5.50 pm
I said a few days ago in a piece in these pages on the fatal flaws of Rudd, Gillard and Abbott that for Rudd there was a point where arithmetic ended and God began, and like most godbotherers this faith in his destiny would do for him. I said in a piece eighteen months ago that jet-lag and sleeplessness could be the end of him. I have called him in other pieces an ungrateful cunt, a tyrannous pest, an uncorrected Asperger’s patient, an insipid prima donna and an egocentric sadist who, like Hemingway, ‘never forgave a favour’. And so it goes, and went, maybe twenty minutes ago.
He imagines he will be back, refreshed, like Churchill, from two months in the wilderness and in the Lodge again in June but he is finished. He should have had a single-malt whisky and milk and slept it off. But he believed his mood was too important for that, as losers do. And here we are, in corrosive debacle, with Abbott one flounce-out from the Prime Ministership, observing and assessing this pernicious twerp, this worst news for Labor since Evatt.
He sacked, demoted, misplaced or thwarted Beazley, Debus, Faulkner, McMullan, McKew, Duncan Kerr and Shorten, all Prime Ministers-in-the-making far more capable and eloquent than he. He taunted Turnbull, his greatest ally, into oblivion and lost thereby his carbon legislation and his Copenhagen glory. He offered Beazley not the Governor-Generalship, as Hawke did Hayden, nor Defence, which he craved and loved and shone in, nor even the US Ambassadorship, which he offered to Carr first.
He got a thousand good ideas at the 2020 and accepted only two of them, both of them his own. He missed John Button’s funeral to greet Cate Blanchett’s baby. He abandoned the long-held Labor habits of collegiate consultation, policy development in a process respected by both Caucus and the party membership, and convivial comradeship within the cabinet and the outer ministry for the adoring servility of abashed young men, who in turn grew sick of his pointless hyperactive post-midnight indecision and petulance, like everybody, and in dozens walked out on him.
It is time for Gillard and Crean and Arbib, whose numbers put him in, and Bruce Hawker and Phillip Adams who encouraged him to overthrow Beazley, the noblest intellect in parliament and the finest Labor orator since Whitlam, to apologise to the nation for imposing on it this petty little hyperventilating fuckwit when a great man was not only available, but in the appropriate office, and on the verge of power, and Labor on 54 percent.
More later as the news breaks.
8.02 pm
He resigned, he said, because in part of ‘public attacks by faceless men’, which makes one wonder what drugs are keeping his aorta in. Public men are not faceless men. Faceless men are not public men, they are secret men. There are therefore no public attacks by faceless men. His use of the old, drab, fraudulent phrase and the clear, high-vaulting, mother’s-boy self-esteem with which he uttered it is a measure of how silly he’s getting lately.
It’s only about him, and the wrong done him. The wrong he did Beazley, and is doing Anna Bligh, doesn’t come into it. Me, disloyal? Me, lurking in the shadows and intriguing by stealth? No way. It’s so wrong of you to say that. Look, I stuffed up as Prime Minister, I know that. And that’s why you have to make me Prime Minister. Because I’m better now, and I know what to do now. Sack the world’s best Treasurer for a start.
I know a few organ transplantees, and this beaming megalomania is a fairly common symptom, a drug effect. And the drugs that plug the organ in can addle the judgment. Paul Cox, whose liver transplant I am currently dramatising, believed under the operation drugs that he had become the universe for a while, and then that he was living in sixteenth-century Venice, but he got over it, and functions ably now. Kevin has not yet, I think, made a full recovery from the universe illusion, and the strange idea that no other politician has talent or deserves a go. To say ‘I fucked up, elect me’ is not the best of slogans, but he believes it, and that’s the way he plays it: eyes firmly in the mirror, a slim smile playing on his cherry lips.
10 pm
Sky News swears Rudd’s numbers are growing, the ABC that his numbers are dwindling. His characteristic irresponsibility and carelessness of the lives of others are shown by his abandonment of important conferences, the drop-kicking of his Washington duties to Beazley, the man he displaced, the calling of a press conference at 12.38 am, and another at 5 am, and the sacking, effectively, of his loyal, exhausted, hard-working staff at a minute’s notice, distorting and diminishing and deranging their lives and, not that it matters, their children’s lives.
I’ve suggested to a couple of high-placed friends that Beazley be made, immediately, Foreign Minister and be given a Senate seat by Friday and the extruded Senator (Arbib? Faulkner? Thistlethwaite?) be given Washington. Rudd clearly thinks he can do the job, since he’s bequeathed it to him, but he might be shocked to find him in it so very soon.
