NEGATIVE LANDHow conservative politics destroyed Australia’s 44th Parliament To order more copies of this great book: newpolitics.com.au/nl-order To purchase the e-book for Kindle: newpolitics.com.au/nl-kindle Like or don’t like the book? To post a review on Amazon: newpolitics.com.au/nl-amazon Negativeland: How conservative politics destroyed Australia’s 44th parliament ISBN: 978-0-9942154-0-6 ©2017 Eddy Jokovich @EddyJokovich Published by New Politics Coverhttp://www.seeklogo.net design: Madeleine Preston New Politics PO Box 1265, Darlinghurst NSW 1300 www.newpolitics.com.au Email: [email protected] National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry Creator: Jokovich, Eddy, author. Title: Negative land : how conservative politics destroyed Australia’s 44th parliament / Eddy Jokovich. ISBN: 9780994215406 (paperback) Subjects: Essays. Conservatism--Australia. Conservatism in the press--Australia. Australia--Politics and government. Contents BEFORE THE STORM Election 2013: The final countdown ........................................................................5 PARLIAMENT 44 A government not in control of itself .................................................................... 10 Tony Abbott: Bad Prime Minister .............................................................................13 The ‘stop drownings at sea mantra’ cloaks a racist agenda ..................... 20 A very Australian conservative coup ....................................................................26 What is Tony Abbott hiding? .....................................................................................32 ABC fails the test of good journalism ...................................................................36 Tony Abbott: On his way out of office ...................................................................41 The Medicare fiasco and a spiralling government ........................................ 50 An Australia Day mistake ............................................................................................57 Goodbye Newman, Abbott will be next ...............................................................61 Who are you? ....................................................................................................................65 Thank goodness Anzac Day is over .......................................................................72 Abbott’s Royal Commission losing credibility by the day ..........................79 Turnbull is not the man the media wants us to believe ...............................85 ELECTION 2016 Day zero and a descent into the maelstrom ................................................... 98 A Coalition masterclass on how to lose an election ...................................105 Turnbull lets everyone know that he’s on the ropes ....................................113 Malcolm Turnbull and his disappearance act .................................................118 Winning elections as easy as ABC........................................................................126 THE AFTERMATH 2016 election night and beyond ...........................................................................135 These essays were produced during Australia’s 44th Parliament between 2013–2016 and offer insights into the performance of the Liberal–National Coalition, and the two Prime Ministers that presided during this time, Tony Abbott and Malcolm Turnbull. The book commences in the week before the 2013 election— Labor Prime Minister Kevin Rudd is struggling to overcome three years of leadership turmoil in his party and the Liberal Party leader, Tony Abbott, is poised to win the election. We travel through the bizarre nature of Tony Abbott’s prime ministership, and how he couldn’t make the transition from combative Leader of the Opposition to a Prime Minister with gravitas, where he could rise above petty ideological squabbles. His replacement, Malcolm Turnbull, offered hope to the electorate, but ended up languishing in a position as poor as his predecessor’s. We explore the 2016 election campaign, ending with the aftermath, and ponder how conservative politicians and their supporters in the media have taken Australian politics to a point where the electorate is wondering whether our political leaders have the skills or the desire to lead Australia through difficult times. July 2017 PAGE | 4 BEFORE THE STORM Election 2013: The final countdown 1 September 2013 he Final Countdown was a grand hit in 1986 by the Swedish band Europe and, finally, we have our own version of the Tfinal countdown: it’s the final week of the 2013 election campaign, and while opinion polls (and betting markets) strongly favour a Liberal–National Coalition victory, many things can happen in these final seven days. The reason why I’ve started off with a music theme is that last night’s screening of the ABC late-night music program Rage, was ‘co-compered’ by Labor Deputy Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese, the Coalition’s Julie Bishop, and the Australian Greens’ Adam Bandt. You really can judge character through musical choices, and my vote goes with Anthony Albanese, with a preference for Adam Bandt (sorry Julie, your song choices weren’t great and you weren’t going to get my vote anyway). Anyhow, I digress. The Labor Party kick-started the final week of the campaign with a return to ‘the Real Kevin’, where the Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, provided his best campaign moment, and left many wondering where he’d been over the past four weeks, or even the past three months. PAGE | 5 Campaigns are all about momentum, and after four very uneven weeks, has Rudd finally righted the ship? Or is it a case of ‘too-little, too-late’? This is likely the case, although there are many examples in recent Australian political history where the most favoured party failed to get over the line. The most memorable, of course, is Paul Keating’s ‘true believers’ victory in 1993 where, at the start of the final week of campaigning, some polls were showing a two-party preferred vote of 45 per cent for Labor. Seven days later, Keating won the election. Federally, it’s not such a common event, but there are many examples at the state level: Western Australia (1989), where somehow, the Labor Party managed to hold onto government, despite many pundits predicting a loss as well as a 10 per cent swing against it; Victoria (1999), where Labor’s Steve Bracks snuck into office, despite many predicting Liberal Premier Jeff Kennett maintaining office (Newspoll did detect a late swing in its last published poll on election day); Western Australia again (2001), where Labor’s Geoff Gallop repeated the effort of Bracks, and snuck into office against Liberal Premier Richard Court; Queenland (2009), where Labor Premier Anna Bligh was expected to lose, but won the election by nine seats. There’s not much to suggest that anything will change during the week, especially with the unusual media intervention by News Limited during the campaign, culminating in the Sunday Telegraph’s front page lead on 1 September, ‘Australia Needs Tony’.1 This is one of their more bizarre interventions, rivaling any propaganda that might have adorned Communist-styled newspapers during the Cold War. In fact, change the language, name and face, and you’d be close to a propaganda poster released by former North Korean leader, Kim Jong-Il. It really was a pity that former Minister for Communications, Steven Conroy, didn’t proceed with his reforms to clean up the media in Australia. These front-page interventions by News Limited, 1 ABC News, ‘Sunday Telegraph front page’, 1 September 2013. http://www.abc.net.au/ news/2013-09-01/sunday-telegraph-front-page-september-1-2013/4927412 PAGE | 6 through their Liberal Party megaphones, The Courier Mail, Daily Telegraph and The Australian have been over the top and, if you removed their respective mastheads, could easily double up as Honi Soit covers controlled by the Sydney University Young Liberals. In fact, most of the Coalition’s campaign has resembled a strategy devised by Young Liberals completing their final year political science assignments. Devoid of any vision, but rambling around the same three key messages: things will always be better under a Coalition government, turning back the boats, and getting the budget back into surplus (although, this has been revised to include ‘buying the boats’ and ‘controlling the budget’). Perhaps the Liberal campaign headquarters realised that Tony Abbott had created so many landmines and backrods for a future Coalition government that their messages had to be pared back. In his interview with Barry Cassidy on the ABC Insiders this morning, Tony Abbott mentioned that there would be ‘no PAGE | 7 surprises and no excuses in government’. If nothing else, the Labor Party must keep these utterances in its dossier for their time in Opposition (if it comes to that), over the next three years. Abbott has been relentlessly negative since he became Leader of the Opposition in 2009, has offered no real indications for what the Liberals will do in government (other than saying that ‘things will be better than Labor’) and no policy costings. This really is dangerous and, as the ALP has been warning, could result in a ‘Campbell Newman approach’ (where the newly-installed Premier of Queensland implemented a harsh reactionary agenda) applied throughout Australia. Bringing out the scare campaign in the final week might not do enough for Labor, but let’s keep a look out for any last minute slip-ups. * As expected, the