Manning the barricades along Abbott's Battlelines

It is unlikely, as Treasurer Wayne Swan said, Opposition Leader Tony Abbott will be cracking open the champagne on hearing Malcolm Turnbull’s change of mind to stay in federal politics. Yet Turnbull’s decision is not without its gains for Abbott. For starters there is the obvious benefit of shoring up the seat of Wentworth, which was looking difficult to hold without Turnbull’s massive personal vote. Abbott would become a Liberal hero if he pulled off an unlikely victory or even staved off the monumental defeat that looked likely during most of the Brendon Nelson and Turnbull tenures as leader. With the gratitude of the party behind him, Abbott would be secure as leader and the best Turnbull could hope for is the Treasury, a position he would be admirably suited for.

This is a long odds prospect based on current opinion polls but as recent actions by the Government suggest, it is a prospect that worries Kevin Rudd. How else to explain the Government closing off debates and moving closer to Abbott positions on matters such as the ETS, migrant detention and about-turns on kindergarten centres, hospital takeovers and the insulation debacle? As Abbott said in the introductory sentence to his new book, “political parties have to treat defeat as an opportunity as well as a disaster”. As leader in the 2010 election no-one expects him to win, Abbott can afford to treat it as an opportunity to inflict maximum damage. Peter Hartcher observed Abbott’s team is crafted in his own image - populist, angry and spoiling for a fight.

A clue to why Abbott might do this can be found in the title of the book I quoted from. The title “Battlelines” is not accidental. Here is the former pugilist choosing to fight on several fronts. Abbott is a Christian warrior who admits he lacks the humility to be fearful about the size of the task. His Jesuit education makes him want to live life to the full. “For me,” Abbott wrote, “the message was God preferred big-hearted people who might sometimes make mistakes rather than robotic role-worshippers.”

The notion of God remains an important presence in Abbott’s life, as it does the Prime Minister. But whereas Rudd has succeeded in keeping his beliefs at arm’s length from policymaking, Abbott is fundamentally defined by his. Abbott’s approach to ethics is based on Rawl’s Veil of Ignorance. His best answer to most ethical dilemmas is “what if the boot was on the other foot?” which he said was closest to human instinct. This willingness to put himself in other people’s shoes has its limits. The Catholic thinking of B.A. Santamaria may have helped him become a “man for others” but his native conservatism made him feel threatened by some of life’s less conventional mores.

Abbott also admits he was threatened by multiculturalism in the 1980s. It wasn’t that he didn't want an Australia where many languages might be spoken, many religions worshipped, or many cultures practiced. It was because he was “too defensive about Western values that have turned out to have near-universal appeal.” Abbott has a somewhat narrow view of the European Enlightenment. He cherishes British values above all. He loves Britain, the source of the language and the law, as a “fountain of democracy”. He rejects the notion the monarchy is foreign though the “Australian Crown” to him means governor-generals and state governors as much as the Queen and the royal family.

Less intractable are Abbott’s economic opinions. He said he was joking when he said economics was boring and now insists “no serious person can be uninterested in economics.” Yet he has not drawn any economics battlelines and the book does not include economics in the index. His opposition to the GFC stimulus is for opposing sake rather than for a strategic economic masterplan - Abbott is no disciple of Hayek. This may be where Turnbull comes back in. While he has no intention of staying on as Abbott’s offsider, it may yet be his best bet if Abbott gets lucky over the next few months.

2010 election: Much ado about nothing

Sometime later year Australia will go to the polls to elect a federal government. Following previous precedents, the incumbent Labor administration will be returned to office with a similar majority it gained in 2007 or slightly less. Both sides of politics will portray this is a victory. For Kevin Rudd, there is the obvious success of being returned as Prime Minister a second time at an election – a feat only ever achieved by three Labor leaders (Andrew Fisher, Gough Whitlam and Bob Hawke). Meanwhile the Coalition will paint a narrow defeat as a success for their strategy of appealing to the right-wing base when it handed Tony Abbott the leadership in a three-way ballot on 1 December last year.

But first to Rudd, for whom the result will be the end product of three years of communications discipline and dedication to the task. This is something he learned from his predecessor John Howard, an equally ruthless electioneerer. Nothing else – be it the GFC, climate change, or reform in education and industrial relations - has come remotely close in Rudd’s everyday calculations. Ever since 25 November 2007, Rudd’s Government has been devoted to one task: how to stay in office in 2010.

Rigid control of communications is the key and Rudd’s closest acolytes are in his PR machine and kitchen cabinet (Gillard, Swan and Tanner). The downside of such a tightly-run communication strategy is that it has left Rudd looking inflexible, remote, humourless and without charisma. Having personally seen Rudd in action at one of the community cabinets in 2008, I can confirm that he is flexible, engaging, and humorous though he is never quite charismatic. But Rudd has been perfectly willing to sacrifice these attributes when dealing with the medium that still most decides elections: television.

His Government deserves credit too for mastering the strategy. With the possible exception of Peter Garrett (whose previous life allows him frequent gaffe credit points which he continues to spend at an inordinate rate), they have been a superbly efficient team that has also managed to successfully communicate the message du jour. And despite the fact that Rudd is a somewhat isolated figure within the party and not attached to any of the factions, they have offered resolute and unquestioning support for his leadership.

It is the matter of leadership which has been the Achilles Heel of the Opposition and a direct consequence of Peter Costello’s refusal to go down with the ship in 2007. Brendan Nelson was a lightweight who offered only comic value as leader. Malcolm Turnbull was a brilliant mind but too out of touch with the zeitgeist of the party and too arrogant to even see there was a problem. Joe Hockey ruled himself out with his ETS conscience vote (though I happen to agree with him that voting on climate change ought to be a primary matter of conscience) and fell between the two precarious stools of the party room.

That left Tony Abbott as last man standing. So far he has enjoyed a good run in the media which is keen to run with his pitch as a virile outdoorsy leader standing in stark contrast to the nerdy PM. It is a risky strategy that could alienate as much as it attracts but so far it is working well. Each photo op of Abbott's pre-dawn lycra excursions or weekend “budgie smuggling” manages to exude an air of virility that was lacking in previous Liberal leadership teams. It also acts as a distraction to the fact that the extreme right has taken over the party and he is surrounded by a bunch of ageing has-beens that looked tired in the Howard era and doesn't look any more inviting five years later.

Abbott is the same age as Rudd so will feel he has plenty of mileage ahead of him. It is unlikely he will want to stand aside as leader in defeat and if he manages to keep the majority of his comrades in office he will be regarded with affection by sitting MPs who thought they were heading to the slaughterhouse as recently as six months ago. But the net result of Abbott retaining power in the party is to make a Coalition victory in 2013 more unlikely. Though the 2010 political narrative has been about the success of Abbott’s aggressive “opposition to everything” approach, it cannot be sustained in the longer run and will make the party seem obstructionist and negative. No one will be listening to him in 2012 if he is still spouting on about a “great, big tax”.

Of course on one level, Abbott is on the money: an Emissions Trading System is indeed a “great, big tax”. But working properly, that is what it is designed to do. It is designed to make traditional means of creating power more expensive so that we move away to non-carbon alternatives. If he was really serious about tackling this problem, Abbott could go further and attack Labor’s hypocrisy over nuclear energy it is prepared to sell but not use. But Abbott is heart a populist without the stomach for a campaign against the large NIMBY opposition it would attract.

