By Darrin Barnett Friday 12 June 2015
Photo: Should Tony Abbott cash in and go to an election by the end of the year? (ABC News)
Everyone in politics is a gambler, knowing which battles to pick, who to befriend, when to attack. But this week, both Tony Abbott and Bill Shorten would have felt like the odds were stacked against them, writes Darrin Barnett.
In my student days, I spent a lot of time at a pub less than a block away from the main Melbourne University campus called the Clyde Hotel.
Like any good pub, it had beer, a beer garden, pool tables and a jukebox, and the most played song, year after year, was The Gambler by Kenny Rogers.
A strange choice for 1990s inner-city undergraduates to choose a somewhat daggy 1978 rendition of a country classic.
The gambler's thoughts, however, explain many things about today's political dynamic.
What is apparent now - and I perhaps should have realised then - is that the gambler always knew more than the rest of us.
The song itself is about someone down on their luck - who receives some sage advice from the battle-hardened gambler in exchange for a swig of whiskey.
The chorus is well-known:
You've got to know when to hold 'em, Know when to fold 'em, Know when to walk away, And know when to run.
You never count your money, When you're sittin' at the table, There'll be time enough for counting, When the dealin's done.
But one of the verses is even more instructive when assessing today's politics in Australia, and given the polls at the moment, it applies equally to Abbott and Shorten right now:
Every gambler knows, That the secret to survivin', Is knowin' what to throw away, And knowin' what to keep.
'Cause every hand's a winner, And every hand's a loser, And the best that you can hope for is to die, In your sleep.
Everyone in politics is a gambler of sorts, knowing which battles to pick, who to befriend, when to attack or defend, whether to take up the cudgel or shut the hell up, or simply pass the blame to somebody else.
Most of the major political players this week would have thought the odds were stacked against them.
The upshot is that we have Opposition Leader Bill Shorten in trouble, Treasurer Joe Hockey in even more trouble, and Prime Minister Tony Abbott needing to make a call whether to follow the advice of the Gambler and fold his Treasurer so he can cash in and go to an election by the end of the year.
Hockey's much publicised gaffe on the easy road to home ownership has left the Prime Minister stubbornly clinging to a politician who seemingly doesn't always think before he opens his mouth.
"The starting point for first home buyers is to get a good job that pays good money" speaks volumes about the Treasurer's perspective and it doesn't sit well with middle Australia, who are battling to keep their job and pay the bills, let alone enter the booming property market.
University of New South Wales analysis, published by Fairfax, showed that a first-home buyer on their own would need to earn about $152,000 a year to afford an average house or unit in Sydney; $115,000 in Melbourne; and $111,000 in Canberra.
That isn't a good job, it's a great job, and the simple reality is that most Australians will never earn that sort of money.
The problem for Hockey is that it's a case of déjà vu - whether it's asserting that poor people don't drive cars or smoking a cigars after putting the finishing touches on the harshest budget in living memory.
If Abbott were to honestly come up with one of his famous three-word slogans, it would be "Out of Touch", but the bigger question is whether it should be: "Out of Time."
To follow the song, Abbott would be considering this: "The secret to survivin', Is knowin' what to throw away, And knowin' what to keep."
Things are no better on the other side either.
Opposition Leader Bill Shorten's past may come back to haunt him through either the Trade Union Royal Commission or a three-part television series looking into how the ALP got it so wrong when last in government.
As the series title suggests, it is indeed the political Killing Season - the last sitting fortnight before both houses rise for the winter recess.
This is a time when political parties get rid of deadwood, even leaders, in part because the Labor Caucus and Coalition party room won't meet formally again until Parliament sits again in the week beginning August 10.
In other words, there is no turning back from decisions made before a long break.
This week was expected to be all about Shorten: his dealings when he was national secretary of the Australian Workers' Union and also what role he may have played in the removal of two Labor prime ministers through the ABC documentary series The Killing Season.
Allegations from the royal commission were printed on the front page of Fairfax newspapers on Thursday that Shorten "oversaw a deal where a builder paid his union thousands of dollars in union dues".
Shorten describes the story as an "unfair smear" while Abbott is goading the Opposition Leader for dodging questions about whether he had duded his members, which could be career-limiting if proven.
As the Gambler would tell you, Shorten has already walked away from one of his closest political allies, former AWU Victorian secretary and now ALP Victorian Upper House MP Cesar Melhem, but he has nowhere to run.
In addition, while week one of The Killing Season was fairly benign, weeks two and three promise to air the dirty laundry of the party - and with it, Shorten's role in the knifing of both Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard.
The feeling around the traps was that if things went far enough south for Shorten, we could be heading for an election this year.
After a disastrous first budget, uninspiring second budget, a series of broken promises and a declining economic position, Abbott doesn't have much to campaign on beyond "We're better than the other guys".
But then in comes Joe Hockey and his goofy comments.
Abbott was forced to defend him but also made the point that he clearly understood how tough things are out there in the suburbs.
As I have written previously, you don't want to be the Government in charge when Australians come to the conclusion that home ownership is no longer a reality.
Abbott's answer that it's tough for cabinet ministers too didn't make it across the line and this was in danger of becoming the dominant theme for Parliament next week.
So the Prime Minister skilfully shifted from main street to side street with yesterday's comments on wind turbines.
"Not only are they visually awful but they make a lot of noise," he told the Alan Jones program.
So much noise, Hockey will be hoping, that he gets to die, politically speaking, in his sleep rather than in a far more immediate and brutal fashion.
Darrin Barnett is a former Canberra Press Gallery journalist and press secretary to prime minister Julia Gillard. He is now a fellow of the McKell Institute.
