…from Tumblr, so that people without a tumblr can comment.
Politics, that word has many different meanings. The one many are most familiar with relates to party politics and trying to get elected. Under that definition we get talk of Labor v Coalition, polling, and endless horse-race journalism etc etc. But ultimately, what party apparatchiks have been forgetting for so long, and what we now see the political journosphere has also forgotten, is that the point of politics, and for most the point of government, is to try and change society in some way for the better.
Clearly people have different opinions about what that means but i’m pretty sure one thing we could all agree on is that helping people in a natural disaster like the Queensland floods is priority number one for anyone involved in politics or governance. Even for the most hardened party hack, who could only see the NBN or the stimulus spending as part of a re-election strategy, even that person would surely see this kind of tragedy, this scale of tragedy, as a time when their first role in life, their first instinct, is to help others.
In that context i find it incredibly sad that people can respond to Annabel Crabb’s latest and say “oh well, she only does politics/political analysis.” How is it not the job of someone who writes about politics and government to mention more about Anna Bligh’s efforts than the half sentence fourteen words here
Prime Minister Julia Gillard has suffered this week for two reasons; first, she was compared to an extremely useful colleague (Anna Bligh, whose ability to convey public information tautly and effectively made her indispensable), and second, she was unable to come up with much by way of national reassurance beyond the usual platitudes about hearts going out and so on.
Seriously, how caught up in the false construction that is the game of Federal Politics would you have to be to talk about a disaster as something that can be “buggered up?” How can someone write this piece and not pause halfway to think, hey, maybe there’s more to life right now than who wins the next federal election.
I don’t want to appear naive, i understand that Federal Politics is a game played 24/7 blah blah blah, and that politicians probably are thinking about their electoral prospects as this is playing out, but i really can’t comprehend how someone who doesn’t have to worry about such matters could bang out a column where they think about nothing but these kind of issues. There HAS to be more to life and political culture than who’s winning elections otherwise there is literally no point in the exercise.
Not quite sure of your point here. Are you saying Crabb wrong to write about the political angle?
Comment by Dermott Banana — January 14, 2011 @ 6:02 pm
I don’t see Crabb saying anywhere that the fact that a politician can ‘bugger up’ their response to a disaster is the most important thing to consider. It’s just one aspect – an aspect that could have been central if Bligh weren’t doing such a good job; no doubt if the political response had been poor you’d have expected Crabb to comment on the potential fallout.
A national disaster is exactly the kind of thing that can and does make or break politicians, and I don’t think it’s inappropriate, given the ‘making’ of Anna Bligh, to consider the difficulty that the situation presents to pollies. Is your problem how little time is spent on Bligh in particular, or the tenor of the article altogether? Because you seem to contradict yourself and it confuses me. Should Crabb be writing about something different altogether (‘more to life than politics’), or do you just not like that she didn’t expanded on just one of the points she made, which everyone’s already talking about anyway (‘more about x politician, please’)?
Just as Crabb seems to be implicitly saying that sometimes we expect too much – or contradictory things – of politicians in a natural disaster (not an entirely insensitive point to make at this time), are you maybe expecting too much of Crabb? She’s a writer, not your mum or your yogi. She’s not there to make you feel better or explain how there’s ‘more to life’. She’s there to discuss the politics. I note you’ve already pre-dismissed this argument as ‘blah blah blah’. If so, then isn’t your blog post just as indulgent as Crabb’s piece?
Comment by Mithra — January 14, 2011 @ 6:59 pm
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Matthew Lee and Matthew Lee. Matthew Lee said: I've brain dumped some longer thoughts on the "she just writes politics" aspect of this discussion. http://bit.ly/eouZNd [...]
Pingback by Tweets that mention Cross posting a brain dump « The thewetmale Institute -- Topsy.com — January 14, 2011 @ 11:00 pm
My issue is that what is reported on by Federal Politics reporters, what is presented as important, is one derivative away from what’s actually important. It this case Annabel Crabb is saying that disasters are difficult for politicians not because so many people are relying on them and their governments for so much in life but because a politicians media profile may be damaged if they don’t respond appropriately.
While that is true, and it would be naive to assume politicians or at least their media advisors aren’t concerned about that now, it’s a major problem when the former is completely disregarded in favour of the latter by journalists. It’s the same thing as when journalists, during the election, were asking Julia Gillard at press conferences whether she’s distracted or whether her message is getting out. All of a sudden normal political reporting consists entirely of the concerns back room media advisors.
While their type of concerns are worthy of reporting in the final weeks before an election, there needs to be a return to (assuming i’m not dreaming of a false historic ideal) examining the concerns of citizens framed as “is the government providing services and general well being competently” rather than “are the politician’s messages getting out, who’s message is dominating?” It’s not that the latter is unimportant but that, more often than not, the meta discussion is only a reflection of the primary questions i.e. a government is more likely to be elected if they generally provide competent implementation of programs and promises that voters feel are in their interests.
This article, to me, belongs more in the trade magazine of spin doctors rather than as the top political analysis on the website of the national broadcaster. For a better approach, while still discussing both the politics and the Politics, see Andrew Elder.
Comment by thewetmale — January 15, 2011 @ 11:19 am