Make no mistake, if Australia is to have any chance of getting to 2050 with 80 percent emissions reductions it has to go nuclear - and soon, given the long lead times to build power stations. It may only be a temporary measure for 20 to 30 years while the technology to convert solar or wind energy for mass baseload is ironed out. But that doesn’t make it any less urgent. Or unfortunately any more likely. Rudd is perfectly aware of nuclear possibilities but his dedicated eye to election mechanics stops him from looking too closely at it. The Greens are also too blinded by their environmental purity to actually do anything concrete to solve the problem (witness how they dealt themselves out of the ETS debate last year). And so when scholars of the future look back on the 2010 election, all they will see is squandered opportunity and rank political hypocrisy across the spectrum. Happy voting.

Politics and the media: Searching for narratives with Jesus

Today’s little joke story in the Courier-Mail was lifted (with attribution) straight out of Associated Press. The headline “Jesus Christ kicked off jury for asking too many questions” simply demanded to be read further. Unsurprisingly the story was pure fruitbat Americana - in prim NSW it is unacceptable to change your name by deed poll to Jesus Christ (or Ned Kelly for that matter). This particular Jesus Christ was from Birmingham, Alabama and was born Dorothy Lola Killingworth. As AP and the Courier-Mail told the story, Christ was apparently tossed off a jury for being disruptive and “asking questions instead of answering them.”

Leaving aside why jurors are asking or answering questions when their role is simply to listen, it seems that the focus of the story changed as it travelled. AP’s point was how funny someone called Jesus didn’t seem to be acting Christian. But as originally told to The Birmingham News, the newsworthy element was simply that someone called Jesus was called for jury service. The Alabama paper confirmed the disruptiveness and her questions. And while their “efforts to reach Christ” were in vain, they did reach Court administrator Sandra Turner who stood up for her. Unlike some Jefferson County residents, said Turner, Christ did not try to get out of jury duty. "She was perfectly happy to serve," she said.

I’m not sure what the moral of the story here is other than to always interrogate the moral of the story. Certainly those who love narratives will have a difficult task in prising apart of the moral of this week’s dizzyingly confusing story of Australian federal politics and the media. The last December before an election year is traditionally the killing fields for a tottering leader and so it proved again this year. A fierce and very public battle for the soul of the Liberal Party ended when arch-republican Malcolm Turnbull was rolled in a complex three-way ballot by arch-monarchist Tony Abbott. In truth, the monarchy/republic dyad had little to do with Abbott’s success but it was one of the many emblems that made the choice look quite stark and the twists and turns were enjoyable to follow from a distance.

While the fight was very public, much of the real decision making took place behind the scenes. The partyroom doors were firmly closed during the voting and this was one of the few times in the week the nation was not ruled by Tweet. One of the other critical moves of the week was the calculated decision to feature Tony Abbott photographed in the wonderfully named “budgie smugglers” at a Sydney swimming carnival. It signified common-man vigour and sexual dynamism that contrasted with the snobbish intellectual air of Turnbull and the jovial butchery of Joe Hockey.

The result was a shock for most commentators and an instantaneous defeat for Labor’s CPRS legislation. When Abbott appeared after his victory surrounded by Bronwyn Bishop, Sophie Mirabella and Wilson Tuckey, it was clear this was a win for the hard right of the party. Barnaby Joyce was brought in to cabinet fold. Somewhere out of sight, Nick Minchin was probably pulling strings. Loyal puppie Julie Bishop was kept on as a harmless deputy and a sop/mop to the narrowly defeated dripping wet side of the party. Senators Troeth and Boyes crossed the floor and Turnbull rattled the cage in the background but otherwise the liberal Liberals have taken defeat on the chin.

The commentariat quickly assumed their respective positions. The left spluttered their disbelief and assumed the Liberals had just handed the 2010 election to Kevin Rudd on a plate. Many commented on his failure to convince women. As former Health Minister he was in charge of many health decisions that were affected by his deep Catholic beliefs. New ABC appointee Annabel Crabb showed how this was an open source and a brilliant post by Kerryn Goldsworthy showed how Abbott duly ignored the question under the cover of the imfamous budgie smugglers. Goldsworthy’s conclusion is that Abbott in power would be dangerous “where biology meets the budget or the law”.

But Abbott’s media supporters were quick to emerge too. Within hours of the spill results, The Australian’s Miranda Devine had coined the term “Abbott haters” to describe the majority of journalists who immediate wrote off his chances in the next election. Devine’s point is that journalists are elitists who turn people off with their prognostications into the arms of those they criticise. The irascible Piers Akerman said Abbott’s duty was “to expose the CPRS as a nation-destroying fraud”. In the Punch David Penberthy also warned Labor about underestimating their new opponent and talked up his “potential electoral appeal”.

But the fact remains that the regardless of leader (as NSW Labor will also find out in 2011), opinion polls suggest the Liberal party is heading for a shattering loss in 2010. The outlier 53-47 poll since his election since Abbott's election may give him hope. His negative politics on the CPRS and interest rate rises might save a few seats but every urban seat margin under five percent is vulnerable. And these seats are mostly held by the Turnbull wing. After the Liberals will be left as a skewed right-wing party that will have even less incentive to change its ways in order to regain power. At 52, Tony Abbott is the same age as Kevin Rudd. Both men may lead their parties for a long time to come. And like Jesus Christ (and they both do), they will be happy to serve. But only one will ever be Prime Minister.

Liberals come into the ETS tent: Macfarlane gets green light to talk with Penny Wong.

Federal Opposition climate change negotiator Ian Macfarlane appeared on Sky News’s Sunday agenda with his sleeved rolled up to tell Australia the news about Liberal climate change policy. They would bargain with the government on an ETS but Australian jobs were non-negotiable. You might for a moment think (as Crikey did week with their “oh shit moments” on climate change) that jobs will be the least of our problems by the time we are finished cooking the planet. But it is a political given that employment is a basic human right (and the unemployed are not going to vote for you). Labor hails their GFC stimulus strategy as victorious precisely because it saved jobs. (photo by takver)

The problem is that the jobs they want to save from the ETS are the ones keeping the pollution going. It is a difficult problem for a resource-rich country as it attempts to avoid economic hari-kari while acting in the best interests of the planet. It is a question that former Prime Minister John Howard pretended did not exist for most of his 12 reign but one that Liberal Party current leader Malcolm Turnbull says would have been addressed with an ETS had they won in 2007. That seems an optimistic assessment if the recent party-room battles are anything to go and as the Nationals still suggest.

Those battles were resolved today after a four-and-a-half hour debate. Nearly every MP had an opinion on Climate Change and the ETS. In the end Coalition MPs backed amendments to negotiate with the Government. The choice of Macfarlane as the negotiator (after the more moderate Andrew Robb declared himself hors de combat) was surprising given his Resource Ministry background and his sceptic sympathies.

But he is a tough negotiator and also a realist. He admitted to Sky News tonight he was surprised how many people in the party wanted to do something about it. He now said he had a “mandate” to negotiate with Climate Change Minister Penny Wong on the matter. Talks begin tomorrow.

Senator Wong indicated today she would give Macfarlane more time which suggests that the parties might do a deal that allows both sides to spin the outcome as a victory. Neither will do anything to address the fundamental problem about why Australia has the world's highest per capita carbon dioxide emissions from energy use. But Labor could claim it was the party that got an ETS on the books and the Coalition could claim that their interventions were necessary to prevent the double dissolution election that would have got a more Labor-Green version of the ETS through.

The problem will be of course that the initial ETS will be so watered-down, it will be a soggy unenforceable mess. The Coalition Amendments would provide tariff protection to Australian industries that would otherwise suffer competition issues from other countries where the cap-and-trade mechanism is yet to be in place. They also want to compensate power generators, subsidise power bills, exclude the so-called “coal mine fugitive emissions”, not to mention pretend agriculture is not a problem.

