Words, By George!

Australia must the laughing-stock of the world!

In 2010, the then Deputy  Prime Minister Julia Gillard toppled the incumbent Prime Minister Ken Rudd in what appeared to many, to be a blood-less coup!

Three years on the Master of Deceit and Leaks, Mr. “I’ll never be Prime Minister..…This issue is over and done with” Kevin Rudd has toppled Julia Gillard in a get back situation to return to the Prime Ministership of Australia.

One of the rules of politics is that you don’t return a former leader.  The party needs to remember why that leader was axed in the first place. On his website Steve Austin from ABC Radio, Kevin Rudd was described as “an autocratic megalomaniac who buggered everything he touched”.  People were reminded that either they had short memories or didn’t pay attention at the time. Now he’s back. It has been often said that Rudd was a poor Prime Minister.  Rudd was described as “autocratic, exclusive, disrespectful and at times flat-out abusive”. Former Labor minister Barry Cohen said of Rudd, ”If Rudd was a better bloke he would still be leader. But he pissed everybody off.”  What has changed?

The unfortunate thing about this situation is that the Australian Labor Party believes that with Kevin Rudd at the helm, that they can win the upcoming federal election.  They haven’t realised, yet, that haven’t go a snowball’s chance in hell. Are we to understand that the depth of talent in the Labor Party precluded the election of somebody fresh to the position of Prime Minister?

This move has disenfranchised a large number of traditional Labor voters, by the deceit and hypocrisy used by Rudd to regain the top job.  This author is one of them and will not vote Labor again, but certainly will not vote Liberal either!

All Tony Abbott, like him or loathe him, has to do to win the upcoming election is to keep his nose clean and his mouth shut (and that can be difficult for him) and he is on his way to the Lodge. Surely he’s not going to do anything to lose the unloseable election?  He could do absolutely nothing in terms of campaigning and still win handsomely.

But I digress.  Getting back the title of this post, I have been continually dismayed by the behaviour of Australian journalists who have continually driven this leadership speculation over time, to the point were policy took a backward place to the constant and childish speculation and questioning of Labor politicians about the party leadership or the “Return of Rudd”, or “Rudd 2013”.  A party should not be driven to leadership ballots at the behest of the press corps. Twice.

Now I may not have understood Media 101, but I was sure that the role of media was not to set policy but rather to report it. Media needs to report on policy decisions of government and “matters of substance”  to enable the Australian public to make a decision as to the efficacy of their elected representatives in a fair and balanced manner. 

The government drives the media, the media does not drive the government. Politicians are answerable to the electors, the people; not the media!

Lastly, not Gillard and certainly not Rudd, are going to save this Labor government from annihilation at the next poll.  Landslide is too tame a word for the routing that the Labor Party is going to suffer in the election to come.  They will suffer a similar fate to their NSW counterparts and as a result will spend up to 10 years in the political wilderness in abject minority as a result.

And Kevin Rudd will be looking for a new job come election time!

The Rudd/Gillard/Rudd governments have not been great performers in office, but their potential has been stymied by the constant daily drivel dished out by the Australian media circus.

Australian politics is the laughing-stock of the world!

There is no democracy in Australia, only the dictatorship of media!