comprehensive summary of a very fun year in politics That a party could make so many errors in such a short period of time is unprecedented.
They include:
Failure to successfully claim sufficient credit for dodging recession during/after the GFC,
The home insulation fiasco,
The mining tax.
The disillusioning of core supporters with an asylum seeker policy shift for Sri Lanka amp Afghanistan,
The ditching of the ETS "the greatest moral challenge of our generation",
Timing of the election,
The leaks during the election,
The promise to fund the rail link in Sydney linking federal Labor to the reviled and terminal NSW Govt
Cassidy's account is interesting, but there is little new insight.
An easy read but not much insight, Cassidy provides a commentary on the overcovered crazy election campaign ofand the events post election,
A fun read but not much new to offer, Pretty definitive account of the factors leading up to the sacking of Rudd and results of theelection, Much more depth to this analysis than some of journalists attempts after those events, This doesn't offer a smorgasboard of new insights, but there are a few, and it is a solid revision of the events leading up to theelection.
The party thieves are Turnbull and Rudd who lost the confidence of their parties, leading to losses of leadership and in Rudd's case the prime ministership,
The similarities between them are noted: ambition, overblown selfconfidence, limited consultation, But these men emerge as very different characters, Turnbull's competence as an intellectual contributor and policy mind are not doubted, though his political judgement is seriously questioned, In Rudd's case his alienation of his party, the public service, the media, and eventually the public is fascinating, David Marr had already captured the striking differences between public
and private Rudd, and Cassidy continues the theme, Cassidy is particularly interesting on the evisceration of the ministry,
I enjoyed Cassidy's comparisons with his time working to Hawke the contrast with Rudd is compelling,
The end quote from journalist Chris Uhlmann is amazingly prescient and a perfect finishing point,
A good solid read, Although he had been associated with the ALP earlier in his career, Cassidy offers an objective assessment of a party that swept into government in a landslide in Kevin 'but only managed to stretch its tenure into and term through a hung parliament.
This in spite of the Labor government being alone in the industrialized world in successfully navigating the Global Financial Crisis a fact that the Coalition would never concede, even after employing virtually identical tactics to see us through a similar, Covidinspired, crisis.
The major problem was a wildly popular Prime Minister who pulled up the drawbridge on his Caucus amp governed from inside his office with the assistance of only favoured staff amp ministers.
So loathed was Rudd by his own party members that he was removed from the Lodge amp replaced with Julia Gillard not that she moved into the Lodge until after she had also won an election.
Her victory delayed the reign of the man who would prove, in my opinion, to be our worst ever Prime Minister Tony Abbott for anotheryears, For those, like me, who pay close attention to politics this book will prove most entertaining, Sometimes I worry about the bias of the author when reading political books, In this case, Barrie Cassidy has a history with the Labor Party, in particular Bob Hawke's administration but he's able to look at the events surrounding thewith a level of impartiality that I appreciate.
It's interesting that Labor comes off with more of a thrashing, although that could be simply because they're perceived to have made more mistakes, or it could be because Cassidy naturally goes harder on 'his team' or because I'm more aligned with Labor than the Coalition I felt those blows more than the ones against the former.
This book looks at the events from Kevin Rudd's astounding win into the landmarkhung parliament, Considering the ever continuing events in the Australian political landscape I would expect a sequel is forthcoming,
Going in, one might expect the party thieves are those who dethroned Rudd, so it's surprising to learn it's Kevin Rudd who is the thief.
At least in the sense that he immediately changed the way Labor functions by declaring he would personally pick his own ministry rather than the greater Labor caucus, giving him much greater power than any of his predecessors.
This book goes into great detail for the fall of Rudd and lays most of the blame at his feet, as well as those who helped prop him up without any sort of consideration for the future.
He was a popular figure, but he was also someone who backed away from "the great issue of our age", climate change, someone who was doubted by his colleagues, who was accused of being autocratic and a micro manager.
You really get a sense of why he was removed as leader, It's just a shame that reasoning was never given to the public in a timely manner,
The second thief is Malcolm Turnbull of the Coalition, At the time of publication he was biding his time as Shadow Communication Minister, He'd not yet reclaimed the throne he'd stolen,
Turnbull was a thief in the sense he wasn't a typical Coalition member, he was well liked by those on both sides of the political isle, he was seen as more progressive and more likely to fight for his beliefs.
He was a man who made bold claims like:
"I would not lead a party that is not as committed to effective action on climate change as I am"
I wonder what happened to that man, in fact I wonder if he ever truly existed.
Julia Gillard comes off the best as far as it goes, Particularly because Cassidy claims with reason that if it weren't for the damaging leaks from within the Labor Party, she would have been returned as Prime Minister, albiet with a reduced majority.
As much as it pains me to say it, Tony "nobody respects women more than I do" Abbott also comes off fairly well, To his credit he nearly took down a first term government And it pains me to say that about Tony "nobody respects women more than I do" Abbott.
Although I feel his time will come with the inevitable sequel, A must read for anyone with even the slightest interest in politics,
sitelink me/pPASg Barrie Cassidy picked a hell of an election to cover: changes of leaders on both sides of politics, Australia's first female Prime Minister, a hung parliament and a country not knowing who its Prime Minister was for nearly three weeks.
But in the beginning were the Party Thieves, Malcolm Turnbull and Kevin Rudd, Turnbull's manic desire to get his own way in the party, and because he simply stopped listening, led to his demise, Rudd stole the party through his authoritarian approach to government and a cabinet that felt alienated from the job of governing,
In both cases, the members of their respective parties came at the Party Thieves to reclaim what was rightfully theirs, and set the stage for the ascension of Tony Abbott and Julia Gillard.
And all that before we even get to theelection campaign,
The Party Thieves is more than just a campaign diary of the extraordinaryelection and its aftermath it is a riproaring, incisive analysis of a tumultuous nine months in politics that even surprised veteran journalists such as Cassidy.
This is a must read for anyone interested in Australian politics of any persuasion, .