My not so petty gripe tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

My not so petty gripe

Posted by Claire Connelly in Media, Politics

I have a bone to pick with the twittersphere, some bloggers, and anyone who left a comment on any news site over their alleged outrage of the media’s treatment of the leadership spill which took place yesterday.

Aside from the hilarious and most frequent reaction “first female wranga!” (which I personally cannot get enough of), there seems to be two common and inter-related reactions to Julia Gillard’s appointment as PM yesterday following Kevin Rudd’s (forced) resignation.

The first one is “how DARE she! We didn’t vote for her,” followed by the second reaction, laced with venom and a thinly veiled air of superiority:  “Ummm excuse me dum dum, Australia operates in a Parliamentary democracy, we vote for a party, not a person, this isn’t America you know”; this is usually accompanied by a scathing attack on the media’s treatment of Julia Gillard for daring to claim her appointment had more to do with the manoeuvrings of a small but elite group of “backroom boys” who conspired with the mining lobby to get rid of Rudd and appoint someone who is prepared to play the game how they want it to be played, than it had to do with Rudd’s ability to lead.

The first problem I have with this “debate” (if we can even call it that) is that this seems to be the consensus amongst journalists, bloggers, and the trolls that dwell amongst the comment sections of online newspapers.

This is never a good thing.

When you start to exhibit the same mock outrage, aggression, and willful ignorance of the comment leavers and the letter writers, surely you have to stop and ask yourself – is it possible that just maybe, there might be something more to this?

My second (and probably more relevant) issue is that – yes, for all intents and purposes we exist in a Parliamentary democracy, whereby the Australian voters vote for their local member, and the party with the most local members forms the government – who then elect their own leader. However, this has not prevented both parties from running election campaigns that more closely resemble a Presidential campaign than the Westminster System – whereby the the party leaders are targeted as the sacred power holders, responsible for most everything the party does, who will inevitably end up being the fall guy should anything go wrong.

This may be a politically expedient operation because it allows politicians to take the big issues which govern our lives – economy, industry, education, health etc, and condense them all into a little box called “the lowest common denominator”, filled with eloquent soundbytes and one liners designed to (over)simplify the issue in ways that make the message appeal to the average joe, but means very little and does practically nothing to actually help the voters make an informed decision about which party they should vote for.

In an election year (and lets face it, when are we not in an election year?) the party leader becomes responsible for every single item in the LCD box, and takes it with him/her wherever he/her may go spruking to their hearts content saying anything and everything that will get them and their party elected.

This is dangerous for a number of reasons.

Firstly, the parties are willfully underestimating the intelligence of an average voter. Rather than informing voters of their options in a realistic and and efficient manner, they choose rather to fill voters with fear – example: “if you pass the Paid Maternity Leave Scheme, then crack heads,and meth addicts will all get pregnant and then have abortions in order to exploit the money this scheme provides to pay for their drug habit. This scheme will lead to a rabid drug and sex orgy and the thread that makes up the moral fibre of this very land will cause the continent to implode in on itself and we will all burn in hell for eternity.”

After putting the fear of Armageddon into the Australian public, the party leader then contrasts their doomsday sermon them with promises of a better way, a better life! These promises  are much like helium balloons – lofty and grand at first, creating expectations that almost defy gravity – but they inevitably shrink and deflate into a pathetic shriveled version of their former selves. They float along and linger for a couple of days before being thrown away in the trash, empty and disappointed.

The second cause for concern is the party leader becoming responsible for everything! The nuances, the complexities and the utter difficulty of getting anything done are completely ignored because the party knows that should anything go wrong, they can force their leader to fall on his sword for the sake of maintaining the appearance that it was not the party’s fault that they couldn’t keep their promises. So they wipe their hands of any responsibility they might have had for their failure and point scathingly at the leader, yelling “long live the King!”

Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that the party leader doesn’t also have a responsibility to fulfill the party promise, (they wouldn’t be the party leader if they weren’t prepared for the up hill slog that is the parliamentary process), but the opposition are yelling blue murder about the Labor party’s betrayal of Kevin Rudd, without the slightest hint of irony that their own leader came to power after forcing Malcolm Turnbull to stand down, who in turn unseated Brendan Nelson, and lets not forget the whole the whole Howard, Hewson, Downer, Peacock, Howard succession and on it goes for all eternity.

Though the media may not be without its flaws, and sure some publications are certainly more reputable, more fastidious, and more ethical than others in their presentation of the events that unfolded in the last 24 hours, they wouldn’t be doing their jobs if they weren’t trying to present all of the information they have at their disclosure, up to and including allegations of back room negotiations, professional vendetta’s, and the influence of powerful lobby groups.

This isn’t manipulation, this is integrity – putting personal political preferences aside to ensure the utmost political transparency – choosing risky stories over safe reporting, (and reader adoration), in the understanding that a free press is the cornerstone of any real democracy.

If anyone ought to be accused of media manipulation it is Labor, the ALP, and their various media advisers.

What would the last election have been like without ads, tshirts, and banners emblazoned with “Kevin 07″? Indeed, what would the ALP’s telelvision smear campaign be like without Kevin O’Lemon? I would argue that we would begin to see a fairly different picture than the one our leaders seem intent on portraying: two talking heads bludgeoning each other to death with meaningless catch phrases and party rhetoric rather than focusing on instead on the issues at hand and the active participation of the entire party. Perhaps even, it would not have come to this. Perhaps Rudd would still be in power, perhaps not.

In any case, increasing the media’s exposure to the party can only be a good thing. If nothing else it would make our jobs as journalists a lot more interesting, and probably a tad easier to do.

And, if rather than travelling up and down the continent visiting emergency rooms and kissing babies, Rudd had sent the senior members representing the various departments of the new health reform sector – we might have a better idea of where the real failures abounded.

And if rather than blaming the parties woes on their leader claiming he’s a belligerent, control freak who doesn’t consult the party on anything,  the focus was put on the power brokers who have a vested interest in seeing Rudd resign, or even, instead of focusing on Julia Gillard herself, focus on the man who had a hand in the retirement of Bob Carr, the fall of Morris Iemma, Nathan Rees, Kim Beazley as well as Mr Rudd, we might, just maybe, have ourselves a fair fight. (Oh wait – somebody has already done that! Much to the disgust of some readers).

My point is, that maybe, if the situation were different, it wouldn’t have come to this. The polarisation of the two talking heads has become so extreme, that there is little to no accountability for the behaviors and actions of MPs and backbenchers, such is their intense desire to lock-down the party to protect them from media scrutiny.

I’m not going to go into the various policy disasters which led to Rudd’s untimely demise, (that’s a story for another time, and a different blog) but regardless – no matter what your opinion of Kevin Rudd is,  the Australian public would have been better informed about whether he really deserved to go if they were given more information – the information which is currently being held to ransom by the Labor party and the ALP.

And so the dance continues.

No matter, we are  in the midst of one of the most tedious and fascinating points in political history and in a few months time Australia will decide which party is more capable of running our country – Julia Gillard, a childless, redheaded atheist, or Tony Abbott, the wing nut Catholic. (Aren’t generalisations grand?)

Australia has a decision to make.

Don’t %*# it up!

(Not that it makes a difference, you don’t vote for the person, you vote for the party stupid!)

Follow us on twitter:

http://www.twitter.com/SocialScapegoat
http://www.twitter.com/ClaireRConnelly