Such amendments may well save thousands of Australian jobs. But the effect is to make the bill toothless. Neither businesses nor citizens will be encouraged to make the changes in behaviour that are necessary to adjust to a post-carbon economy. This is not just the Liberals fault. Labor’s plan is not much better (and will only worsen with whatever suggestions Wong tales on board from Macfarlane). They, like the Liberals, are addicted to our coal industries and are picking dodgy R&D winners in the fields of clean coal and carbon capture so they can keep the mines going.

But if the world is serious about avoiding a climate tipping point, then Australia must shut down the mines. Emissions released here are a global problem and Carbon Dioxide remains in the air for over a thousand years. Releasing all the CO2 from all the oil, gas and coal would cause catastrophic species loss and the eventual inundation of the world’s coastal areas. And the emission tradings cap and trade schemes promoted by most Western countries are unlikely to solve this problem. Thomas Crocker, the inventor of cap and trade for pollution, says it won’t work for global climate change. "It is not clear to me how you would enforce a permit system internationally," he says. "There are no institutions right now that have that power.”

Crocker prefers a carbon tax as does NASA scientist James Hansen. But as Hansen warned Obama after his election win, politicians cannot rely on political systems to bring solutions – “political systems provide too many opportunities for special interests”. These special interests will ensure new coal plants will continue to be built, jeopardizing any hope that CO2 could come back below 350ppm. To solve this, says Hansen, there needs to be a carbon tax with a “100 per cent dividend”. In other words, the tax will be paid direct to citizens. The tax rate will increase over time and the public will take steps to reduce their own emissions because they will be reminded by a regular carbon tax dividend and the high cost of fossil fuels.

Hansen suggests the carbon tax will feed in five ways of reducing carbon emissions: energy efficiencies, improvement in renewable technologies, improvements in the grid, nuclear power and carbon capture and sequestration. Hansen says the first three deserve the most attention but acknowledges there may still be a base-load gap. Given that humans are showing little inclination to cut down on their consumption (and getting no incentive to do so), Hansen is probably right.

He says the option of secure, low-waste fourth generation nuclear power could be available “within about a decade”. Australia has no appetite for an intelligent discussion about nuclear power – proving the lie that jobs are the biggest priority No wonder the Rudd Government rhetoric is keener to talk about the fifth of Hansen’s proposals (carbon capture and sequestration). The outcomes are so far away, the current politicians will all be safely retired or dead by project judgment day. Let’s just hope it is not Armageddon.

Liberal Rules OK?

For the last few days SBS has been heavily promoting Liberal Rule: The Politics that Changed Australia, a weighty three-hour retrospective on the Howard era of Government. This was always threatening to be compulsory viewing not only because of the sociological claim in the subtitle but also because many of the biggest Liberal politicians and staffers contributed: John Howard was in it as was Fraser, Costello, Downer, Reith, Staley and Sinodinos. Here would be some good insights into the business of government.

This morning, anticipation was lifted up another notch when Gerard Henderson in the Sydney Morning Herald called the documentary “a shocker and a disgrace”. Henderson is a Howard supporter and plainly didn’t like the authors’ “layers of subtext” which he saw as code for left wing. He sportingly said the left got “free kick after free kick” and then played the man not the ball when he said Norm Abjorensen's book John Howard and the Conservative Tradition has sold fewer than 100 copies in a year.

But I’m thinking Henderson should be on the SBS marketing payroll if he isn’t already. By publicly bagging the program, he was drawing splendid attention to it. And it was a program he was in. In his SMH attack he leaves out any discussion of the layers of sub-text of his segment. This suggests the filmmakers treated him fairly. Henderson did show he was more accurate than SBS in one key respect - he got the time of the show right. SBS were sending out online ads in Crikey and elsewhere all day saying it was on “SBS One Wednesday 8.30pm”. But Henderson got the facts right in his article – It was aired at 8.30pm tonight (Tuesday).

Apart from unnecessarily losing out on audiences, the SBS mistake also undermines the fact that Liberal Rules is likely to become good history - assuming the quality does not dip in the next two episodes. As Henderson rightly criticised, it did not interview any Labor or National politicians and overcompensated with leftwing critics such as the unfortunate Abjorensen, Judith Brett and Mark Davis (whose praise appeared on the blurb of the ad with the wrong day). But so what. In three hours of television, there will be a wealth of great historical material to choose from the political interviews.

This is a necessity the filmmakers turned into a brilliant virtue. Joint filmmaker Garry Sturgess had brought his skills as a senior researcher on ABC’s Labor in Power to do a similar job on the Howard era. But Sturgess found it difficult to open old doors. He and partner Nick Torrens struggled with sibling rivalry on the public purse when they tried to gain access to ABC’s treasure chest of news archives. It was the job of ex-SBS employee Alan Sunderland to deny the request on the grounds that their “primary responsibility is to make programs for the Australian public.”

So Sturgess and Torrens stacked the program with talking heads. This is difficult to make exciting and they wasted no time showing the questions or questioners inanely nodding. Audiences had to work out what was going on from the guiding of the anonymous narrator, the taut editing of the film, and the surprisingly candid answers themselves.

Howard and the other Liberals agreed to take part because they knew this would be a film about legacy and they were keen to shape it. As the film itself says, the Liberals are all about leadership. From Menzies to Turnbull the ethos of the party is that leadership is central to its identity. Liberal philosophy changes with the winds unburdened as it is by any -ism. What was most of interest in this film was how Howard and the rest approached their decision making.

For example Costello was brutally honest about the spoils of power. He would go to meetings where there might be 15 or 16 or people. The difficulty of getting them to do something for him was that all of them there were appointed by Howard. All that is, except him. “I was the only one elected”, he said. Ever since he backed Downer for the leadership in 1993, it was clear Costello always preferred to be the message rather than the messenger.

What mattered was not who did things the best, but who announced them best. And John Howard was always better at that than Costello. Howard was more ruthlesss for starters and served a tougher apprenticeship learning for the top job. In the 1970s, he was a young and generally hopeless Treasurer. In the 1980s, he wrestled with Peacock for the right to lose to Bob Hawke. And in the early 1990s, he watched as the newer leaders Hewson and Downer were gobbled up and spat out by the “street brawler” Paul Keating. Downer resigned in 1995 as the party stared at a sixth election loss. Costello was kept as deputy but it was Howard – battle-hardened but just 56 year old – who was chosen. He came out by Costello’s side to tell the media he had been appointed “unanimous leader”. His body language suggested supreme confidence he was going to be the next Prime Minister and he crushed Keating at the election a year later.

Howard was the master of the small agenda but his inability to look up almost made him a one-term premier. In trouble in the polls, he turned to his tax agenda and decided to run hard on getting a mandate for a Goods and Services Tax. While this overturned an election promise, he got away with it because Labor though an election could not be won selling a tax. Despite the fact his victory over Beazley was narrow, it was was a turning point. Although Howard would have to reach into his bag of tricks again to find another issue to win in 2001 (Tampa), it was the GST election that cemented his place in the party’s pantheon.

After that second win, he had carte blanche to do what he wanted. Howard used the twin drivers of the mining boom and a trillion dollars worth of personal debt to get the government back in the black. He then increased public spending on favoured projects and dished out largesse in the budget much to the chagrin of the more economic rationalist Treasurer. Neither of them did much on climate change. It is this sense that Liberal frittered away their years in power that bothered Henderson about Liberal Rules.

