The Australian reports that Peter Debnam is going for the protest vote. Perhaps he has been reading the “speech” that I drafted for John Brogden last election. Or it might be die to NSW Liberal State Director Graham Jaeschke, who was a valuable part of the Queensland Liberal team that crafted the protest vote campaign in 1995. The one where I was Liberal Party State Campaign Chairman and one of the principal strategists.
It’s the only gambit left to Debnam, and full marks to him for trying it out. The Australian‘s headlines refer to him as “desperate Debnam”, and perhaps he is. He’s also brave. It’s not an easy strategy to tackle psychologically. Candidate’s live off confidence, and telling voters you are going to lose potentially cuts off your food supply.
We’ll be doing research later this week to see whether the protest vote is likely to work. I have a feeling that it will, but its effect will be muted.
The Australian‘s article gives the impression that insiders have been briefing journalists that this is a strategy. If voters think it is a strategy, it wont work. In fact, if the politicians applying the strategy think of it as a “strategem” it won’t work. You have to believe in it as the truth.
We got the result that we did in Queensland because no-one outside our campaign really understood how the vote worked. Now every political journalists thinks they know. The Queensland campaign was also incredibly disciplined. No-one would have said to a journalist that we were after a protest vote. They would have stuck to the script – this is about reminding Labor to do the job they have been elected to do. It’s about ordinary Queenslanders sending Goss a message. We knew we couldn’t win, we didn’t expect to win, and this was a totally honest answer.
We were also helped by Labor. They had exploited the protest vote when they beat Sallyanne Atkinson for Lord Mayor of Brisbane, but I don’t think they really understood the dynamics. One of those running the Labor campaign in 1995 was my colleague and friend Mike Kaiser. Kaiser is now in charge of Iemma’s office. A lot of the blanks have been filled in for him since that election. I’m sure he has some answers now to a protest vote campaign that he didn’t have 12 years ago.
The other problem is that you have to be seen as being worthy of being the vehicle for a protest vote. In 1995 Borbidge and Sheldon ran a flawless campaign where they came across as gritty and determined. Right from the beginning the protest strategy was the only one that we ran. This is a late shift in strategy, and the disdain for the NSW Liberals is palpable, so it risks being seen as shifty.
It’s possible that the protest vote strategy might work, but to deliver to those Greens and Independents who are seen as being worthy vehicles for sending Labor a message. It could also help local sitting Liberals who have put the work in. It might also help some new candidates like Pru Goward whose stature from life before politics might provide enough political colloid to carry the message.
The New South Wales election has just become more interesting, but I think my previous conclusions are still the most likely ones. But the NSW Liberals have surprised me. Ishould have seen this as a possibility, but after rejecting it last election when the strategy would definitely have worked, I’d put it right out of my mind this election.

Brian Burdekin, author of the 1989 Our Homeless Children, Report of the National Inquiry into Homeless Children, claimed yesterday on AM that youth homelessness leads to an increase in mental breakdown and substance abuse. This assertion was not questioned by the interviewer, and contradicts what I would have thought was the case. Does anyone have any evidence one way or the other?
Burdekin was launching some sort of “independent inquiry” into homelessness, but he already seemed to have views as to what the inquiry should find. Apparently it’s the Federal Government’s responsibility to solve the “problem” because the states won’t or can’t.
Burdekin says that there are 20,000 children living on the streets. This has got to be a gross exaggeration, and gives some pointers as to where he is heading. Last time I checked there was a total of just more than 20,000 Australians of all ages in the ABS category “Improvised dwellings, sleepers out”. Of these half were indigenous, mostly in the Northern Territory. There was in fact a total of 12,531 Australians under the age of 25 in this category, and 7, 143 of these were under the age of 18. So, an overstatement by a factor of 200%.
One of the problems that Kevin Rudd faces is the potential for all the old Hawke and Keating darlings to re-appear in an election year plugging their personal agendas in what looks like an attack on the current federal government. If Rudd appears to be a re-run of Keating he will have problems against Howard.

I wasn’t so much shocked by Manning Clark’s exaggeration of his experience of Kristallnacht by claiming to be there when he wasn’t, as his biographer’s view that you don’t go to Clark for facts.

So the question is, what do you go to Clark for? Do you go to Clark to look up who won the Melbourne Cup? No. Because for example, as it’s well known, you know Manning Clark has Phar Lap winning the Melbourne Cup twice. So you don’t go for those facts or details.
You go for example for things like his writing about landscape. He was probably one of the first to understand the sense of strangeness, the sense of melancholy about the Australian landscape and to express that in his history.

A melancholic landscape? I’d like to see an objective test for that!
So, what exactly is an historian?
When Keith Windschuttle’s work was criticised by the history establishment because he wasn’t a “trained historian” I dismissed it as a put down of an outside by insiders. I’ve always seen history, and a number of the other social sciences, as being varieties of literature. If you’re trained in logical thought and expression you should be able to turn your pen, or computer keyboard, to any number of genres without additional training.
But it appears that by not being trained in history, I’ve missed one of its nuances – that it is a branch of literature that is interested in subjective impressions rather than facts.
Which in fact means that I have been trained in history, because I spent 4 years studying those sorts of books in Queensland University’s English, French and Drama Departments.
No wonder the history boffins were so unperturbed by Windschuttle’s discoveries of errors of fact. The poor buffoon didn’t understand what history was about at all. He probably thought it was a sub-branch of science!

