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This ought to have been a week during which Labor, under Bill Shorten, concentrated on looking purposive, thoughtful, a united party of ideas, while the Liberals, under Tony Abbott, continue to circle the drain. The Liberals behaved, more to less, to script. It is the Coalition which is the issue before voters at the moment. No one judging the Liberals, as senior partner, by things said or done this week would have had been affirmed in any confidence that Abbott could or should survive. If anything things got worse. Cabinet colleagues leaked against him, even to comical effect. They leaked about leaking and laughed about him and at him. Abbott, in Billy McMahon mode, told us all he had read them the riot act. Further leaks confirmed that the government had no agenda, no program, no plan of action apart from a few stunts designed to portray Labor as being different. The arguments in favour of a new prime minister, and a complete change of government style, mounted, not least from the incapacity of the leader to snap himself or his team out of its slump. But all things being equal, the agony of his demise may be prolonged until just after the Canning byelection in Western Australia on September 19. By contrast, Labor saw out the week without, more or less, making any mistakes. It inflicted no wounds on Abbott, but Abbott was doing enough to himself. Nothing the government threw at Labor, or its leader, made Labor the issue, or did any great damage. There were several Abbott provocations designed to take Labor from its comfort zone but neither Labor, nor, it seems the public, was much moved. Nor did Labor do anything to distract public attention from the spectacle of what seem to be a government in its terminal stages. Voters ended the week with less reason to want to see Abbott continue in power, and even less reason to think that Abbott had a plan to take the nation forward. Indeed, it was not clear that he even had a plan to flush out his internal opponents, or to hold them off. Shorten and Labor are gaining in the polls from the apparent paralysis of the Liberal Party and its leader. But the alternative government also did nothing to present itself as an alternative, to sketch out a different path the nation might follow, or even, to underline the unwisdom of going down any of the many tunnels through which the Abbott Government is trying to escape. The Coalition is doing what it can to repel voters, but the Labor attractor is merely one of not being the Coalition. Not being the other side has often been a raison d'etre for the Coalition; it has, in the federal sphere, never worked for Labor. Labor can win majority support only when people want it, never simply when voters are sick of the other side. Labor wins power only at times of crisis or when the nation seems at some sort of crossroads, when conservative parties have run out of energy or ideas, or are plainly not up to the tasks demanded by the times, which may be overshadowed by war, depression, stagnation or environmental crisis. The manner by which the Abbott government is defeating itself has created such an opportunity. But if the public is satisfied that the government, at least as presently constituted, ought to go, Labor has yet to convince voters that it deserves power. It may get it by default, but cannot take this for granted. There is an old adage saying that a political party should not seek the spotlight, or even much put in the boot, when its opponents are in a bout of self-destruction. But that is not a counsel for leaving the stage; instead it is one for not interfering with the action on centre stage. The audience will generally watch the foreground, but should also be able to see, in the background, another set of images altogether. David Pope's view on the week that was for Tony Abbott. August 19, 2015. History suggests that Labor can win federal elections only when voters perceive that it stands for something, that it will do things, and that its broad approach and philosophy is better attuned to the moment, and the nation's needs, than the other side. That's a contest that involves ideas and ideals, and debate. The debate may, probably must, include making a case against people in the other side, but that is never enough; Labor wins only when it has made the case for itself. Given the way it lost office last time, it is particularly important that voters have a new sense of what a new Labor government could be. Labor has never, historically, been the natural party of federal government, even at times when it has seemed the default party of government in states such as NSW and Queensland. Conservative governments have generally been successful in portraying Labor as less reliable on economic management and national security, if closer to public sentiment on social issues such as health, welfare and education (and now, perhaps, the environment). Experience suggests, however, that Labor finds it difficult to parlay its natural advantages on social policies as a springboard from opposition into government. Coalition governments have usually been successful in suggesting that Labor finds it difficult to juggle its desire for social policy achievement against the need for a balanced economy. Once in power, Labor can often compete on competence and national security, at least for a time. But at least since Whitlam, Coalition politicians have usually been successful at suggesting that Labor governments have ended in chaos, incompetence, debt, deficit and a mess for the next government to repair. The usual refusal of defeated Labor to defend Labor legacies compounds the impression in the electorate. In such contests, facts matter a good deal less than impressions, and Labor's weaknesses reflect its own tendency to refuse to defend its past, or sometimes, even its present. Labor's real opportunity now comes primarily from own goals by Abbott. The Abbott