Ross Gittins has hit it on the head. His latest article sets out a clear argument on why Rudd is really just a young Howard:
Rudd talks about his grand plans but, in reality, he keeps closing off his options, lumbering himself with commitments to keep pursuing Howard’s policies.
Which goes to show that Howard really is the cleverest politician of his generation. Even if he loses this election he will have dictated the bulk of his opponents’ policies for at least their first term.
Howard would be ruling from the political grave.
This is exactly the point I was making in the previous post. Rudd is in fact narrowing the political debate more than Howard ever did because he’s elevating Howard into a concept, an economic consensus, rather than just the person we’ve had to contend with for the last ten years.
Which brings me to the question – is this massive swing to Labor really so radical a change? Isn’t it in fact Howard who is the radical in this election? Howard is the one proposing a radical restructuring of industrial relations. Howard is the one committing to a high risk foreign policy in Iraq (one that is becoming increasingly marginalised). Even his climate change policy is more radical than Rudd’s because it breaks from international consensus and sets up its own independent treaty. And before you can say ‘education revolution’ note Gittin’s article:
The Howard Government has increased its grants to private schools and changed the previous Labor government’s needs-based funding formula to one biased in favour of elite schools. Rudd has promised to increase grants and keep the Liberals’ formula until at least 2012.
Whatever Rudd may really stand for, the public perception is that he is the safe option, promising conformism back to the centre. I’m not in favour of Howard’s policies (far from it) but what their reception reveals is that, in the Australian psyche, real political change remains increasingly marginal.
October 24, 2007 at 7:21 pm |
I agree Dave, it’s surely now clear that Rudd sees government as being about management rather than vision and leadership. On education he doesn’t seem very revolutionary. Most of the policies just seem like little extensions to an existing framework – there’s no radical surgery to the system. In fact his most revolutionary idea is probably on hospitals, where he would actually make the system of accountability change drastically and I think for the better, since those accountable would be the feds who have the actual money to spend in the first place.
As far as the overall evaluation of Rudd vs Howard goes though, it shouldn’t be forgotten that there’s management and then there’s management. Howard has been a disaster from a social policy perspective, has been consistently devisive, has preyed on fear in the worst possible way, and has encouraged Australians by his example to be selfish and not to doubt their knee-jerk responses to things. Rudd is obviously not that man and the importance of that shouldn’t be lost for all Rudd’s apparent conservatism.
Also sometimes managing well can involve making decisions that are in themselves very radical. For instance, in 6 months when Howard’s northern territory intervention comes to an end and is assessed, there are going to be some big decisions to be made about the future of Aboriginal rights, economic and social development. Surely one would be far more inclined to trust Rudd, who, judging from his comments in the debate on Sunday, obviously sees Aboriginal people as having a real political status in a way that Howard and Brough and the liberals can never concede. Even though no-one likes to hear about Aboriginal issues because it’s so confronting, it remains the biggest and most important moral and political issue which Australia must solve on its own.
Lastly, the fact that Rudd actually believes in education (and tackling climate change) as opposed to Howard who is simply me-tooing, and the fact that he will elected on that as his madate (along with workchoices) means that there will be a certain pressure to deliver something substantial – even if not revolutionary – on those things. Otherwise he’d be risking a voter backlash next time.