Guy Beres

As I have previously commented, I don’t think too many people are surprised that Malcolm Turnbull has succeeded Brendan Nelson as the leader of the Liberal Party. There has been no real indication throughout 2008 that Doctor Nelson was eventually going to cut through and threaten Kevin Rudd as a genuine alternative Prime Minister of this country. It is not so much that Brendan Nelson has a divisive personae for the Liberals, but rather just that he failed to threaten the government to a significant enough extent. There was little question that the Rudd Labor Government would secure a second term in office in 2010 if Nelson was left holding the reins.

The interesting thing about Malcolm Turnbull, of course, is that he does have a divisive personae for the Liberal Party. In a political sense he is well to the soft left of the vast majority of the Liberal parliamentary caucus, and one would imagine that he has little time for the agrarian socialism of the National Party. He came to the party late and reportedly only after being denied a position in the Senate for the Labor Party during the 1980’s. In this respect, there are no doubt quite a few members of the Liberal caucus who resent the fact that Turnbull has swept in from the wings to the leadership of the party without having to go through the day-to-day political grind that they had to endure.

It’s worth considering for a moment the results of the leadership spill vote. For starters, Turnbull only was victorious by a margin of 4; if three caucus members had decided to instead plump for Nelson, than Turnbull would have failed to secure the leadership again, and his immediate future prospects would have been reasonably assumed to be in tatters. Ironically, it appears that several conservative members of the caucus may have delivered the vote to Turnbull. Tony Abbott, Alex Hawke, Bronwyn Bishop and Louise Markus all voted for Turnbull; presumably not because they agreed with his political views or indeed particularly like him, but rather because they wanted someone who they thought would be a little more effective in the leadership role.

This is of course a very Howardian way of thinking. The substance of Malcolm Turnbull in a political or policy sense was not what has elevated him to the top job; what has elevated him to the top job is his charisma, eloquence and marketability. If Turnbull does a reasonable enough job of competing with the government and doesn’t try to be too progressive, this won’t be a problem for the Liberals. As it was with the Howard years from about 2000 onwards, if the electorate warm to Turnbull then the Liberal caucus will undoubtedly warm to him, even if they don’t actually agree with him. It’s the poll figures, not the policy, stupid.

Clearly the jury will be out for some time and Turnbull has a lot of convincing to do. While you have traditionally Liberal-affiliated groups like Australians for a Constitutional Monarchy sobbing into their English Breakfast tea, and leading conservative columnists like Miranda Devine still hopelessly longing for an utterly implausible return of the Liberal Party’s great woulda-coulda-shoulda ex-Treasurer, you just know that there will be a few more twists in the tale of this story yet.

Yesterday evening (and for the first time in a while) I got along to a NSW Fabian Society forum in Sydney, this one focusing on the following topic:

In years gone by the Left was a serious political force that held sway in once powerful trade unions, the Australian Labor Party and the broader community. The battles between the left and right for the control of the Labor Party were legendary. In recent years the Left has ceased to be a powerhouse for ideas.

Is the Left dead and does it really matter?

The debate was moderated by Rose Jackson, featuring the following speakers:

Professor Geoff Gallop (Former WA Premier and now Director of the Graduate School of Government at the University of Sydney)

Rodney Cavalier (Former NSW Education, Energy Minister)

David McKnight (UNSW Academic and author of Beyond Right and Left).

My thoughts and potted recollections from the night over the fold.

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I am only about a month and a half late, but back in early August I was tagged by Oz over at Decomposing Trees with this meme:

List seven songs you are into right now. No matter what the genre, whether they have words, or even if they’re not any good, but they must be songs you’re really enjoying now, shaping your spring. Post these instructions in your blog along with your 7 songs. Then tag 7 other people to see what they’re listening to.

