Stroll down memory lane with tonight’s premiere of the ABC’s warts-and-more-warts documentary on the short life and fast times of the Rudd-Gillard government.
A thread for discussion of the troubled life of the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd government, apropos tonight’s premiere of ABC Television’s epic fantasy series, The Killing Season. Please keep this thread on topic – the general discussion continues on the post immediately below this one.
Author: William Bowe
William Bowe is a Perth-based election analyst and occasional teacher of political science. His blog, The Poll Bludger, has existed in one form or another since 2004, and is one of the most heavily trafficked websites on Australian politics.
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Well, really didn’t show anyone up particularly badly.
Much about how good the response to the GFC was. Not very complementary of the Libs during that period and made Turnbull look like a fwarking goose. Will be interesting to see how the Libs look when they get to the hard stuff like the CPRS episode.
I think the only ones that look “bad” out of the first episode are actually the Libs?? The intra ALP stuff is meH type politics which maybe people are a bit inoculated against.
Its certainly a good history of the period so far.
Be interesting to see how many right wingers suddenly find that the ABC is not leftie biased. Or is it more a case of “just this once”. Selectively forgetting the ABC production of the parody TV show about Gillard
After months or at least since the first news item on the ABC exposing a lie from the current government we have seen a tirade of abuse and calls for selling the ABC off to the real government leader -Rupert.
It’s sounds so far as though Ferguson has done a reasonable job.
I wonder how Abbott will come out looking?
I enjoyed it and it reminded me how much I liked the 1st Kevin. Oh what could have been if Gillard did not go all Game of Thrones.
Julia wanted to give Kevin three months to ‘improve’, but it was the team behind the scenes who insisted on a takeover. Julia was obviously in shock when she faced the media the next day. I’ll be interested to see how the doco handles that.
Is there a more perfect example of ‘passive-aggressive’ than Kevin’s after-the-event statement “You are a good person, Julia, why are you doing this to me?”
Jenny Macklin was the only person who looked like she was a decent human being. All the rest looked shifty and totally self absorbed.
AA
I’m being told that house prices where you are are crashing.
Is it so?
Greg Combet is the star in this section. (warning, bad language, altho I think PB can handle it).
http://www.news.com.au/entertainment/tv/greg-combet-lets-rip-in-first-episode-of-abcs-the-killing-season/story-e6frfmyi-1227390537383
Diog
Not shifty, just tense.
[And it has been revealed that Ferguson used an ingenious technique to extract the explosive comments from the politicians, according to The Australian.
The Walkley Award-winner, known for her take-no-prisoners interviews, encouraged reluctant pollies to speak on the record by sharing the worst details of what their colleagues had revealed about them.
The strategy meant that Ferguson was able to interview the main players multiple times. Mr Rudd was reportedly interviewed four times over 17 hours.
Julia Gillard accuses Kevin Rudd of physically intimidating her when she was his deputy.
This “he said, she said” approach may explain why sitting Labor MPs — including Jenny Macklin and Chris Bowen — also agreed to participate in the documentary.
Labor’s manager of opposition business, Tony Burke, revealed last week that he had initially resisted submitting to an interview, but eventually relented.
“I said no for a long time. I did the original research interview. There’s a great policy story I want to be able to tell. I was given different guarantees eventually that the program would tell those, so I agreed to a long interview,” Mr Burke told Leigh Sales on 7.30.]
http://www.news.com.au/entertainment/tv/the-killing-season-how-the-abc-extracted-explosive-comments-from-julia-gillard-kevin-rudd/story-fn948wjf-1227390320232
lizzie
Certainly tense but they looked tense because they were obsessed about making themselves look as good as possible and knew they hadn’t done well.
Combet was honest but he came across as a deeply troubled and unhappy man.
The real test will be how it treats the ‘misogyny’ speech.
Anyone who looked at it with eyes untainted by the political zeitgeist of the time will see it for what it was – which was calling Captain Chaos out on his hypocrisy, not his misogyny. Otherwise, yet again it will be played as Julia Gillard using the misogyny card to deflect attention from the ‘sins’ of her government. Which was the lazy press gallery way of seeing everything.
From Lizzie’s post of the News.com.au site:
[Mr Rudd was reportedly interviewed four times over 17 hours.]
If you multiply this out to Julia Gillard and the other players, there might have been up to 100 hours of interviews recorded for three hours in total of television. Once you take into account file footage, maybe only 1 to 2 per cent of the interviews actually make it onto the program.
