Are the Libs really ready to govern?

Are the Libs really ready to govern?

I welcome the Libs return to leadership in Victoria and the attitude with which Mr Baillieu has taken to the task .Slow and Steady .
 But can this "business knows best"  group wrench both major parties from their addiction to business led models of governance ; Models that continue to grow government and NGO agencies and go against the very principles of sound liberalism - models that have now created unaccountable activity bureaus whose connection with the public interest is not often seen,  let alone known ( why else do the government want all the stats from them ) .

Do the libs really know why Kennett lost them the opportunity to govern ? I don't think so , so they better listen more carefully than they have been even with 11 years in the wilderness .
I like how the new Libs have started and wish them well . Get some advice off the net before you do what so many Polys have done over the last ten/ twenty years - gone off half cocked - at our expense !
Real liberals understand that the greatest evil is still done in the name of the best intention. 

Are many liberals the biggest intellectual handicap this country has?

So What NICK( Minchin ) ?   So your party (on qanda tonight)  know how to exact the last drop out of the people?  Not clever just predictable .
Is all their careless talk of caring for people just hype ?
Your faith in innovation like that of the Labor power broker below is popular ,but misplaced when it comes to the issues of environment ( not steel and concrete) Don't preach to the stressed about innovation either . I come from a long line of innovators .
The libs insane( short term gain long term pain )  love affair with high returns for shareholders will please  many,....  but never the future .
So what if we have benefited from selling our resources -
So what if we have profited from selling what's not even ours
So what if this generation of innocents on the island thought they were clever to get 12% when they could more easily live with 11% .
Maybe we have a future no different from Countries who rejoice that they have oil  , gas , carbon and cash to sell to buy......... arms ?  It won't be the extra dollars that will be remembered in history but the comfort zone and blind faith of  those who drive their own  poor to do and say desperate things.

Making the most of the moving feast

While Tony is right to highlight the quickfiz politics of Ms Gillard,  Liberals could use the time of reflection on Labors mess to ALSO review their less than brilliant love affairs with the words "innovation" and "change". 


All political parties need to very careful with the old easy sword called "needed change". The people while not necessarily aware of the shallowness of the new paint , can still smell a rat when it comes to sussing what's really behind "the grand imperative and need for change ". 
The temptation of new Labor to change direction is a strong one ( because it has great appeal to many) , but to actually commit to it  is not one that is "necessary" ( after all its too easy to gain a sense of momentum ,purpose and neccessity from the mere appearance of "change").Think of the nature of normal progress - reform not revolution . 
 Surely Julia's decision to talk about a new place for detention centres this week was a case in point - short term appearance largely for effect  and medium term crash  due to evident instability of mind and commitment -when the press ask whether the change is rooted in anything but more hot air politics. ( East Timor refugee camps)
Bask in being representatives of stability - as long as you are!  

Bill Shorten's use of the word "innovative" (QandA last week )( A safer word for change ) is symptomatic, not of his being on the right side of his earth shift (between conservatives and radicals), but of being clearly down the crack in between.


Its very easy too to allow the importance of a marginal argument to cloud the unintelligence of it - clever polys may be rewarded for saying nothing important about such matters  . After all, while many an election is won on the margins, your smart arse ( and often overly cynical ) advisors often never know where new cracks can  appear.( eg the strong swinging Christian vote that helped Labor get into power)   In times of uncertainty and blatant cynical denial by the leading reactionaries  , remember that to encourage good sense is best ; if you are too cynical to believe in all those that seek to do good , try remembering all the intelligent people on all sides of politics who you can alienate by trying to jump cracks . Marriage , schooling choice  and Self Care may be mundane.  but they are the hard freedom stuff on which our democracy is built and if government and their increasingly dopey bureaus think they are going to supplant the private interest in this - we all know what will happen. We will stop paying them to play with serious matters of everyday common sense that have been the private right of choice before the  Labor nanny state politics moved in . Its a power game yes, but  how hard is it for the liberals to win if they just focus on the nanny state of Labor politics in practice .  
If elections are also won by the encumbents losing : (losing faith)  ( lost trust)   , the conservatives need to demonstrate  that they are not cynically standing too close to cracks and , infact encourage people to  live and think in the many safe places some distance away .Trust is important to demonstrate and you don't do it by changing everything too often . 
besides if your world view is in ecomia you'll know there are more cliffs on the edge than in the centre.  

Making the most of Labor's outrageous tax tricks

The conservatives  could win the next election easily if they hunted down all  the rabbits in Labor governments who use tax , rather than reason,  as their way of getting their own way.
Abbott , for example , could add Labor's "BIG little taxes"  to his responses to Labor's pathetic and predictable range of new tax tricks . Why not add Labor's drip feed taxes  and fire fighting funds  to the lexicon of Labor's long time drip feed focus . YHIFOB

-Give us your money and then we will decide what to do with it ( ETS). That labor don't quite know what they are doing (eg  educational revolution based on changing the colour and texture of 4 walls) is a story for another day
-Water is cheap,  so we will put the price up on that and make a real killing ( VIC + NSW could lose office on their poor handling of water issues alone)
- Energy is so cheap we can cover the place with windmills, home insulation and offer energy switching advice to every Australian in their evening meal times. After all Indians Labor comes cheap and the people love listening to us offering help to them . And we can do it all through the tax system without having to worry what sir humphrey says 
- Profits from primary industries are currently so high that it would be obscene for a Labor goverenmnet not to try and give it all back to the poor. The fact that such behaviour is clearly UNSUSTAINABLE --goes against eons of sound bipartisan support for efficiency and value adding in such industries.

