Pete Green
The leadership speculation in the ALP has been all the rage in the media over the last couple of weeks, and if there’s one thing we love at The Bucket, it’s letting the real media have a go at a subject for a couple of weeks and then cherry-picking a smart-arse response. So here goes.

The two ways of approaching this story rely on different understandings of Kevin Rudd’s mental health. The narrative in which he is currently canvassing for support and planning a leadership challenge assumes that his unquenchable thirst for leadership and the love of the Australian people is roughly similar in ferocity to Bono’s desire to “feed the starvin’ children”, and that it has eclipsed entirely anything resembling common sense or political calculation in his mind. The second assumes that while his desire to lead is strong, it might be more in the range of Joe Hockey’s need for sustenance,  which we note with admiration has been rather well tamed in recent months.

Any Kevin Rudd supporter should be hoping that the second option is closer to the truth, because the first has two possible outcomes, both of them not very good.

If Rudd challenges, which he would probably need to do next month so as to make time for preparations leading to the Budget, and wins, he would essentially be taking the wheel of a car which everyone has pretty much decided they’re happy watching drive off a cliff. To speculate that he could pull off a dramatic turn-around in the polls after the  downturn they tend to take following a change of leadership at this late stage and considering their current position is probably more wishful thinking that justifiable hope.

If he challenges and loses he would have destabilised the ALP for no result twice in just over a year, and would likely lose some if not all support he would be able to garner before the vote within the party and the electorate.

The more mentally stable approach would be to wait until after the election, and have a shot at what will likely be a vacant ALP leadership. He would not even need to wait three years for another crack at the job he clearly thinks he was born to do, because Abbott’s pledge to repeal the Carbon Tax will likely lead to a double-dissolution election early in the new parliament.

Whether or not the ALP would lose this in a land-slide or at all, and whether the ALP under Rudd would choose to force it is a matter of contention, however it is much less certain than the outcome of the contest on September 14th. Perhaps the more interesting question is whether Malcolm Turnbull would be willing to ride the pine for another three years, or if he would challenge after the election, potentially removing the prospect of the Carbon Tax’s untimely demise, and therefore the double dissolution election itself, possibly trapping a new ALP opposition leader on the wrong side of the chamber with no escape in sight.

Pete Green

It has been an exciting week in parliament this week, with spirited debate on subjects that in some cases approached the borders of what might be considered political discourse. It’s important to make the distinction between an exciting week in parliament and an exciting week in politics, because politically speaking this week has been so comprehensively bereft of life that it is entirely possible that last weekend’s rather heated debate over the best way to fix the education system in my kitchen was the most intriguing political discussion in this country for some time.

Take a moment and try to remember the last time a serious political issue made the nightly news. Not the never-ending ballad of Mr. Slipper and Mr. Ashby, not Allan Jones, not Tony Abbott Punching walls or sitting behind his wife for half an hour on the Today Show staring at her neck like he was about to take a bite out of her, not the Victorian Member for Frankston taking all our money to drive around in the state in a government car, not the PM going viral as some kind of political wonder woman for confronting sexism in parliament. An actual, fair dinkum, true blue, no kidding around political debate. And if you can remember please send us an email because I can’t.

I’m not trying to suggest that Tony Abbott’s sexism and misogyny or new age sensitivity and love of Downton Abbey shouldn’t be explored, or that the reasons Craig Thompson’s vote carries the Black Death but Peter Slipper’s is a welcome addition to the oppositions ranks aren’t fascinating. But at some point the politicians that we all pay to have political debates for us really need to get back to work.

Whether Tony Abbott is a sexist or not is as best only marginally relevant to his ability to lead the Coalition. He is not going to be Prime minister next year because of his personality; he is going to be Prime Minister because of his policy base, what little of it there is, and because he is not a member of the Australian Labor Party. As such, the only thing that matters is whether his policies are sexist. If there has been a level-headed debate about that in national parliament in the last couple of days I must have missed it.

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Pete Green

I’m not trying to suggest that politics is as simple as black and white, but it seems to be increasingly the case that one side of politics is describing a situation that can be illustrated using fact and research, let’s call this ‘the truth’ while the other is describing a narrative that, while politically convenient and easy to understand, has no basis in fact. For the sake of the exercise let’s call this practice ‘lying’.

