Killing time: part three

A thread for discussion of the final act of the Rudd-Gillard government, to be raked over this evening on ABC Television.

Ahead of tonight’s finale, one last thread for discussion of ABC Television’s The Killing Season, and the disintegration of the previous government more generally.

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.

110 comments on “Killing time: part three”

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  1. Having missed the first 2 episodes I am champing at the bit for this final episode.

    Bring it on (wheres the popcorn?)

  2. And I’ll be here as always to quietly grind my teeth over the show’s apparent surgical removal of the Greens perspective from what was not a Labor-monopoly government.

  3. [
    And I’ll be here as always to quietly grind my teeth over the show’s apparent surgical removal of the Greens perspective from what was not a Labor-monopoly government.
    ]

    lol

    It’s not easy bein green (not that I’m a Green I should add)

  4. With respect, it was a Labor government, not a coalition. A show about the government is an entirely appropriate thing for them to be making, and the Greens were most assuredly not part of it.

  5. Yes I had thought Gillard would be looking better this third episode after looking very poor in the first two episodes – but so far that is not the case at all. Gillard continues to look like an automoton reading scripted lines very unconvincingly.

  6. There she is admitting it was a carbon tax “silly little debate” was how she described people arguing it wasn’t a carbon tax.

    There were many here on PB that must have been silly little debators :devil:

  7. I wonder what the ABC series about the current govt will be called in three years time?

    How about “Plan 9 From Outer Space”?

  8. I don’t think Kevin could have handled a minority government anyway. Never picked up the phone to Brown once since he retook the lodge, not that there was much left to do at that stage.

  9. PG @ 2

    In a program that spends more time on a video of Rudd swearing than it does on the vast bulk of legislation passed by Labor in the time, you have to be dreaming if the Greens are going to get air time.

  10. That’d only be true if we had proportional representation, rummel. You never know with geographic rep, see SA.

  11. In six years the Rudd and Gillard governments achieved a huge number of things for the good of the country.

    This theatrical program used all those great things – NBN, NDIS, Gonski, the apologies, carbon pricing, the Royal Commission into child sexual abuse and so much more – as a backdrop to a lot of absolute leadersh!t crap.

    This program, for all its great production values and narrative force, is emblematic of what is wrong with political reporting in this country.

    The things that matter are not worth talking about – but political crap can fill acres of newsprint.

    Absolute failure of moral values in our journalistic class. In other countries journalists die or are murdered to get important information out to the world. Here all the resources of our media – even the allegedly most serious journalists – go to providing reality TV entertainment.

  12. The perspective that this series offers, a couple of years down the track, is to simply underscore the utter, utter insanity of the move to unseat Rudd in the first place. The defining statement of this series was Albanese’s comment that if they were to proceed in June 2010, as of course they did, that they would be killing two Labor prime ministers.

    End of story.

  13. alias@29

    The perspective that this series offers, a couple of years down the track, is to simply underscore the utter, utter insanity of the move to unseat Rudd in the first place. The defining statement of this series was Albanese’s comment that if they were to proceed in June 2010, as of course they did, that they would be killing two Labor prime ministers.

    End of story.

    Yes, utterly dumb.

    And yet the cult continues it’s Julia adulation. Go figure.

  14. TPOF

    Fair point, can’t agree more. But what it does show is government is comprised of individuals each with their own agenda, some better than others.

  15. Well, that was a lot better than I thought it was going to be. Up there with “Labor in Power” for mine.

    Those final words from Alan Milburn were devastating but sadly accurate.

  16. Sir Mad Cyril@34

    Well, that was a lot better than I thought it was going to be. Up there with “Labor in Power” for mine.

    Those final words from Alan Milburn were devastating but sadly accurate.

    My hatred of the NSW Right and all it stands for is further confirmed.

  17. Final words of the program…. No-one can escape blame for that.

    How true. There was certainly a bull market for blame in this story and I hope all the shares have been sold and positions run down. Maybe they will turn up later in the desolate market where none come to buy.

  18. The series confirms what i have always believed:

    The first leak – the what Julia said in the meeting was from Rudd, although how and when is unclear. it could have been on the same night, although it could have been afterwards. Kevin more or less accepts responsibility for that one. Now since it was his story to share, I honestly do not think anyone could have expected him to stay stum -it would not be human. He should have told the tale on day one.

    Now Kevin denied the second “pensioner leak” Now I do not think he did it, but he probably knows who did. It could have been a staffer.

  19. Joel FizGibbon tells it like it is. They ALL brief the press and those that say they do not are fibbers.

    Kevin was better at it than most.

  20. daretotread@40

    The series confirms what i have always believed:

    The first leak – the what Julia said in the meeting was from Rudd, although how and when is unclear. it could have been on the same night, although it could have been afterwards. Kevin more or less accepts responsibility for that one. Now since it was his story to share, I honestly do not think anyone could have expected him to stay stum -it would not be human. He should have told the tale on day one.

    Now Kevin denied the second “pensioner leak” Now I do not think he did it, but he probably knows who did. It could have been a staffer.

    Someone has to play ‘devils advocate’ and challenge any spending proposal.

    I didn’t get too excited over that ‘leak’ and I still say “so what?”

    I really think that the most damaging stuff came direct from JG herself. Brainwaves like the ‘real Julia’.

  21. dtt

    Oakes said it wasn’t Rudd. I suppose it could have been a staffer. He certainly leaked Gillard breaking her deal.

    I think Gillard looks okay in this episode.

    I’m calling this episode a draw. Nothing new came out.

    A few people looked good; Albo, Emerson, Macklin and Ferguson for a very well done series.

  22. dtt@41: While I have a very low opinion of KR, I have heard from very credible sources connected to the heart of the ALP that he was not responsible for the cabinet leaks during the 2010 election. It was not a staffer, but someone with a deep and abiding hostility towards JG dating back more than a decade.

  23. [I didn’t get too excited over that ‘leak’ and I still say “so what?”]

    I don’t agree. Gillard opposing PPL was a very bad look. Doubting the pension rise wasn’t so bad but the reason given that “they don’t vote for us anyway” wasn’t a big help.

  24. bemused: the NSW Right made Rudd. Hawker groomed him and then Arbib slotted him into the leadership in 2006. Bowen, Fitzgibbon, Dastyari and others led the way in bringing him back in 2013.

    For Rudd to attack the NSW Right is like a child attacking its parent.

  25. [
    I never understood why Tanner hated Gillard so much. It sounded personal.
    ]

    I gather he was trying to block her pre-selection as far back as the early nineties. Not sure what started it all though.

  26. Diogenes@48

    mb

    I never understood why Tanner hated Gillard so much. It sounded personal.

    A significant section of the Victorian Left has loathed Gillard for a long time and saw her as a divisive figure. Or so I was told by a member of the Victorian left who shared that loathing.

    It goes back a long time and I think it arises from a number of causes rather than any one specific event.

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