The recent attacks on Kevin Rudd by Julia Gillard, Wayne Swan, Simon Crean, Stephen Conroy, Nicola Roxon and others suggests that they are unfit for office. These people actively supported Rudd as Cabinet ministers (and previously as Opposition front-bench members) and showed no courage in bringing him to heel. Did they threaten to resign unless he mended his ways? Did they actually resign? No, the lily-livered creatures cowered while Rudd ran roughshod over Cabinet processes and Cabinet government.
When Conroy stated that Rudd
had contempt for the cabinet, contempt for the cabinet members, contempt for the parliament
why didn’t we see Conroy’s resignation from Cabinet?
Instead it took some backroom and faceless men to depose Rudd, while Gillard didn’t have the courage to keep him on the backbench and/or expel him from the Labor Party.
Well Rudd is back – and the weak lily-livered Cabinet ministers will buckle once again and serve the tyrant.
Third-raters one and all.
How much of the media shares this guilt? Many of them allowed the 2007 election to be fought on spurious arguments and hollow promises because they just wanted Howard gone.
Since then we’ve had so many government public utterances that black is white or vice versa that they have not pinged – they are just as guilty as the main cast.
blogstrop
25 Feb 12 at 5:41 am
Totally correct SJ.
And not only were they whipped curs under Rudd, what’s changed ?
Julia won’t let them have a pencil in Cabinet meetings in case they write down, ummmm, what’s happening in Cabinet ??
“Miss, miss – Kim’s got a pencil out !”
“Kimmmm – put your pen down and go sit in the naughty chair !”
Waiting for Canberra press gallery to point this all out…..waiting…..waiting……
Myrddin Seren
25 Feb 12 at 7:05 am
True, the lurve and hate meeja were complicit in ruff’s ascension, but the coalition did themselves no favours by allowing Howard to remain in the leadership.
Hindsight’s a wonderul thing, however.
Costello V ruff would have been a much more interesting contest…
Rabz
25 Feb 12 at 7:25 am
Yep,
it seems Tanner was the only one with a conscience
duncan
25 Feb 12 at 7:41 am
The failure of Howard and the Libs as a group to do the succession correctly was a major failing. Costello shouldn’t have had to knife anybody to be elected leader.
My biggest gripe with the media is that they were complicit in the deceptive anti-work choices campaign, funded copiously by the union movement to save their skins. Now, with the disastrous Fair Work regime taking us back to the dark ages, they are still not calling things as they should. Moreover, any hint from the coalition that the pendulum might get swung back to a more rational IR position is greeted by media “players” as a return to Work Choices!
During the 2007 election campaign they gave Rudd a clear uncritical run. In the 2010 election campaign they were uneven in their treatment of Abbott and Gillard, but the outcome of that election hinged on much more – it required an approach to power grabbing at all costs that now reflects badly on her and her party. It also showed the independents to be shallow actors, and the Greens to be a dangerous option as protest vote. They are the ones who cornered Gillard, but she agreed to the terms. Power, or the longing for it, tempts!
Blogstrop
25 Feb 12 at 7:42 am
SJ, I wonder how much the alleged lack of a true secret ballot will inhibit the vote-switching in the next 48 hours: “I also call for there to be a secret ballot, a truly secret ballot, rather than people peering over one another’s shoulders in a time-honoured tradition in certain parts of the Australian Labor Party.” (Rudd)
Nevertheless, the real jockeying hasn’t yet started, IMO. The entire ALP backbench so far has acted without any sense or morality or public responsibility, so on Monday there will be nothing but self-interest. Rudd is the self-interest candidate for 27 on less than 6%. So it will be a close-run thing.
Tom
25 Feb 12 at 7:45 am
Again, in hindsight, it seems that ruff’s “I’m a fiscal conservative” was as big a lie as “there will be no air tax etc”.
Was it as important ?
Yes – as soon as smarmbag ruff uttered those words, I was immedately suspicious, just as I was of the dullard.
If they promise something before an election, we should expect the exact opposite.
Thanks laybore!
