(Courtesy of InDaily Adelaide)

Friday, December 17, 2010

Off with their heads

POLITICS

TOM RICHARDSON

“KILL the head and the body will die.”

That phrase appeared, without explanation, in the notebook of gonzo genius Hunter S. Thompson amid a whirlwind of chaos, carnage and substance abuse on assignment in Las Vegas.

There has been a similar dose of chaos and carnage (albeit, one presumes, without the substance abuse) in the life of the Rann Government of late.

But as the calendar winds down on South Australian Labor’s annus horribilis, party insiders are expressing quite the opposite sentiment to the one Thompson scribbled unconsciously in a haze of fear and loathing.

At various times this year, there has been frenetic speculation about the political future of either Mike Rann or Kevin Foley, sometimes both at once, but rarely neither at once.

Every now and again doubts about the political future of Pat Conlon have been thrown in for good measure.

It is hard to see 2010 as anything but an abject failure for this Government, which is remarkable given it won a historic third term back in March.

Since that high watermark Labor has been dogged by trouble, with its leadership flailing in a sort of collective paralysis, unable to realign the political radar that seemed so unerring for much of the past decade.

But even the celebrations surrounding the election itself were muted; if the victory was the culmination of eight years’ hard work, it was treated more like a bullet dodged, and its legacy has been enduring bitterness within the party.

The leadership is increasingly isolated from the broader party, which seems to be regarded with distrust, and from the media, against which it appears to bear some kind of grudge.

Ironic, given that this has been among the most media-driven and message-focused governments in modern Australia.

For much of the year, the Government has meandered without direction; every now and again, it has been shaken from its funk, forced into action as an issue seizes the public imagination, almost inevitably to the detriment of the Labor brand.

Dodgy electioneering, a slash-and-burn budget, investment in Puglia, the Treasurer’s lonely late-night wanderings and the Premier’s mo: it all adds up to a year from hell.

And the problem is that few in the ALP camp can see anything improving overmuch in 2011 without a dramatic change in the party’s leadership and direction.

They want to kill the head to save the body. Or, perhaps more to the point, they believe the head has long since ceased to function effectively, and must be amputated to prevent the malaise infecting the carcass.

As union lefty Wayne Hanson put it to the party’s recent convention: “The fish stinks from the head down.”

In the scheme of things, yesterday’s mid-year budget review will neither save Foley’s bacon nor hasten his execution.

Coming so swiftly on the heels of a delayed September Budget that has never been far from the forefront of public debate in the interim, it was never going to be anything more than a reminder that GST revenues continue to decline, and that the present administration prizes retaining its AAA credit rating above any other function of state government.

It was also a reminder of the realpolitik nature of September’s financial statement.

The Treasurer says he doesn’t foresee any major savings initiatives in next year’s budget. No great bombshell, of course; the first post-election budget was always going to contain the bulk of the electoral poison.

Foley admitted himself on Budget Day that he structured his economic programs to dovetail nicely with the electoral cycle. After all, the financially prudent approach, if one accepts that this harsh budget cull was necessary, would have been to include the bulk of the savings in last year’s pre-poll budget statement. But that would have been electoral suicide.

Foley desperately doesn’t want the 2010 budget to be his last because he knows it will be far and away his meanest and leanest. At the least, he wants the chance to bring the budget back into surplus next year.

So far, many in his faction feel inclined to give him that chance, not least so they don’t lump some cleanskin with mopping up the dregs of the economic downturn and tar Foley’s successor with the same brush that has helped make the Treasurer public enemy number one among the public sector unions.

Rann and Foley have become inseparable in the eyes of many in the party. Foley says that since his “near-death” experience, he is less inclined to contemplate some symbolic feel-good ending in which the two of them ride off into the sunset together, but that is still the finale favoured by many in the ALP.

Perhaps the pair still hopes a positive budget in May 2011 will buy them another 12 months in the saddle.

“It’s been a rough, tough year (but) I fully expect to deliver next year’s budget … and the one after,” Foley said at yesterday’s press conference.

As ever with Kevin Foley, he got the first bit right, and then took it one step too far.

Even those who want to see him hang around until May would baulk at the thought of another two years with the current leadership at the helm.

After the Kevin Rudd debacle, Labor is keenly aware that assassinating even an unpopular leader does a party no favours out in Voterland. They want to avoid a similar scenario, but not at all costs.

Rann and Foley need a new strategy, a new approach and a new mindset for 2011, because if the new year begins much as the current one has ebbed away, it will only crystallize the view so prevalent among their colleagues that the party must lop off its own head to salvage what’s left of the body.

Tom Richardson is the Channel 9 chief political reporter