{"id":103,"date":"2007-12-21T23:38:00","date_gmt":"2007-12-21T13:38:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.pbw.id.au\/blog\/uncategorized\/a-tale-of-two-parties\/"},"modified":"2018-05-22T22:13:15","modified_gmt":"2018-05-22T12:13:15","slug":"a-tale-of-two-parties","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pbw.id.au\/blog\/2007\/12\/a-tale-of-two-parties\/","title":{"rendered":"A Tale of Two Parties"},"content":{"rendered":"

The election-night convention is that the losing leader first concedes defeat, and when these formalities are out of the way the victor claims the spoils. In each case, these speeches, replete with the necessary acknowledgments and thank-yous, are delivered to a gathering of the hard-core faithful.<\/p>\n

I recall some vivid scenes from what my memory tells me are past examples of the genre: Malcolm Fraser in victory deflecting Tammy’s adoring embrace; Fraser in defeat, at the precipice of tears, with Tammy attentive at his side; Keating alone on stage, announcing, This is one for the true believers,<\/span> to a rapturous rock-concert response.<\/p>\n

On the night of the 24th of November, it fell to John Howard to concede at the scene of so many triumphs\u2014the Wentworth in Sydney. Such occasions are normally, naturally, sombre affairs, but there was an air of defiance and the mood was surprisingly upbeat. Howard said all the right things, dealt gently with the vocal drunk, and was cheered and applauded frequently.<\/p>\n

A little later the scene switched to Lang Park. Kevin Rudd entered to a rapturous reception. After 11 and a half years in the wilderness, the Party was back. Then he began to speak, and we were treated to the spectacle of a victorious election-night crowd being ground down to a restless and perplexed audience by the numbing force of Kevin’s rhetoric. Every now and then the audience would rouse itself to applause at the sound of some well-worn party electioneering slogan, but they couldn’t generate any enthusiasm. It was a feat I had never witnessed before, in many years of avid election watching.<\/p>\n

Kevin can tell a joke\u2014an obscure joke, badly. My name is Kevin, I’m from Queensland and I’m here to help<\/span>, to open his address to the national conference. In the victory speech, he made the gruesome “out-the-back-door” gesture with a small smile. It was a joking reference to the same terrible moment in his campaign ads (for example, at 2:09 in the YouTube video<\/a>). Some smiling may have broken out in the audience, live and on TV, but a belly laugh it wasn’t.<\/p>\n

Some questions beg to be asked. If this is the best Kevin can do with such a crowd, how is he going to motivate the nation to follow his lead? When he needs to communicate and persuade, what resources will be be able to employ? You wonder whether a Graham Freudenberg would do him any good. The material certainly be better, but the delivery is always going to be a problem.<\/p>\n

