Stilgherrian » annabel crabb

Politics & Technology Forum videos & tweets

Stilgherrian — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 22:36:45 +0000

Until I get time to write my essay about last week’s Politics & Technology Forum in Canberra, you can relive it on your own.

Thanks to Microsoft’s Nick Hodge, you can view videos of Matt Bai’s keynote address, Panel 1 on Blogging, social networks, political movements and the media with Annabel Crabb, Peter Black and Mark Textor, and Panel 2 on Politics 2.0: information technology and the future of political campaigning with Joe Hockey, Senator Andrew Bartlett, Senator Kate Lundy and Antony Green.

You can also trawl back through the Twitter stream using Summize.com. There’s a lot of material, though, so unless you’re a complete political junkie and want to read through it while listening to the discussions you may want to wait for my essay.

[Disclosure: I was in Canberra as a guest of Microsoft.]

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In Canberra!

Stilgherrian — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 11:03:29 +0000

As previously warned, I’m in Canberra for tomorrow’s Politics & Technology Forum as a guest of that little husband-and-wife firm called Microsoft.

I’ve repeated the programme below, but right now my head is spinning with ideas. PubCamp Sydney was bad enough, what with conversations coming left, right and centre. And I watched the Twitter stream from Melbourne’s event yesterday — and I’m still processing the thoughts.

But this…!

My Twitter stream will use the hashtag #poltech and you’ll be able to track everything at Summize.com.

Meanwhile, tonight I’ll be reading, thinking and pondering over a quiet drink courtesy of that minibar over there [points]. If I have any amazing insights I’ll let you know.

I may even so an impromptu Stilgherrian Live Alpha later this evening. Watch Twitter for the announcement.

Politics & Technology Forum Programme

Keynote: Matt Bai, political writer for the New York Times magazine.

Panel 1: “Blogging, social networks, political movements and the media”, with Brett Solomon from GetUp!; Annabel Crabb from the Sydney Morning Herald; Peter Black from QUT; spin doctor Mark Textor of Crosby Textor, who ran the Howard government’s failed re-election campaign; and the editor of Crikey Jonathan Green.

Panel 2: “Politics 2.0: information technology and the future of political campaigning”, with Joe Hockey, the Liberal member for North Sydney; Senator Andrew Bartlett of the Australian Democrats; Labor Senator Kate Lundy (ACT); and election analyst extraordinaire Antony Green.

[P.S. Is Matt Bai the person to whom someone first said "kthxbai"?]

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Oh dear, I’m going to Canberra…

Stilgherrian — Mon, 26 May 2008 23:09:15 +0000

… for Australia’s inaugural Politics & Technology Forum on 25 June. It’s being sponsored by Microsoft, and I’m going as their guest. Apparently I continue to fool them.

The keynote is by Matt Bai, political writer for the New York Times magazine, followed by two panel discussions.

Panel 1 is on “Blogging, social networks, political movements and the media”, with Brett Solomon from GetUp!; Annabel Crabb from the Sydney Morning Herald; Peter Black from QUT; spin doctor Mark Textor of Crosby Textor, who ran the Howard government’s failed re-election campaign; and the editor of Crikey Jonathan Green. It’ll be nice to finally meet my editor!

Panel 2 is “Politics 2.0: information technology and the future of political campaigning”, with Joe Hockey, the Liberal member for North Sydney; Senator Andrew Bartlett of the Australian Democrats; Labor Senator Kate Lundy (ACT); and election analyst extraordinaire Antony Green. Very scary indeed.

At this stage it looks like I’ll be heading to Canberra on 24 June and staying overnight. If this is of interest, please register as a stalker in the usual way.

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The Real Brendan Nelson

Stilgherrian — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 21:00:10 +0000

Will the real Brendan Nelson please stand up? Is it the man Annabel Crabb saw on Tuesday, the mild-mannered doctor with “substantial empathy for those suffering from misfortune” whose “attention is drawn disproportionately to the Gothic end of the human suffering spectrum”? Or is the rabid Bon Jovi fan?

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Senator Penny Wong

Stilgherrian — Sun, 09 Dec 2007 04:28:15 +0000

Annabel Crabb has written a superb profile of Senator Penny Wong, Australia’s new Minister for Climate Change and Water. Alas, this was not the best way for me to discover that the death of her younger brother, my very good mate Toby Wong, was a suicide. I miss you, you crazy man.

