Bored Bored Bored 7 & 8

Just one of the lovely folk at the Beck rally. Via Gawker.

There's plenty happening in the world. Pakistan provides an opportunity to test the Susan Sontag theory of compassion fatigue (otherwise known as a gentler reading of a lazy response to an immense, impossible to understand tragedy that actually might have something more to do with a kind of racism based on associating that nation with the 'terror' the west has been fighting all these last 9 years), while Glenn Beck mobilises the conservatives on the steps on the Lincoln Memorial 47 years after a somewhat more articulate and reasonable man mobilised the nation, and world, only 2 rungs higher on the same staircase. UK Labo(u)r move toward their next leader, the Tour of Spain has kicked off, and Carlton made the finals. Just. Plenty going on in the world, plenty to talk about aside from Australian politics.

Surely.

Alby Shultz has been on the phone to the independents to strong-arm their decision. Clever. Neilson have polled the nation re a republic (answer- no. Not now), while News and Galaxy have been polling the independents, twice this week, just to inform said indies that their electorates want a Coalition Government. See what they did there? Clever. On the front page of the Australian, the header reads 'Majority of Independents constituents back the Coalition'. The story continues inside, with the linking header 'Gillard flags Green alliance as Independents back Abbott.'  Ha! See what they did there? Super clever. I guess they could drop the type back a size and include the word 'constituents' to be, like, fair. Whatever.  Tony Windsor was quite rational on this matter this morning, and one expects that he'll remain so. But pressure mounts. From Murdoch, and from elsewhere.

Tony Abmaster is keen, apparently, to be PM. He appeared on Insiders, and was his usual, fluent, reasonable, balanced self.

BARRIE CASSIDY: Tony Abbott, good morning, welcome.

TONY ABBOTT: Morning Barrie.

BARRIE CASSIDY: What are you going to do about Alby Schultz?

TONY ABBOTT: Well Barrie look I'll come to Alby in a sec. But the bottom line is last weekend's election produced half a million more votes for the Coalition than for the Labor Party. And under those circumstances it defies commonsense that a corrupted Labor Government should be put back into power...

BARRIE CASSIDY: Well just before we go to Alby Schultz, on that point though surely we have a preferential system and you lost on the two party preferred vote?

TONY ABBOTT: Well but the bottom line is that the corrupted machine politics which got rid of Kevin Rudd has been totally discredited by this election. And the last thing we should see is this election putting back into power the same kind of faceless powerbrokers that have been utterly discredited and rightly discredited by this election result.

What a repulsive fucken bore.Getting to the message huh! Machine politics indeed. Focus grouped and wrapped in an inane paragraph. Repeat the central four lines. Critiscise the other side for exactly what both sides do. Repeat. Repeat.

A word on this 'machine politics' line. The Labor party is a machine. yes. But the Liberal party is a machine also. As are the Greens. As is the Sex Party. It's a smaller machine, but a machine nonetheless. All organisations are machines. Come on!

However, the reason that Labor has the tag is thanks to Bitar and Arbib, and a piece in yesterdays Australian (yep, with the requisite slant, but a worthwhile piece nonetheless) laid the NSW Labor Right bare. It brings up a worthwhile question- if Labor do form Government (and then win 2013 with a 4-6 seat majority, as Peter van Oslen perhaps amusingly called on Friday's 'Contrarians' program on Sky), will they lose the important opportunity to restructure their broken, and problematic for the nation, system?

See, another question worth asking is-what is the point of Labor right now? In the vacuum of loss between 1996 and 2007, instead of the party galvanising on the basis of ideology and commitment, it became an operation skilled at winning and maintaining state Governments. Each of the big three (Carr's NSW, Bracks & Brumby's VIC and Beattie & Bligh's QLD) looked like getting rolled, and pulled off quite stunning victories. Recent ACT, SA, TAS & NT Labor governments have stumbled and had to form minority Governments. But they've held on. And how? Through a strong set of ideas? No. Through good politicking. And by christ it is boring.  

So where are we? same place we've been, same place we'll be till the end of the week we assume. Labor 72 (or 73 including Adam Bandt), LNP 72 (or 73 if you include the rogue National, who will oppose a mining tax but will sit on the crossbenchs), 4/5/6 'other'. Either way you cut it, it's tied up, with four men calling the card. One of whom (Wilkie), doesn't really want to, and three who remain keen to do so. Ideally before they piss everyone off.