naked capitalism

skippy says:

What role did The Australian play in the rise and fall of the Prime Ministership of Kevin Rudd?
Robert Manne:

That’s a very important, also very complicated question – I’ll just try and answer it simply. In the essay, what I’ve tried to do is take particular issues to exemplify different aspects of the way The Australian runs. The case with Kevin Rudd is strange because the editor, Chris Mitchell, started off as a strong supporter of Kevin Rudd. He was a personal friend, Rudd was the godfather of Chris Mitchell’s son, there probably was an unhealthily close relationship and he thought he’d help make Rudd Prime Minister, had backed him during 2007. At a certain point it’s clear that Rudd disappointed Mitchell, and I think it was mainly because he began to be very critical of what I call neo-liberalism – Rudd blamed the global financial crisis on the greed and excesses and ideological predispositions of the neo-liberals, and the Wall Street brokers and bankers. And I think Mitchell thought that he had been let down by someone he thought was right-wing. So what you get then, from about the beginning of 2009, is an accelerating campaign the paper ran against the government and they partly did this by campaigns over things like home insulation and the Education Revolution Program – they were right to do it over insulation, in my view they gave a very distorted picture of the education building program and the stimulus programs that the Rudd Government put in place. But then something snapped with the Super Profits Mining Tax and the paper went sort of berserk, and it campaigned remorselessly for about two months on the question of that tax. And my view is the paper does play a role in the fall of the Rudd Prime Ministership, because Rudd didn’t lose much public support over that time, what he lost was the support of his caucus, and the inner sanctums of the Labor Party. And I think they were very influenced by the campaign The Australian ran, because you have to remember The Australian is the paper that is the common reading for what I call the political class. The Australian is read by politicians, public servants, business people and very committed citizens in general, much more even than the Sydney Morning Herald and the Age. So the caucus would have I think been influenced by this remorseless campaign that was in part personal and in part political, that was led by The Australian. So the essay gives a slightly revisionist version and says that The Australian should not be under-estimated as having played a role in undermining the Rudd Prime Ministership.

http://www.latrobe.edu.au/news/articles/2011/podcasts/bad-news-rupert-murdochs-australian/transcript

In a 2006 address, an Opposition frontbencher (Mr Kevin Rudd) presented a case for social democracy as an alternative to what he then called ‘market fundamentalism’ An outline of his argument and comments on it are below – see An Alternative to Market Fundamentalism?

Then in February 2009, as Australia’s Prime Minister, he authored an essay on The Global Financial Crisis which presented apparently similar arguments and blamed what he then called ‘neo-liberalism’ for a global financial crisis (GFC) which had emerged in 2007 and had resulted in an increasingly severe economic crisis.

Click here for outline of the introduction to Mr Rudd’s essary

Though some positive reactions have emerged, many apparently-informed observers drew attention to defects in his arguments.

The present writer’s impression is that the package of policies Mr Rudd labelled ‘neo-liberalism’ contains defects that have long required review – so starting a debate about this is constructive. Also his suggestions about the end of an era are probably valid (though several eras may be ending, and Mr Rudd’s version of this may be inaccurate).

Rather than seeking practical solutions to the very complex problems he alluded to Mr Rudd’s 2009 philosophical essay seems more focussed on blaming scapegoats (his political opponents) for economic problems he was apparently unable to foresee in early 2008, and perhaps positioning himself for a close working relationship with what some see to be the inevitably-dominant anti-liberal East Asian states in the face of Western decline.
Observer’s Reactions

Observers’ Reactions

Mr Rudd’s essay soon generated a great deal of comment (see examples outlined below), and observers presented their views on what it meant and why it had been produced.

Click here for how observer’s interpreted Mr Rudd’s argument and objectives

Some observer’s were supportive. They referred (for example) to Mr Rudd’s contribution to social democrat’s desire to demonstrate their relevance, and to making a case for government intervention.

Click here for favourable views of Mr Rudd’s philosophical contribution

However most observers (only a few of whom were Mr Rudd’s political opponents) were critical. Detractors referred to (for example): the uncertainty about what the ‘neo-liberalism’ Mr Rudd criticised means; errors of fact; the essay’s apparently primarily political goals; the close alignment of Mr Rudd’s proposals with mainstream economic opinion despite his claimed radical ideological difference; blaming the Opposition for neo-liberalism, when most such policies were introduced by the ALP; the reversal of Mr Rudd’s earlier policy stance; and the limited actual influence of ‘neo-liberal’ policies in Australia.

http://cpds.apana.org.au/Teams/Articles/SocialDemocracy.htm

Skippy… its a sticky wicket out there or not, but, the umpire’s are fouling the game, ya think?