What year is it?

I just finished reading Labor's Forgotten People: The Triumph of Identity Politics, by Michael Thompson. According to the blurb, Thompson argues that "the influence of identity politics on modern Labor's political agenda – assisted by a political class whose sole concern is power – poses an "existential threat to Labor. the warning signs are clear. Popular disaffection with the political class is increasing, and the Party's embrace of left-wing, progressive issues is sidelining core working class aspirations and grievances that used to be the focus of Labor politics." Labor's unexpected loss of the May 2019 federal election, not even anticipated in this book, arguably supports this thesis.

This book was very dry and academic, so I found it hard to engage with. Other reviewers have pointed out the number of typographical errors in it. Here, the author writes that Whitlam suffered a "crushing defeat as Opposition Leader in 1997." This actually happened in 1977, when in that year's federal election, when the Fraser government maintained its strong majority in the House of Representatives. The Liberal Party won 67 seats to the Labor Party’s 38, with 19 seats going to the National Country Party. This was Whitlam’s last election, as he resigned from his seat in Parliament on 31 July 1978.

It's time for pedantry corner

1972 Labor campaign poster

Former Australian Prime Minister Gough Whitlam died today, aged 98. Both loved and loathed by many, he was a polarizing figure, but without question he was one of the most significant Australian political leaders of recent times.

In a game of journalistic one upmanship, rival news outlets rushed to be first with the news of his passing. This backfired for The Age, whose report this morning carried a quote from Federal Labor Opposition Leader Bill Shroten. Bill Shorten would be bewildered to see that his surname has changed. By this afternoon the error was corrected.

Google the Omniscient says that there are people with the surname Shroten in the world, but the White Pages says that none of them are living in Australia. 

This is another textbook example of what happens when you don't pay attention to detail. Times are difficult at Fairfax Media, with significant restructuring of the company in recent years, but surely they still have adequate resources to proof read and edit their content before publication. 

http://www.theage.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/former-prime-minister-gough-whitlam-dead-at-98-20141021-1192t2.html

We're in a lot of trouble

Just over one year on from the swift and ruthless Labor party room coup that saw her installed as Australian Prime Minister after deposing Kevin Rudd, and almost a year since her government scraped back into power and narrowly avoided being voted out of office after one term, the ABC has announced that it has commissioned a sitcom about Julia Gillard and her significant other, Tim Mathieson. At Home With Julia will be a four part comedy series depicting the trials and tribulations of Australia's (sort of) first couple. 

This news comes on the same day that the latest opinion polls show that voter support for the Prime Minister and the federal government has dropped to record lows. Labor's decline in the polls began early last year, and the party thought that Rudd's removal would help to arrest this decline and turn around their political fortunes. Clearly they were wrong.

The next federal election is two years away. I believe in miracles, but as an armchair observer it seems to me that turning this situation around is almost impossible, and federal Labor are facing electoral annihilation. Already there are murmurings about toppling Julia Gillard and replacing her with one of her colleagues, but this brings to mind the cliche about rearranging deckchairs on the Titanic. As Prime Minister, she simply hasn't grown into the job, and her government is probably one of the most dysfunctional that Australia has ever had. Bear in mind that I was too young to remember the Whitlam government (1972-1975).

Unless Ms Gillard or her replacement bites the bullet and calls an early election, Australia faces two more years of political instability, not to mention tougher economic conditions as a result of the tenuous business and consumer confidence that this situation contributes to.

On bended knee

Last week The Australian reprinted an article from Gerard Baker of The Times which was in my view a very incisive analysis of the current American Presidential election campaign. As Senators Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama fight it out to secure the Democratic nomination, a cult of personality seems to have developed around Obama, where the mostly favourable news media coverage he has received has become almost idolatrous, with him becoming a pseudo-Messianic figure. If this article is to be believed, this is not a new phenonemon, stretching back to the days of Robert Kennedy and Jimmy Carter, and in more recent years, to Bill Clinton. Had Kennedy not been assassinated in June 1968, he may well have become President, and probably would have served two terms. For their part, Presidents Carter (1977-1981) and Clinton (1993-2001) turned out to be flawed and human after all, which would have come as a disappointment to those journalists who canonised them at the time.

Despite our mistrust of authority figures and the tall poppy sydrome, we in Australia have often fallen into the same trap. Despite leading one of the most bold and progressive, but also inept governments in Australian history, former Prime Minister Gough Whitlam (1971-1975) remains a hero to many from the non-conservative side of politics, as is Bob Hawke (1983-1991). As a Christian, I need to heed Scriptural counsel about respecting our political leaders and praying for them, but not to the extent of hero worshipping them, which would be sinful. In the end, we voters need to be objective and informed about politics and politicians. We need to see through the lofty rhetoric of election campaigns and not allow ourselves to be carried away by the grand promises we often hear at these times.