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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A guy from outside the union factional power structure sweeps Labor into office and – gets dumped.
Coincidence?
Jake@101
So we are expected to believe.
It could also be coincidence that the ALP Minister and Whip in trouble in Vic are also union factional players.
Bemused – we are expected to believe that the AWU under Shorten we pure as the driven snow but on either side of his Office Bearing all bets are off?
What we really need to do is spend 50 million to find out what colour curtains Shorten ordered 20 years ago
paaptsef
[What we really need to do is spend 50 million to find out what colour curtains Shorten ordered 20 years ago]
No doubt that will be revealed in Ep.3 😀
Not being at all interested in rehashing the Rudd – Gillard – Rudd thing I had lived through (and formed my own views at the time some of which I see posters hope the show doesn’t even entertain, great sign of open intelligent minds that) I hadn’t intended to watch at all.
Then I went to it just to annoy a certain very demanding teenage daughter and found myself watching the start of the the GFC stuff.
I must confess at the time and since I’d given almost all the credit for the most brilliant and cost effective response to the GFC to treasury. It is clear I was wrong and that Rudd and his team deserve at least a good healthy slice of this credit. It is very very impressive and all the more so seeing the liberals are so dishonest and so stupid they pretend that nothing happened except waste. It is a disgustingly irresponsible lie they tell on this. Unfit to be Australians.
[What we really need to do is spend 50 million to find out what colour curtains Shorten ordered 20 years ago]
I look forward to a 200 million royal commission into operation stupid borders and stupider ministers.
WWP
I wish all the Libs who deny the GFC existed would watch TKS. I fear that even if they do, they will still only see what they already believe.
“What looks obvious from the show so far, at some point Rudd lost confidence and with it went his ‘presence’.”
Overall, I think that’s what happened. After a glorious start, Rudd seemed unable to take on the challenges being fabricated by a media that’d thrown its weight behind the opposition. There’s an Andrew Elder line somewhere about Rudd waking up in the morning, reading about whatever policy News Ltd were complaining about on the day,& dumping it.
A compilation of edited interviews may or may not throw some light on the issue. But as others have said, in many cases people will use this to confirm existing thought patterns. Labor’s opponents certainly will.
BSA Bob
Good comment.
lizzie @110
Thanks. The quote at the start’s from Jenauthor at, I think, #92.
‘”…fabricated by a media …”]
Unless this programme analyses fully and honestly the dominant role the media, and that includes the ABC, plays in the politics of this country and the specific role in the Labor era under examination, then it will be a distortion of what really occurred.
As an example, as I think someone has already mentioned this up thread, if the ABC does not highlight the misogyny directed at Gillard for years and the smearing of her persona by the COALition politicians and its supporters, the MSM and by ABC personnel as well, then it will fail to present the reality honestly and credibly.
I am very sceptical the ABC is capable of such [self]examination.
Compact Crank@103
A level of purity comparable with any business or employer organisation. Probably better in fact.
fredex
Ferguson may have established the bias in her interviews, but will those above her allow it to come out? That’s really the crunch, isn’t it. The whole of her term echoed with “The Opposition says” at the front of the news. We hardly ever hear those words now.
[WWP
I wish all the Libs who deny the GFC existed would watch TKS. I fear that even if they do, they will still only see what they already believe.]
There was an absolute biased idiot on the drum on ABC today just being a GFC denier. Had nothing but smear and distraction. Intellectually dishonest scum, like Abbott, Hockey and Costello. Unfit to be Australians them all.
[There was an absolute biased idiot on the drum on ABC today just being a GFC denier]
That would be Rowan Dean. As soon as I heard that he was on, I switched over to the SBS news. His twisting of everything makes me sick to the stomach.
[ “The Opposition says” at the front of the news.]
Quite often the first I heard of something the government announced was the Opposition criticism of it. I’d never seen it before, whichever party was in power. And of course, every brain fart of this clownish government is now reported uncritically by the media.
TPOF@117
Perhaps news editors consider them so self-evidently stupid they require no further comment.
Good discussion of TKS on ABC 774 this morning, but I don’t think a recording is available. A pity.
Comments by listeners were interesting too. Not much to cause the coalition any joy.
There was a strange one just after the election in 2010.
I was listening to the intro music to ABC RN news and then on came the voice saying “The Leader of the Liberal party Tony Abbott says…”.
I was so used to hearing the news start with “The Leader of the Opposition Tony Abbott says …” that this change in the norm made me pay attention.
Apparently he was no longer LOTO but Leader of the party that was ‘the government in waiting” [this was just before the Indies made their announcement].
Then on came Tony saying just that “We are the government in waiting and blah blah…”
ABC News department was using the preferred terminology of the Liberal Party thus allying themselves with and reinforcing Abbott’s line.
Fortunately as events ensued we were spared that particular ‘govt in waiting’ then but the meme of the Libs deserving to win was complemented.
Bloody disgraceful by the ABC.
So I wondered if there was any record of that ABC RN News story but the closest I could get was this:
http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/tony-abbott-waits-out-julia-gillards-wooing/story-fn5zm695-1225912526343
Which includes this:
[“We are no longer in Opposition,” the Liberal leader said before heading into a shadow cabinet meeting.
