|
||
|
|
|
 |
|
|
|
||
|
|
Issue No. 141 | 21 June 2002 |
|
||
|
||
|
|
|
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Bitter Pills
Interview: The Fels Guy Solidarity: Life or Death? Unions: Back to Basics International: Global Terror History: Sorry Business Technology: Future Active Satire: Executive Presents PowerPoint Eulogy at Mother�s Funeral Poetry: Santa Claus Was Coming to Oz Review: Dial 'M' For Minority Report
The Soapbox The Locker Room Week in Review Bosswatch
 Tanya IncTom Bites BackRoot Canal Therapy
|
|
|
Tool Shed Analyse This
******* There he was, splashed across the front of The Australian newspaper, setting forth on all the Labor Party needs to do to make itself re-electable again. Hello? Isn't this the man who was a member of the leadership circle through the last two terms of Opposition? Isn't this the guy who killed Kim Beazley's Knowledge Nation blueprint stone dead with his insistence on including the ridiculous Spaghetti and Meatballs Diagram in the final report? Isn't this the man who turned the 2000 Federal Conference into his own personal testimonial, as he was reluctantly shoe-horned out of the National Presidency? Now he's back, setting himself up as the voice of Labor's future - not just making a submission to the Hawke-Wran Review, but leaking it to The Oz (there stories don't turn up on the front page of national newspapers by accident). This is not to say that parts of his submission are not typically incisive. Calls for an enunciation of Labor values over pragmatism would have been a nice touch during the last campaign; a resolve to take on unpopular issues if they are right; all good stuff. But a breath of fresh air rarely comes from a political corpse, and no matter how considered the message, Jones is no longer the man to be setting the course. For a man who prides himself on original thought, his preparedness to toe the central line on union representation is an absolute travesty. Jones looks at core union numbers, without paying regard to the logistical and financial support unions provides the parties, nor the increasing public regard in which unions are held. The reality is that the ALP is currently in the midst of a struggle between the institution that founded it and the individuals who have climbed to the top of the heap on the coat-tails of the movement. Those in Canberra would prefer a quickie make-over, that maintains the on-the-ground support from unions while giving the impression that they are now at arms length. The alternative would be genuine branch reform which would undermine the myriad factional deals that have them all ensconced in their big white cars. For six long, hard years Federal Labor has remained in the hands of the remnants of the Hawke-Keating ministers; a sort of government in exile, rather than a Party creating a new agenda for a new era. Jones was one of those who refused to leave the stage; clinging to the National Presidency. Barry, it's time to step back and let others exercise their brains - you got the standing ovation in Hobart last time around, you botched the gig as seer with Noodle Nation, now's the time to fade into the background. In a stinging critique of the Knowledge Nation debacle, the SMH's Alan Ramsay had this to say: "... that was forever Jones's problem, of course, even as a Hawke government minister for seven years; despite his immense popularity in the wider community, he was always the rawest amateur when it came to practical politics, just as so many colleagues dismissed him as a likable but "insufferable know-all". As Bob Carr very publicly asserted in August 1994, when Jones was under pressure as Labor's Federal president, Barry was "a special kind of politician", a "Labor treasure" who brought "something very special to politics". "Well, now Jones has brought "something very special" to Beazley's personal baby of Knowledge Nation, for two years the Labor leader's two-word mantra for everything bedevilling his refusal to make it clear what Labor under his leadership stands for. Jones and Beazley between them have blundered, grossly, and it's hard to see, in the few months between now and polling day, how there can be any comeback for Knowledge Nation." Ramsay could not have foreseen Tampa, but he's probably right that Beazley was dead even before the Howard Wedge was honed, killed by friendly fire. It's why Jones self-resurrection is so astounding. Jones may well be a Labor Treasure, but maybe the time has come to stuff him and stick him behind some glass. The exhibit's title? Proof that Brains and Intelligence are not the same thing. We might even put in a diagram to prove it ....
Nominate a Tool!
|
| Search All Issues | Latest Issue | Previous Issues | Print Latest Issue |
|
© 1999-2002 Workers Online 
|
|
