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Rudderless
The dust has settled on the leadership change and in Julia Gillard the lucky country now has its first Welsh-born Prime Minister. If that if not bad enough she is the first ever “ranga”, as they call red-heads in this part of the world, in the role and that has become, perhaps, the greatest talking point of her sudden rise to the top. Television viewers have been subjected to a seemingly endless barrage of her hair through the ages, from schoolgirl to Prime Minister. On that alone, she will likely win the Federal Election, now expected to happen sometime during August..
The move to topple Kevin Rudd coincided with my return from Phuket, and in the transient world of politics it was both inevitable and wise. Rudd and Labor were losing ground at an alarming rate to the Liberal leader Tony Abbott who is, quite frankly, an unnervingly creepy man. It would be an embarrassment to the civilized world should he be elected and, although there is still an outside chance he could win, the betting odds have tipped back in Labor’s favour leaving the Coalition only now a $3.10 long shot.
In defeat Rudd was as every bit as charmless as former Australian leader John Howard who this week failed in his bid to become the Chairman of the International Cricket Council. For some reason, Howard was grumpy and seemed surprised that Sri Lanka didn’t support him after his calling spin bowler Murathilaran a cheat and giving Zimbabwe’s Mugabe his pedigree (not that anyone could argue with him on that score). The Asian nations decided that Howard was racist and after his conduct towards the boat people in the lead-up to the 2004 Federal Election, and who could blame them?
But back to Rudd; he managed to alienate not only his political rivals but also his colleagues, the public and, it seems, even many of his own staff. This mild, meek looking man is apparently no stranger to letting serve and following with a volley of choice four letter words directed at staff and others who may not have satisfactorily fulfilled his every whim.
According to West Australian columnist Zoltan Kovacs, "it is undeniable that Rudd was a friend to his political gravediggers. He was evidently unaware of his fatal political flaw; an addiction to spin as the indispensible means of getting and holding power. . . It is an irony of Mr Rudd's downfall that he was widely known as a master of spin, but wa kicked out of office mainly because of an inability to communicate effectively."
Never better illustrated, Rudd’s tussle with the mining companies over the proposed introduction of a new mining "super profits" tax was his eventual undoing; whatever the merits of the tax, it was a public relations disaster and his toppling became only a matter of time. One thing about the Australians is that they had the daring and courage to replace a serving Prime Minister, still ahead in the polls, just months out from a Federal Election, and there may be a lesson in that currently for the New Zealand Labour Party.
If there is some disappointing new to report, it is that stumps have been drawn on the annual Lilac Hill Festival, an annual cricket match held near the small town of Guildford in the Swan Valley just outside Perth. Since 1990, the Lilac Hill Festival has been home to an opening match for international touring teams, a sort of shrugging-off-the-jetlag warm-up loosener. It would be like having a carnival day at the Heathcote Cricket Club, all good fun, and as well as the touring teams other legends such as Dennis Lillee or even our own Sir Richard Hadlee come out of retirement and play for the local Chairman’s Eleven.
Apparently touring teams no longer want to play, saying it will somehow compromise other international fixtures, this year the death knell being spelled by England refusing to play in what would have been a twenty year anniversary match prior to the Ashes series. It is, alas, another casualty of the corporatisation of sport.