Political Corrections

with Mungo MacCallum

Big Kim back on top

Everything Kim Beazley has said since his latest resurrection to the Labor leadership is undeniably true.

He is still relatively young - the same age as John Howard was when he became opposition leader back in 1995. He has experience, dedication and judgement; Howard himself has said that he would like to have Beazley in his own war cabinet. He is a stayer; he has outlasted many of those who once said that he didn't have it in him for the long haul.

He is consumed by politics and the idea of public service and he honestly believes that he is the best man for the job of prime minister. He has twice chased Howard down to the wire, once winning the popular vote in the process. He has considerable voter appeal and no serious enemies either inside or outside the party. On paper, he looks like the ideal leader.

So why isn't there dancing in the streets? Why do we all have such doubts?

Well, partly because there is a back-to-the-future, forward-to-the-past feel about it all, especially in the wake of the wild Latham ride. But there remains the fear that Beazley, for all his undoubted talents, lacks the one that really matters: the hunger, the ruthlessness, the mongrel, the killer instinct - what Howard once, wrongly, called ticker.

Beazley does not lack courage and tenacity; his mere survival attests to that. But he is, as someone pointed out many years ago, the only Labor leader since Ben Chifley not to suffer from a serious personality disorder, which is a polite way of saying that he isn't a megalomaniac. Howard, of course, is; this has been the difference between them in the past, and the worry is that it may remain so in the future.

Howard does not need to tell us he is on fire with ambition, that he will let nothing and nobody stand in the way of his success, and so forth: we already know that because we have seen him in action. Beazley still feels the need to reassure us in such extravagant terms, and in the process sounds faintly ridiculous as well as ultimately unconvincing: he protests too much.

And, as in the past, his deeds simply do not match the rhetoric. His first serious announcement after becoming leader was that he would leave the front bench he inherited from Latham (or what was left of it after sundry resignations) untouched; he was perfectly happy with all of them. He can't be serious.

First, there are the resignations: John Faulkner, Bob McMullan, Lindsay Tanner, Craig Emerson. Faulkner probably meant it; he has had enough and won't be tempted back. But the others, three of Labor's best and brightest, left purely over differences with Latham. If Beazley is truly to be the great healer, he needs to bring them back as quickly as possible. But this would involve getting rid of some of the incumbents, which Beazley seems unwilling to do.

It is not as if there is a shortage of dead wood: the factional system has installed such shining lights as the Ferguson brothers, Kim Carr, Joe Ludwig, Steve Conroy and Anthony Albanese with strict orders to put factional interests ahead of those of the party. If a couple of them have shown traces of ability, it is no more than a happy accident; their primary role has nothing at all to do with winning elections.

Not one of them would be missed by the general public and a general cleanout would give Beazley all the room he needs to promote a new and enthusiastic team. But of course he can't do it; even to try would cause enormous upheavals in the caucus, and that is something Beazley is determined to avoid. His is not a crash-through-or-crash approach; he will not take on even the most junior of the factional appointees, let alone the big boys.

So from the start the new leader is destined to preside over mediocrity. No wonder there are those who believe that already the bomber is proving to be a fizzer.

A ginger group composed of some of the more unpleasant members of the Liberal Party is running a campaign for tax reform - by which they really mean lowering a top tax rate as far as possible to provide aid and comfort for their rich supporters.

The Australian newspaper is enthusiastically supporting these Gordon Geckos, insisting that the government use its forthcoming Senate majority to deliver. Treasurer Peter Costello is less enthusiastic, saying that tax reform is enormously expensive and the groupers must identify savings to pay for it.

Well, that's easy enough; how about just some of the $15 billion Howard pissed up against the wall in unconscionable election bribes? If the gingerbreads are serious, they will be urging Howard to break as many promises as possible as soon as possible and hand the loot over to their mates.

After all, it wouldn't be the first time, and they could rely on the support of The Australian.

And still on The Australian: surely its perceptive foreign editor, Greg Sheridan, deserves some sort of award for his amazing Australia Day scoop, "In the short term, Iraq is unlikely to become a strong democratic nation."

Well, golly gee and strike me dead. No wonder they made him a visiting fellow at the centre for International and Strategic Studies in Washington. If only they could keep him there.