Not often I do a post and events over-take it immediately, but that’s what happened to the previous one. Ian Campbell has resigned from cabinet. Howard’s not noted for sacking ministers, and this is probably a record for the speed with which it occurred, which means that Howard smells blood.
Rudd is now effectively jammed. He’s being forced to abandon the moral high ground permanently.
Will Rudd resign? Will the electorate see Howard’s move as too cute? Who will win the next federal election? Not sure yet (except that Rudd won’t resign), but I can see the Sport Bets odds on Howard tightening significantly. If you’re a gambler might pay to get down there before they tighten too much. Just watch out in case you bump into Brian Burke.

Kevin Rudd is my local member. He ought to drop in for coffee with me sometime – the advice would be a lot better than he’s getting at the moment. Ian Campbell having a meeting with a number of people, including Brian Burke, isn’t a “gottcha” opportunity for Labor, it’s a trap. Rudd shouldn’t have been in there criticising Campbell, he should have raised his bat and let the ball go through. There’s two reaons for this – one tactical public relations, the other ethics.
Tactically, the sooner this issue goes away the better for Rudd. Criticising Campbell ensures that the issue stays in the public eye a day longer than it might otherwise. But if Labor did decide to criticise Campbell, then someone other than Rudd should have carried the argument.
Rudd argues that this shows the government is just muckraking because one of their own was dealing with Burke. And the one of their own was the big cheese, the leader of the party? Or a junior minister who has just been demoted? So the government still has the option of disowning the actions of its member, or representing them as at best marginal. But Rudd is at the centre of the ALP, so he can’t disown himself.
Worse, his argument rests on the assumption that it is really OK to deal with Burke, because everyone’s doing it. As matters continue to unfold in WA this will become a less and less tenable line.
Which leads to the ethics argument. The reason Gallop banned contact with Burke wasn’t because it is immoral to have any sort of dealings with Burke, but because he couldn’t be sure that his ministers and members weren’t going to fall into a corrupt client relationship with Burke. Burke’s corruption isn’t that he represented various organisations, but that he convinced a number of ALP cabinet ministers and others to break fiduciary and other duties owed to others for the benefit of him, his clients, and perhaps the ministers and members involved.
The difference between Rudd and Campbell is that it appears that Rudd is a “client” of Burke’s, at least in the sense that Burke was sponsoring dinners for Rudd which put Rudd in Burke’s debt. Campbell by contrast had a meeting with Burke because Burke was representing a client who wanted to discuss a proposal with the government. Campbell wasn’t in Burke’s debt, and presumably Campbell couldn’t in any way be said to be a protege of Burke’s. But Rudd is and could be!
Let’s put it another way. Assume a property is for sale and I know that the agent who has it listed is shonky, should I refuse to negotiate with the agent to buy the property? I think the answer is obvious. Now, assume that I am the proprietor of a real estate agency and the same agent, who I know to be shonky, applies to me for a job, should I hire him? I hope this answer too is obvious.
Whether you’re a customer, like Campbell, or a client, like Rudd – it makes all the difference. Perhaps my biggest concern about the whole affair is that Labor, most journalists, and probably most members of the government, don’t understand these distinctions.

Rudd’s fall to earth couldn’t have been more sudden than if he’d lost his broom while over-reaching for the snitch in the Quidditch stadium. And rather than Gryffindore he’s looking at worst Slytherin, and at best Huff and Puff.
If he’d met Brian Burke for a meal once, it could be dismissed as just circumstance. Twice, well that’s happenstance. But three times, as they say in the Bond novels, that’s confirmed enemy action. If he wasn’t doing business with Burke, what was he doing?
Rudd’s excuse is that Burke’s a very engaging fellow. How many times was Rudd in Western Australia during 2005? And how many times did Rudd meet Burke? As foreign affairs spokesman there wouldn’t seem to be a huge number of reasons to go to Western Australia in 2005. Without access to Rudd’s diary you’d have to suspect that almost every time he went to WA he met Burke, and that’s frequent enough to constitute a close friendship if the purpose was merely social.
Either way Rudd loses. Business or friendship, Burke is the kind of guy you don’t want to have anything to do with. And if you do have something to do with him you must be able to remember what you talked to him about.
Rudd’s attraction to the electorate is that he’s a fresh face who seems honest and transparent. But if honesty and transparency are strategies rather than attributes he’s just another politician. Worse, he’s a preachy hypocritical one.
Rudd has been quick to apologise. If you live in Queensland you’re familiar with that line – Peter Beattie uses it all the time. That’s a pity for Rudd. Sometimes apologies are sincere, but Queenslanders are cynical about apologies, just as West Australians are about Burke. I’m not sure how the issue will play around the rest of the country, but judging on this morning’s headlines the press gallery has decided that it is a “tipping point”.
It’s certainly a loss of innocence for the boy wizard and demonstrates at best questionable judgement. The Government will be using this crack to put some of his other judgements to the test. Rudd is probably the most conflicted opposition leader in Australia’s history. Afterall, the Rudd family business is built on government contracts and could be rendered virtually worthless by a change of government policy on job placements. How do you run against the government when you’re one of its biggest clients? And if you become Prime Minister, what do you do, the conflict becomes even larger?
As Harry Potter knows, sometimes you just get caught up in things and you don’t have any say in it. Other times you get yourself into trouble. So far Rudd has only himself to blame.