Downfall of a PM - the Media

Australia just got its first female Prime Minister. Obviously, this is a HUGE historical issue, and I will give it due analysis in my next post.
But for now, I want to say something short about the manner in which it all came about:

I also realise that I may or may not be forfeiting any future career in journalism by saying this, but that's the cost of exercising my own right to free speech, I suppose.

His name is Kevin Rudd. He was the Prime Minister of Australia. He took office after 11 years of socially conservative, economically liberal Liberal Party rule. He had the Unions behind him. He was one of the most popular PMs when he came in, and retained high popularity right up until a few months ago. He led Australia, with his Cabinet, through the worst recession since the Great Depression, and this country also came out of said recession in the best shape of ALL the OECD countries. He tried, three times, to introduce a carbon trading scheme to reduce greenhouse emissions, and was held back on that front by both a petulant opposition, and a weak-kneed Labor Party (his own party).
And all this, within one term (that's only THREE years here in Australia), he was today deposed as leader of the Labor Party, and therefore as Prime Minister of Australia. His deputy, Julia Gillard, was the challenger, and his best mate, Wayne Swan, who was the Treasurer, is now her deputy.
It is all good and historical for Gillard, and I suppose Swan too perhaps.
But let me tell you the key reasons Rudd doesn't have his job anymore::

Firstly, the Australian Labor Party is like the Democratic Party in the USA. How so? In that it is the party more likely to introduce social change legislation, and more likely to tax rich people. It is also the more likely to fold and buckle on itself, which is what has happened here today.
The laughable thing about this is that we have another Federal election mere months away, and they decide to throw it all out here and now.
Perhaps the ALP is going for the Palin-effect - wishing and hoping that all the alleged problems with the current government will be swept quickly under the carpet and simultaneously outshone by the fact that Gillard is a woman. We may also get the alleged Hillary-effect, whereby the women of the country will scream and whinge and chant "I am woman" and talk about "not betraying my sex" and promise to vote for Gillard purely on the basis of her gender.
This concept, by the way, is bullshit. It didn't work for Clinton, or Palin for that matter. Women just aren't that stupid.

The other reason, that is, in conjunction with the utter spinelessness of the Labor Party is this:
The Media.
No surprises there.
The Australian media can be just as incessant, negligent, narrow-minded and useless (among other traits) as the US media, or any other developed nation for that matter.
This is the home of the Murdochs, and the Packers. Journalists will group together like some sort of oppressed racial minority and then inexplicably spit fire and brimstone and all manner of shit at anyone who offends one of their own. I will cease my criticism of the state of Australian media for now, ending with this question to you: is it good to have a united media front as such, regardless of accuracy or perspective?
The Media has done all it could to undermine Kevin Rudd, and by god, they have succeeded exceedingly! He just quit the Prime Minister-ship! They will now seek to destroy Gillard.
If and when a Liberal MP becomes PM, they will seek to do the same to him/her, though not so much. This would be because the Libs favour big business, and media is big business. It's that simple.
Most recently, the government, under Rudd, introduced the idea of a "super tax" on the mining industry. It is not what it sounds like. "Super" does not refer to superannuation (retirement funds), and does not refer to a massive increase in taxation in general. It means 'more than usual' profits gained by the mining industry.

Since secondary industries (factories and production) in this country have been all but shut-down, dismantled, and sold for parts at reduced prices, the only source of income this country had to rely on in terms of exports had been primary industries. And lately, mining has outstripped agriculture. Who would have thought, back when the English brought their convicts here, that there was gold, iron, copper, tin, silver, coal, uranium, nd all other manner of highly useful and valuable mineral deposits buried underneath the broad, brown, and barren landscape of New Holland (modern Western Australia)?
we know now, and we have giant mining companies like BHP and Rio Tinto, both Australian and foreign, digging it all up and flogging it to China.
As always, when money starts moving, the government sticks its nib in and stems the tide with a tax. Because it happened under a Liberal, Big-Business-loving government, the only tax stopping the deluge of MONEY from the mining boom was a paltry 3% or so, based on what were essentially start-up costs of the mines.
Lately, the ALP and Rudd have decided that the billions of dollars the mining co.s are getting from digging up Australia's metals and selling was excessive to the extreme, and that given the oddly depressing economic situation of the world, the Australian people could make a better run at these "super" profits.
OK, so whoever came up with the term "super-tax" should be shot. It just sends the wrong message, which can be misconstrued in so many ways, the main ones I already outlined above.
"Excess Profits Tax"? "Mining Endowment Tax"? "Primary Industry Gross Accumulation Tax"? I just came up with those off the top of my head, and all of them sound better, and makes it just a little harder for the Media to misconstrue it as it has.