CLUE
Middle Australia ,I think,  have had enough of any polys who handout money in the name of disadvantage ( take the reasoning OFTEN used  towards refugees for example -even though there are lots of prejudices her BUT  the reasoning used towards this group is often  that they rort the system - so does LABOR and some of its welded on supporters -----whether they admit it or not  -----Labors drip feed politics  ) There are other egs !

Libs have  a big opportunity to recapture some of the middle ground of Australian politics ( as well as the edge).
 Are they smart enough to know what to say,  and smart enough to say it ! Time is running out .

Overplaying the great big new tax trick

All libs need to be aware that , while they are right to expect the reactionaries to blow the budget  in trying fulfil their idealistic objectives, just being cynical and smart will keep them on the nose in the thinking Australians mind ( more than  few marginal persons!) .
While the high level of comfortable cynicsm amongst the libs  may not matter to some of them( you've got the biggest cynics high in the team - we know)  because they think " the thinkers" group is a minor -many of the rest of the people still have  Libs as on the nose because they often only play at being idealistic, but don't put their money where there mouths are like Labor often does . Lets face it - The libs let Costello go - how stupid and long winded political suicide and unreality was that!

The  libs biggest handicap to my mind both at the State and Federal levels  is that they are truly short of idealism in practice (  if they really believed in liberty they would KNOW how to make small government work and could talk about it --they wouldn't be so prone to doing just what Labor do )  When it comes down to practice and credibility  , the Libs are short of idealism and professionalism in improving government performance.
Examples: Tony got his Big new tax off Barnaby Joyce.  (We country folks cannot afford the quickfiz creative accountancy games many Libs tie themselves up in - and are they still hiding in some comfortable cynicsm about not being country bumpkins even now? .We don't care for arrogance in either party !  )

Malcolm Fraser well put the predicament of Rudd with runaway idealism on Qanda last night .  Would Abbott / Balli-who be able  to recognise the need for a McEwen and a professional PS to make their regional policies more than tokenism. (Vic Libs offer to provide for windmill experts to Shires might get them votes ,but it would only add to regional  ineffectiveness long term- could send em broke (like the CEO idea that Libs cultivated too  ) .
Malcolm Turnbull , for example would be in the same boat as Rudd because he, like Rudd,  doesn't recognise the dangers  of relying on his current advisory system on environment ( key regional competency ) The bureaubrats , while not always idealistic , exhibit the simplicity , arrogance, ignorance and tokenism that comes from decades of politicizing a popular but poorly supported profession .
The only way to stop the bushfire syndrome with environment policies is to grow the competencies back in rural areas. You heard it first on blogger

Strong man politics - only for the desperate

Conservative peoples in deep trouble think the strong man is their key to survival,  or redemption . No doubt many sledgehammer cynics in the liberal party non think tank agree - the simplicity of this idea no doubt appeals to them .
"As long as he looks and behaves like GrandPa Howard " they said before the last election,,, and we know how effective that was . . These dills failure to give Costello a go,  means they should go . Their tired and uninspired cynicism means they should go.
. The liberal party  is,  at its best , a party that promotes idealism (and realism in context ) At both fed and vic level it shows precious little of that at the moment .  Labor won and Labor are still winning on the idealism  front .

No doubt it will take a shake inside to stop them from trying to hide the heavy hammer inside the kid glove .

Our society is indeed in need and , I think , somewhat ready for a hammer - but maybe only one they can see . They can't see Labors , but neither can Labor.

Will the libs take the opportunity to speak tough and be tough where it matters ?

See its not the tough image that matters,  but the tough mind 

Its no use voting in another strong man to lead when he doesn't have a strong mind to guide him .
Hewsons celebration of Turnbull is a example of the Libs current stalemate (as is Turnbulls final speech ). Full of "me, I in the kid glove of we"  and little real  understanding of the needs of the party - let alone the people.

 Does the lib party have some straight up strongs?  ( Hewsons  taunt yesterday )  gotta have ;
The party machine have just gotta give up on the idea that he must look good and sound tough every time he talks . If libs lose at the next election it will be because they would rather look well dressed and stay smartly  cynical than show blatant courage and credible control in dealing with the woosiness and misinvestment that explodes before us .
Joyce will not go away .  |His cries for more than location location concentration by the libs will echo like bombs in their ears,  if nothing is done to address them.


Who do we hate most?. Someone who knows what they should do and doesn't do it . or some party who doesn't even know what its doing?

Knowing the Basics

One recurring trouble with conservatives is even when they "know" the basics, their articulation of them tends to be poor - the sound pointers and symbols move into the background. For reactionaries knowledge of the basics names is simple because they are always warring against them.
When the cons are at their best, they can point beyond the predictable failures of the reactionaries ( bats in the belfrey) --to those symbols- of what works
It means Abbott needs to promote a return to the concrete in science and make a move against the fearmongers . Give the people an an idea rather than give them some more gifts.

Turnbull - Lets pray he knows and shows what real leadership is

Is it Malcolm's own pride that drives him to cross the floor ? or his desire to represent those who elected him ?
While I hope he doesn't end up doing a Latham like dummy spit ,I would much rather he showed real leadership and recanted ; recognising the very responsibilities he knows are his in the situation . That would be really good for him and the Liberal party - some restoration and reconciliation with the best traditions of Liberal and liberated thinking.