 Political Corrections
with Mungo MacCallum
Cat's got the Crean: Time to Gough up
Of course, we all may be completely wrong about Simon Crean.
Lurking deep inside that unprepossessing exterior there may be a charismatic leader who has spent the last four decades waiting for a chance to emerge. After years of playing the twin roles of parliamentary bully and boringly cautious shadow treasurer Crean may be about to blossom.
True, the signs are not positive; even his greatest booster, Bob Hawke, can find little to say about him apart from suggesting that he is misunderstood; he actually has a bit of a sense of humour (translation: he's not quite as tedious as he appears to be). Kim Beazley will only murmur that it's Simon's turn for a go at the job; promotion through persistence rather than talent, a system which, on the other side of politics, brought us such luminaries as Billy McMahon and Billy Snedden.
And the Crean bloodline isn't all that convincing either; his father Frank, at one time treasurer under Gough Whitlam, was never more than an amiable hack who could never understand why journalists were so keen to find out what was in the budget in advance when he was going to announce it all next week anyway. It is hard to imagine there has been an evolutionary leap in just one generation.
Certainly the punters don't appear to think so; one recent poll revealed that 97 per cent of those questioned would not vote for him and it later turned out that the other three were Liberal plants trying to push him into the job.
But let's assume for a moment that we are all wrong and that Crean would not fall over like a cardboard cutout if the little man who stands behind him to keep the rubber bands wound up suddenly went on holiday. Is he really the very best that the Labor Party can do?
On the face of it there doesn't seem much alternative; most if the other survivors of the election are either too young, too shop-soiled or too batty to come under serious consideration; indeed, some pessimists predict that the next Labor Prime Minister may not even be in the parliament yet.
But last week I heard one somewhat lateral suggestion that should at least have been considered before the Crean ascension was set in stone. I was having dinner with Gough Whitlam after the great man had launched my book (Mungo, the Man Who Laughs Duffy and Snellgrove, RRP $28 at all good book stores) so naturally I asked his opinion.*
Whitlam replied without hesitation that by far the best option as opposition leader was Senator John Faulkner; Beazley should stick around until Faulkner could be found a seat in the House of Representatives (a process for which there was ample precedent, the most recent example being that of Cheryl Kernot) and Faulkner should then be turned loose.
Despite its difficulties (for starters it would be hard to persuade a caucus dominated by the factional right to accept a leader from the left) the idea has considerable appeal. There is no doubt that Faulkner is one of the hardest working members of parliament, or that he has the kind of mongrel-killer approach to politics that Beazley sadly lacked but which is absolutely necessary for effective opposition to a government as ruthless and unscrupulous as the present one.
Moreover he has the track record; his partnership with Robert Ray, now unfortunately retired, was one of the most lethal ever to strut the floor of the senate, producing severe embarrassment from a number of ministers and near apoplexy in the government leadership of Robert Hill and Richard Alston.
As a muckraker within the Senate committee system Faulkner has no rivals; he has uncovered a great deal of dirt that Howard would rather have kept buried, and there is certain to be a great deal more in the smugness of the government's third term. Even in the backwaters of the Senate Faulkner has an impressive body count; as leader in the Reps he would, of course, have been far more effective.
Alas, it is not to be; while Crean has, promisingly, shown that he is ready to buck the faction system to some extent, surrendering the top job to a Senate leftie would be too much altogether. A pity; it might have been worth a try, particularly given its authorship. Even John Howard admits that Whitlam was unsurpassed as opposition leader, and he was no slouch at the job himself.
And one thing Labor has to do this time around is to act like a real opposition. As the events of the last three years have proved, pretending to be a government in waiting is simply not good enough.
- Note the double whammy in this sentence: not only an outrageous piece of namedropping but also a blatant and self-interested plug. Eat your heart out John Laws.
- Margo Kingston is currently enjoying a Bex and a good lie down.
Email: mkingston@mail.fairfax.com.au
Margo's web diary - www.smh.com.au/news/opinion/webdiary/
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