But no, the ALP's backbone stopped the show and broke itself, so that the coming election didn't have to break the sweat. "Election, sir, I wonder if I could hobble myself so you don't have to. Can I? Really? Ok!" >crack!<

The Media took candy from a baby on this tax (and this is only the most recent example), and took sides also, egging on the mining industry to run outlandishly inaccurate advertisements on TV, declaring the END OF AUSTRALIA, because retirees won't get to invest their money into over-priced mining stocks, (and watch it all vanish, as only a stock-market can do).
The country will plunge into a horrific recession! And why? Because the CEOs of the mining giants can't buy an extra ivory back-scratcher!
Incidentally, this week a group of Mining industry leaders were in Africa, seeking areas to which they could flee, skedaddle, and take Australian jobs with them. They all had the bright idea to get on the same plane, to charter the plane from some dodgy African government or company (they're all dodgy there), and lo and behold that plane crashed. I cannot express too much sympathy on this news, aside from condolences to the families of the people. And to warm what may have just sounded cold-hearted, I said it because we didn't lose any people who were going to go on and change the world for the greater good. Did we?

The Media then was negligent enough to allow an insignificant Liberal MP to say on camera that those 6 top-dogs died because the Super-tax drove them off to Africa, etc. etc. No, sir, they died because their GREED drove them off to Africa.

To put the Super-tax thing to rest for now, all it ever was was an increase, and a marginal one at that, on the tax on the mining companies. It would cease the paltry 3% (ie nothing) that the govt. was getting now, and begin taxing the outrageous profits of the Mining companies. The result would be a drop in the bucket for the Industry, but comparatively large increase in income for the Australian Government. That means more money for roads, schools, libraries, and other stuff that separates our civil landscape from Africa.

What did the Media really do to lead directly to today?
They overblew the entire thing. They broadcast images of a few hundred union marchers in Sydney, and said that the Australian Council of Trade Unions was no longer on the ALP's side. They gave voice to idiot MPs and mining executives, and even attempted to make it seem like they were being unnecessarily personally offended and made to do without by the tax.
The Media declared united and therefore unilaterally that the govt. was losing the mining tax issue.
And what did the ALP do in response?
The ALP buckled, as to be expected, fired its most popular leader and installed a woman on the badly disguised premise of the Palin-effect. (Palin lost her election, by the way. Remember that, Media??) "Oh shit, we ARE losing it!" "Oh shit, we are going down FAST!"
The ALP's relationship with the Australian voting public is based much in melodrama. They assume that the public is a scornful mistress, which will cut, turn, and run away from them as a lover at the first sign of trouble.

John Howard, the soulless Liberal PM preceding Rudd, stayed in power for ELEVEN! years, because he understood the real nature of the voting public. Firstly, never listen to polls. or at least not for 95% of the time. Secondly, he realised that the public is not a scornful mistress, but more like a suburban housewife - we will stay put and do nothing, suffer countless incidents of domestic violence, never confront issues head-on, whinge incessantly and indirectly, be murderously passive-aggressive, and put up with almost ANYTHING to keep our man with us. Howard cooked his own goose when he tried to drastically reform labour laws, and the only reason that did him in was that he'd already spent 11 years doing nothing of import, and I guess it was too out of character. Actually, another reason is that among the useless population of the ALP members, there was someone who realised that workplace relations could be a point of contention in the 2007 election.

I don't want this to seem at all like an indictment upon Julia Gillard. She has been, for more often than the public ever realised, the real power behind Rudd's office, doing all the work, effectively, while he gallivanted off to observe(but not actually participate) in international affairs, and ask the US president to visit, knowing full-well that himself and Australia are just not important enough, even if the Gulf of Mexico wasn't transforming into an oil-ocean.
But the beaten housewife that the public is was never really aware of the work Gillard has been doing in the background. So it cannot be used as reassurance for her selection as Australia's first PM today.

That's Australian politics for you.

From The Tominator.