Keeping Rudd out of Gillard's hair

You could see it coming from the moment it became clear that Australia was headed for a hung Parliament. But the decision by Independents, Tony Windsor and Rob Oakeshott, to throw their lot in with Julia Gillard to form a minority government finally took the country through Alice’s looking glass into the world of the Mad Hatter.

When a smiling Oakeshott told the assembled media: “It will be a cracker of a Parliament. It will be ugly, but it will be beautiful in its ugliness” the issue was put beyond doubt.

Oakeshott’s public agonising and repeated bearing of his moral conscience in the painful lead-up to his final announcement was downright embarrassing if not confusing.

His public musings about a unity government are not just out of touch with reality they defy reality.

The electoral backlash which Oakeshott and Windsor are now facing from their own conservative leaning constituencies would be repeated on a much larger and more aggressive level across the country if Tony Abbott had fallen for this line, particularly after Labor’s post-election announcement of an alliance with the Greens.

After all under our democratic parliamentary system it is the role of the Opposition to take the fight up to the government of the day on its legislative platform not to engage in sweetheart deals. This was clearly demonstrated in the across-the-board swing against the Gillard (and previously Rudd) government at the polls.

And attempts during the election campaign to suggest that disenchantment with Labor was triggered by the ruthless political assassination of Rudd as leader went out the window with the 10 per cent swing against the former Prime Minister in his own Queensland seat.

Oakeshott’s protestations about the role which he and the other independents were playing in negotiating major reforms to the operation of the parliamentary system were blunted when it became clear that he was seriously considering an offer from Gillard to serve in a Labor ministry.

The impracticalities of wearing your heart on your sleeve while working under a system of cabinet solidarity are obvious particularly in a national political environment.

Oakeshott, in particular, made much of the pressure which negotiating his power deal with the major party leaders had placed on him and his family.

But the pressure during the 17 days between the August 21 election and the announcement of his deal with Gillard will be nothing compared to the workload that he and Windsor have set for themselves by effectively being involved in every aspect of government legislative policy.

For example, just looking at parliamentary procedural issues there have been 237 divisions alone in the House of Representatives since Oakeshott was elected in September 2008. While he missed 14 divisions while on official leave, he still missed a further 80 divisions.

It is reasonable to assume that the Opposition will step up its objections to government tactics in Parliament despite all the talk about procedural reform, resulting in a far greater number of divisions.

Oakeshott wisely turned down Gillard’s offer for a slot in her new ministry saying he would bring too much baggage and political heat with him. Perhaps he could smell the fires of disenchantment burning in his electorate.

Meanwhile Gillard’s decision to honour her campaign promise to hand Kevin Rudd the Foreign Affairs Ministry may boost the former Prime Minister’s ego but it will not be greeted with rapturous applause by the bureaucracy. Rudd’s lack of popularity within the Labor Party was echoed through the corridors of the foreign service.

Under his micromanagement of the Labor government following the 2007 election, Foreign Affairs wallowed in a policy vacuum while Rudd strutted the world stage. This led to his predecessor Stephen Smith - who moves to Defence to make way for Rudd - being dubbed in diplomatic circles as “the messenger for Foreign Affairs”.

Rudd has made much of his ability to speak Mandarin. But, despite a stint in the Australian Embassy in Beijing some years ago, he clearly lacks an understanding of Chinese culture and diplomacy. Under his leadership diplomatic relations with China, and Japan for that matter, slumped. And his diplomatic foray into the Copenhagen climate change conference at the head of a small army of bureaucrats was a costly and humiliating disaster.

The portfolio will keep Rudd out of Gillard’s hair domestically. While it is still early days Gillard has shown no interest in international policy. At the same time both Gillard and Rudd have, in the past, delegated subordinates to attend meetings of the National Security Committee which she now heads as Prime Minister.

The broad scope of foreign policy is a critical part of government administration and as such has to be driven from the top. But while Gillard cannot allow Rudd to run his own foreign policy race she similarly cannot allow this vital area to become part of the policy gridlock that typified the operations of the Prime Minister’s office under its former tenant.