Malcolm on the fence!
Malcolm Mackerras was in Saturday’s Weekend Oz on the election. Not officially online, but can be seen here. Disappointingly, no prediction from Malcolm; instead, ”I confidently predict that the result will lie somewhere in a range between a landslide to Rudd and a landslide to Abbott. Readers can work out their own detailed predictions for themselves, using my tables and my pendulum.”
Q&A: Confident Kevin stayed home
Caught Mr Rudd on ABC’s Q&A last night with an audience of young people. About half were leftish and cynical, the rest were Abbott supporters(!) A tough audience, the PM seemed nervous and contained and never hit his stride. Kept declaring that he and his team had to do more to explain things like the CRPS (but not tonight, evidently).
Still, it’s difficult to imagine John Howard subjecting himself to such an experience.
[Update: just heard on ABC news the PM say "of course" directly to the question "would you like to raise the drinking age to 21?". But from memory, those words were a response to "well would you like to?", which Tony Jones meant "increase the drinking age to 21" but which Rudd thought meant "get more evidence on the topic" or something like that. The PM looked confused, anyway. Some naughty splicing by ABC radio. Or maybe I misremember. Might have a look later.]
Rhetorically challenged
During the Howard government’s first term 1996-8, it attracted the label “rhetorically challenged” several times, usually from disappointed supporters. (Coined by Michael Duffy?) You could say the same about this lot. The only senior minister who has a go at explaining things is the Finance Minister. His perceived audience – bizzoidy types – probably makes it easier, but Lindsay Tanner alone seems able to get an economic/political message across without dumbing it down.
Swannie nicks Tanner’s lines from time to time (most recently ”this is the weakest opposition economic team in decades”) and should do more of it. Rudd’s brief mention of deficits on Q&A last night was not inspiring; he could complement the Monthly stuff with some simple fiscal-social concepts.
The economy, stupid?
What can you say when polls show a government trailing on an issue but that government still way ahead in voting intentions? Perhaps the issue is not an election-changer. This is likely the case with boat-people (the 2009-10 version), and may also be the case with the ETS; the Coalition’s goal is to make it an election-changer. Complicated by people’s thoughts about which politicians are fair dinkum about climate change.
Election 2010: it won’t be pretty
Tony Abbott and Barnaby Joyce, particularly Joyce, are currently more effective at highlighting the government’s shortcomings than their predecessors. Yet whenever they “punch through”, they make themselves the news, remind people who they are and why they’re difficult to vote for. That’s a paradox.
And if Barnaby stops being Barnaby, he loses his appeal, which is the way with mavericks.
Malcolm is being timid, but not I. Notwithstanding the government’s problems, it is difficult to see anything other than a clobbering of the Coalition on election-day. Tony is vote-repelling enough; Barnaby doubles it.
But that’s just my opinion.
Peter,
Do you mean “nicks” as in pinches?
Si.
[...] interesting post this morning by Peter Brent at Mumble. Under the heading “Rhetorically Challenged”, he says: During the Howard government’s [...]
I thought Rudds performance on Q and A was wooden and made him look rather unappealing. Sure it was a tough audience, but I think it also had something to do with the format. Rudd almost looked like he was in the dock and under cross examination. It would be most interesting to see Abbott in the same setting – my guess is that he would have used that larrikan charm that he can often turns on to great effect.
The Herald writer must be taking their cues from mumble, I’d just finished reading Ross Gittens article which discussed at length albeit amongst other things the unwillingness of the government to have a real go at explaining things to the voters.
Your point about Tanner is interesting in that there is only one. If it were a handful you might say that many were just overly cautious being new to government. If there was nobody like Tanner one might think some directive has come from Rudd’s office but with Lindsay saying what’s on his mind that doesn’t stack up either.
Skimmed down to Erik Jensen and read about Qanda and how the would be gentle ride turned into the interview from hell. I don’t know if I agreed with Jensen, more likely it was a calculated trade off than a lapse of judgement but he was right that it was no picnic.
What Jensen appeared not to appreciate was just how unlikely many of the attendants (and young viewers) were likely to change their voting allegiance in the next twenty years and just how unrepresentative a bunch of bookish, rally attending youths are of the broader, apathetic youth vote.
Personally I thought it was fairly typical Rudd performance, offend nobody, stay out of trouble, throw in a couple of daggy expressions and sooth the audience before continuing if they got a bit grumpy “I’m just explaining how..”(in a voice that says ‘Please, hear me out.’)
I’d give him points for not getting into any real stick spots which I expect Abbott probably would do as the discussion wore on. Same as Swan who doesn’t have the same verbal flexibility to get about. Gillard and Turnbull did a joint one from memory a while back: From memory Gillard came across as a bit partisan, a bit nasty, Turnbull very carefully changed his tack depending on the issues and did extremely well but presumably opposition is easier than government and few have the communication skills of Turnbull.