He says the left have won the victory of ideas because unlike the Liberals, they take history seriously. Henderson took the example of Opposition frontbencher George Brandis who complained in The Spectator that that Liberals are not celebrating the 100th anniversary of the formation of the inaugural Liberal Party. “But Brandis could have arranged such a celebration himself,” Henderson said. As Malcolm Turnbull and all the others before him showed, the Liberals are not about ideas, they are about actions.

Peter Costello: Walking in the overshadows

Picture credit: Tandberg.

Happy Birthday to Larvatus Prodeo, which turns four on the stroke of midnight or thereabouts. Consistently Australia's best group blog over the last few years, it is also a model of (mostly) civil and intelligent discussion in comments. Here's wishing many more years of good debate from LP.

While this post is entitled “Peter Costello”, the subtitle is partially about the birthday blog and one of its commenters, so bear with me.

I am also grateful to Peter Black who inspired another part of the title. “What a great opening sequence to Insiders, wrote Black this morning, ‘beginning with "Peter Costello went for a walk"’.

It was indeed a great opening. There were plenty of other things going on in Australian politics, but the plot was thick with Costello talk. The ABC's Chris Uhlmann agreed with Barrie Cassidy's suggestion that the former Treasurer was “up to no good”. I was enjoying his analysis when my ears really pricked up at a sentence he used. “Costello of course I think should be dubbed The Overshadow now,” said Uhlmann, “because no matter what he does he seems to have an effect on the party.”

The Overshadow. It seemed as if Uhlmann was claiming the dub for himself but I knew that Uhlmann was not the first person to use it to describe Costello. I thought I heard it through Larvatus Prodeo so I decided to check it out.

Firstly, I went to Factiva and ran a search for mainstream media articles that had Costello and overshadow in the last three months. The first article of interest was from the ABC. On 17 February, Hayden Cooper reported on the aftermath of the Julie Bishop demolition from the role of Shadow thus: “Hockey's elevation overshadowed by Costello speculation.”

In this scenario Hockey was the shadow and speculation was the overshadow. Nevertheless - the speculation was close enough to Costello for someone to make the right connection.

That someone was Paul Burns. By 7:06pm on the 17th, Burns had either read the article or listened to it on The World Today. Over at Larvatus Prodeo he was ready to comment about Hockey's promotion. He prefaced his statement with a grumble. “Occasionally the RW troglodytes who’ve taken over the ABC get it right.”

Just a bit of LWRW point scoring so far. But by channelling Cooper he was ready to deliver the knockout blow.

“Peter Costello = The Overshadow”.

In one mathematical equation Burns nailed the nebulous Costello.

Of course, he is. A perfect Overshadow. QED.

Naturally enough Mark at Larvatus Prodeo agreed: “It says it all, really.”

An overshadow in its most basic sense is something that blocks light from above. But it has a second meaning: something that “exceeds in importance”. Costello has certainly had no shortage of self-importance, he does smug in spades. And he has never been able to shed the negatives of his upbringing in a way that his brother Tim can.

Others sense this about Peter. When Mark Latham wasn’t dissing out his colleagues in the Diaries, he was fruity with Opposition figures too. In the introduction to the book, he agreed with Costello that all politicians indulge themselves in politics and as a result, families suffer. But that was about as good as it got for Costello from Latham. By page 50, he was wishing a pox on Costello and his then boss Howard for “their stinking rotten budget”. It was 1996, and it was the newly elected Abbot Howard and his apprentice Costello who were acting, said Latham, like the Bourbons on Bastille Day: “Self indulgent and arrogant.”

It is fair to say that first budget was not pretty. There was Treasurer Peter Costello, the youngest ever Liberal MP commissioned to deliver a Budget of non-core promises to the people that elected his party. He was fortunate that the odour of the meanness and the trickiness stuck on his boss.

Nevertheless Howard had the numbers and the loyalty of a whole bunch of politicians who grew up in power and who didn’t mind the smell.

For the next ten long years Costello stuck to his Bourbon tradition and let Howard eat cake. Costello was seemingly content to wait around for World’s Greatest Treasurer to become an Olympic sport. But when it became obvious in 2007 that the time was up for the Big Man, Costello wouldn’t move against him. Just like in 1994, Costello hadn’t the numbers or wasn’t prepared to take the big chair. Rudd torpedoed the Libs in November 2007 and Costello went down with the ship.

Except he didn’t. The big offers from private industry didn’t come, so he hung on tight in his Higgins liferaft. Costello’s margin in Higgins is 14 percent. It covers the mostly leafy south-east Melbourne suburbs of Prahran, South Yarra, Toorak, Armadale, Malvern, Glen Iris, Camberwell and Ashburton and has always been held by Liberals.

(Pic: The Overshadow). Costello whiled away the days writing his memoirs and taking valuable column inches from Brendan Nelson. Castaway in his backbench boat, he watched as Nelson’s column was toppled. As Nelson fell on his sword, he used the one weapon at his disposal to damage Costello. The timing of his leadership spill took most of the media coverage away from Costello’s book launch.

But once again The Overshadow hung around. Turnbull inherited the Party leadership. But Costello refused to go on honeymoon with Turnbull and turned down a position on the front bench. Turnbull was more solid than Nelson but still could not lay a glove on the Government. And the Liberals allowed themselves to be wedged on the stimulus as Turnbull forgot the basic rule: never get between the voters and a bag of money.

The Australian has now jumped on the bandwagon with an editorial on 12 March that said Costello knows the next election will be fought on his issues. “Turnbull must embrace the Howard agenda,“ pontificated the Australian, “If he declines to do it, the party should look for a leader who will.”

A leader who will? Despite all the wind and noise about Costello over the years, one basic fact needs repeating: Peter Costello has NEVER contested for the Liberal leadership. Maybe he never had the numbers to make a run at the federal Liberal leadership. Maybe he simply "never had the balls".

But there is maybe one thing that Costello has learned from his Faustian pact with the Howard agenda: In politics, longevity is everything. Unless he is challenged for pre-selection in Higgins, Costello will sit tight until the party comes begging for him. And if that date happens to be 2009 or even or 2012, then so be it. But then the Liberals must accept they will not regain the agenda until he comes out of the shadows.

Max Factor: Pauline Hanson runs in Beaudesert

As noted in places as far away as Singapore, Pauline Hanson is standing as a candidate in the Queensland election. Appropriately for a walking headline, tonight’s Channel Nine News noted that celebrity agent Max Markson will accompany Hanson when she officially unveils her candidacy in the town (and seat) of Beaudesert next week. While Markson denied today he had encouraged Hansen to run, he admitted he was helping her out and handling her media affairs. However with neither an election website nor a publicly available phone number for Markson, it promises to be yet another unorthodox Hanson media campaign. The Brisbane Times speculated today Hanson will either sell her candidacy story to magazines and television or else make a pitch for a reality TV show.

The news came just a week after it was announced Cate Blanchett could play the lead role in a biopic about Hanson. Melbourne filmmakers Leanne Tonkes and Steve Kearney are calling the project "Please Explain" and starts from her time running a fish and chip shop and ends with her on Dancing With the Stars. The filmmakers claim it will be “wry, not vicious”. With a view to the American market, Tonkes compares Hanson with Sarah Palin. “She [Hanson] is naturally sceptical of what we are doing because we are part of the media,” said Tonkes, “but we need to find out the person behind the media front to make a compelling story.”

