Howard’s gone to water

The Australian Council of Trade Unions organised effectively against the industrial relations changes which the Coalition Government foisted on Australian workers. A series of entertaining rallies were held right around the country against what the unions called the “WorstChoices” legislation. Day after day, examples of unscrupulous employers’ actions were reported in the mainstream media. Labor’s traditional blue collar supporters started to drift back to the fold once they saw the emerging need for greater industrial protection.

The Rudd-Gillard team stayed on the job over the long Christmas break. They rightly sensed that Beazley had lost a lot of ground during the previous holiday period. In addition, they realised that they desperately needed to shed the maverick image Labor had acquired during the Latham period.

They started reaching out to business and some of the other alienated or disillusioned constituencies who had walked away from Labor in the previous decade. The factional debacle which had helped keep Labor from gaining electoral appeal was massaged to the point that it was down to a dull roar.

Howard realised for the first time since gaining office that he had a fight on his hands. He metamorphosed from a Kyoto-opposing Climate-Change-sceptic into a “Climate-Change-realist” and simultaneously dragged the debate back to water and the drought (Madigan 2007).

Malcolm Turnbull has been appointed water impresario. In many ways this will be last really new policy likely to emerge before the next election. Rudd has wisely accepted that the best thing he can do is go along with the policy; after all being against supplying more water would be akin to standing on a platform against motherhood.

In political terms, it matters not one jot whether Howard’s plan delivers more water, better environmental outcomes or more secure water supply to irrigators. The next election will be well and truly over before the outcome of the Howard plan can be assessed. So Howard is running on water and Rudd’s joined the swim.

Howard will try to distract and divide the electorate on issues like secondary education policy but he will not be successful. Labor’s revamped schools policy is more straightforward and less cluttered by ideological baggage. The Liberal’s education policy is weighed down by Howard’s continuing culture wars.

Clever, consistent politician that he is, nothing will save Howard from losing the next election. The Government, even with its new faces, looks tired and all the spin in the world won’t be enough to hide its 2007 use-by date. There are just too many people who have woken up to the fact that they have been conned by clever words and half truths. They want a change and will turn to the dream team to provide it.