This is not how January is supposed to be. We’re knee deep into the Australian Open – and the Aussies are actually doing well; the T20 competition is going gangbusters; the one day competition even seems to have generated some interest, and the world cup one day tournament looks set to be huge; the Asian Cup is getting decent audiences; and the Tour Down Under is always worth a watch.
In short, January is about sport. And yet politics has found its way to the front pages. For a government hoping January would give it a chance to draw breath and re-group, it sees itself having to deal with questions from journalists over whether or not Tony Abbott will last out the term.
Such questions are proof that governing is a heck of a lot harder than being in opposition and that the media love more than anything the opportunity to use anonymous sources to fuel leadership talk. It happened under the ALP with Julia Gillard, and at the time Tony Abbott loved such reports – he dined out on them. Now he is the one having to deal with things being said by “senior sources”.
Partly the fault lies with Campbell Newman. He inexplicably called an early election, which meant that the school holidays brought politics to the fore in not just that state but all others, as various Abbott government policies were seen to be hurting his chances of re-election.
As a result the issue of the $20 Medicare rebate cut needed to be dealt with immediately rather than once parliament had returned in February. It also meant all the issues that dogged the Abbott government last year were being raked over again in Queensland and it was rather conspicuous that no senior government ministers were venturing north to defend them.
And most clearly Tony Abbott was staying well away from anywhere north of the Tweed River.
Partly the fault lies with the Abbott government itself. The way it handled the Medicare rebate cut revealed not only a government doing things on the run, but doing so in a way that lacked coherency.
It was no surprise that on the weekend leaks began coming via Samantha Maiden in News Ltd papers that it was not actually Peter Dutton’s proposal but Tony Abbott’s and that Dutton and Hockey had argued against it. Successful policies have many fathers, unsuccessful ones are orphans, but they generally involve everyone madly suggesting that anyone but they were present at the conception.
No one wants to have ownership of this policy, but given that the leaks are so clearly targeting the Prime Minister and his office, it is a sign that there’s a fair bit of trouble at t’mill.
Things failed to improve this week with Joe Hockey and Christopher Pyne being somewhat at odds over their Higher Education policy. Hockey early in the week suggested no more negotiations with the Senate on the issue would occur, but Pyne later suggested that everything was up for negotiation.
When you stuff up the easy things such as keeping a constant message, then you have to fear how they will go when a real test arrives. And one arrived today with the long awaited release of the Productivity Commissions’ Issues paper into work place relations.
Among the topics are penalty rates, minimum wage, employee protections, safety nets and enterprise bargaining: all things that are made for fear campaigns (rightly or wrongly) and for tough negotiations, very tough policy development and a seemingly impossibly tough public sales campaign.
Does the government want to go to the election with any sniff of a WorkChoices 2.0 policy? Given how scared Abbott was of such a thought in the last election –an election in which he was a massive favourite to win – it’s a brave person who’ll suggest they have the wherewithal or the personnel available to take on the fight in an election which at the moment would see them at best a 50:50 bet.
But if they’re not going to move forward with a new policy, then what is the review for? If they do nothing it just feeds into the perception that this government creates problems for itself for little reason.
It’s not the way for a leader to go about firming up support of anonymous backbenchers who feel little need to keep quiet about their disquiet.
Share