But the Liberal Party has collapsed, and has abandoned the only policy plank that will actually look appealing at the end of the next three years; rejection of the anthropogenic global warming cult. Even Howard baulked before the election, under pressure from members of Cabinet. With its enthusiastic endorsement of the global warming hysteria, and the abandonment of any policies that might distinguish it from the Labor Party, it has no plan for making its way back to government, except to hope that Rudd will be another Whitlam. That is even more improbable than the hope that Hawke was going to do a Whitlam. Rudd’s total lack of charisma is not in itself a weakness. Combine it with unexpected stresses on the economy and the arrival of a Liberal leader with audience appeal, and the utter flatness of Kevin’s personality will come to be seen by everyone as a liability.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The election-night convention is that the losing leader first concedes defeat, and when these formalities are out of the way the victor claims the spoils. In each case, these speeches, replete with the necessary acknowledgments and thank-yous, are delivered to a gathering of the hard-core faithful. I recall some vivid scenes from what my memory … Continue reading “A Tale of Two Parties”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[21,20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-103","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","category-culture"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8SCfl-1F","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":726,"url":"https:\/\/pbw.id.au\/blog\/2019\/05\/men-are-mortal%ef%bb%bf\/","url_meta":{"origin":103,"position":0},"title":"Men Are Mortal\ufeff","author":"admin","date":"Mon 6th May '19","format":false,"excerpt":"[First published in Quadrant Online as \u2018Slut-Shamed\u2019 Victimhood\u2019s Loose Logic] Men are mortal. ScoMo is a man. Therefore, ScoMo is mortal. Is there anything wrong with this argument?\u00a0 A stickler for logical forms would insist that the first premiss should be All men are mortal.\u00a0 Fair enough.\u00a0 But if you\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Politics"","block_context":{"text":"Politics","link":"https:\/\/pbw.id.au\/blog\/category\/culture\/politics\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":943,"url":"https:\/\/pbw.id.au\/blog\/2020\/12\/deadlock\/","url_meta":{"origin":103,"position":1},"title":"Deadlock","author":"admin","date":"Fri 11th Dec '20","format":false,"excerpt":"[Published at Catallaxy Files 27\/11\/2020] Edsgar Dijkstra became a programmer in 1951. He is one of the early giants in a field that saw an unprecedented explosion of intellectual activity. When multi-processing came to computing, the phenomenon of deadlock began to make a pest of itself. Processes would just sieze\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Catallaxy Files"","block_context":{"text":"Catallaxy Files","link":"https:\/\/pbw.id.au\/blog\/category\/publications\/catallaxy-files\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":107,"url":"https:\/\/pbw.id.au\/blog\/2007\/11\/night-vision\/","url_meta":{"origin":103,"position":2},"title":"Night Vision","author":"pbw","date":"Sat 24th Nov '07","format":false,"excerpt":"I don't enjoy aspirin the way I used to. Aspirin used to be a taste sensation for me. I would always chew the tablets, for that shrapnel burst of salicylate, almost as mouth-curdling in its own way as lemon, and it seemed to me that the analgesic effect was kick-started\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Introspection"","block_context":{"text":"Introspection","link":"https:\/\/pbw.id.au\/blog\/category\/personal\/introspection\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":104,"url":"https:\/\/pbw.id.au\/blog\/2007\/12\/protocol\/","url_meta":{"origin":103,"position":3},"title":"Protocol","author":"pbw","date":"Tue 11th Dec '07","format":false,"excerpt":"Jen and I went to dinner in West End Saturday night before last. From Highgate Hill, we went down Dornoch Terrace to Hardgrave, and the first clump of the West End eateries. We went on down towards the next group, centered on what was the Rialto picture show. We have\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Observations"","block_context":{"text":"Observations","link":"https:\/\/pbw.id.au\/blog\/category\/personal\/observations\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":108,"url":"https:\/\/pbw.id.au\/blog\/2007\/11\/a-divorce-you-dont-want\/","url_meta":{"origin":103,"position":4},"title":"A divorce you don’t want","author":"pbw","date":"Tue 20th Nov '07","format":false,"excerpt":"Jen's been doing it hard. In order to let me get another 7 months' work at the Labs in Bristol, she resigned from her beloved Intensive Care Unit back in the middle of 2006. She could only take 12 months leave without pay, and time was up. By the time\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Family"","block_context":{"text":"Family","link":"https:\/\/pbw.id.au\/blog\/category\/personal\/family\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":347,"url":"https:\/\/pbw.id.au\/blog\/2017\/04\/a-modest-amendment\/","url_meta":{"origin":103,"position":5},"title":"A Modest Amendment","author":"admin","date":"Mon 10th Apr '17","format":false,"excerpt":"Update The bills I discuss below were withdrawn on the 27th of February, 2017, because they faced\u00a0almost certain defeat. \u00a0The issue of reform was referred to the Queensland Law Reform Commission. Two related private member\u2019s bills are currently before the Queensland Parliament. The Abortion Law Reform (Women\u2019s Right To Choose\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Politics"","block_context":{"text":"Politics","link":"https:\/\/pbw.id.au\/blog\/category\/culture\/politics\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pbw.id.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pbw.id.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pbw.id.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pbw.id.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pbw.id.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=103"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/pbw.id.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":613,"href":"https:\/\/pbw.id.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103\/revisions\/613"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pbw.id.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=103"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pbw.id.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=103"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pbw.id.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=103"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}