I am going to decline to tag seven people to pass the meme on to, but if you’re reading this and interested, please accept this as an invitation. Anyway, here are my seven songs:

Bloc Party - Mercury YouTube
I first heard this track when I saw Bloc Party open their set with it at the Hydro Connect Festival last month. It’s a great track - loads of energy - and despite the fact I have heard it exactly once, it has burrowed its way firmly into my head.

Sigur Ros - Gobbledigook Video - Not Safe for Work!
The opening track of the increasingly iconic Icelandic band’s latest album, this song is quite simply the sound of pure joy. An very interesting diversion from the band’s trademark slow-building crescendos.

Youth Group - In My Dreams
One of the standout tracks from Youth Group’s recently released follow-up to their breakthrough Casino Twilight Dogs album, The Night Is Ours. Some great pics and a link to the first single from the new album over at Boudist.

John Butler Trio - Peaches and Cream
I have an extremely limited CD collection to draw upon in my car currently, and one of the few CDs I have is JBT’s ragingly successful Sunrise Over Sea. Is there anything like driving through the gumtree-smattered suburban roads of Sydney with some authentically Australian music playing in the background?

Green Day - Wake Me Up When September Ends YouTube
Again this track reflects the current limitations of my CD collection, but in the very least it is pretty topical, and Green Day must be given plaudits for somehow remaining “cool” for over 15 years.

Augie March - Watch Me Disappear
The title track from Augie March’s forthcoming fourth album, which will be released on October 11th. One of my favourite bands, and I am looking forward to seeing them live again in either Sydney or Melbourne. Tour dates here. You can hear two tracks from the new album from their MySpace page.

Manic Street Preachers - Your Love Alone Is Not Enough YouTube
Another highlight of the Hydro Connect Festival, the Manics have had a mixed record in recent years, but there is certainly something to like about this single from their latest album.

What has looked like the inevitable for the past nine months or so has finally now come to pass, with Malcolm Turnbull assuming the leadership of the Federal Liberal Party from Brendan Nelson, after a 45 - 41 party room vote. I think I will write some more about Turnbull a little later this week, but for now it’s probably worth reflecting on this opening salvo from the Member for Wentworth:

“I do not come to the position of leader of the Liberal Party from a lifetime of privilege,” he said at his first press conference.

“I know what it’s like to be very short of money. I know what it’s like to live in rented flats.

“I know what it’s like to grow up with a single parent with no support other than a devoted and loyal father.

“We know that this is a tough world and our job as Liberals is to ensure that our society is a fair one. A society of opportunity. A society where people can, like my father and I, be able to take advantage of those opportunities, to seize those opportunities and with enterprise and energy and good luck and hard work, do well.

“We are a party of opportunity and this, my friends, is a land of opportunity.”

The emphasis above is mine. Turnbull is clearly going to have to watch his millionaire mouth in check if he doesn’t want to swiftly alienate a lot of the voters he is trying to impress. To think the poor boy had to actually rent an flat! Oh,the tragedy! Oh, the humiliation! Oh, the frightening closeness to the everyday, normal reality for millions of people in Australia!

This is going to be interesting.

Peter Costello’s memoirs were released today; it will be interesting indeed to see if Labor gets as much mileage out of them as the Coalition got out of The Latham Diaries. Naturally, being a continuously relapsing political junkie, I couldn’t resist the urge and picked up the book in Myer today at an extortionate price not far ($39.95) from the outrageous RRP of $55. I had to grit my teeth though. The nice lady who served me described Australia’s longest serving Treasurer as a “brilliant man” [cough, choke, splutter], although we did manage to agree that it would probably have been better for him and the party if he had kept his big mouth closed for the time being.

I would have to regard Peter Costello, when he was on form and not a smirking parody of himself, as one of the best political performers in parliament over the last decade. There have been innumerable occasions in recent years when I have been able to admire the man’s wit and have a chuckle without agreeing with the point of view he is expressing. On the other hand, I think there are a few aspects to his career in government that will not be regarded fondly by either his friends (if they are smart) or foes in the years to come.

