By ABC's Annabel Crabb
Updated July 15, 2011 15:59:38
Photo: Can a majority of people be convinced that all of Julia Gillard's steeliness is aligned to their interests? (Alan Porritt, file photo)
Once upon a time, there was a lady prime minister who was not terribly popular. In fact, she was at one time called "the most unpopular woman" in her country.
Protest rallies were marshalled against her, at which placards reading 'Ditch The Bitch' were waved. She was a former education minister, who wrenched the leadership off her predecessor, who then refused to retire and hung around the parliament, a thorn in her side. Her grating, distinctive voice was mocked; one writer described her as sounding "like a cat sliding down a blackboard".
The chick I'm talking about is Margaret Thatcher, but of course it could just as well be our own battling PM, a shy girl from Unley High who has spent this week dutifully copping it in a range of semi-controlled environments around this great nation of ours. Margaret Thatcher earned her 'Ditch The Bitch' placards in 1971, when as education minister she abolished free school milk for the over-sevens in British school. That's pretty hardcore. When you consider that Julia Gillard gets caned for handing out free libraries, you get an idea of the general trend described by the entitlement culture over the intervening four decades.
The Thatcher lesson is that it is possible for an unpopular person to be a successful leader. Also, that grit and determination can be political assets quite independently of the issues on which they are demonstrated. At the moment, grit and determination are probably Julia Gillard's only political assets. All she needs to do is convince people that that toughness will always be exercised in their interests, rather than against them. This is pretty difficult, though, for this reason: people are, on the whole, worried about the escalating cost of living much more right now than they are worried about climate change. Just ask David Jones. The perception of the PM is that she is acting decisively on the issue they don't care about so much, in a way that actually aggravates the very things they ARE worried about.
Plus, of course, there's the misleading comments about carbon taxes in the election campaign. That untruth has now established its own status in this debate. It is a living, snickering hobgoblin that follows Julia Gillard everywhere, and interrupts her every attempt to explain the changes she is proposing to bring about. Without the hobgoblin, Gillard's actual achievements would be far more apparent.
It's worth reviewing them: in the last week, Julia Gillard has released a carbon pricing scheme that is a viable – no, a near-inevitable – parliamentary proposition. It's a result that eluded her predecessor, even though he had far more tranquil waters to navigate. She has done that by negotiating with the Greens, but has somehow managed to wangle a package that is not (in my view) radically greener than the one the Coalition briefly supported nearly two years ago. How do we know that it's not a greenwash? Because petrol is exempt. Because two steel giants, BlueScope and OneSteel, this week declared themselves mollified. Even the zinc smelter dudes seem comparatively relaxed. And we know the coal industry can't be entirely doomed, because Peabody Energy wants to pay $5 billion for Macarthur Coal. Ms Gillard has also undertaken some substantial structural tax reforms that were too hard for her predecessors, raising the tax-free threshold in a way that encourages greater workforce participation at the bottom end of the income scale. Given the hysterical feel to the last few days, it seems counter-intuitive to observe that if you ignore the hobgoblin, the PM's actually had a pretty good week. But it's true. The problem is that you can't ignore the hobgoblin. And the hobgoblin's made the week a misery.
Preparedness to damage oneself politically in pursuit of a difficult reform has – in recent years – become a rare thing. Bipartisan gutlessness is what made the 2010 campaign so dreadful; the ghastly self-effacement of the People's Assembly on one side versus the national swifty that was the promise of a Coalition without an industrial relations policy on the other. Julia Gillard has changed that equation, certainly to her own detriment. Whatever you might think of the carbon policy itself, you couldn't deny that for a girl, the PM has some pretty serious cojones.
The fact that people feel comfortable yelling at her that she is a liar tells you a lot about the difficulty she is in; the extent to which respect for the office itself has corroded during her period of occupancy. But her response to it tells you a lot about her too. She has displayed no sign of panic, unless you count yesterday's micro-sniffle at the National Press Club. Compare this to her predecessor, who used to take Japan to the International Court of Justice every time his poll figures fell below the temperature of a Canberra summer's day.
Can a majority of people be convinced that all this steeliness is aligned to their interests? Can the PM fashion respect from dislike, as the other iron lady did? If she could shake the hobgoblin, she might have a chance.
Annabel Crabb is the ABC's chief online political writer.
Can our Iron Lady shake her carbon tax goblin? - The Drum (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)