Hanson has always been a compelling story and she and the media have long been involved in a complicated dance. She began her public life as an independent Ipswich city councillor where she quickly found she possessed skills in communication and listening to people. However she was out of a job after just a year when elections were called after council amalgamations in 1995. She joined the Liberal Party and comfortably won preselection for the ultra-safe Labor seat of Oxley. Prior to the 1996 election she wrote a letter to the Queensland Times where she complaining about Aboriginal welfare. “I would be the first to admit, not that many years ago, the Aborigines were treated wrongly but in trying to correct this they have gone too far”, she wrote.

In some respects what she said was mild, compared to other Queensland Coalition candidates. The National candidate for Leichhardt Bob Burgess described citizenship ceremonies as “dewoggings” while then-fellow Nat Bob Katter complained about aboriginal funding and the influence of “slanty-eyed ideologues who persecute ordinary, average Australians". Both Burgess and Katter got re-elected with above-average swings.

Nor were they disendorsed before the election, unlike Hanson. When Ipswich Labor councillor Paul Tully brought The Queensland Times letter to national attention, she was promptly disendorsed by John Howard when she would not retract her position. But the public exposure backfired on Labor. The newly independent Hanson won the sympathy of the locals who saw her as a victim of political correctness. Though still listed as Liberal on the ballot paper she took the seat with a massive 19 percent swing.

By now, the media spotlight was firmly on her. Hanson became the focus of a race debate. Helen Dodd’s authorised biography questioned whether the media’s aim was to sensationalise the idea that racism was alive and well in Australia. Dodd says the debate never occurred among average Australians but that it was “written, orchestrated and performed by the media”. But Hanson herself bought into the argument. In September 1996 she stood up in front of an almost empty parliament to make her maiden speech. She spoke of money wasted on Aborigines, condemned the Mabo judgement, attacked economic rationalism, called for the abolition of multicultural policy and warned Australia was being “swamped” with Asians. She channelled Menzies Forgotten People speech with her call to represent "common sense and the mainstream".

It was incendiary stuff, and it connected with a lot of people. She proved a hit on television and talkback radio. Hanson had opened a Pandora’s Box of forbidden opinion. As a result, her approval rating soared and for much of Howard’s first term, Hanson controlled the political agenda particularly over the Wik judgement. While the Nationals recognised her as a threat, Howard implicitly condoned her and her anti-Asian attitudes were noted in Jakarta and elsewhere. In 1998 her newly founded Pauline Hanson’s One Nation party (significantly, the first Australian party ever to be branded with its leader’s name) contested the Queensland state election. They attracted 23 percent of the vote and won eleven seats with the help of Coalition preferences.

As Margot Kingston noted, Hanson had ruptured the stability of political discourse. Only then did John Howard realise how serious the phenomenon was becoming. He did a deal with independent Senator Brian Harradine to compromise on Wik and resolved to put One Nation last in preference voting in the impending federal election. But Hanson had to move to fight that election. A redistribution made Oxley unwinnable. She would have been a certainty to be elected to the Senate, but instead chose to fight in National heartland in the new seat of Blair. Placed last on the how-to-vote cards, she would have needed 40 percent of first preferences to win. Abandoning most media conventions and egged on by a massive press gallery, Hanson’s campaign (brilliantly chronicled by her unlikely ally Kingston in “Off the Rails”) went the way of the title of the book. Hanson fell just short with 37 percent and One Nation’s only victory was a Senate seat in Queensland.

The party didn’t take long to unravel without its raison d’etre in parliament. Hanson’s star was on the wane by 2001 and she narrowly failed in a Senate tilt. Nevertheless Howard was still learning from Hanson in that poll. Earlier that year Hanson outlined her policy towards boat people: "You go out and meet them, fill them with food and water and medical supplies and say Go That Way”. Howard was listening and he skilfully manipulated the fear and loathing generated by the Tampa crisis and wedged the Opposition whose lead in the polls quickly evaporated. Hanson rightly complained that the Coalition had stolen her refugee policy clothes. Hanson was gone but the views she left behind went mainstream.

In 2003 she was sentenced to three years prison for fiddling party membership numbers but had the sentence quashed on appeal. A year later she quit politics after another Senate loss. But she simply could not kick the habit. She was back again in 2007 with a new party again featuring her name “Pauline’s United Australia Party”. She recontested the Queensland half-Senate election that year and showed she still held substantial support by taking 4.16 percent of the vote across the state. There was little surprise when she announced her candidacy for this year’s state poll. As Jeff Sparrow puts it, “there's something of Mike Tyson in Pauline Hanson's return: battered and past her prime, she’s drawn inevitably back to what she knows best.”

She is an experienced campaigner now and her results over the years shows she has retained a loyal constituency. It is questionable whether much of it is in Beaudesert but Pollytics says her candidacy there has thrown a spanner in the works of the LNP’s hopes of retaining the seat. The current margin is 5.9 percent but sitting member Kev Lingard is retiring. 30 year old Logan City councillor Aidan McLindon is the new candidate. In 2005 McLindon was fined on a public nuisance charge. He barged on to the set of that year's final episode of Big Brother during the announcement of the winner in a protest against the show’s exploitative nature. Hanson has now made McLindon’s life more complicated. If she can poll 20 percent and her preferences exhaust, the seat “could become marginal if a large swing away from Labor doesn’t manifest.” Meanwhile Hanson can walk away from the mess with a pile of money from Max Markson and plan her next campaign with the proceeds.

Turnbull defeats Nelson to become new Liberal Party leader

Malcolm Turnbull is the new Liberal party leader after this morning’s surprise leadership spill rebounded on Brendan Nelson. Nelson almost salvaged a mostly disastrous ten months at the helm of the Opposition with his audacious move to call the spill last night. It caught the overseas-returning Turnbull on the hop while simultaneously denying Party-pooper Peter Costello the media attention his book launch so richly did not deserve. But the writing seemed on the wall after the ABC’s 7.30 Report revealed Turnbull had the numbers. And so it proved in the party room vote which Turnbull won by 45 votes to 41.

The result almost exactly overturns the margin he was defeated by in November’s leadership election after the Coalition was tossed out of office. It looks like at most just one or two people have changed their vote in the meantime. However crucially, the make-up of the party in the Senate has changed since 1 July with six members retiring and four new incoming members.

The political narrative also changed rapidly last week after it became clear that Peter Costello was merely using the leadership speculation to fuel sales of his newly-published memoirs. Nelson’s supporters immediately rallied around their boss demanding he be given “clear air” to establish his leadership. However with the latest opinion poll still only giving him a 16 percent approval rating, the air remained heavily polluted around the good doctor and the narrative quickly moved on to the expected Turnbull spill.

Although he didn't control them, the sudden turn of events has nicely suited the member for Wentworth. As Turnbull did not call the spill, no-one can now accuse him of putting the knife into Nelson’s back. And he has always been open about his long-term goals. While the margin of victory was narrow, his election is likely to immediately halt Liberal leadership speculation and turn the focus back on the Government.

For Kevin Rudd, Turnbull’s victory is probably the most challenging outcome. Nelson was an embarassingly inept leader who failed to land a heavy blow against the Government. Though a Government minister in the Howard administration, Turnbull is not as tainted as Costello would have been over the tattered economic record Labor inherited. And Turnbull will be likely to commit to a “small target” strategy agreeing with the Government in the main, on the intent of its environmental and social agenda. What Turnbull will do is provide a strong intellectual focus that “Emo Man” Nelson so conspicuously failed to deliver in his tumultuous months at the top.