All of the people involved can easily be made to look however the producers want them to look in order to tell a hundred different stories – each of which is totally different in terms of heroes, villains and the like. In the same way as those old books which were cut into three horizontal sections and you could create crazy people doing crazy things in a mix and match way.
So the way any of the key players comes across has to be taken as fiction and a creation of Sarah Ferguson and the producers.
TPOF
Entirely agree. Very clever cutting and splicing, but they admitted their judgement was to make it as exciting as a Shakespeare drama.
There is an awful lot of judgement going on here.
We each know whose side we are on and now we are judging the producer because she may be favouring the one we don’t like so much.
I loved the show and we should have more of them.
Combet is a measured man, and he was not a fan of Rudd from the get go
MTBW
You do talk nonsense sometimes. Of course you loved it, because it showed the best part of Kevin’s time as PM.
lizzie
A big admission from you as a Gillard supporter.
Speaking of talking nonsense I will await your comments when Julia gets a run.
You do talk nonsense sometimes.
[We each know whose side we are on and now we are judging the producer because she may be favouring the one we don’t like so much.]
Not in my case. My problem with the program is that the focus is too much on interpersonal games – the political infighting crap that the press gallery obsesses over as they one-up each other on who has the most vicious leaker – and not on the great achievements of the Rudd and Gillard governments. And there were many.
While I have a closer identification with one narrative, that is not the problem. The problem is, as Lizzie put it, one of trying to turn the grubby sausage-making world of politics into something Shakespearian. In other words, the producers are more interested in emulating Shakespeare’s Richard III, rather than the guy whose bones were found under a car park in Leicester a few years ago. Even though the story of the second guy is more fascinating but less neat as a piece of story-telling – as real history is.
lizzie
Actually everytime Rudd spoke during the interview, i was reminded what a narcissist he was. Labor including Gillard stuffed up. He should never have been made leader. They should have stuck with Beazley. The rights at work campaign would have got Labor over the line
The coalition have same issue with Abbott now. Karma is a b@@ch
MTBW
I thought that when Kevin defeated Howard he was brilliant. When he helped to guide Australia through the GFC he was brilliant. Watching the show, I was remembering how happy we all were at that time.
I should add, though, that the first episode was memorable for Jenny Macklin’s comment that ‘People are complex’. It is a point that is forgotten time and again when we reduce our political heroes and villains to cut-out characters.
Sadly, a number of Coalition leaders, like Hockey, Morrison and Abbott, seem all too simple and simplistic.
lizzie
[Watching the show, I was remembering how happy we all were at that time.]
And we were then! I was reminded of a lot of things that the Government was doing in the GFC and the speech to our indigenous people and Godwin Gretch and all in the matter of a couple of years.
The events of the coup on that fateful night owned by Shorten Howes et al was simply over power and nothing more.
And by the way look were Howes is now – in the Liberal camp.
It was a shock to the nation and the public did not like it at all.
“where”
[Jenny Macklin was the only person who looked like she was a decent human being. All the rest looked shifty and totally self absorbed.]
Agree with that, though I also liked Combet in it.
I was fearful that the program would be all low-rent leadershit, but Ferguson is doing a good job.
What a great moment the apology was. And what a tool turnbull was – you can almost see the exact moment he realises he’s been had, and has gone way too far. Wanted to believe SO MUCH in Grech.
[And what a tool turnbull was – you can almost see the exact moment he realises he’s been had, and has gone way too far. Wanted to believe SO MUCH in Grech.]
That’s because Rudd had really screwed with his head. As a good political leader will always do to their opponent.
The great joke at the moment is the pathetic attempts by Abbott and co to screw with Shorten’s head and getting absolutely nowhere. Shorten shows clear contempt for Abbott in Question Time. And so Abbott finishes up screwing with the closest weak mind – his own.
[All the rest looked shifty and totally self absorbed.]
As they say, “History is decided by who looks shifty in interviews.”
[Wanted to believe SO MUCH in Grech.]
Perhaps Turnbull wasn’t in on the scam – he didn’t know Grech was a Lib plant. Or perhaps Grech had been such a useful little mole for so long that when he got too enthusiastic and creative, he didn’t realise it wasn’t true.
lizzie @ 78
I’m sure Turnbull wasn’t in on the scam. He just wanted to believe.
The one thing that really worries me about the first episode is that it is setting up a ‘it was all organised by the unions and the party machines’ explanation.