government appears to have lost steam and direction. As presently constituted, it simply does not seem to know what to do, or where to go. Abbott is still punching out, by instinct, against imagined external enemies, including Labor. But his main problems are, by now, in his own circles. His regime has the smell of death about it. Nothing will be solved by a new prime ministerial chief of staff, or a piece of political luck, or an insight in a theme for the day. The problem is Abbott himself. David Pope's view on the week that was for Tony Abbott. August 18, 2015. Abbott's problems do not come from a hostile senate, a lack of co-operation by Labor, or even unexpected or adverse events. They come instead from his own misjudgments and self-indulgences, and from misreadings of the state of the economy and of the temper of the electorate, particularly in relation to broken promises. They come from bad leadership of his team and of his party and of the nation. They come from particularly partisan use of the institutions of government, including the abuse of the flag, the defence force, the security services and police for crude short-term politics. Voters have come to see that Abbott lacks substance and has no coherent plan, beyond slogans, for taking the nation anywhere. The evidence suggests that this is a considered and settled judgment, from which voters will be hard to shift. Since the budget, in particular, the government has seemed to be drifting without anyone on the bridge. The actions of some ministers, including Joe Hockey, Eric Abetz, George Brandis and Peter Dutton generally seem to make things worse. Others, such as Malcolm Turnbull, Julie Bishop and Scott Morrison seem more able, but are now judged to be acting in their own interests, not Abbott's. David Pope's view on the week that was for Tony Abbott. August 21, 2015. The lack of leadership or control has corroded the authority of government but not yet been made to seem a crisis to the electorate. But Abbott has an increasing incapacity to create issues, to shape or control events, to set the agenda, or to call the public to arms. Indeed his increasing cack-handedness at such things seems to be making him panic and become even more erratic, behaving, according to some of his own colleagues, more from a desire to shore up his short-term survival than to win the next election. At about this time four years ago, Abbott and various conservative hysterics, not least the shock jocks, were able to confect a populist panic. It almost suggested the need for a coup to rescue the nation from the sinister and lying plans of the evil Gillard. (History might suggest that Abbott's present problems may come from the opportunism and hyperbole of that period.) There is no percentage in Labor's mimicking that strategy or tactic, even if it could. Labor's better plan is to seem calm, competent and confident, strategic rather than tactical, if anything sad rather than delighted at each new embarrassing stumble. Fake issues and controversies, such as whether one party or another has a "secret" plan to raise the GST, or to reduce tax deductions for the superannuation of the rich, or to replace our workforce with Chinese coolies, hardly cut the mustard with an electorate whose turn against Abbott is in part a turn against fake confrontations, false or overblown accusations, and stunts. Now ought to be a time when Labor is discussing policy issues, not merely to score some points but to let voters know what it is thinking. Now ought to be a time when Labor is trying to reinstill enthusiasm for old policies it means to continue, for example with schools and higher education, and health reform. To explain and sell new policies it believes the public will support, for example about environmental action. It ought to be a time when Labor sketches out a defence, foreign policy, international aid policy and national security policy which is set in its own terms rather than so as to so closely resemble the Coalition's that Labor cannot be wedged. Labor cannot succeed by trying to align itself with Coalition policies focused on the war against terror or the treatment of refugees. Whenever Labor shifts sharply to the right, so as to avoid there being even a cigarette paper of gap between it and the Coalition, the Coalition can be expected to shift further to the right. Labor is, by now, the most illiberal social democratic party in the world, forever the plaything of conservative parties trying to find some point beyond which Labor will not go, some principle of freedom, or human dignity, for which the party will ultimately stand. A thoughtful Labor might investigate advice given to Malcolm Fraser by an adviser, Professor David Kemp, in 1975, at a time when Fraser was taking the Liberals, as it seemed, to the right (which is to say about 15 kilometres to the left of where Labor is now). Kemp showed how not all politics is a search for the centre ground. Sometimes political leadership involves planting a flag around some principle well within one's own territory, and confronting one's opponent there. Labor will always be painted as being "less strong" on refugees, or "more weak" on the need for a paramilitary security apparatus. It ought to at least salvage some self-respect by having policies with which its supporters can sleep. It would be better, from Labor's point of view, if Abbott ended up being seen as dud, a balloon which slowly deflated, a firework that fizzed, a car that ran off a cliff. Not a warrior defeated in a fair fight or a duel, or surprised by an ambush. His reign does not deserve to be regarded as a noble lost cause. Images of fight and defeat might seem better for those who collect scalps but do not serve the situation. It is possible to see Shorten winning the next election; but if it is Abbott who is defeated, it will be Abbott, not Shorten who has defeated Abbott.

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