Despite the departure of Australia's answer to Comical Ali, Labor will still be favourite to win the next federal election in 2010 or earlier. But the possibility of their becoming a one-term Government rose with today’s news. These are tough economic times for any Government, and the tide is turning against Labor in the states. A likely heavy (and thoroughly justified) defeat in NSW in the 12 months leading up to the election would give Turnbull further momentum. On the positive side, the difficult task of a political sell for an emissions trading scheme may now win bi-partisan support. All in all, today’s result is a good one for the health of Australian democracy that sees heavyweights now leading both major parties. Most mercifully of all, the media will finally have to find something else to talk about now that Dr Nelson has been put out of his long, slow and lingering misery.

Malcolm in the middle: Liberal sprinklings of Turnbull

With the Australian parliament set to resume tomorrow, ABC’s Four Corners set the scene nicely with an enjoyable review of the “brilliant career” of Opposition Treasury Spokesman Malcolm Turnbull. The review is timely. With Liberal leader Brendan Nelson about to fall on his own sword and Peter Costello too busy selling his book, Turnbull is about to complete a meteoric rise to party leadership after just four years in parliament. And apart from serving up the occasional doozy such as the “the winter in Malcolm’s tent”, the ABC provided an enlightening coverage of most of the Turnbull bases in their unauthorised review. Turnbull refused to co-operate with the ABC despite initial agreement. But several key Liberal powerbrokers were prepared to go on camera. Tony Abbott, himself with longer-term leadership aspirations, said “Malcolm is one of those people who is destined for great things” and called him a determined and focussed human being.

As Abbott well knew with the question ABC asked him, these features are conspicuously absent in Peter Costello. But like Costello, the biggest prize of all may yet elude him. Turnbull is the richest man in parliament but money can’t buy him what he most wants: the Prime Ministership. Even as Liberal leader, he is likely to lose the next election. Will he hang around until 2013 to find out if he can get the top job? Or is it time for another audacious move and suggest a national government with Labor? After all, his views on climate change and the economy are not substantially different from Rudd’s. It seems even left-wing Phillip Adams thinks the “Bollinger Bolshevik” is the best man for the job.

Turnbull, as Adams says, has always been a winner. Malcolm Turnbull was a Rhodes Scholar who paid for his law and arts degree by working as a political journalist. After being appointed to the bar, Kerry Packer appointed him legal counsel when he was just 28 years old. He defended Packer in the 1984 Costigan royal commission. Confidential case summaries were leaked to the National Times which revealed a prominent businessman codenamed “Goanna” was accused of allegations of drug trafficking and maybe murder. It was Turnbull’s strategy for Packer to identify himself as the “Goanna” and turn public sympathy in his favour.

But it was the Spycatcher trial which made him a star. Fellow legal eagle and party front bencher Julie Bishop told Four Corners “we marvelled at a young Australian barrister taking on the British Government". Turnbull revelled in the “larrikin” role, brash and more aggressive than anything ever seen in an Australian court. Margaret Thatcher dispatched top civil servant Sir Robert Armstrong to give evidence. Turnbull tied him in knots and made him admit the British government were “economical with the truth”. The subsequent victory won Turnbull notoriety and professional esteem in equal measure.

Flush with success, Turnbull left the law and moved to high finance. He established investment banking firm Whitlam Turnbull and co with Nick Whitlam (Labor giant Gough’s son) and long-term NSW Premier Neville Wran. The company was funded with $25m from Packer and another $25m from fixer Larry Adler. It was hugely successful and involved in most of the major media deals in the 1990s. The company was heavily associated with Packer’s bid to take over Fairfax in 1991 in an attempt to gain access to their “rivers of gold” - the Melbourne and Sydney classified ads. But the bid proved extremely acrimonious. Turnbull fell out with Packer and fellow consortium member Conrad Black. Turnbull then became an active player in the bid by representing US bond holders who held $450m of potential worthless junk bonds in Fairfax. When MPs from all parties signed petitions criticising the bid, the Hawke Government was forced to hold a parliamentary enquiry. Packer was called to give evidence and was not happy. “I appear here this afternoon reluctantly” he said. He called the enquiry’s bluff. “You’re either going to have to believe me or call me a liar". The enquiry backed off. But Packer was lying; there was “an arrangement” for him to take over. Packer had lined up his offsider Trevor Kennedy to become Fairfax CEO.

Turnbull got revenge for Packer freezing him out of the bid by snitching on him. Turnbull secretly gave Trevor Kennedy’s private notes of his Packer dealings to the Australian Broadcasting Tribunal enquiry chairman Peter Westaway. Sydney University media academic Rod Tiffen says Turnbull feared for his life if anyone found out. But no one made the connection, and the ammunition killed Packer. Two days later Packer withdrew from the Fairfax bid. The leaked notes had showed Packer was lying to parliament. Tiffen said what Turnbull did helped Australian democracy though “whether he did it for that reason we’ll never know”. He certainly helped his bond holders who got their money back and also helped Conrad Black, who briefly won Fairfax. Black is now in jail after his financial shady dealings were exposed. He wrote to Four Corners from his prison in Florida. “I remember Four Corners with some amusement,” he began, “I knew (Turnbull) as an aggressive and opportunity lawyer. Kerry though he was talented and energetic but impetuous and unpredictable… Fifteen years ago there may be have been some questions about his judgement but that may not be the case any more”.

Black may be being disingenuous. Because Turnbull’s judgement does remain in question. Tony Abbott called him “determined and focussed, at best remarkably genial and charming companion” but at worst “a bit of a volcano”. Those who worked with Turnbull in the Australian Republican campaign saw all these sides of his character. Tim Costello, who wanted a different republican model, says Turnbull “bought the franchise.” And Turnbull had put a lot of his money and time into the exercise - $2m of his own money. But despite the idea of an Australian Republic have overwhelming support in 1998, it failed in a referendum a year later. Another pro-Republic opponent Phil Cleary said Turnbull “pranced around like a character of an Oscar Wilde play.” The divisions played into the hands of the monarchist Prime Minister John Howard and the public voted Turnbull’s model down. Greg Barns says Turnbull was misjudged and called him the “intellectual powerhouse” of the campaign.

But the powerhouse was deeply embittered and called Howard “the PM who broke people’s hearts”. Yet when he launched his own political career four years later, John Howard helped him do it. Howard supported Turnbull for a branch stack preselection in his home exclusive Sydney seat of Wentworth. According to Alexander Downer (who like Tony Abbott, did not support the move) “we felt sorry for his predecessor (Peter King) but he hadn’t made impact, [and] wasn’t a strong performer.” Howard forgave Turnbull the republican tongue-lashing and overruled his lieutenants to elect a star recruit, and a man who was most definitely, a strong performer.

But since winning election in 2004 Turnbull has had to learn the basic skills of politics, including the art of humility. For his maiden speech he bussed hundreds of supporters in to listen to him re-invent his image. "I grew up living in flats—mostly rented—and, in the style of the times, with small rooms running off a long, dark corridor,” he said. “I did not feel deprived of anything—apart, perhaps, from a dog. I was rarely inside. The best things in Wentworth—the waves at Bondi, the ducks at Centennial Park or even the brisk nor'easter whipping down the harbour on a summer's day—take no account of your bank balance.”

But others were taking account of his bank balance. While the HIH royal commission had no adverse finding against Turnbull, allegations persist he played a role in Australia’s biggest corporate collapse. The HIH liquidator is now suing Turnbull and Goldman Sachs Australia (GSA) for part of $529m lost in HIH collapse. The case against him rests on whether he knew FAI was worth less than the books showed and whether he endorsed his friend Rodney Adler’s takeover of the company. Adler had hired Turnbull and GSA on the proposed takeover of FAI for a $1.5m success fee. The liquidators now argue in the NSW Supreme Court that the parties knew the company was overvalued. Turnbull says the claim is defective and has no basis in fact. But if there is no settlement, it is possible he could appear as a defendant in court in the run-up to the next major election.

