Australian Politics - A Year in Review 2012

It’s hard to think of a more bitter and divisive year in Australian politics and the scary thing is that it wasn’t even an election, that will be for 2013.

The Gillard Labor government has made it though its second year in minority government and I think its fair to say that Australians don’t like minority rule and who can blame them after the antics of the past year. Despite 240 pieces of legislation being past through parliament, a strong economy and residing in one of the most peaceful and beautiful countries on earth the Australian political scene would have you believe that Australia is on the brink of economic collapse, that we’re being swamped by queue jumpers, an Emissions Trading Scheme is going to bankrupt the nation and all this could result in a civil war.

The Opposition lead by the relentless but policy bereft Tony Abbott has been largely successful in taking advantage of the politically precarious nature of the parliament. Abbott's technique is to have a photo op a day and then provide door stop interviews to local less political savvy journalists, make his point and then walk off as soon as any questions arise that don’t suit the narrative of the day. He has basically been in non-stop election mode since the 2010 poll.

Politically effective? Yes. A real alternative as Prime Minister? No, that’s as least according to the most recent Newspoll published in The Australian newspaper which showed just 27 per cent of those surveyed are satisfied with the way Mr Abbott is doing his job, compared with 63 per cent who are unhappy with his performance. That’s the second lowest satisfaction rating for any Opposition leader in Australian polling history. Notwithstanding these deathly numbers the Opposition remains in an election winning position as it has done all year. So how can this be?

Well Labor hasn’t done itself any favours this year and in with such a narrow margin in the parliament and an opposition hell bent on the destruction of the government at almost any cost, the government needs all favours it can get.

Rudd Challenge

It started in February when after months of speculation Kevin Rudd challenged Prime Minister Julia Gillard for Prime Minister. The challenge laid bare all of Labor’s festering wounds and resulted in unprecedented attacks by cabinet ministers on Rudd and resulted the electorally popular Rudd being soundly defeated in caucus by the electorally unpopular Gillard.

Cabinet Minister and frustrated former leader of the ALP was very frustrated indeed.

Thomson Scandal

The ongoing Craig Thomson scandal was a constant thorn in the government’s side as the opposition made good mileage over the affair in which Thomson was sued by a federal watchdog over his alleged misuse of union funds to pay for prostitutes. The saga resulted in Thomson resigning from the Labor party and much being made by the opposition about the government’s ongoing willingness to accept Thomson’s ‘tainted’ vote. With such high rhetoric Abbott and his main attack dog Christopher Pyne had to make fools of themselves when Thomson unexpectedly voted with the opposition. 

The Slipper/Ashby Affair

Government nominated speaker of the house Peter Slipper was forced to resign in ‘disgrace’ by having some lewd personal texts between Slipper and former staffer James Ashby aired during sexual harassment proceedings that have been subsequently thrown out by the Federal Court with Justice Rares delivering a scathing rebuke of Asbhy’s motivations, ''The purpose that Mr Ashby and Mr Harmer had in including them in the originating application was to further damage Mr Slipper in the public eye and politically.''

The whole saga sets a dangerous precedent for politicians everywhere as I’m sure that almost any random member of parliament would have text messages in their history that they would less than proud of if they were ever to be aired publicly.

Alan Jones

Sydney radio shock jock, climate change denier and hate monger took national discourse to a new low even for him when he told a young Liberal’s gathering that the Prime Minister’s recently deceased father “died of shame” because his daughter tells lies. The national outrage that ensued was unprecedented and resulted in Jones apologizing to the Prime Minister in a ditheringly long press conference that only served to inflame his remarks further.

Misogyny Speech

Tony Abbott provoked arguably the political moment of the year when he maliciously or incompetently echoed the Jones comments in parliament in relation to the Peter Slipper affair when he said, "another day of shame for a government which should already have died of shame". The response from the Prime Minister was blistering if not devastating in what has become known as the ‘misogyny speech’. It talk the Canberra press gallery a while to cotton on but the speech soon went viral (by Australian standards) across social media and at the time of writing this article had received over 2.1 million hits on youtube.

The misogynist tag is a strong use of language to say the least but it does seem to have resonated across the electorate playing into perceptions of Tony Abbott’s attitude towards women and allegations of threatening behavior in the past.

AWU Scandal

The final week of parliament was consumed by an unrelenting attack on the Prime Minister’s credibility. The Prime Minister herself was caught in the least scandalous scandal in political history over advice she provided to union officials over 17 years ago. The attack was lead by the Deputy Opposition Leader, Julie Bishop.The tactic was deployed to allow Abbott to re-cast himself as a positive, policy driven leader who could be seen as a viable alternative Prime Minister.

However by the end of the week long attack Abbott couldn’t help himself as he accused Gillard committing a ‘breach of the law’ and of unethical behavior during her time as a lawyer despite a lack of evidence.

Budget Surplus Backflip

In a politically damaging but economically sensible move, Treasurer Wayne Swan walked away from the much touted promise to deliver a budget surplus of $1.1 billion this financial year. In what seemed to be a silly promise in the first instance especially given the fact that budget estimates vary by billions of dollars week in and week out, the government may have just lost the momentum it had in the polls as it goes into the election year.

So there you have it, another year in Australian politics, a year of challenges, accusations of misogyny, criminality, there have been revelations of sleaze, an abuse of the courts in pursuit of sexual harassment allegations, an ongoing small minded debate on asylum seekers, revelations that Abbott would ‘sell his arse’ to become PM, the introduction of a carbon tax and the end result is two political leaders who clearly despise each other.

It will no doubt make for an interesting and sometimes painful 2013.