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A pre-election meditation

Stilgherrian — Sat, 13 Oct 2007 00:23:13 +0000

Most of my Saturday mornings start with a quiet, reflective time. ’Pong has gone to work, the cats are fed and have finally shut the fuck up and gone back to sleep. It’s not yet time to join the Snarky Platypus for our regular gym, lunch, shiraz and sarcasm session. I’ve got a couple of hours to sit, still unshaven and often in my underwear, sort through the newspapers and my notebook, turn them over in my mind, and see what emerges.

What emerges this morning is laughter. About John Howard.

Not a belly-laugh, though, nor that loud, pointing, “Haw haw haw! Hey Charlene, will ya just look at that!”

No, it’s a quiet chuckle. A roll of the eyes and a slow shake of the head which says, “Oh, you bloody idiot.” And this moment of amusement is certainly helping to make up for the anger of the last fortnight.

I may return to the anger later today, but perhaps not. It’s too nice a day to remind ourselves that our own government reckons that racial vilification and the death penalty are vote-winners. Except when there’s a different kind of black person that they want to suck up to.

I did laugh out loud, I must admit, when I saw yesterday’s news that Howard had suddenly discovered Aboriginal reconciliation. I have yet to find a single person who genuinely believes this change of heart — after years of impassioned argument for the exact opposite — is anything other than pre-election panic. And I was amused to read Possums Pollytics’ astute observation that this backflip-dressed-up-as-leadership is as transparent as it will be counter-productive.

On Thursday one client summed it up when he told me that he’s no fan of the unions — and I know his company has previously donated money to the Liberals — but that it’s simply time for a change. Fresh ideas. And I’ve heard those same sentiments from people who’d you normally think of as welded-on Liberal voters.

I’ve mentioned before that Christian Kerr thinks this election will be “It’s Time” versus “economic management”. Increasingly I agree. If that’s the case, then every single last-minute flip by Howard reminds people that he’s had 11 years to think through this stuff. And every TV advert reminds them that their money’s being pissed away.

As usual, Annabel Crabb (bitch) nails it when she asks us to imagine the lumpy federal landscape we’ll have to inhabit if Howard actually wins.

[A]t last count he has: his own personal hospital in Tasmania; several thousand new health administrators on local hospital boards, according to a recently announced proposal whose documentation amounts very precisely to one press release; a large stretch of the Northern Territory to administer; a referendum in 18 months; a handover of power to his Treasurer some time quite soon after that. (Why not just have an election then and there, and let the voters choose Costello if they want him?)

Every week, it seems, there’s a new idea, bearing no critical relevance to its predecessor. It’s a bit like watching a three-year-old building a pizza — “ham AND cheese AND Smarties AND apple AND toothpaste AND olives AND …”

And as usual, you simply must read her entire essay. There. I’ve linked to it again. And again, so you’ve got no excuse.

Annabel Crabb is without doubt the wittiest political essayist we have in print. She isn’t afraid to call a spade a spade. Noting that Howard’s 5-point plan for re-election doesn’t actually mention his Incredible Indigenous Insight,
that must’ve been an extremely recent idea.

There are several ways of describing this kind of decision-making. If you were being optimistic, you’d call it front-foot, if you were being polite, you might call it ad hoc, and if you were being brutally honest, you’d call it panic. After all, Wednesday had been a relatively good day for the Government, with historically low rates of unemployment announced; why distract from what should be a reminder of the Government’s successes?

I’ll come back to that 5-point plan later, I think. If that’s Howard’s core strategy, it’s worth a detailed look. Especially as all the signs point to the election being announced this weekend.

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Oops, that should have been “miserable toad”

Stilgherrian — Tue, 02 Oct 2007 22:49:52 +0000

One of the choices in this week’s poll is “slimy toad”. Of course that should have been “miserable toad”, as this commentary on Kim Beazley’s farewell speech to parliament indicates.

You might have thought the Prime Minister could have made the effort to be there for his adversary of 27 years standing, but he did not. John Howard remains a miserable toad. The rest of the Howard ministry took their cue and also absented themselves — Robb and Nelson the exceptions. And know also that when Beazley finished speaking and sat down, and those in the public gallery got to their feet to join the applause of Beazley’s Labor colleagues and most of us in the press gallery, Andrew Robb and three of the Liberal backbenchers applauded, too.

Brendan Nelson did not.

I always liked Kim Beazley — which, you should note, is not the same thing as saying he’d make a good Prime Minister. He was a strategic thinker and a good orator, both skills lacking in modern politics.

I meant to say it at the time: the articles by Alan Ramsey (which I just quoted) and Annabel Crabb are well worth reading — if for nothing else than the historical snippets Beazley dropped.

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The Leadership (Non)-Challenge

Stilgherrian — Wed, 12 Sep 2007 22:15:08 +0000

When I returned to focus on politics after a busy morning yesterday, I discovered that not only was John Howard still PM, but also that there was never a leadership challenge. Really. How can this be?