What position Turnbull will be in that next election is likely to be decided in the next month. Nelson’s bad hair days will end soon. But who will succeed him? As the ABC says, Turnbull is currently crisscrossing the country in a virtual campaign while Costello continues spruiking his book in his Hamlet “to be or not to be” moment. The born-to-rule Fortinbras of Wentworth is waiting in the wings for the nor'easter whipping down the harbour in the next act.

Queensland launches Liberal National Party

A new political party was launched in Queensland yesterday as the long-touted state merger of the Liberals and the Nationals finally came to pass. The executive of the new Liberal National Party (LNP) met in Brisbane and anointed former Nationals boss Bruce McIver as State President and former Liberal powerbroker Gary Spence as his deputy. The launch also introduced the new leadership team of Leader Lawrence Springborg, and Deputy Leader Mark McArdle. Like the presidential roles, the leadership and deputy roles were filled by former Nationals and Liberal leaders respectively, showing that Nationals remain the more powerful force in the combined entity.

Speaking in front of a thousand cheering fans, McIver said the launch marks the birth of a new era in Queensland politics. “The LNP is determined to offer the people of Queensland…a credible alternative to the current Government,” he said. “And a team with vision, built around the leadership of Lawrence Springborg and Mark McArdle.” New party leader Springborg said the creation of the LNP had ended conservative disunity which he described as the Labor government's “greatest asset”.

In his acceptance speech Springborg outlined four major areas the new party will focus on in the lead-up to the next election due in 2009. The four areas were: roads, hospitals, education and water. Springborg had the key backing of pro-merger Liberal MPs Tim Nicholls and Steve Dickson. He also received the endorsement of Liberal Brisbane mayor Campbell Newman who urged Liberal delegates to ignore calls by the party's federal president Alan Stockdale to delay the merger vote. Springborg attacked Stockdale and said the vote “can never be stopped and stymied by a few faceless men and women who seek to stand in the way.”

Embattled Federal Liberal leader Brendan Nelson came out in favour of the merger yesterday saying it would significantly strengthen the prospects of the conservatives defeating the Bligh Labor Government at the next state election. "We will all now work to see the best interests of the non-Labor side of politics are best served, both in Queensland and nationally," he said. Nelson’s statement came despite the last-minute Liberal moves to defer the vote over dispute over who would become president of the new party.

Crikey’s Bernard Keane says the LNP is merely the National Party with a Liberal rump. Apart from getting to go first in the name of the new party, Keane says the party is the “same clutch of dribbling hicks and divided incompetents [Queensland has] rejected for a decade.” He says that many Liberal members are now considering bailing out rather than joining a party that shares none of its basic beliefs. “The Nationals exist to promote the systematic abuse of government revenue and regulatory arrangements for the benefit of selected, primarily regional, industries and businesses,” he said. “Their record in government is one of corruption, rorting, rank incompetence and intolerance.”

But surprising or not, others accept the new arrangements, albeit with raised eyebrows. Andrew Bartlett called the merger a fait accompli and believes the merger will take the combined party further to the right. He said the new party fits comfortably with the “fundamentalist conservative right-wing mindset” of the Bjelke-Petersen era. But perceptively, Bartlett also points out that that the merger is less about ideology than it is about marketing. “Like any major party, it will try to focus on a few key messages and themes that it hopes will appeal to a majority of the electorate,” he said, “a large part of which will seek to focus on tapping into and building upon dissatisfaction with their opponent.”

Of course to do so, they will need to overcome dissatisfaction with their own side. As Poll Bludger points out, the new party structure over-represented rural and regional areas “in time-honoured Queensland style”. The newly elected Liberal state president Mal Brough has declared he will not join the new party. Brough maintains he is still officially the president of the Queensland Liberals until the federal party ratifies the merger. After that, he says he is undecided. "There's absolutely a career in politics if I want it, because that has been made very clear to me [by] my colleagues down south,” he said. “But whether I intend to do that or not is another thing altogether, that's not a decision I've taken.”

4 Corners: Howard’s End

Former Australian Prime Minister John Howard excused himself in Nigeria while his former party colleagues forensically dissected his election defeat on ABC’s Four Corners last night. Howard launched his career on the international speaker circuit at Nigeria's biggest awards ceremony in the capital, Lagos, at the weekend. Howard steered clear of Australian domestic politics and instead spoke about Nigerian economic reform and its need to seek more foreign investment. It is likely Howard was paid in the region of $40,000 for this new and blander version of the Nigerian phishing scam.

While his speech content was uncontentious, the same could not be said for the swag of senior Liberals who bared their souls about their defeat on national television last night. The program entitled “Howard’s End” attracted 1.15 million viewers to the national broadcaster. The program featured significant interviews from key players such as Arthur Sinodinos, Nick Minchin, Peter Costello, Alexander Downer, John Abbott, Joe Hockey but not from Howard himself who has not spoken to an Australian media outlet since his defeat.

The program began with how Howard ascended to the leadership in 1994. Alexander Downer was opposition leader with Costello as his deputy. Downer was in freefall as leader and Liberal powerbroker Ian McLachlan set up a secret meeting to replace him. In the meeting were three people, McLachlan, Costello and John Howard. In this meeting Howard asked Costello not to nominate so Howard could be elected unopposed. Both McLachlan and Costello say Howard committed to serving only one and half terms. A reluctant Costello agreed knowing he did not have the numbers to win anyway. Costello asked McLachlan to document the undertaking about “one and half terms” on a piece of paper.

Eight weeks later in early 1995, Howard ascended to the leadership unopposed with Costello continuing as deputy. This would be the team that would vanquish Paul Keating in 1996 and go on to win four successive elections. By 2006 Howard was in power for ten years and was the second longest ever Australian leader behind Robert Menzies. Howard is at the peak of his power and the “one and half terms” idea has seemingly been forgotten. The one time Howard had obliquely mentioned retirement was in 2000 on his 61st birthday when he said nothing lasts forever and he would consider his position on his 64th birthday.

He turned 64 in June 2003 and decided to stay on despite Costello’s prompting. By 2006 Howard was now 67 and talk of change was in the air. Chief of staff Arthur Sinodinos said the speculation grew as the 10th anniversary approached. But Andrew Robb said it was not the sort of thing people would raise when talking to the PM. Senate leader Nick Minchin knew that Howard’s time was nearly up and he got Sinodinos and foreign minister Alexander Downer to sound out the retirement on the 10th anniversary which, Minchin thought, was the ideal time for Howard to go out on top. Costello was aware of Minchin’s plan. Both men conveyed their views but Howard never followed the matter up with Minchin and there the matter died.

Sinodinos said Howard’s attitude was he wanted to think it through. However he said that process was truncated by the McLachlan affair. In July 2006 McLachlan finally released the contents of the “one and half terms” piece of paper to the media. The note mentioned that a voluntary “undertaking” had been given. Howard and Costello subsequently gave differing accounts of the meeting, with the obvious imputation that at least one of them was lying. Minchin said the impact of the public spat was “devastating”.

