Misha Schubert February 5, 2012
WHEN Tony Abbott, at the National Press Club last week, invoked academic Robert Manne dismissing Julia Gillard as ''the least impressive prime minister since Billy McMahon'', the Liberal crowd laughed loudly. Their derision was as much for one of their own former leaders as for the woman who is struggling as Prime Minister.
Manne, considered by conservatives a lion of the left, didn't intend a literal comparison with McMahon, the jug-eared figure of mockery who presided over the Liberals' defeat in 1972 after 23 years in power.
Nor did Manne mean the worst prime minister, mindful of the damage he argues John Howard did to the country. Manne's criticism, and his argument for a resurrection of Kevin Rudd as Labor leader, was about a lack of a narrative, compellingly told, about where and how Australia should chart its course. It's a criticism shared by many of her own MPs, disenchanted and dispirited, as they gather anxiously in Canberra today to hear her pitch for the year and mull over the risks of a switch back to Rudd.
''The Australian people feel the need for some kind of largeness of the Prime Minister, a capacity to dramatise and create a story about the nation, about the world,'' Manne said. ''I thought it might happen [with Gillard] but it just hasn't. I think she just seems to be awkward and mechanical, repetitive and cliche ridden. She doesn't seem to have developed a vision or a capacity to speak in a way that interests people.''
Manne's thesis is qualified. Most of Australia's leaders post-World War II have been impressive, and in that he counts Howard too. His exceptions fall between Robert Menzies and Gough Whitlam - Harold Holt, John McEwen, John Gorton and McMahon.
Historian Stuart Macintyre disputes Manne, arguing Gillard has faced unparalleled political challenges to a prime minister's authority from a hung Parliament with so many bit players. ''She has faced a task that no one has since Menzies and [John] Curtin, and in the circumstances of the war, particularly after 1941, it was inconceivable [the two independents of the day] would desert the government.'' Fate dealt Gillard a much larger coalition to put together and a lesser hold.
''Her political task in managing that circumstance and maintaining office has been uniquely difficult in federal politics and her capacity to do so has been impressive,'' Macintyre said. Yet she may be ''the least effective in articulating a viewpoint since McMahon - we're not talking about too many PMs, here, six, and some of them were unusually eloquent''.
Academic Judith Brett, who has chronicled the history of conservative politics, sees little parallel between the ''bumbling and silly'' image of McMahon and the public's take on the Prime Minister now. Yet there is something ''implausible'' about the public persona of Gillard - stiff and defensive and guarded - which has impeded a connection with people.
''The only person who looks like a leader in the federal parliament at the moment is Malcolm Turnbull. Neither of them [Gillard nor Abbott] appear to be on top of the issues - you don't see them thinking in public, so you don't have any sense of how they are thinking about the problems of the country - you can't believe they are thinking in as simple-minded a way as their statements,'' she said.
Simon Crean, a former Labor leader and one of those in the mix if Gillard loses the leadership, takes a whack back at Abbott for invoking the Manne slight.
''He's the most negative person in the history of the country, a person who stands for nothing, passing judgments about a prime minister who as education minister did more than anyone else to inject the most significant expenditure into the greatest investment a country can make - the education of its people,'' he said.
Liberal tactics chief Christopher Pyne comes to the defence of McMahon's reputation.
''That's clearly unfair on Billy McMahon. He inherited a two-decade-old government with a small majority at the end of its natural life. She took over a two-year-old government with a thumping majority and trashed it in one election. She carries the wooden spoon in this particular race.''
Gillard's friend Warren Snowdon, a parliamentary secretary who has served four Labor prime ministers, insists she is impressive in the psychological strength she has brought to adversity.
''I've served under a number of PMs and she is right up there when it comes to self-control and not allowing herself to be flustered by the idiocy of attacks. She's as tough as teak and has real equilibrium''.
There is scant direct parallel with McMahon, whose personality and circumstances were vastly different. As academic Norman Abjorensen wrote, ''as Prime Minister, McMahon cut a ludicrous figure - a man captive of his own fantasies and seemingly not of this world.'' Gillard, for all her faults, is a realist.
As time went on, both McMahon and Gillard were unable to convince the electorate their ascension was the right choice. After eight months with McMahon as prime minister, in December 1971 one in two voters thought the switch from Gorton was a bad decision. At last count, Rudd outpolled Gillard two to one as preferred Labor leader.