Most crucially, although Costello presided as Treasurer over one of Australia’s most golden stretches of economic prosperity in living memory, recent events in global financial markets have served as a reminder that he was at worst, criminally negligent with respect to the championing of real economic reform, and at best, just plain lucky. The economists and political scientists among us will no doubt ponder over the next decade or two what opportunities to improve the economic situation of all Australians may have been squandered while the Howard Government focused on other things besides reform. Namely, milking every last drop of triumphalism out of the national economic situation, throwing tax cut bribes around glibly, and actually doing very little.

Costello, along with the man who is likely to bear the brunt of most of the dumpings in his book, must also take some share of direct personal responsibility for failing to facilitate an effective leadership transition while in government. Despite the recent election results in Western Australia, the Liberal Party still looks and smells like a car crash; what the Labor Party smells like in some states at the moment I will leave open to suggestion. Federally, however, the stench is primarily eminating from the opposition benches. Opposition Leader Brendan Nelson even announced today that he was taking the extraordinary step of instigating a leadership spill, evidently aimed at flushing out any leadership aspirants who don’t really have the numbers in caucus and rustling up some loyalty. Good luck with that one, Brendan.

I’ll aim to post an interesting short excerpt or two from Costello’s book over the coming weeks.

If we needed any more proof that NSW Labor has struggled to take a trick over the past couple of years, the amazingly short tenure of Matt Brown as NSW Police Minister has provided it. Freshly minted Premier Nathan Rees had more than enough on his plate already (indeed - probably enough for a few lifetimes), and the last thing he needed was the silly and needless scandal that has erupted over the last few days.

Politics is a tough business, and I don’t think anybody reasonable would begrudge Matt Brown or any politician from letting off some steam from time to time. Unfortunately, we live in a political age when the media and political operatives (in this case, Imre Salusinszky from The Australian) across the country are remorselessly on the hunt for “news” that can be construed in any way as controversial. Brown should have been aware of this, and should have put his noggin to good use instead of acting the way that he allegedly did during his post-Budget party.

Rees, of course, made the right decision in presumably forcing Brown to resign from his post. One wonders whether the Premier should demand an even more stringent level of disclosure, given the abysmal track record NSW Labor has had with regards to resignations and embarrassing incidents over the past decade in power. Perhaps the new Premier should force any member of parliament who is implicated in a scandal that breaks before he hears about it to resign not only from any ministerial duties but from parliament altogether, forcing a by-election.

In New South Wales in particular, the Labor Party desperately needs a public image overhaul. It can simply not afford to endure any further absurd scandals of this nature; it’s time for the Premier to lay down the law to his colleagues.

I think it’s far from a bad thing for businesses to engage in a bit of political humor from time to time, so personally I welcome this from Nandos (from the otherwise bin-worthy Sunday Telegraph):

Some quick Nandos trivia; in the United Kingdom, Nandos effectively functions as a restaurant chain rather than a run-of-the-mill burger chain as in Australia. I have a few fond London memories of sitting down with people and devouring whole chickens, chilli sauce being of course obligatory.

Comparisons have already been drawn by some commentators between the elevation of Morris Iemma to the premiership of New South Wales in August 2005 and the unexpected rise of Nathan Rees to the same position this week. If anything though, it is arguable that the rise of Rees has been even less of a rational leadership transition than that of his predecessor. Prior to his gaining the premiership, Morris Iemma did have nearing fifteen years of parliamentary experience behind him, including a relatively high profile stint in the Health portfolio. Rees, by comparison, has served less than two years in parliament and despite the touch of (welcome!) colour in his early job history, he can certainly be regarded as an apparatchik premier. For the majority of the last fifteen years he has worked as a political staffer.

The Murdoch press (as expected) is running a typically unreasonable line about the emergence of Rees which seems to imply that New South Wales will soon explode in a ball of uncontrollable flames. Realistically the only reasonable perspective, of course, is to welcome the departure of Iemma, Costa and Watkins as the breath of fresh air that it represents, and to wait and see if the new leadership team cuts the mustard. Given that they have had only a couple of days in the job, any more aggressive attacks on the Rees/Tebbutt team can be dismissed as the vainglorious acts of political expediency that they are.