I happened to read Crikey first, where Christian Kerr wrote:

Nothing happened in Canberra this morning. Nothing in a Samuel Beckett sort of way. A nothing that means plenty. A nothing that is quite profound.

You’ve right there, Christian! Every newsroom and every politics junkie in the country including myself arced up — prepared, as I said, for the biggest political story in a decade. And then come the time, Howard et al strolled out of the party room meeting as if nothing had happened.

Finally, at 12:45, Tony Abbott appeared. There had been “full and frank discussions”, he said, but there was “absolutely rock solid support for the Prime Minister”.

And then I read Annabel Crabb’s explanation, which helped make sense of it for me:

The past few days of leadership destabilisation in the Liberal Party has exposed an obvious complication: none of the Libs are any good at it.

They are deeply, vastly and irredeemably out of practice, in fact, and it shows.

Every time a tiny public jab is made against the Prime Minister, a great squeal goes up and everybody dashes for cover, and shooshes each other until the next poke of the stick occurs. Honestly, it’s like watching a pack of seven-year-old girls going at a brown snake…

The unprecedented turnout in the press galleries, which Kim Beazley later likened to “three rows of crows, waiting for the sheep to die, yum-yum” was unwarranted; it really was an uneventful hour.

After question time, ministers scurried away lest they be approached for a comment.

All, that is, but Peter Costello who remained for a few words with Malcolm Turnbull, while delighted Labor MPs shrieked at the pair to “take it outside”. If this were the Labor Party, someone’s head would be on a stick by now, and the victors would be on their second round of duck pancakes…

The whole piece is worth a read. And she’s 100% right. Somehow, “insiders” at Alexander Downer and Malcolm Turnbull’s offices convinced Sky New that it’s on. And then the frightened schoolgirls quickly deny it, lest Big Strong Daddy get angry.

John Winston Howard: The Biography makes it clear that Howard is a tactical genius at understanding the numbers game of building political support, and a master of the telephone. That’s why the man who was once a mere 18% in the opinion polls has become the second-longest serving PM in Australia’s history. And the 48 hours before yesterday’s party meeting would have been no exception.

Yesterday Big Strong Daddy convinced everyone that if the ship is in danger of sinking, fast, then the last thing they need is any perception of disunity. And he’s right.

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Who’ll be PM on Wednesday?

Stilgherrian — Mon, 10 Sep 2007 01:04:12 +0000

It’s a good thing John Howard’s very bestest of best friends George W Bush left APEC a day early. Howard could avoid talking about yet another fall in the opinion polls.

On the cover of the recent Howard biography (left), the Man of Steel looks stern and concerned. Apt. If those poll figures are repeated on election day, even with the usual minor swing back to stability, it won’t just be a Labor victory. It’ll be a complete rout of the Liberal/National Coalition.

APEC won’t be the poll boost Howard was looking for. John’s Bestest Best Friend stumbled through his speech like a village idiot — you choose good friends, John! Kevin Rudd looked like a 21st century statesman, cracking jokes in Mandarin with the Chinese president.

Pretty much everybody is saying it’s time for Howard to go — as Annabel Crabb’s witty poem makes clear. But the Man of Steel is in his bunker, fighting to the end.

I do intend to contest [the election], I intend to contest it as leader. That question was settled last year.

In the SMH today, Peter Hartcher says the Coalition would be mad to switch leaders now. I disagree.

Hartcher says the voters dislike Peter Costello even more than Howard, which is doubtless true. But Costello isn’t the only option — and anyway he didn’t wait all this time to become PM only to lose an election a month later. Peter Coorey says Malcolm Turnbull or anyone else at this stage would guarantee disaster. Again I disagree.

This is a disaster already. Pretty much every commentator — apart from Howard’s troglodyte bunker-mates — agree the Coalition will almost certainly lose. It’s now not about winning the election but of salvaging what you can from defeat. And maybe, with a higher-risk approach, the Coalition can still snatch a victory.

If the election is, as Christian Kerr says, a battle between good economic management and the It’s Time factor, if the voters think Howard is yesterday’s man with yesterday’s vision, then they need to change that perception now.

Costello’s out. The poisonous Tony Abbott wouldn’t exactly woo the punters. Brendon Nelson just spent $6 billion on un-needed military aircraft which should have someone phoning to check with the Australian Commission Against Corruption — oh hang on, we don’t have one.

I never thought I’d ever say this. Malcolm Turnbull looks the best choice. I guess that just goes to show how completely screwed the Coalition is.