Jun 26, 2010

"Bloodless Coup"

Pink Ribbon Interesting radio day on Thursday.

Kevin Rudd was swept to office a couple of years ago in a blaze of electoral glory reminiscent of dear old Tony and was riding high on God-like popularity as he apologised for the shameful mistreatment of the Stolen Generations by our misguided forebears and proclaimed climate change to be the moral challenge of our generation, whilst promising the earth and sky.

It all went sour as he backtracked from the ETS - stymied by a Senate characterised by the counsel of doom of "What's the point of us doing anything unless the Chinese and Indians and the Americans and in fact everyone else on the planet do something first" so very conventient for the most carbon-intensive country on earth, per capita.

And the stimulus packages rushed through - generally accepted to have kept Australia out of recession - attracted cowboy operators for which the government was held responsible in the court of public opinion rightly or wrongly.

Anyway if the media are to be believed, the Labor communication machine deserted him, having achieved its goal of attaining power. He proceeded to alienate all and sundry within his party and government with an uncompromising, event-driven, poll-led approach to decision making punctuated by appalling communication and salesmanship which resulted in a precipitous decline in poll results as the Opposition made heavy inroads with riciculous catchphrases involving the words "Great," "Big," and "Tax" which were repeated with sufficient frequency to gain some kind of toe-hold.

The cruel underbelly of Australian Party Politics was revealed as the Labor movers and shakers lost their nerve and whatever faith they had left, and exposed Rudd's total lack of support with Julia Gillard challenging him to a leadership contest he fairly quickly realised he couldn't possibly win.

And now Australia has its first female Prime Minister - all in the space of twenty-four hours.

Nothing if not efficient.

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