Rabz
25 Feb 12 at 7:57 am
Thought bubble:
While I think very little of Brown (in both senses), I do think his role as king maker is under-acknowledged / understood.
He knocked back the CPRS for rather weak grounds. Rudd wouldn’t negotiate with him. So, Brown started blocking all Rudd’s big plans.
Rudd looks weak and Julia, Brown’s socialist sister, comes to the rescue.
Brown knows he is likely to get the balance of power, so if Julia ties up the lower house, he can deliver the votes in the upper. And for a tiny few pieces of silver ($150mil for teeth, $half a bil for this pet green prject), whamo, Julia has all her big projects slammed thru both houses and looks the doer.
What a joke. The only person who achieved anything was Brown is getting his preferred PM pet in place, with his then being able to exert influence over her.
And Julia doesn’t give a shit that it happened this way, because at heart she’s a socialist.
Abbott takes credit for finally being an opposition leader, and in the face of people seeing Green agenda in motion, no wonder a majority want him to be PM.
Rudd was and always will be a complete tosser whose only concern is his standing on the world stage. total wanker.
Gillard will always be a pawn. Anyone giving her credit for negotiating a minority government with the likes of the greens, wilkie and those 2 sheilas is dreaming. They literally bent over for her, but for Abbott, just played pretend politics.
Abbott could win an election. He got damn close. Labor is on the nose in the 4 main States. But I still cannot understand why they still get to the high 40′s 2PP in some polls. They are nothing but high spend high tax with nothing to show for it but debt and people think that is good? Wow!
Prediction for Monday – Ruddles gets to 35, just enough to worry Gillard, and Rudd then sits back, and waits for the real impact of the carbon tax on prices to hit home.
She’ll be gone by Xmas!
pete m
25 Feb 12 at 8:23 am
…and three or four gag orders and no consultation with her “colleagues” on matters such as uranium sales to India, the Citizens Assembly, changes to the mining tax…
Gab
25 Feb 12 at 8:28 am
Sam J lecturing on ethics is like Paul Keating lecturing on humility.
AndrewL
25 Feb 12 at 9:01 am
1. Inertia. We, humans, are creatures of habit. At the voting booth, in the supermarket, in all facets of life.
2. Many Labor supporters haven’t figured out how rotten the ALP has become. Sure there are scandals, but all sides of politics get scandals from time to time, so long term supporters develop a certain level of immunity to that.
3. Ensconced in the Labor-Green supporting media (ABC, Fairfax, some other places) they believe that Labor’s policies are actually good policies, and that Tony Abbott, as a conservative Catholic, is anti-liberal. (he is a conservative catholic but he is ten times more liberal than these statist control freaks)
daddy dave
25 Feb 12 at 9:07 am
“Whatever it takes”.
Abu Chowdah
25 Feb 12 at 9:13 am
Gosh, you’re quite an asshole.
Abu Chowdah
25 Feb 12 at 9:14 am
Did the soviet communists carry on like this when Stalin took over their party?
TerjeP
25 Feb 12 at 9:20 am
No Stalin eliminated them forthwith.
Mike of Marion
25 Feb 12 at 9:23 am
Don’t sweat it too much, Abu. Sam will edit it.
AndrewL
25 Feb 12 at 9:31 am
AndrewL is obviously a fucwit leftist(most but not all are).
So vis a vis ‘asshole’, same diff
JamesK
25 Feb 12 at 9:33 am
We all know who they are. Some exceptions though from the evil ‘hate media’:
Gab
25 Feb 12 at 9:47 am
Taking it further back, why did they ever choose Rudd in the first place?
There’s the evil Andrew Bolt who had been warning us about Rudd’s temperament well before the 2007 election. Now how is it he could see the writing on the wall but not those colleagues closest to Rudd?
Gab
25 Feb 12 at 9:47 am
Why are now seeing journos accept without question the assertions that it’s the coalition that has a “black hole” budgetary problem? Instead of giving the government heat over its indebtedness, they’re more likely to soft-pedal it along the lines of “it’s not a huge percentage of GDP”.
