Whatever it takes

One of the many brutal lessons that Kevin Rudd should take from his short tenure as Prime Minister is that the style of political management adopted by Labor Premiers is not suited to national government.

In broad terms, State Labor's style of government is defined by an obsessive focus on the management of the daily media cycle to the point of manipulation, with shameless spin and personal vilification of opponents being the standard tools of trade.

Or as Labor luminary Graham Richardson put it so succinctly, Labor will do "whatever it takes" to retain power.

Some of the more skilled exponents of the Labor style have been Labor premiers Peter Beattie, Bob Carr, Steve Bracks, Mike Rann and Brian Burke.

Some Labor Premiers enjoyed relatively long tenure from the embrace of this formula.

However in a now familiar pattern, the factional bosses decide when a Premier's time is up. A change to a "new" leader is engineered and presented as a "new" face of what is magically a "new" government.

Running a state government is enormously challenging and difficult; however, by definition, it does not involve the range and complexity of issues confronting a federal government on a daily basis.

The pool of media in State press galleries is generally far smaller than the Canberra press gallery.

It should be far more difficult for a prime minister to seek to gloss over issues and problems through a total reliance on media spin.

Kevin Rudd was a skilled media performer who used the full range of State Labor techniques to build his popularity as Leader of the Opposition.

However, it eventually caught up with him as he tried in vain to talk his way out of the fundamental failings of his government.

At this early stage of the Gillard Government, it appears that the new prime minister has adopted the Labor standard, reminiscent of the early weeks of Kristina Keneally's installation as the first female Premier of New South Wales.

The focus was on glossy magazines and photo opportunities to distract the public from the unsightly dumping of a sitting prime minister by the factional bosses.

It is clear there is much more effort being put into presentation than into substance.

Take for example the announcement of a "deal" with the mining sector.

It was carefully stage managed, even to the point of letting the media know that champagne was delivered to the Cabinet room to celebrate the end of negotiations.

Ms Gillard announced that her deal on the mining tax lowered the rate, lifted the threshold, excluded all minerals bar iron ore and coal, exempted over 2,000 mining companies leaving just over 300 companies in the net, and yet that it would still collect $10.5 billion of the original $12 billion in tax revenue.

The numbers simply beggared belief but Labor knew it was enough to fill the 10-second grab on the nightly news and make a headline splash across the morning newspapers. Mission accomplished.

Days later, the Treasury conceded that it "massively underestimated" the take from the original super tax which would have been closer to $15 or $20 billion.

So the tax grab is still about the same because Treasury increased the forecasts for higher commodity prices.

As Treasury Head Ken Henry said "it is certainly convenient for the government".

Labor's announcement yesterday of new measures on border security has taken spin to entirely new levels.

Ms Gillard castigated those who suggested that seaworthy boats should be turned around and described any such policy as a "kind of evil".

Yet that is precisely what she espoused in 2002, "We think that it is important, important from a humanitarian perspective and important from a security perspective, that we do everything we can to disrupt people smuggling. And we think turning boats around that are seaworthy, that can make the return journey, and are in international waters, fits in with that."

Kevin Rudd's announcement in November 2007 that if he were elected, Labor would turn back seaworthy boats was defended vigorously by none other than Ms Gillard.

Ms Gillard also announced yesterday that she was in talks with East Timor's President Ramos Horta about "the possibility of establishing a regional processing centre for the purpose of receiving and processing of the irregular entrants to the region".

Yet this contradicts her own policy position in August 2007 where she vowed to close down all offshore processing and she maintained her absolute opposition to offshore processing - right up until yesterday's announcement.

However as Ms Gillard was the architect of Labor's failed border protection policy and has defended it for years, she can't now have it both ways.

She either didn't believe what she was saying then or she doesn't believe what she is saying now.

The now well honed strategy for Labor's re-election is to hoodwink the public into believing that the Rudd-and-Gillard Government is somehow different from the Rudd-now-Gillard Government.

Whatever it takes.