Something interesting that seems to have popped up since September 7th is a strange affliction among we, the chattering classes. For so long, the Labor party has given the gift of ridiculousness and melodrama, that like the sad, slightly unaware addict to soap operas, we can’t seem to tear our eyes away now that they’re no longer the main game.
There is a new government, and it is getting on with the process of governing – already trying to usher in things it has explicitly pledged not to do, such as Christopher Pyne’s stated education reforms – and yet what is a key point of conversation? The Labor leadership of course.
As just two examples, Barrie Cassidy and Paula Matthewson have penned smart pieces decrying the fact that the leadership stoush is ‘letting Abbott get away with anything’.
With respect, bollocks.
First, Abbott and his Environment Minister Greg Hunt wound up the Climate Commission. The response? A huge amount of reporting and a groundswell of public support which has raised nearly $1 million in a week to keep it going as an NGO.
Asylum seekers? Well, Operation Weekly Briefings is well underway, and the new government’s attempts to starve the nation of the kind of ‘shipping news’ it so shrilly wailed about from opposition has gone quite poorly, with reporters doing a solid job of holding Scott Morrison to account for the deaths that are emerging on his watch, and holding Abbott and Bishop to account for their diplomatic foibles with the Indonesian government.
Chris Bowen is doing a fine job as interim leader of the ALP, making the appropriate statements, but it is the news media and social media that are holding the government to account. Which is as it always is post-election.
The leadership vote that the ALP are conducting is an experiment, sure. There may be problems that arise from such an open process, but at the moment, I can’t see them. Albanese and Shorten are both conducting themselves with dignity, and treating each other, and the audience, like adults meriting respect. They are establishing their credentials with a reinvigorated supporter base, and will hit the ground running whenever one of them gets the nod.
Lest we forget Brendan Nelson. After the 2007 loss, Nelson was tossed to the wolves. A nightwatchman leader was ineffective, weak, and did nothing to rein in the internal dissent that any loss gets.
Shorten and Albanese, by taking this path to the leadership, are facing many of those questions, and will take the reins not only with a great deal of authority bestowed on them, but with party rules that make unseating them almost impossible, allowing them to patiently create an alternative narrative for a new ALP, and highlight how the new government is actively ripping away rights that Australians take for granted.
Also, do people need reminding that we are less than four weeks into a three-year term of parliament? What could the opposition possibly do now that will make a lick of difference in 2016? The overwhelming majority of the public have well and truly switched off politics for a while. The enormous drop in turnout at the election is a solid indicator of how awful our politics has become, so It’s a safe bet that the non-politically obsessed is currently planning summer holidays and reading Inferno.
For heaven’s sake, Parliament hasn’t even sat yet. How on earth would a newly instated opposition leader make hay without question time to start applying pressure? Whether it were Shorten or Albanese doing the job instead of Bowen, they would be getting little extra attention and saying little different.
Right now the media are focused on what the new government is trying to do, and intent on scrutinising it. And thus far, they’ve done a solid job. It’s not their job to make Brandis and Joyce resign, it’s their job to bring their misbehaviour to our attention. And even if Albo was jumping up and down calling for sackings, it’s hard to imagine what earthly reason Tony Abbott would have to take his advice.
Instead, what the Labor party are doing appears to be eminently sensible. Rather than rush back into opposition, they are laying the foundations for building a movement. Rallying their supporters behind a cohesive vision that they can take to the Australian people and prosecute with some solidity, for the next three, six or nine years. Because we are talking in years, not weeks or months.
The Labor party will survive if it doesn’t dive straight back in to the act of opposing. Allowing it to spend the first 2.7 per cent of this term of government to set itself right, avoid stupid recriminations and get some consensus behind a leader and a vision is eminently smart.
And let’s all cool our jets before we start begging for more conflict that we’ve spent the last four years bemoaning.
It’s like we want our politics to be nothing more than PM and opposition leader going at each others’ throats.
Ed Butler has thoughts and thinks them here. This article was originally published on AusOpinion.com.
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