Tag: Julia Gillard

I think the convulsions we are seeing in Australian politics right now — in fact , since John Howard was defeated in 2007 — are a culmination of decades-long trends that center on the slow decline of our two big political parties. There’s a void at the center of our politics because the public and the political class have both retreated. Again, this is happening in all Western democracies: people have stopped joining political parties and civic organizations with a political voice, and the parties have responded by making politics more elite and professional. At the last federal election, nearly 25 percent of voters gave their primary vote to an independent or small party, and that figure is on a slow upward trend as the primary vote of the two major parties declines. In fact, minority government might be the new norm in Australian federal politics. Unfortunately, however, I don’t think the cynicism about politicians actually motivates the public to get involved. In fact, it may just reinforce the retreat I talked about. Now, for the most part, that has not been terribly damaging — O.K., politics is hollowed out and Australians are deeply cynical, but by global standards the place is still pretty well run, and economically we are in enviable shape. What might that look like in Australia? Readers from all over the world, including Australia, have been sharing questions all week with the climate scientist Kate Marvel, who has already started answering some of them.

If women needed any more reason to be put off politics, episode three of Bodyguard was probably it. (At the time of writing, this theory is one of several. Only show creator Jed Mercurio knows the rest.) Bodyguard may be fiction, but its portrayed world of toxic masculinity, fragile egos and women wearing high heels from dawn until dusk is probably not that far off the mark. We don’t know if Montague, the fictional home secretary, is dead – apparently she might just be laying low until the finale – but in the real world, female heads do roll. Amber Rudd, for example, resigned from the Home Office after failing to prevent or deal with the Windrush scandal, while male politicians who have arguably committed equally egregious acts have simply escaped through the revolving doors of a cabinet reshuffle. Forgive me, but work-life balance does come into it. When I was lucky enough to have dinner in the canteen at Westminster a few years ago, I vividly remember having a chat with a female MP. It perhaps goes some way to explaining why so many powerful women don’t have children, whether it be Angela Merkel, Julia Gillard, Natalie Bennett or even the fictional Julia Montague. Once you are elected, you will be lucky if you have one full day off a week.

Back in 2012, a major study on the selection and removal of party leaders in Anglo parliamentary democracies was published. After the defeat of Malcolm Fraser at the 1983 federal election, the Liberal Party changed leaders six times, eventually settling on John Howard in 1995. Following the defeat of Paul Keating’s Labor government at the 1996 election, Labor has had eight leadership changes, a remarkable feat considering that two of those leaders – Kim Beazley and Bill Shorten – have between them tallied up almost 13 years. The rest – Simon Crean, Mark Latham, Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard – do not account for even a full decade between them. Australia did not begin discarding party leaders and even prime ministers yesterday. It’s hard to overlook one or two parallels in this scenario with the current state of play in Australian politics. He might have been the classic “rat”, but even once he switched sides he remained true to many of the policies long favoured by his former party. It is about how we do politics. But the Liberals have not travelled down this path, and the destabilisation of Turnbull is one of the results. For Turnbull, it is starting to look like it might be too late.

It is not that there is a lack of political understanding of the possibility -- indeed the need -- for a deal, at least on the part of the 27 countries that will remain member states of the European Union after the UK leaves. Nor is there a lack of talent on the UK's side. The only way to understand modern British politicians as they address Brexit is to realize that they have infantilized politics. Former senior civil servant Sir Martin Donnelly quipped that leaving the European Union because trade might be better outside was "giving up a three-course meal [now]... for the promise of a packet of crisps in the future." The Northern Irish Democratic Unionist Party -- which props up Theresa May's minority Conservative government -- is using its position both to extort money from the Prime Minister and to champion a so-called hard Brexit -- ignoring Northern Ireland's vote to stay in the EU. And what about the opposition Labour Party? The tragedy is not simply in the outcome -- a bad Brexit means a Britain that is permanently poorer. But it is also a tragedy in the process -- because there is a practical and pragmatic deal to be done. Could Britain live being out of the EU, but in the Customs Union and the Single Market? Maybe my son was right all those years ago: Childish behavior needs the sanctions of a good parent.