Given that I know about as much about Nathan Rees as the average person (e.g. nothing), I thought it might be worth while having a bit of a look through his contributions to the Hansard over the last couple of years to try and get a feel for where he stands. There are a few excerpts and thoughts over the fold.

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I’m back in Sydney now after a long and thoroughly enjoyable month of travel throughout August. I am not too sure what is going on with the weather at the moment, but the London-like conditions in Sydney are quite frankly unacceptable.

One of the things that I did manage to get along to during August was the Hydro Connect Festival, which was held over the last weekend of the month at Inveraray in Western Scotland. The weather there was not much chop either, but to be honest the rain did not really ensue during the performances of most of the headline acts, so all was well that ended well. Despite gumboots becoming obligatory by the second day of the festival due to the rain and 20,000 people tromping across the grounds, it was certainly the best festival I have ever had the pleasure of attending.

The festival highlights for me were performances from Mercury Rev, Bloc Party and the inimitable Sigur Ros, whose bombast knows no equal. I also managed to catch Ladytron, Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks, Noah & The Whale, the Manic Street Preachers, Gomez, Conor Oberst and the Mystic Valley Band, Spiritualised, Michael Franti & Spearhead, Grinderman, Goldfrapp, Elbow and Franz Ferdinand over the course of the long weekend. Needless to say, it was great!

Some pictures below:

Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks. Had never seen Malkmus before live so this was a treat. They played a solid set, although nothing I was familiar with. I have his self-titled album, but none of his albums recorded with the Jicks.




Mercury Rev closed out the Friday night of the festival for us and they were excellent, as usual. The band really has a flair for theatrics and know how to make an impact visually and sonically live.




Nick Cave heads Grinderman, his “rock” outfit with which he has recorded an album and is in the midst of recording a second. Warren Ellis was free to cut sick to an even greater extent than usual as Nick;s right-hand man, and the band had the audience in thrall.




Bloc Party closed out Saturday night and were awesome - probably the pick of the festival for me. All the band’s best tracks were played along with two encores (the second quite unexpected), and track Flux off A Weekend In The City was accompanied by a very cool laser show.




Sigur Ros as always put on a great show on Sunday night before the headliners - including a horn section in Scottish apparel.




Sigur Ros.




Franz Ferdinand closed out the night and the festival with a pretty tight set. They probably suffered a bit by comparison with Sigur Ros’ immediately preceding epic set, but of course the predominantly Scottish crowd went nuts. A number of tracks from the band’s forthcoming third album were given a run, getting something of a mixed reception.

This blog is somewhat involuntarily being put into hibernation. This coming weekend I am moving out of my apartment in London, and for the majority of August I will be abroad seeing as much of Europe as I can before returning home in early September. My access to the Internet will be itinerant and is unlikely to result in a discernable degree of productivity here. I may post the odd photo if I can.

I will be back with a vengeance online here and down under sometime in September. As much as it will be sad to leave London, it will be excellent to be back home. It is something like returning to the old life that I left behind; it really does feel a bit as though I have been living someone else’s life for the past year. In short, it has been a mesmerising experience!

Needless to say, the last year I have spent over here has been fantastic both from both a career perspective and a travel perspective; or should I say, an educational perspective. I have seen a whole bunch of places that ten years ago, I honestly never would have dreamed that I would ever visit. Cities like Rome or Stockholm are no longer just abstract concepts that I read about in the news or glance at idly on world maps. Great Britain, as it happens, amounts to more than just a useless cricket team, an idiosyncratic monarchy and a gaggle of perennial sporting underachievers. The world is truly alive for me now in a way that it never was before, and I am glad that I will be carrying some of the most special parts of it with me in my mind’s eye, whatever happens from here on in.