After another tumultuous week in Aussie politics we have a new, but not really new, Prime Minister.  And the flow on effects are losing a heap of existing Ministers who reckon they cannot work with the new PM.

Now indulge me a little here as I preempt the kind of rubbish my mother-in-law would come up with – “oh they’ve lost all of these senior people, oh it’s a shambles, oh I can’t stand him” etc, etc.  Let’s attack these first.

1. First of all these senior people.  Yep, very true.  Here is something very important.  Tony Burke, current Minister for Sustainability, Water, Environment, Population and Communities (hereby referred to as Lots of Things) also offered his resignation as Minister for Lots of Things.  It was REFUSED.  Why?  Frankly because the guy is immensely capable, is a terrific communicator, knows what he is talking about before opening his mouth and is a realist. 

Now if I look at some of the names that have gone (ie: resignation ACCEPTED) I see Swan, Conroy, Ludwig, Garrett, Combet and others who I cannot remember.  Peter Garrett to my mind is a big loss, but was in the wrong portfolio anyway.  I have seen Peter speak in Glebe a few years back and was interestingly asked by veteran Labor man John Faulkner who was there to watch what I thought of Peter as a speaker.  On this particular night Peter had a prepared speech, and it went ok.  But then he opened to questions off the floor – and then he excelled.  I told John, leave him off script – let him improvise, ad lib, whatever.  Use his obvious passion and knowledge to spell out to people in his own way what he needs to say.  Peter went from dull on an overcast day to physically glowing with enthusiasm in a golden sunbeam in comparison once he was unshackled from his prepared speech.  Put him in a Ministry where he can be passionate.  Education is important no doubt, but I’d use him somewhere else.  Aboriginal Affairs, Immigration, Attorney General even.

Greg Combet is another big loss, also highly capable, smart, erudite, a terrific communicator and able to deflect the bullshit to get onto the real issues.  These 2 need to be a part of the Rudd team for things to work.  Combet at least will stand for re-election and hopefully will return to a senior position, where he belongs.

But the rest of them are in my mind no loss at all.  Whingers, whiners, poor communicators, smug, arrogant, invisible or downright hopeless.  Categorise them however you like.  If you cannot communicate what you are doing in your Ministry, then you are useless.  End of story.  That is why Rudd is back.  Joe Average loves him.  He talks to us in our language.  But like the equally well respected Malcolm Turnbull, he can turn on the jargon and bamboozle a journalist who doesn’t know their stuff and make them look like an idiot.  They both have a sense of humour, they are both the kind of bloke you could stand next to at a barbeque and be happy to talk to.  Swan?  Conroy?  Ludwig?  No.  Just no.  Seriously, those “senior” people, they are mostly better off without them.

2. It’s a shambles.  Yes, it is.  And when the media get tired of making Julia jokes, rehashing Kevin 07 lines, playing Liberal attack ads, giving time to Alan “I’m a joke” Jones and actually decide to have a look at the dearth of Liberal policies, then and only then will it no longer be a shambles.  We are force fed drivel by the Media, when the policies are popped onto the websites of the political parties to look at.  I had a famous discussion with my previously mentioned mother-in-law about some Murray Darling policy that she had heard about on the radio (don’t get me started about the bloody radio) and she was all hyped up to the gills about disappearing country towns, farmers going broke, all to save a frog species that no one cares about.  Apart from the fact that everything she said was a load of fettered dingoes kidneys (with apologies to the late Douglas Adams) I told her to have a read on the website.  “Oh I can’t be bothered with all that”.  So don’t be bothered about the truth then.  To which she got all high and mighty at me about how I was looking down on people.  Because I could be bothered to read it, and know the policy.  What the hell?

Now you might say, that’s just my mother-in-law being a fruitcake.  Unfortunately the problem is that many, many people listen to the newsreader, shock jock, taxi driver, opposition leader, etc and believe every word as if it came hot on the press from Mount Sinai on a stone tablet.  Not that I believe those stone tablets either but you get the point.  And in a Democracy if the majority of people choose to be ignorant, then the votes of the ignorant carry the day.  They wonder why they don’t trust a politician.  If you don’t read what they say, how do you know what they plan?  They can’t spell out their policies in a 20 second news bite and get all of it in now can they?  So yes it is a shambles.  When the new PM sets out his policy agenda I’ll have some more to read.  And then I’ll again be able to poke massive holes in the musings of our media.  I actually don’t like to call most of them journalists, they are just media crying “look at me, look at me” but that a story for another day.

3. Oh I can’t stand him.  Hmm.  Good, I hope he wins and you get to look at him for years.  I quite like Ruddy.  I like Malcolm Turnbull too.  I’m certainly not a rusted on Labor voter, and I’ve never found a Liberal or National candidate in my electorate yet worth voting for.  I have voted Independent and Green in the past, depending on the candidate.  I’m not too fussed on parties, in fact I dislike them immensely, and my vote is based on the candidate, and what they say they stand for.  I’m not overly fussed about what they look like.  So for me it’s not a decision about picking Abbott in his bike shorts over Ruddy in a blue tie.  I respect Abbott’s fitness and cycling choices, good on him, and as a bloke at a barbecue he probably would be interesting to chat to as well.  But I’m no fan of his negativity and the invisible, or should I say ephemeral, nature of his policies.  In short I don’t care what they look like.  Otherwise we’d end up with Hugh Jackman as PM based on 100% of female voters, and no small measure of Wolverine fans, choosing him.

So yeah, Rudd vs Abbott.  Be more fun if it was Rudd vs Turnbull.  Or Rudd & Turnbull vs Abbott & Pyne.  Tag team wrestling at it’s finest.  Just bring it.

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