Well apologies, but this uncharacteristically provocative opening salvo from Age press gallery stalwart Michelle Grattan has me puzzling about where her head is at in relation to Canberra’s parliamentary “hot property”:

Parties that have lost elections quickly find themselves shivering in the changeroom, policy clothes stripped off and wondering how much of their philosophical underwear has also become unwearable.

Ooh, er. Despite the quizzical opening, Grattan’s latest column is one of the best from her I have read in some time. The point that she makes is not a particularly profound one, but does a fine job of rounding up all the recent evidence we have to consider about the Federal Opposition, arguing in a compelling fashion that they have lost the plot policy-wise. At the moment, we have no idea what the Federal Coalition stands for. Having taken the opportunity to rubbish at virtually every juncture the policy position of the previous government (e.g. Kyoto, WorkChoices, “saying sorry”, tomorrow will no doubt bring more), one could be forgiven for thinking that Kevin Rudd might be the best person to ask what the Coalition stands for on any given issue. At the moment, the Coalition seems to stand for whatever Kevin Rudd stands for with a twist; a twist that they generally are not prepared to fight for with any great determination in parliament anyway. The government is bringing the liqueurs and fruit juices to this particular parliamentary cocktail party, and Nelson’s Opposition appears to have gallantly taken responsibility for supplying the matchstick parasols.

In short, the Opposition is floundering, in desperate need of some policy directions to galvanise them, and a strong leader to take them forwards. Mindlessly chipping away at the government in parliament won’t achieve very much if nobody really knows what they themselves stand for. Turnbull’s cute but somewhat petty NAIRU bombing of Treasurer Wayne Swan may have resulted in some embarrassment for the Queenslander, but if the Opposition’s most useful line of attack on the government relates to the definition of a slightly obscure economic term, it says a lot about their own situation. Apparently lacking any substantive lines of attack on economic policy, they appear to have settled for the time being on pursuing the trivial.

On that ultimately meaningless political front, I wish them the best of luck.