Political Corrections

with Mungo MacCallum

Peacocks and roosters and other birds of prey

Treasurer Peter Costello emerged from his meeting with the Prime Minister last week looking like a man who has just been told he has terminal cancer – and indeed, terminal Howard may well be equally fatal.

Some commentators felt that he had been extraordinarily naïve to have ever believed that our first family would ever voluntarily give up Kirribilli House, and that he, like the rest of us, should have known better than to have taken anything Howard says at face value. There was also a feeling that Costello was over-reacting and too impatient; after all, he is still relatively young, even by Australian political standards.

But Costello, for once, was being a realist. Ashen-faced and trembling, he saw his political life flash before his eyes and come to a premature end. Howard's predictable insistence on staying for one term too long – a regular error among political leaders – may mean not just the postponement of his ambitions for the Lodge, but their virtual cancellation.

I have written before about the likelihood of Costello becoming the present generation's Andrew Peacock – the Prime Minister who never was. The two share a certain dilettantism; a belief that the job is somehow their birthright and that they don't really have to fight for it. Howard, the nemesis of both, knows that kicking and gouging, backstabbing and deceit is a more certain way to the top, and indeed to staying there once you have reached it. But his decision to stay for another election has effectively snookered Costello out of the game, and in doing so has made any hope of a smooth transition to another stretch of conservative government all but impossible.

Let us assume Howard wins another term – if he doesn't, of course, Costello faces an indefinite period in opposition during which he would almost certainly pass his political use-by date. Let us also assume that he retires about halfway through it (although even this is no certainty; sycophants like The Australian's Denis Shanahan are already assuring us that Howard is good for at least another seven years, which would take in the election after next). Costello will then have been treasurer, by definition the most hated man in government, for more than 10 years, with only a few months to reinvent himself before an election.

By then the Labor Party will surely have gone through its own generational change; Costello will be facing not Simon Crean or Kim Beazley but someone of his own political generation, untainted by the past. Moreover, the coalition government will be that much older, more tired and on the nose, and without the stability of Howard. Unless Labor is silly enough to return the favour the Libs did for Paul Keating in 1993 by putting a demented amateur like John Hewson in the leadership, defeat is all but certain.

Costello realises this; he knows he would have a reasonable chance of pulling off the next election with Labor in some disarray, but the one after will be all but impossible. He has said bravely that he will try to change his image by crossing into broader policy areas, but this will only cause confusion and division on his own side. Deep down he knows his only real hope is to go for Howard's throat.

It would take more courage than he has shown to date and he would quite probably lose, but desperate time require desperate measures. And one thing is certain: he no longer owes Howard one single shred of loyalty.

Meanwhile, back in Laborland, the unedifying choice between two somewhat shop-soiled sons of former failed Whitlam ministers has to be made.

At the time of writing Simon Crean retains the numbers for a variety of reasons ranging from sentimentality (give him a go) to resentment of the tactics of Kim Beazley's backers who, it must be admitted, include some pretty unpleasant people. But whatever qualifications may be put on the opinion polls, it is hard to argue that Crean is anything but a failure.

This is doubtless unfair to the man: most of what he has done and said as leader has been eminently sensible and in terms of policy the party is a long way ahead of the shambles it presented at the 2001 election. But alas, people aren't listening, and all the signs are that the deafness has now become permanent.

Beazley, by contrast, remains credible; in spite of the disastrous verbose small target strategy of the past, he has twice almost pulled off improbable victories. As the more sensible Liberals realise, Howard is not invulnerable; he is respected, but not liked. And if Beazley might look like a bit of a blast from the past, Howard surely looks like the 50th re-run of Ground Hog Day.

And most importantly, returning Crean would not make the tensions in the Labor Party go away, but returning Beazley just might. In the past he has proved himself as a healer; with the new frictions emerging between Howard and Costello, this by itself might be just enough to push Labor over the line.