look forward to working closely with him.”
Well, well. It seems a good government has lost its way.
So we have another first-term leader shown the door by their partyroom — this time in Victoria. The difference to Abbott? This government is a Liberal one.
There may be a significant difference between the demotion of ex-premier Ted Baillieu and ex-PM Kevin Rudd — it may be that Baillieu really was ready to walk, as party hacks are trying to tell us. At this stage we don’t really know how events unfolded inside yesterday’s dramatic party room meeting. Did a rival do the numbers? Was Baillieu told to go? Did he lose the support of a key ally?
But we know this: Julia Gillard has spent almost three years dealing with extensive criticism from the Liberals, the conservative commentariat and a sizeable chunk of the public over how she took over from Rudd. That’s fair enough. But now the shoe’s on the other foot, and the Liberals have questions to answer. The answers given so far, by Baillieu and Napthine, just don’t cut it.
We’ll leave you with one more Abbott quote, from his rather subdued press conference this morning:
“There is a world of difference between what happened to Ted Baillieu and what happened to the Labor party a few years ago … Ted resigned. … There is no comparison.”
Politics is a dirty business, for all parties.
I perceive a substantive difference between the manner of Baillieu’s and Rudd’s departures. It seems that Baillieu was brought to realise that he had irrevocably lost the support of his party room gradually over some months, while Rudd seemed to lose that support over days or even hours without ever accepting that he couldn’t recover it.
No doubt it’s going down well with the stereotypical Crikey reader, hewing as it does to the orthodoxy that rapidly emerged amongst the usual Twitterati suspects last night. One must do one’s best to appeal to one’s target demographic I suppose. But this editorial really is a pretty desperate stretch. If Charles Richardson’s piece is anything to go by, the resignation of Baillieu bears virtually no resemblance to the knifing of Rudd.
But it is interesting isn’t it? How much influence did the faceless men of the Federal Liberal Party have on Mr Baillieu’s decision to resign? And do these same faceless men have a part in ensurig Federal / State relations are as difficult as possible (think Education, Health etc)? All in the name of getting Tony the keys to The Lodge.
@mark duffett, It’s the fault of the Labor government… And and.. Juliar must’ve been involved somehow.. And.. and.. she should apologise and not interfere with secret men’s business!
And why has Turnbull not removed that knife from his back.. It’s not his, it belongs to Abbot!
I think you mean 2013.
As for there is a world of difference between what happened to Ted Baillieu and what happened to the Labor party a few years ago. The faceless men of the Liberal party knifed Ted and he was replaced; and there is the faceless men of the Labor party knifed Kevin and he was replaced. Yes Veronica there is no comparison, there is no need to compare - its the same! Even down to the teary and emotional speech following the dumping.
So, Mark D, you must have been present at the Liberal Party room meeting last night? No one else knows if Baillieu resigned or was pushed. We only have the victor’s word for that. He could have saved his breath - not believable!
Exactly, CML - no one else knows (though apparently Bill Hilliger does), which is why I put in the caveat ‘if Richardson’s article is anything to go on’. It cuts both ways. Until we do know, Crikey’s attempt to use the episode to take an extended swipe at Abbott just looks gratuitous, or at least half-cocked.
Mark - from Richardson’s article the parallel I see is ideological - in both case the party’s Right, backed by News Ltd, rolled a leader who was seen as too left wing. I don’t believe for a minute that Bailleu just decided to stand aside without being pushed.
Technically - i.e. according to ALP caucus procedures, didn’t Rudd resign?
@mark duffet, come on mate-the only thing here that looks half-cocked is your pathetic attempt to paint the liberals as angels. He got knifed, and he got hurt, that’s why he cried like a pig stuck In mud.
The Liberals are no angels but seriously, do you really think Australians have woken up today and said, “Good grief!! The Libs are as bad as the ALP!! Julia must be not so evil then!! OK that’s all right then, let’s vote Labor again!!”
The main reason that there is no comparison between Gillard and Baillieu is that questions about his leadership have been telegraphed in the media for months now. The media has been replete with stories that he “must lift his game” etc.
So when it happened, though is was dramatic for it being an unusual event that generates uncertainty in Victoria, there isn’t the shock, the sense of betrayal and the sense of a coup being committed that surrounded the demise of Rudd.
Try and draw comparisons Crikey but it’s desperate spin on behalf of your chosen political client for whom there will be no redemption.
@12 David, Australians really do need to wake up to themselves.
There was quite a lot of talk about Rudd before his demise, David Hand. Not about him being removed but about his disfunctional style of government, his arrogance and rudeness to his colleagues and his obsessive need for total control, the fact that Cabinet colleagues couldn’t get past his minders to see him, stuff got stuck in his office and had to wait until Gillard was acting PM to get moved on, his excessive and unnecessary demands for information from public servants, the complete logjam in his office. The activity without the action.
When he went it was a shock, but unlike the Press Gallery who work in the same building it was pretty easy to work out why.
correction to last comment, last para
‘unlike the Press Gallery who work in the same building I found it pretty easy to work out why.’