Two days later Howard told the media “it was the will of the party” that was paramount. In July he announced he was staying on until after the next election. Costello told Four Corners that the McLachlan affair was irrelevant and that Howard never intended in standing down. But Downer said that had 1996 been a controversy free year, Howard would have retired. Costello said the impression he had was quite the opposite. But in any case Costello faced the same problem he always had – Howard had the party numbers. Costello conceded defeat and publicly proclaimed his loyalty to the team. He said the problem was the number of MPs that had been elected since 1996 who only knew Howard as leader. To them, said Costello, the Liberal Party WAS Howard. Liberal Senator Judith Troeth said Costello’s problem was that never cultivated the party backbench which made him arrogant and unpopular.

In December 2006, the Liberals had new problem: Kevin Rudd. Rudd came to the Labor leadership with a mandate for new leadership. The Liberals didn’t panic, they had seen off Mark Latham in 2004 and felt they could see off the new boy. But from the time Rudd became leader, there were 50 polls all of which pointed to a Labor victory. John Abbott said the Liberals could not counter this “fresh face” strategy; Costello was too associated with Howard, who anyway, according to Abbott, was the Libs best asset.

Labor homed in on the unpopular Government workplace relations law with the unions running effective scare ads. Joe Hockey was appointed Workplace Relations Minister with a mandate to fix the problem. In the most remarkable admission of the program, Hockey told Four Corners that “many ministers in cabinet” were not aware that people could be worse off under WorkChoices. Hockey moved to bring in the Fairness Test. Robb said this failure was proof the government were no long listening to “the Howard battlers, the people who put us there in the first place”.

Failure to sign Kyoto was another disaster for the government in 2007. Costello said the government should have ratified it “many years earlier”. Abbott said Howard’s rigid position on the “totemic issue” of Kyoto didn’t help the party. In September, Howard hosted the APEC summit in Sydney. On the eve of the summit, a newspoll showed an 18 per cent 2PP lead to Labor. This was a devastating poll that made the leadership “jumpy”. While Howard was busy hosting international presidents, he began to finally believe he would lose the election.

Howard asked Downer to sound out the opinion of the other cabinet members whether they would be better off changing leaders. Downer invited eight cabinet colleagues to discuss the matter: Brendan Nelson, Malcolm Turnbull, Julie Bishop, Philip Ruddock, Chris Ellison, Ian Macfarlane, Kevin Andrews and Joe Hockey. Most were unaware of Howard’s thoughts. Hockey said he thought the leadership had been sorted a year ago and he was stunned Howard himself was re-opening it. The view of the meeting was that if Howard didn’t think he could win, he should step aside.

The following morning, Downer reported back to Howard about the pessimistic mood of the meeting and the view of the majority was that Howard should quit. Later Downer told Costello he should get ready for leadership. Downer then told the cabinet that anyone who thought Howard should go, should tell the PM. Joe Hockey told Four Corners he rang Howard to tell him he should quit. Howard said he appreciated Hockey’s honesty but made no commitments. Downer then told Howard he should leave voluntarily. But Howard took the view he would only leave if told to do so by his colleagues. But those colleagues in the main felt doing that would be an electoral disaster.

For Andrew Robb, it was unfortunate Howard wasn’t told he should go. But for Hockey, a “knifing” of John Howard would have meant the Liberals would have been reduced to a small rump in parliament. Because the conditions were not agreed, Howard decided to stay on and contest the 2007 election. Something Costello thought he always was going to do anyway. Howard went on A Current Affair to say he had talked the matter through with his family and said “they want me to continue”. Hockey said he was disappointed that Howard had earlier said he would always stay as long as the party wanted him and “now the formula had changed”.

According to Downer, Howard did not want to look like a coward, and besides, had higher personal approval ratings than Costello. Two months later, Howard announced the election and the entire team got behind him. Nothing changed during the six week campaign and Howard was voted out of office both as PM and MP on 24 November. Costello refused the opposition leadership the following day. The Liberals would never find out what changing the leadership would have meant. According to Costello supporter Christopher Pyne “the public gave Labor the biggest swing they had ever had into government and that was the final say on who was right about that”. According to Four Corners, Howard loved the job too much to quit.

Nelson’s column inches steal Rudd’s cabinet thunder

On the day federal Labor announced its first cabinet in eleven years, they still found themselves sharing the headlines with the dethroned government. The reason was the surprise victory of Brendan Nelson who upset the favourite Malcolm Turnbull for the leadership of the Liberal Party. Nelson won a tight ballot by 45 votes to 42. In a continuation of the “me too” philosophies that dominated the election, Nelson said he wouldn’t get in the way of the government’s plans to ratify Kyoto and withdraw troops from Iraq. The Liberals have also mirrored the Labor leadership gender make-up by installing Julie Bishop as deputy leader.

The newly installed government wasted no time in taking aim at Nelson. This afternoon Labor media managers launched a website called “Nelson Facts” which takes aim at his record in government. The website highlights Nelson’s links with Howard’s Workchoices laws, and policies on nuclear power, Iraq and climate change.

However with the government planning an “education revolution” it is Nelson’s record as Education minister that may come under the most scrutiny. The “Nelson Facts” site gleefully quotes Nelson’s comment that university education “is a privilege” as well as blaming him for the country’s skill shortage. The Indigenous community was also critical of Nelson’s record. In 2006, the National Indigenous Times reported Nelson underspent $181 million earmarked for Aboriginal education.

That same year Nelson moved to the Defence portfolio where he presided over the Jake Kovco fiasco. Kovco died of gunshot wounds in mysterious circumstances while on duty in Iraq. Nelson didn’t help matters by issuing a series of contradictory statements about Kovco’s death. A military board of inquiry handed down a verdict of accidental shooting but this was rejected by Kovco’s family. Departmental incompetence continued when Kovco’s body was mislaid in transit to Australia and again when the ABC revealed the military lost the report into the saga.

Nelson survived this episode as well as he did his Iraq “gaffe” (otherwise known as inadvertently telling the truth) in May this year. His public statement that securing the world’s oil supply was a major factor in Iraqi troop deployment caused a flurry of speedy retractions from John Howard, Peter Costello and eventually Brendan Nelson himself. But Nelson was never punished and slowly built his support base by courting and helping backbenchers.

In the Liberal leadership contest, his brash rival Malcolm Turnbull said Nelson lacked the killer instinct. One of Turnbull’s supporters said “opposition is all about drive and determination and the ability to cut through - It's not about who's nicer or how much the colleagues all love him." But Turnbull over-estimated his numbers and in the end the party went for the less extroverted but slightly more politically experienced Nelson. But with a close vote, Tony Abbott waiting in the wings, and Labor hegemony in the parliament it has all the hallmarks of a temporary appointment.

While the Liberals continued their public traumas, Kevin Rudd smoothly clicked into power and named his first cabinet. With several key posts already locked in and the inevitable leaks in advance there were few surprises. The biggest of these was the promotion of Stephen Smith to Foreign Affairs. Robert McClelland was always likely to be demoted (he will be Attorney-General) after his “Bali bomber blunder”. Peter Garrett retains Environment but his inexperience during the campaign also saw some of his responsibilities stripped away with Malaysian-born Senator Penny Wong given a new ministry of Climate Change and Water. She will have the key Australian lead negotiator role in the upcoming Bali climate change talks.

Wong was one of several women to do well in the ministry. Deputy PM Julia Gillard adds education to her IR portfolio, while Nicola Roxon takes on Health. John Howard’s conqueror Maxine McKew will become a parliamentary secretary for childcare. The new cabinet was noticeably also for fact that it was personally selected by Kevin Rudd. This represents a break of 106 years of Labor tradition where positions have been nominated by the party factions. Rudd hailed his ministry “as a team with fresh ideas for our country’s future”. They will now be on notice to perform.