The Big Brother Politics of Australia - The Recent Labor Leadership Spill

Ok the bloodbath is over. It was quite a frantic week in the Australian politics. There was yet another leadership spill and finally after several attempts Julia Gillard was removed and Kevin Rudd was reinstated. Watching this whole saga unfolding was like watching some bad reality series of six seasons – there is nothing left to exploit with the characters, so please move on to the finale already.

Although it feels like a cliff hanger on the day of the saga, it was of little surprise that Julia was finally replaced by Kevin.  Labor has been really bad in polls. As bullish as they wanted to be, they all know, well we all know, well the whole world knows that as long as the Liberals are willing to attend the party, the government is ready there at the buffet table in September. It is only a matter of how many dishes they could consume. So replacing Julia with Kevin is a desperate move at a desperate time for the Labor party.  The question now is how long would Kevin last? The thing is I don’t think Kevin is very popular still inside the Labor Party but he has become the necessary evil for the party to stay in power. What could happen is a year or two down the road they might try to replace him again. However, this would risk the Labor losing the remaining trust of the Australian public in them, and it would take a long time for them to recover from that (and this would be bad news for Bill Shorten).

As for Julia, she probably would “retire” and enjoy her latte (does she drink latte? Or would she prefer mocha or flat white?) for a little while with her 200K per year life pension before going back into her high paying legal profession or starting a consultation business for private companies. Either way, she is better off both financially and personally for life. A lot of people still think that Julia got removed because she is a woman. Seriously, this might play a part but then at the same time the truth is she never recovered from the “backstabber” image when she replaced Kevin 3 years ago. With this ghoul on her back, it would be hard for her to recover in any sense. And as much as a lot of people want to deny it, Australian politics has become a reality TV series and who wins the competition is based on image and popularity. Also Julia, as much as she wanted to do good the fact that we got one new tax after another after being promised with no new taxes at the last election just further cemented her image as a “liar” (although I personally did not agree with how certain media or media personalities treated her in this aspect).

So what are we, as Australians left with? Well, Tony Abbott now has a new A game to play against. And as a B game player, he would need to work much harder to get the job he desperately and unshamingly wants. In the past few years, he has been resolving to two roles only – producer of the series “Julia Gillard as a liar” and the producer of the B grade horror series “I Don’t Know What You Did Today and Ever After But It Is Scary Anyway”. Now with Kevin at the helm of the “New Labor” and he being the expert of those roles (we have already seen this from his “acceptance” speech), Tony Abbott needs to find new tactics to deal with this “new opponent”. The thing is Tony was never tested against Kevin. While Tony, despite his lack of intelligence speeches one after another, was seen as an easy win against Julia in the past few months. However, this last minute switch over immediately rings the alarm bell for the Liberals. Polls already showed a surge of support to Kevin Rudd against Tony Abbott. And for Kevin to stay in this honeymoon popularity, he only needs to continue exercising his charm and cashing in the last bit of sympathy from the Australian public. But for Tony Abbott, he really needs to step up with his intelligence and stop saying silly things such as “Malcolm Turnbull virtually invented the Internet in Australia” in the public (could you imagine him saying that when meeting other international heads of state?).  This is because Kevin Rudd would not hesitate to exploit all these silliness and further paints him as an idiot to the public. If Kevin Rudd is good with anything, he is a master of the reality show. He knows where he could solicit public support and let his opponents to undo themselves and go under.

Without a doubt the reality series of the Australian politics has got a dramatic turn last week. But how long would this sustain the public’s interest is still yet to be seen. The next few months would be crucial as I could see that the Liberals would not hesitate to play dirty (as they always do) while the Labors would be taking every opportunity to milk any mishaps from the opposing camps. As for the Australian public, unfortunately they would have no choice but continue to follow this reality series for as long as it lasts.