And himself on the back bench, without a feather to fly with.
He will be finished politically by Friday, by the look of it. The story of how Garrett warned him about the pink batts, and how he, Rudd, ordered him to ignore the dangers, and how people died, and how Garrett took the fall for Rudd, and the obloquy and the humiliation and the stain, and the shame of the dead, if this story is true, will end his credibility forever and reduce his votes on Monday if he stands to single figures.
If the story is true.
We choose our friends from among those we don’t have to lie to, and Rudd has for too long forced good men and good women to tell lies about him, saying he was a team player, and a top bloke, and the rest of it. And by this proved he was no friend of the Labor Party. And, as Swanny said so energetically and angrily tonight, never ever had been.
And so it goes.
Name:
Bob sometimes you need to shut the fuck up.
Rudd did not replace Faulkner he resigned, Debus resigned because he was quitting and so on.
Sometimes there is no need to buy into the fucking bullshit.
All of this crap came from the wife of Chris Uhlmann and no-one else.
I don’t know the wife of Chris Uhlman. Rudd ‘misplaced’ Faulkner, a pacifist, in the job of Minister for War. Debus wanted to be Attorney General, was promised it by Rudd (he told me this) and was given the job he most abhorred, that of locking up boat people.
Don’t tell me what I don’t know, or where I got it from.
Mrs Uhlman? Who is she?
Apparently a “Brides of Christ” type who got elected to the seat of Canberra, perhaps by an old fashioned branch stack. The NSW Liberal Party are suffering an infestation of “Taliban Catholics” as O”Farrell himself put it in a candid moment.
For Jennifer Wilson’s blog, I suffered through reading the woman’s maiden speech, as fine a collection of motherhood statements and platitudes as ever I have seen in one place.
The ALP have always had a DLP element, except for the 30 years after the Split of the 1950s, and it seems to be resurgent.
I re-read this and it gives the wrong impression. Mrs Uhlmann is Gau Brodtmann, an ALP member of the House of Reps.
The reference to NSW Libs was elliptical; I meant to say that the infestation of Labor by the Christian Right is not unique in NSW/Fed politics but across the board.
“He sacked, demoted, misplaced or thwarted Debus, Faulkner, McMullan, McKew, Duncan Kerr and Shorten, all Prime Ministers-in-the-making far more capable than he.”
If you think Duncan Kerr or Maxine McKew were future Prime Ministers then sir, I suggest you lay off the whisky sours and get a good night’s kip.
Kerr had baggage which the laws of libel and taste refrain me from going into. Needless to say, he would never have made it. As for your Charlie’s Angel Maxine, one needs to actually hold a seat in parliament to be PM. The Party gave her everything and she unseated Howard with a hefty margin of around 7 per cent in 2007. Did she fundraise? No. Did she work the Chinese community? No? Did she have a functioning electorate office? No. Did she doing anything memorable as Parl Sec? Not really.
Why is it that Labor lost only two seats in the Sydney metro district and hers was one of them? How did Labor retain Penrith and Central Coast but lose a seat with a big safety margin to a half-brained tennis ball banger? She didn’t WORK HARD (sorry to scream, but it’s my electorate!). She didn’t put in the hard yards. And then on election night, with us all there cheering her on, she spat the dummy and dumped on the party.
Cheryl Kernot be thy name.
When you’re right Mr Ellis, you fucking nail it like no other, but with Ms McKew you are wide of the mark.
More to come ….
Yeah, but Maxine overthrew a popular Prime Minister in his own seat, and would have been a fine Minister for Communications, Education, or the Arts. But, owing her everything, he thwarted her and gave her, a childless woman, Motherhood, and pain in every kindergarten she visited. Owing her everything, he punished her. That was his way.
She didn’t have a big safety margin. It was a Liberal seat. The Chinese in it liked Rudd and voted against Gillard. And whatsisface the tennisperson spent a million on his campaign, conducted by Chinese-speaking students, door to door.
All clear now?
Moron.
You’re right, she should have been given Communications or the Arts.
And you’re right again, Mr Serve and Volley outspent and out-doorknocked her. That was my point.
All clean now?
Buffoon.
Fuck you and the ballboy you came in on.
That’s very funny indeed!
You’re right about Rudd. What a cunt. Labor needs to elect Shorten, Combet or Smith and then get behind them. Beazley is the Man, but shifting McClelland is like one of those Monster Moves shows on SBS. He should resign and let Beazley take his seat.
