Extract from The Guardian
The set-in-stone image of a values-based leader is starting to show
its limits, particularly on same-sex marriage, but the party has a
broader priority
Does Tony Abbott know that on current form he’s drifting into being Australia’s version of George W. Bush? That bomber jacket, the boxer’s gait, the “God bless” the border force,
the cartoonish projections of Australia’s (real and complex) national
security threat that somehow increase the sense of contingency and
nervousness. Don’t leaders in complex times like ours get about
supplying the necessary vigilance and then step back to soothe and
connect and reassure?
For a politician so intent on projecting values, Abbott is beginning to look like an actor rather than a prime minister. Just as “Dubya” once projected his own sense of righteous certainty onto a mildly startled world, Abbott this week has presented himself as a politician infatuated with his own sense of what’s right.
By digging in on same-sex marriage, Abbott sent a signal to the voters that his personal beliefs were more important than the millennial societal and cultural change that’s arrived right on his doorstep.
The prime minister was of course just reassuring the base, but talking to the base won’t win the Coalition the next federal election – which is why colleagues are grittily determined not to rapid set the Liberal party entirely in Abbott’s retro image.
There is a significant attempt on to try and drag the prime minister back to a posture where the government is more than just the querulous articulations of its base.
If national politics has been breaking your heart or boring you senseless I suggest you talk yourself out of your alienation and tune in for the next couple of weeks, because stuff – it’s going to get interesting.
I suspect the Liberal party is going to thrash out between now and the resumption of parliament on 10 August whether it still is a Liberal party, both in process and in substance, and it’s going to do it on an issue that people actually care about.
And the other thing we are going to find out in the next couple of weeks – assuming he sails through a testing appearance at the trade union royal commission next week – is whether or not Bill Shorten actually stands for anything.
Shorten has thus far approached Labor’s national conference in a posture of studious neutrality. He’s done that for two reasons. Results at this particular conference are unpredictable because of the very tight factional balance and the particular bunch of issues in contention – and because Shorten genuinely wants to try and lead by consensus.
Call that particular gesture post-Rudd trauma, and it’s laudable in theory. But externally, with the public, generosity can very easily look like vacuousness, particularly when you struggle to land a clear argument, and when you too obviously avoid grappling with the fine detail you really need to be across – both unfortunate Shorten signatures.
Abbott and Shorten are facing some profound choices about leadership in the coming weeks.
Abbott needs to break decisively out of the pugilistic mindset and develop some genuine collegiality. I began this Dispatch by wondering whether the prime minister still has the external perspective to know there is something a bit off in the way he presents to the public.
Abbott is a highly intelligent bloke, and unlike many senior politicians, is an inhabitant of the real world. But government is a place that stealthily insulates you from truth and truth-telling, and starves you of time for quiet reflection.
It would be very easy for him to not notice the public projection of himself as a “leader in a time of war” has become not only significantly over-engineered, but has become something larger than a bit of branding. If you go round asking people what side they are on, if you divide and swagger, that combative and tribal culture tends to permeate. The public projection validates private rancour. The starkness of Abbott’s binary world is beginning to manifest in the government’s internal culture.
Politics is already a feudal business. You don’t need to pour petrol on a fire.
Shorten is facing the opposite problem. He needs to dial it up, not dial it back. Talk and group hugs and waffling formulations need to translate into some concrete priorities, because there’s a bunch of voters looking in on Shorten and the opposition with a degree of incomprehension.
There’s a bit of the actor in Shorten’s demeanour, too.
To cut through and persuade, he has to be prepared to take a risk and perhaps even find himself on the losing side of an argument, because there, in a bit of adversity, Shorten might actually find some genuine conviction that rings true, resonates and carries through the cacophony of the news cycle.
For a politician so intent on projecting values, Abbott is beginning to look like an actor rather than a prime minister. Just as “Dubya” once projected his own sense of righteous certainty onto a mildly startled world, Abbott this week has presented himself as a politician infatuated with his own sense of what’s right.
By digging in on same-sex marriage, Abbott sent a signal to the voters that his personal beliefs were more important than the millennial societal and cultural change that’s arrived right on his doorstep.
The prime minister was of course just reassuring the base, but talking to the base won’t win the Coalition the next federal election – which is why colleagues are grittily determined not to rapid set the Liberal party entirely in Abbott’s retro image.
There is a significant attempt on to try and drag the prime minister back to a posture where the government is more than just the querulous articulations of its base.
If national politics has been breaking your heart or boring you senseless I suggest you talk yourself out of your alienation and tune in for the next couple of weeks, because stuff – it’s going to get interesting.
I suspect the Liberal party is going to thrash out between now and the resumption of parliament on 10 August whether it still is a Liberal party, both in process and in substance, and it’s going to do it on an issue that people actually care about.
And the other thing we are going to find out in the next couple of weeks – assuming he sails through a testing appearance at the trade union royal commission next week – is whether or not Bill Shorten actually stands for anything.
Shorten has thus far approached Labor’s national conference in a posture of studious neutrality. He’s done that for two reasons. Results at this particular conference are unpredictable because of the very tight factional balance and the particular bunch of issues in contention – and because Shorten genuinely wants to try and lead by consensus.
Call that particular gesture post-Rudd trauma, and it’s laudable in theory. But externally, with the public, generosity can very easily look like vacuousness, particularly when you struggle to land a clear argument, and when you too obviously avoid grappling with the fine detail you really need to be across – both unfortunate Shorten signatures.
Abbott and Shorten are facing some profound choices about leadership in the coming weeks.
Abbott needs to break decisively out of the pugilistic mindset and develop some genuine collegiality. I began this Dispatch by wondering whether the prime minister still has the external perspective to know there is something a bit off in the way he presents to the public.
Abbott is a highly intelligent bloke, and unlike many senior politicians, is an inhabitant of the real world. But government is a place that stealthily insulates you from truth and truth-telling, and starves you of time for quiet reflection.
It would be very easy for him to not notice the public projection of himself as a “leader in a time of war” has become not only significantly over-engineered, but has become something larger than a bit of branding. If you go round asking people what side they are on, if you divide and swagger, that combative and tribal culture tends to permeate. The public projection validates private rancour. The starkness of Abbott’s binary world is beginning to manifest in the government’s internal culture.
Politics is already a feudal business. You don’t need to pour petrol on a fire.
Shorten is facing the opposite problem. He needs to dial it up, not dial it back. Talk and group hugs and waffling formulations need to translate into some concrete priorities, because there’s a bunch of voters looking in on Shorten and the opposition with a degree of incomprehension.
There’s a bit of the actor in Shorten’s demeanour, too.
To cut through and persuade, he has to be prepared to take a risk and perhaps even find himself on the losing side of an argument, because there, in a bit of adversity, Shorten might actually find some genuine conviction that rings true, resonates and carries through the cacophony of the news cycle.
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