Vale Gough Whitlam

[watt price tully]

[Mugwump]

[Jezza]

[HAL]

Oops. Too much data.

[pietillidie]

[London Dave]

[Mugwump]

^
The Keating Government instigated mandatory indefinite detention. I think that amply supports my view (which you dismissed with remarkable a priori certainty as "wrong") that Keating would have seen this as a complex issue requiring some elements of toughness as well as care.

The politician/realist and the visionary/idealist in Keating were always in tension. It's why he was a success. Being mandatorily locked up for an indefinite period as a deterrent constitutes "evidence" of a perspective on the problem, as you demand. But since you believe that phrases like "not a black and white issue" or the word "culture" have no meaning, we're probably unlikely to agree on the meaning of the word "evidence".

[pietillidie]

[watt price tully]

[Pies4shaw]

Why are you surprised, WPT?

Jezza has just adopted a modern-day-standard conservative position: support all the laissez-faire "liberal" and soft reforms, get the heavily-subsidised law degree, make a pile of money (or, better still, imagine the endless pile of money you will make) and then whinge about other people getting subsidies.

"Those of us wealthy enough not to need welfare or subsidised education and who can pay for own (heavily-subsidised) healthcare know very well that the 'needy' and 'unfit' are dragging us down."

People who lived through the 50's or 60's got a proper sense of the lack of opportunities for intelligent, capable people from the "wrong side of the tracks" in the dim, dark ages (ie, our youth). I think living through that miserable, transitional period in Australian history makes us better-appreciate what a transformation Gough's ALP wrought.

[stui magpie]

A view from Terry McCrann that I tend to agree with.

[AN_Inkling]

[Mugwump]

Whitlam's government would not have won a Nobel Prize for economics, but he was also very unlucky to come to power just at the moment the post-War boom came crashing to an end with the oil shock of 1973. If they had been elected in 1969 (and they came close, with a 6% swing) they might have got away with their naive budgetary management. By 1972, however, no incumbent government stood much of a chance, let alone one as inxperienced and exuberant as Whitlam's Labour Party.

And McCrann was a vicious critic of the Keating and Hawke governments right through their time, so his paean of praise for Keating and Hawke is risible. As an economic writer, he makes a good partisan hack.

[pietillidie]

In the brainwashed conservative cult the assumption is the only way to get things done in the world is through forceful control, dressed up as "the way decent people act"; the "gnarly shopkeeper type" Keating said Howard was, who pushes his powerless employees around and feels all big about himself because he's a "job creator". The conservative euphemism for this is "management".

But, as we know, the world is infinitely more complex than this trivial 1950s, "stay at home love", "kids should be seen but not heard", "a good belting every now and then doesn't hurt", "do it or you'll be out of a job, Smith" world view affords.

At the level of government you need someone to take responsible for setting strategic direction, not someone who gets bogged down in "management issues", which for a leader of the centre/left really means countering the hysterical PR the conservative media owners concoct to derail competitive socio-economic reforms. As I always say, to be as good as Keating you really need to be able to whack the right and beat them at the media game while at the same time helping the country progress, but don't hold your breath waiting for leaders of such ability.

John Howard looked like a manager, so conservatives felt the world was all under control, even if it meant whipping up hysteria and fear to stop the nation focusing on progress, enabling authoritarians to better control their workers, and stopping them and their children from competing with the old money class.

Tony Abbott, on the other hand, looks "authoritative", even though we know he's as cowardly as he is "George W. Bush edumakated"; he's got the degree, but it is clear conservative fanatics paved the way for him. (Ironically, he's the archetype of the dumb educated type with no idea about the real world that Stui complains a lot about).

Given the bulk of the media is funded by conservative sponsors, the wondrous virtues of authority and management get repeated day after day, with "tough" crises such as asylum seekers and ISIS invented every other week to ensure "authority" gets to flex its muscle for the cameras. (And, of course, nothing gets conservatives off more than the military, the ultimate hierarchical, authoritarian organisation, hence the need for them to keep society in a permanent state of crisis).

Meanwhile, of course, we know that all conservatives are really trying to do is hold back economic progress to maintain the value of their old, non-free market investments and inherited statuses, inventing any old nonsense along the way to trick dumb people into helping them. And this runs all the way down the line, from billionaires to working class conservatives, with different sets of competitors to hold back at every level.

I am no fan of Whitlam but he was essential in the scheme of progress, as very obviously were H-K (H was essential in that he provided the populist cover for K to push the nation forward). Gillard was absolutely critical for young women and those who fought for women's rights during Whitlam's time, even if that benefit was derailed far too briefly and disgracefully came at the cost of asylum seekers.

Howard, Rudd, Abbott were/are a waste of precious national time, while I agree with David that Shorten looks more of the same slimy populist type and servant of old money.

[watt price tully]