“We may very well be a government in waiting. It’s clear that while we don’t yet have a final result from the election, the Labor Party has first lost its way and then in the election it lost its majority and it lost its legitimacy.”]
Earlier in the article he was termed “Leader of the Opposition” and the headline is …”Liberal Leader Tony Abbott criticises ……”.
To be fair, I’d say the error was in referring to Abbott initially as the LotO when there was no current Parliament to oppose in. At that time, he really was just the Leader of the Liberal Party.
Unlike the government, which remains in place until the next government is sworn in, I don’t think there’s a convention for referring to the leader of the opposition in the former Parliament by that title once Parliament is dissolved.
I make this quick and simple.
Anything I ever said about KRudd x 10.
And
Anything I ever said about our media x100.
Anything I ever said about Tony Abbott and the L/NP x 100 to the tenth power.
May a hundred camels urinate on the lot of them.
On Insiders this morning, a clip was shown in which Julia said that after Kevin’s disappointment (read failure to achieve what he’d hoped for) at the climate summit, he had become very low, and she felt he did not have the energy or spirit to go right into an election campaign.
Everyone commenting could see how low he was, understandably, because he had put all his energy for months into the climate change stuff. But Kevin says ‘Bollocks, she’s wrong,’ because obviously his pride couldn’t allow that he was exhausted.
Barrie Cassidy just laughs and says “And round and round we go,” coming out against Julia’s judgement, which in this case was perfectly correct.
lizzie@127
Perfectly correct or self serving?
My wife was watching and her reaction was to exclaim: “Lying, back-stabbing bitch!”
Is my wife a misogynist?
bemused
She is just prejudiced against Julia. Like you.
Everyone knew that Kevin was emotionally and physically exhausted after his efforts on climate change. That’s not criticism, it’s fact. Julia was simply saying so.
lizzie@129
Believe that if it comforts you.
Everyone knew that Kevin was emotionally and physically exhausted after his efforts on climate change. That’s not criticism, it’s fact. Julia was simply saying so.
So he should have taken a break, leaving his ‘loyal’ deputy in charge.
He also needed 2 lots of surgery.
bemused
Anyone who calls someone a “Lying, back-stabbing bitch!” is obviously carrying a lot of anger and can’t be expected to see things clearly, even after time has elapsed.
lizzie@131
It was an immediate, emotional reaction to seeing Julia and listening to her lies. Yes, she was angry at the destroyer of a Labor Prime minister and government.
lizzie
Isn’t your comment above more that a little provocative?
We all know you do not like Rudd as many of us don’t like Gillard but attacking bemused’s wife should be off limits.
MTBW
It was bemused who quoted his wife and brought her into the conversation. I used to admire Rudd immensely, as I think we all did.
lizzie
I understand that but that was just a quote from his wife but you had to add your own comments to her comment and bemused was only referencing her in his comment.
MTBW@135
I think it fair enough for lizzie to respond to what I quoted.
But she wouldn’t want to get into an argument with my wife. 😉
bemused
🙂
Lizzie
Rudd doesn’t admit it was weakness, tiredness nor exhaustion so it must just be that he is an askehole.
Rudd is just dirty that someone had the gonads to dump him when the time came. I wish the LP had the same courage.
Puff, the Magic Dragon.@139
Puffy, I know you are a smart woman, but on this topic you are just irrational and WRONG.
No. I am not wrong, nor irrational. I am as angry with Rudd as your wife is with Julia Gillard. And I am not alone.
Socrates (from other thread):
[Morning all. Gillard still has trouble admitting she lied.
But she does concede she gave him hope his leadership was safe.
“I can understand why Kevin felt that, you know, there was a potential wedge of sun on the horizon.
“I should have been more straight forward and more clinical and less discursive. Being discursive did give Kevin false hope and that’s down to me.”
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-06-16/gillard-admits-giving-rudd-false-hope-before-ousting-him-as-pm/6547226
Its OK though. The rest of us worked out at the time she wa lying, despite the spin. That was why she had so little credibility as leader.
Shorten’s role in this fiasco continues to do his creibility more damage than anything he did/failed to do in the AWU. Have a good day all.]
Your post is as well considered as its placement on the wrong thread.
First of all your claim “Gillard still has trouble admitting she lied” contains a contested assumption you seem incapable of particularising, let alone proving. Perhaps you could state clearly what you allege to be the lie and give us the benefit of your proof.
My suspicion is that for you the “lie” you ascribe to Gillard is that she fully intended to oust Rudd whilst deliberately misleading him. Suppose that was true. There is nothing to suggest that this intention was acted on prior to the night in question (and I invite you to prove me wrong, but something other than that a member of her staff wrote a speech purleese).
Further, if in the initial conversation with Rudd Gillard had intended to mislead Rudd by giving him hope how did that deception matter. It is not like Rudd was tricked into fatal inaction in the, what, half hour or so between being “lied” to and being told “sorry son, it is all over”. In other words even if there were deception it wouldn’t have mattered a fig. Which, if only you could think rationally about it, is a pretty good reason for thinking it didn’t happen.