Shorten was ABSOLUTELY right not to take part in it. I have no doubt that he will be negatively portrayed in it, feeding into the Liberal and MSM narrative. If he provided any comments, only those that supported the narrative (or looked shifty) would be run.
Years ago when I managed a bunch of ex-police in an internal investigations area I determined that anyone who said to me ‘If you’ve done nothing, you’ve got nothing to hide’ had already determined where they were heading. I also determined that if I was ever accused of something criminal that I had not done, the first thing I would do is to ask for a good lawyer and the second thing would be to shut up until they arrive.
I would be less worried if I had done something wrong, because at least I would know where I was vulnerable.
TPOF
Disagree with you on Shorten he may have refused because of the role he and Howes had in it all.
It does him no favours to run from it.
TPOF
I did feel that there was perhaps too much emphasis on ‘people died because of Pink Batts’, picking up the media screams at the time.
Is Lindsay Tanner in the program at all? His role and departure prior to the 2010 election are still to me one of the great mysteries of the period.
bbp
No, I think he declined.
Tanner was interviewed, Ferguson confirmed on Twitter.
trawler
Well that’s good, although I doubt he’ll give much away.
victoria@69
This is so funny!
Gillard also participated in the over throw of Beazley.
You seem to be assuming Beazley would have coped with the GFC – on what basis?
You assume the ‘Your Rights at Work’ campaign was sufficient alone to win the election. Really???
I was previously unaware you had the qualifications to make a diagnosis of narcissism. Can you let me know what they are?
You are merely regurgitating stale old Rudd beat-ups initiated by others.
bbp@83: no mystery re Tanner. His longstanding and intense antipathy towards Gillard is well known. He left because he would not work for her. The only interesting question is whether he helped in any way to undermine her after he resigned. I wouldn’t expect him to answer any questions about that!
meher baba@88
Tanner was of the left and was not alone in the left with his antipathy to Gillard. They knew her as a divisive figure in the left.
This is what makes me sceptical of claims that the coup against Rudd started in the left, although I don’t dismiss the possibility of individuals in the left being part of its instigation.
mimhoff
[All the rest looked shifty and totally self absorbed.
As they say, “History is decided by who looks shifty in interviews.”]
Have you ever seen “Fog of War” with Errol Morris interviewing McFarlane? Eventually no amount of shiftiness and dissembling could stop him falling apart.
Tanner did not serve in Gillard’s cabinet and left parliament.
Mind you I have always thought he was the leaker of the Gillard stance on pensions and childcare. it would fit with his personal distrust of her.
Interesting reading comments so far.
What looks obvious from the show so far, at some point Rudd lost confidence and with it went his ‘presence’. Watching him during last night’s i/vs I thought he looked so ‘practiced, false and lacking in any fluidity of commentary’ and his ‘thoughtful pauses’ looked anything but.
Macklin highlighted one major flaw in all our perceptions about politicians and people in the spotlight in general. We see caricatures rather than real, complex human beings and our unrealistic expectations of them make it impossible for any of them to live up to our perceptions.
The ‘idolising’ of one or the other (in the case of Gillard and Rudd, makes us all see them with tainted eyes.
DTT
It was leaked (and slightly distorted) to destroy her run to be PM. Have you not thought it might be Kevin or one of his confidantes?
lizzie@93
There were a lot of very pissed-off people.
Was it expected that none would vent their feelings to anyone who might pass it on?
Probably, they really were that dumb.
bemused
Oakes told it as a leak from Cabinet. He also said, at another time, that he never believed in a leak unless there were two sources. Make of that what you will.
lizzie@95
If Oakes is telling the truth then there were at least 2 members of Cabinet who were pissed off and were prepared to say so to someone, possibly a confidante who passed it on.
MTBW @ 81
You are entitled to your opinion, but it seems to me that every post you have made on this subject or, indeed, anyone involved has been conditioned on your existing view of everything.
bemused
There were only four in the room. And don’t forget that at that time there were so few MPs who were supportive of Rudd that he didn’t even go to a spill and a vote. I wish he had.
lizzie@98
He was ambushed and he and supporters had no time to organise. Their opponents had been plotting for many months beforehand.
There were more than 4 in Cabinet.
bemused
Rudd suspected that there was dissatisfaction and had sent out someone to discover whether anyone was being ‘disloyal’. So he did know. — It was the Gang of Four, not the whole Cabinet, discussing finances.