Blogstrop
25 Feb 12 at 10:05 am
Sorry, hate typing on iPad! Errors all the time.
Blogstrop
25 Feb 12 at 10:07 am
Third rate? I don’t think they are that good.
Eyrie
25 Feb 12 at 10:35 am
Why resign when you can kick the boss’s ass to the street?
Max Scream
25 Feb 12 at 10:46 am
What ever happened to collective ministerial responsiility? Is it no longer a feature of our Westminster system?
2dogs
25 Feb 12 at 10:55 am
You know, I’ve never heard that here before!
I quite like it – the only thing that’s annoying is trying to get to the blockquote button once the copy, paste, etc options come up.
Requires great finger dexterity…
BTW back on topic, what’s truly inexplicable about this situation is that there’s no viable third option.
Two utter failures, squabbling over who’s got the right to lead us over the cliff.
It would be absolutely pathetic if it wasn’t so bloody serious.
Rabz
25 Feb 12 at 10:59 am
Gorton – Fraser
Whitlam – Cairns
Snedden – Fraser
Fraser – Peacock
etc down to
Gillard – Rudd
Nothing new here except the fact that one is a seriously disturbed individual engaged in a ‘flight on Rome’.
Max Scream
25 Feb 12 at 11:15 am
Here’s your expanation: Bob Baldwin, Lib member for Paterson, is getting lots of phone calls from the electorate with advice for him to vote either for Rudd or Juliar. Thickheads!
Biota
25 Feb 12 at 11:31 am
The answer is because the ALP has a strong culture of silence and protecting the bad. See my post in the OT re politicans who have been convicted. Since 2000 12 out of 13 are ALP (one ex ALP independent) and one LNP. The ALP is otherwise recognised as the criminal code of silence known as honour amongst thieves. They don’t talk until they lose government – which is more reason to kick em out. Should be a bumper year with five ex ALP MPs, 3 ex ministers, likely to front court to defend charges ranging from fraud to possession of child pornography. Of course non of these people were shopped by their MP counterparts.
John Comnenus
25 Feb 12 at 11:58 am
The media barely reported Rudd’s dysfunctionality and overwhelmingly preferred the Kochie-invented artifact.
Max Scream
25 Feb 12 at 12:22 pm
they did not resign, instead they worked to get ride of Rudd as PM once be became unpopular and now speak against his return. that is what a team player does.
political change comes from hard work. not dramatic lone-wolf resignations. cabals must be formed to plot the demise of the prince
The fatal moment of Rudd’s prime ministership was when he decided to defer his emissions trading scheme.
This was a fundamental breach of faith with the Australian electorate. He said repeatedly that climate change was “the great, moral and economic issue of our time” Then he deferred it and Rudd’s approval ratings fractured.
It is important to remind how fundamental this was. The voters would have preferred to see him keep fighting and lose rather than just give up the fight.
This was a core matter of political conviction. It was about guts. It was a pattern of indecision.
The voters will quickly remember that Rudd is a phoney who lacks courage and they is why he will not be recycled.
HT: http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/politics/looking-back–in-anger-20120224-1ttrq.html
Jim Rose
25 Feb 12 at 12:37 pm
I don’t sweat it, ladyboy.
People like you merely interest me in the same way a spider fascinates me for a minute or two before I squash its tiny life essence into oblivion.
M’kay?
Abu Chowdah
25 Feb 12 at 1:45 pm
To be fair, they wouldn’t have wanted all this dirty laundry to be aired publicly if they could help it.
They’re now all coming out on the record now as saying they had lots of “chats” with Rudd about his leadership style in private. I believe them. It’s my guess Rudd told them in no uncertain terms where to go, and in the end they got fed up and dumped him.
Their big mistake was assuming the Rudd was a normal human being who could put the ego in check for the good of the party…….
MDMConnell
25 Feb 12 at 10:31 pm
Albanese the hard man of the ALP. Just another cry baby.
Pickles
25 Feb 12 at 11:22 pm
AndrewL – I have never edited your comments so what are you going on about?
Samuel J
28 Feb 12 at 6:06 pm