Cheers
The only blogger I know that signs off “Cheers” is a fellow called “Ravensclaw” elsewhere. If it is he, beware the Trojan.
Marilyn, you are an award winning certified fuckwit. Uhlmann’s wife was only elected last year and she has nothing to do with this. Do you think Australia’s leading political reporter asks his backbencher wife about the inner workings of the ALP?
You know nothing. I’ve read your submissions to the senate and you are a ripe pillock, a completely unhinged Jew hating turdburger.
I hope you get sued you quasi harbinger of fecundity. You give women named Marilyn a bad name.
A champion dummy spit from a champion dummy spitter. K Rudd is all you say he is and more, an intrusive micromanaging despot who no Labor member in his right mind would want back as leader.
That being said, “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” and no doubt there are several Members with an axe to grind against Gillard.
But I just can’t see how it would benefit them to further destabilise the government of which they are members!
Dummy spit? More tactical than that, Doug. Rudd was suffering a barrage from Gillard supporters with calls to sack him, charges of disloyalty and all the old Kevin’s a cunt stuff.
By resigning he is free to do his worst. Let’s see how those numbers fall next week. Maybe a surprise or two to come.
Friends, friends, thank you. Tonight once again the Australian people have shown their commonsense, their wisdom and their innate understanding for the need of a responsible experienced government, vital to a young nation making its way in the world. Our victory tonight is a mixed blessing as it is without doubt the result of a chiding of the previous Government and a measure of the disappointment that the electorate has suffered under the auspices of two Prime Ministers who have let personal ambition not only destroy the people’s faith in the role of Government, but have stalled a country in achieving a greater sense of itself, socially and economically both at home and abroad.
It is not to say that we are the default party and stand here only by the failure of the Gillard Government. The Australian people have also recognized in our efforts in Opposition during the last few years, our dedication to highlighting misdirected Government policy, our steadfastness to our principles of what is right, what is best for the nation, what is affordable, and that our word is our bond. We have presented a new approach, new policies honed by an experienced team and the people of Australia have invested their faith in us to stay true to them before we stay true to ourselves.
I can promise the Australian people what we say is what we mean, what we promise, we will deliver, what we achieve we achieve together with the Australian people.
Tony Abbott acceptance speech October 2012
Please leave the funny stuff to Bob and me.
I may write his real speech shortly - watch this space.
Quixote, you sycophantic old numbskull! Get up off your knees!
You have dragged me forcefully from anonymity so as to call attention to your incessant toadying.
Stop it.
Enough is enough!
Let me read in peace the funny, insightful, interesting thoughts of the Terrances and allthumbs of this world WITHOUT your unoriginal and lickspittle contributions.
Please.
Don’t force my hand again.
Terrance’s story is not stacking up.
CIA.
(Allthumbs is alright so long as you don’t get him started on certain topics.)
Your hand is otherwise engaged, JG Cole.
Fuck off.
Cole?
You pretentious fool!
Do you really think Cole was the only one here who found your posts utterly crap?
Stop the Ellis brown-nosing and write something interesting.
Is that too much to ask for?
What do you have in mind?
I write what I think is right. If Ellis is right I reserve the right to say so. But often he is wrong, and that is when he is often at his most amusing. We differ over Abbott, over Gillard, over Katter and over Assange, but why should we argue constantly when we agree on so much?
One chooses one’s battlefields, and I have the right to choose mine.
And you are ‘Stagger Lee’ aka ‘Lady Penelope’ aka ‘JG Cole’ aka ‘Totem Lesson II’ and probably a few other schizophrenic identities as well. If you say that ‘Robert Gould Shaw’ is someone else, that is your prerogative but don’t expect anyone else to believe it.
Come back Cole!!
Please!!!
Shut this fool up!
Come back, merry King Cole
Sorry to disappoint, Maryellen.
Not even Abbott could deliver the “stalled the country in achieving a greater sense of itself” line without upchucking.
Reader 1, During long meditative bike marathons utilising ancient Indian Guru techniques Abbott has learned to supress his automatic gagging response, to accept almost anything being put in his mouth.
Bob, Gillard and Rudd now fatally wounded. Smith by his silence looks a class above? Will he throw hat in the ring? Rooster to run hen house?
Will Rudd pull pin if he doesn’t get his own way, to martyr himself and allow his electorate to decide the fate of the Government rather than the “faceless”? Bourke’s smarminess that of course Rudd wouldn’t quit and Swans nasty comments may push him this way.