In an effort to avoid being labelled an exponent of what some people sneeringly refer to as “undergraduate hyperbole” and in keeping with The Bucket’s tradition of taking the easiest and most formulaic approach to any issue, I will illustrate my point using a series of case studies.

1. Olympic Dam

The delay of BHP Billiton’s expansion of the open pit mine section its Olympic Dam complex in South Australia has been a hot topic this week, and has been pointed to by Tony Abbott and others in the opposition as the first symptom of the python-squeeze wrecking ball of death that will be the result of Labor’s Mining and Carbon Taxes. Abbott has repeatedly said that the decision was due to the impact of the Mining Tax on one of this country’s biggest mining companies, despite the fact that none of the minerals being mined at Olympic Dam are subject to the tax, and the fact that BHP Billiton’s own statement  made no mention of the tax, despite going into some depth on the factors that lead to the decision, which included subdued commodity prices and higher capital costs. Continue Reading

by Will Sommers

The election of Socialist candidate François Hollande to the presidency of France allows several comparisons to the Australian political stage. Sarkozy in his final months as President was facing historically low approval ratings, very similar to Julia Gillard in recent times, and not so recent times…pretty much since her coup d’état got rid of K Rudd. However Gillard will be happy that her only opponent is equally loathed by the Australian community, with both Abott and Gillard rocking 30% approval ratings. In contrast, hatred for the major political candidates in France has been a one-sided affair, with Sarkozy being the target.

Hollande did not win the election due to gaining support from a majority of the French population with his policies, a vast number of voters put him in simply because they were sick of Sarkozy with his conservative leadership that saw the unemployment rate reach double figures, a weak recovery from the GFC, and poor handling of the Eurozone debt crisis. Hollande has vowed not to provide Greece with bailout money to solve their debt problems and supposedly kick start their economy, instead Hollande is focusing on the domestic situation, not the Eurozone as a whole. His key policy promise was a massive increase in state spending to stimulate France’s economy, boost employment, fund gulags to intern conservative voters and to pay for these programs by taxing the rich to ensure that the poor would vote him in for another term. Continue Reading

by Peter Green

As you all know, a well-organised group of chimps could well be in charge of our national government by this time next year. That’s scary stuff. Not as scary as seeing Bronwyn Bishop and Christopher Pyne naked and covered in baby oil, but it’s pretty close. Laurie Oaks might tell you that only Julia or Tony can be PM after the next election, but he also told the staff at Krispy Kreme that he’d tell them when he’d had enough.
That’s a lie and he’s actually lost a lot of weight. We’re all very proud of you Laurie.
But fuck Laurie Oaks. This race is open like a Kebab joint at 3am, and as a disinterested voter who is struggling to give even the smallest portion of a rat’s arse about the current state of federal politics, you deserve the best possible guide to the field.

The Front-Runners:

Julia “The Dominator” Gillard

Allan Jones suggested we drown the PM last year, but that didn’t work, mostly because she happens to be extremely buoyant, but also because like Julie Bishop and herpes, she cannot be killed with conventional weapons. The ABC’s chief political reporter said a few weeks back that “there is something coming for the Labor Party, it’s two words, and the first word is cluster”. He turned out to be right, but never count out a sitting PM. Mark Latham did that, and he’s dead now. Probably. In other words while it’s true that Tony Abbott might have to eat a child on television to lose this election, that doesn’t mean he won’t.

Tony “The Australian David Hasselhoff” Abbott

More people have seen the outline of Tony Abbott’s genitals than know his policy base, but that’s the way Tony likes it. He plays it fast and loose, mostly in an effort to escape Joe Hockey, who is restricted by physical limitations to playing it slow and tight. Tony Abbott once cured a boy of measles with prayer, and his fists. He is the only human man who has ever voluntarily participated in close association with Christopher Pyne, and lived. While it’s yet to be announced publically, his favoured border protection policy includes him swimming around the coast, punching holes in boats. He’s the odds-on favourite to be the next Prime Minister, but it’d only take one slightly see-through speedo for that all to change.
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