Andrew Bolt has a column this morning that neatly sums up the News Ltd / shock jock case against Kevin Rudd and his government. Basically, the idea is that Rudd believes in nothing, has not achieved anything and has botched everything he has touched since winning office. This is the same Fox News case that is pushed against Obama and it is the same case that the Howard-haters (as the columnists liked to describe them) pushed against Rudd's predecessor. In short, it is a case much advocated by the fatuous.
Of course, there is much to criticise in the performance of Rudd as there is in the performance of Obama and Howard. But this is not to say that the criticism alone is a fair account of their performances, the sort of stuff that Bolt churns out and that shock jocks like Alan Jones echo with glee is just par for the course and it pays very little attention to questions of balance, context or perspective.
Bolt is an employee of News Ltd, and along the way somewhere Kevin Rudd has done something to really upset the self-important fools that represent Murdoch's interests in this country. News Ltd might have been better advised to focus on managing their businesses more effectively (think Melbourne Storm and the current Guthrie case) then pursuing vendettas against the national government.
But Bolt doesn't need any encouragement to be biased against the ALP.
Bolt's case never mentions the protection of vulnerable workers by getting rid of the worst aspects of Howard's failed WorkChoices scheme. When Bolt says that Rudd betrayed the millions of people who voted for him ending WorkChoices never gets a look in.
Nor does Bolt acknowledge that Howard's Iraq and Afghanistan follies have imposed large unnecessary impositions on Australian taxpayers. Nor does he acknowledge that Howard's over-doing the US alliance led us into a trade agreement which did nothing for Australia and led us into an absurd position on climate change that left us looking isolated and silly. One of the Rudd Government's achievements has been to move us away from many of Howard's policy failures and ideological deadends. Maybe Rudd should have done more, but the fact is Howardism was no longer tenable - drawing the curtain on that was an achievement in itself. Rudd did, btw, also play a big part in getting the G20 upgraded which must be counted an achievement I think.
Bolt is utterly clueless on economics. It is easy now to look back and dismiss the Rudd Government's actions on the GFC as inconsequential. All averted crises look much less threatening with the benefit of hindsight and when it is not your responsibility to make the big calls. Bolt's sound bites on interest rates and debt are silly, and fully consistent with Abbott's position. The RBA is at pains to point out that the recent interest rate rises are a stimulus withdrawal and a return to more sustainable rates. Our public debt is inconsequential compared to the rest of the world and in light of the underlying strength of our economy. The point of a stimulus is to avoid a slump. It is easier to maintain growth than to try and rebuild an economy that has fallen in a big deflationary hole. Whatever you say about school halls and insulation batts, the stimulus saved many thousands of jobs and stopped many millions of people taking a bigger hit on their incomes. That's an achievement in my book. These are all inconvenient truths that Bolt chooses to ignore.
And yes let me remind you of Sorry Day. Howard wouldn't do it, Rudd did. It meant a lot to many of Australia's most disadvantaged citizens. Yes, many would like some compensation as well. So it wasn't perfect. But it was big, some of the biggest things in our national life are just symbolic. None of the right-wing nuts, like Bolt, whinge about ANZAC day being 'just symbolism'.
And then there is Senate obstructionism. There was a deal on the ETS. It was torpedoed by the National Party and climate deniers in the Liberal Party - and, yes, News Ltd and the shock jocks. Torpedoed also by the Greens - just because they always oppose anything that is not perfect in their eyes. If they had voted for it along, with the two dissident liberals, then it would be law today.
And Andrew talk about Rudd not believing in anything, Abbott has held many different positions on climate change - it seems to depend on who he is talking to and what's in it for him. Just as he is sort of in favour, or sort of opposed (who can tell), to the death penalty. Just as he said there would be government-funded parental leave over his dead body before he decided that a big, regressive scheme might win him votes from women. And he will pay for this parental leave scheme with a new tax - not long before he said there would be no new taxes under his leadership. Just as he is now totally opposed to the new big new tax on mining companies but can't say whether he will oppose it or not in Parliament until he sees the legislation. Just as he said the smoking tax increase was just a tax grab, but one that he wouldn't necessarily oppose. Maybe Bolt loves Abbott because he believes in lots of things, often mutually exclusive things, at different times and for different reasons.
Even now after getting his health plan up, the biggest social reform package in the US in 40 years, there are those critics who say Obama is a do nothing leader. Especially, you guessed it, on Murdoch's Fox channel. So it is with Rudd and his critics. No matter what Rudd did he would still be dissed by the Bolts of the world.
Rudd is guilty of stacking his first-term agenda with too much and having to ditch a lot of it and go to an election with too little of that agenda completed. He is also guilty of doing too much on his own and not delegating enough to his Ministers. He is guilty of not doing more in the first year, of making the policy processes too long. But he is a long way from being the complete disaster, 'worse than Whitlam', figure that the right-wing loonies (many of whom write for News Ltd) have been screeching about so much for so long.
Perhaps this sustained News Ltd campaign is having its impact with the voters. I don't think that is a good thing for Australian democracy.