Hawker Britton won’t get much work if Rudd loses will they?
Smith now, Shorten in a month would win the leadership. Shorten would beat Abbott easily. Look at his last Q&A.
Rudd won’t quit his seat but he might absent himself from confidence votes pleading a throbbing aorta, which leaves the numbers tight and depending on the slippery Slipper. But on balance I think those whose power depends on this parliament will prolong it.
I was wrong when I said the challenge would be last Thursday but right when I said it would be next Monday. Rudd will be smashed by the vote and Gillard get a surge I think after Bligh survives.
And oh yes, Bligh will survive.
Has Rudd said he will contest the leadership? He might let them all get into a lather and just sit back and relax, how silly will they look if he doesn’t put his name forward? Is that a possibility?
It won’t be they who look silly. It will be Rudd. And Bowen. And Ferguson.
And Bruce Hawker.
Rudd has announced that he believes Gillard cannot lead Labor to victory over Abbott (leaving aside the issue that Abbott himself is on thin ice) and if he does not challenge he will be a laughing stock and his own supporters would justly apply the tar and feathers.
I wrote that post last night when Rudd was less definitive on what he was intending to do. It does look a little strange as a comment considering the action of today. How quickly the world turns.
Shorten is kingmaker yet again, he can crown Smith if he chooses or back Gillard, then throw his hat in ring if Rudd rechallenges. For Shorten to wait until after the next election could prove a very very long game.
He’d be a fool to wait.
Abbott after the 2013 election:
Ladies and Gentlemen, The government of Australia has been held ferociously to account; and even though some of our best and brightest candidates are tonight struggling to retain their seats, I feel sure that the postal and absentee votes will flow strongly to the coalition and that we may well lose only 20 seats. Calm down, you are an enthusiastic audience, but the tar and feathers are uncalled for.
The people of Australia have voted, and though we may not agree with the way the vote went, I call upon you all to abide by the verdict of the majority, slender though it may be.
My wonderful team, Joe Hockey, Christopher Pyne, Julie Bishop, and Warren Truss amongst others did their very best, and it is not their faults that we did not win.
But we did not lose, we came second - and we are close enough in the vote to continue to hold the government ferociously to account.
On behalf of my team I dedicate the rest of my time in politics to ferociously opposing every policy reasonably capable of being opposed, whatever it may be and wherever it may be found. We will fight them on the triathlon course, we will fight them on the beaches . . . and anywhere else.
Thank you and good night.
A reminder of what he said in 2010, election night included :
“There should be no premature triumphalism tonight. There should simply be an appreciation that this has been a great night for the Australian people and I thank the Australian people, wherever they are, whoever they voted for, for their commitment to this great democracy.”
“The Australian people want their government to end the waste, to repay the debt, to stop the big new taxes, to stop the boats and to provide a fair go for struggling families.”
“They also responded to our longer term agenda. They want local control of schools and hospitals. They want practical measures to improve our environment. They want strong policies is to help families and above all else they want a strong economy that’s managed by a government which understands the needs of small business.”
“Everything that I have achieved in public life has been achieved with the support and encouragement of my family, and I point out to everyone in I point out to everyone in this room who has worked so hard to bring about a good result that my darling angel wife, Margie, she was delivering to the food to the hungry booth workers of Warringah, and my other children up here were handing out how to votes in the electorate of Lindsay.”
“In the end, this election is not about us. It is about our country and it is incumbent on us to offer Australia the better government that a great country needs and deserves”
A fine mixture of triumphalism and humbug, along with wishful thinking and platitudes.
Expect more of the same.
And the winner is
allthumbs
Nothing clumsy there
Isn’t that the point?
Craig Emerson seemed quite passionate tonight on Lateline, and Douggie Cameron defending Rudd seemed a little short on knowledge about how the Rudd cabinet and ministry worked, hardly surprising since he has never been a minister, and probably never will, now.
Beattie seemed ropeable about the entire affair and naturally wants it resolved asap; he mentioned almost in passing that he supported Gillard, but obviously has to live with Rudd in Qld.
We live in interesting times, mayhap.
‘Beazley, the noblest intellect….’
They’re not listening, still
A lovely connection.
Thank you.
Rudd “will be finished politically by Friday.” Bullshit.
He’s running the classic two pronged challenge; contest the leadership and lose. Wait. Gather numbers. Gillard fails. Win the second.
Having said that, I was he was finished by tomorrow.
Gather numbers? What numbers? Insomniacs Anonymous?
sorry - ‘wish’