Your presumption that “the rest of us worked out at the time she was lying” wreathes you in a fool’s garland since, at least in my case, I have yet to make such a computation nor, regrettably, even seen such “workings out” as you assure us were already available. Apparently, in your innocence (ignorance?) you are unaware of the contested space into which you venture.
Finally I am unsure of any analysis that supports your conclusion that a proven “lie” to Rudd (whatever it was) had any causal relationship to her credibility as leader. In part your causality is a mix up, since certainly her deposing of Rudd irrespective of any alleged lie was a factor, as was the much touted, and almost as ridiculous, “lie” about a carbon “tax”.
But more importantly I am confident history will record the main problem with Gillard’s credibility were the continuous destabilising leaks against her, particularly those that left her clinging to minority government and those that constantly whipped up leadership whenever traction on other issues was taking hold.
Bemused
Xanthippe had a similar view of Gillard’s actions, even though she is a feminist and philosophically we both had wanted Gillard to become Australia’s first female PM after Rudd. But the manner of how power was seized took the gloss off it completely for both of us. It turned what should have been a progressive triumph into regressive factionalism at its selfish, stupid worst.
I worked in a government that Rudd ran and was under no illusions about his controlling manner. Yet he was genuinely smart and I never found the stated reasons for the coup believable. It was a classic case (by the plotters) of ambition leading to rationalisation of self serving actions as party serving ones. In reality it was a disaster for the party. Gillard’s subsequent poor record as an administrator only underlined the fact.
Windhover
We will have to agree to disagree. I found Gillard’s words vague and evasive. She was being evasive about having been evasive to Rudd when she said “discursive”. Here is what it means:
dictionary.reference.com/browse/discursive
passing aimlessly from one subject to another; digressive; rambling. 2. proceeding by reasoning or argument rather than intuition. Origin of discursive. Expand.
Hardly a word providing clarity to Gillard’s recollection. Indeed, not really an appropriate term in this context, normally used in academia.
I wish this whole incident had never happened. People who criticise Gillard on this, her career destroying error, are assumed to be Rudd supporters. Nonsense. It is about the future of the Labor Party. As long as Labor has no credible explanation of this sad episode, it will always tarnish those involved, including now Shorten. The voters will not trust Labor’s leadership again until it can be honest about its past. So far, it has failed on that score. Rudd and Gillard are both gone, but there has been no fresh breeze of change through an uninspiring leadership cohort.
Abbott’s nastiness and incompetence at economic management may yet give Labor government in 2016. But if it takes two or more terms, this episode, corrupt union officials, and NSW Labor corruption generally, are the three main reasons why.
Socrates
Windhover uses a lot of words but in the end fails to confront the reality when he/she says:
[But more importantly I am confident history will record the main problem with Gillard’s credibility were the continuous destabilising leaks against her, particularly those that left her clinging to minority government and those that constantly whipped up leadership whenever traction on other issues was taking hold.]
The reality is that Gillard’s biggest problem was… Gillard.
Oh dear, the Gillard plotting and treachery is being laid bare.
@Windhover
Oh the leaks. Why can’t the government just be watertight if they happen to be your favourite?
You could have summarised your last paragraph by just saying dibber dobbers wear nappies.
can someone explain why anyone in the labor party agreed to go in this?? i mean i refuse to watch it and i had a lot to say at time but am sure abc doco will not say much know or in illuminating way – why put yourself at mercy of journaists and editors? surely a blanket ban in order? why would two keynotes appear – or if one why other???? what did it all achieve except to reduce their positions to mass made circus … silence can be golden … i mean if this is new party of discipline and teamwork afraid of going back to the past …….
i mean it really isn’t a good look for the party who want to run govt and claimed they are disciplined (unlike 2010 indeed) to participate in this drivel (i say that because the oprogram will not do what journalust should do and make a proper evaluation of facts – it will only seek to portray relativised disorder instead of moving a moral interpretive compass across the landscape – eg. should a first term leader be removed like this?
question is rthetorical — try to find a precedent anywhere in world even australia. why did rudd agree to appear and make this an issue of interpersonal drama and not one of priciplnes and precedents cgovernance and authority? so corbet never liked rudd – who gives a f….
I wish this whole incident had never happened. People who criticise Gillard on this, her career destroying error, are assumed to be Rudd supporters. Nonsense. It is about the future of the Labor Party. As long as Labor has no credible explanation of this sad episode, it will always tarnish those involved, including now Shorten. The voters will not trust Labor’s leadership again until it can be honest about its past. So far, it has failed on that score. Rudd and Gillard are both gone, but there has been no fresh breeze of change through an uninspiring leadership cohort.
——–labor has not fessed us and confessed this terrible blunder – they still try to justify it by attacking rudd – can’t they see consequences???? greensl likewise have never admitted eorror of mucking around with rudd (=voting against!! today wasn’t first time of dirty alliance with libs) over ets – they still seem proud of that ugly moment. a pox on both houses (all three)