A superb article by Miranda Devine that will appear in tomorrows spectator.
It’s the high achievers, stupid
THE sun was shining, spring had sprung and all was right with the world. The “unelectable” Tony Abbott had delivered Labor its worst primary vote in 100 years and the crazed vandalism of the Rudd-Gillard years was finally over. The mood of the battered electorate was sobbing relief.
But, as the Abbott government’s first year approaches, the chattering classes delight in calling it an
“annus horribilis”. Friend and foe trash the budget. Not tough enough. Too tough. Confusing. Unfair. Disappointing.
But really, what the hell did we expect? Did people honestly think that what Labor took six years to wreck could be put right in a year?
In fact, it took Kevin Rudd less than a year to trash the bounty he had inherited, frittering away the surplus with $900 cheques for the masses, jettisoning successful border protection policies, damaging the relationship with the US president, embarrassing himself on the world stage, and setting in train the calamities that left no institution unscathed and saddled the nation with a $250 billion deficit.
The seeds of tragedy were all there from the beginning of the Rudd government, when Captain Chaos was riding high in the polls.
Yet that euphoric first year of flummery and fakery was hailed a huge success; Rudd was the most popular Prime Minister in our history.
By contrast, Abbott in his first year is slandered daily and trounced in opinion polls by his lacklustre opponent Bill Shorten. Unlike Rudd, he doesn’t seem to mind. He has a black belt in keeping his ego in check.
The screaming protest banshees imagine they smell blood and that soon the aberrant reign of Abbott will be over. They delude themselves. Abbott grows ever more sure-footed as he and his team settle in for a long hard grind.
The boats have stopped, the carbon tax is gone and electricity retailers are quietly flagging 8.5 per cent price decreases. Record infrastructure investment is under way and foreign affairs is a triumph of trade deals, mended fences and moral leadership.
Abbott has defined the mission of his Government: “to demonstrate, through its action, ultimately through its record, that the last six years – the six years between 2007 and 2013 – is not the new normal; that it was in fact just a passing phase.”
Last week he disputed that our system of government is broken: “It’s not the system which is the problem; it is the people who, from time to time, inhabit it.“
Of course it’s the people. Governments and the market are not just machines that operate themselves. They need people of good character and competence to run them.
So before we dig into the bucketful of complaints about the first year of the Abbott government, consider the quality of the people who sit on its benches.
For starters, there are three Rhodes Scholars: Abbott, Malcolm Turnbull, and Angus Taylor.
Two more ministers have degrees from Oxford University: George Brandis, QC, and Josh Frydenberg, who has the added distinction of a Masters degree from Harvard University. Two other MPs also have Masters from Harvard, among the seven MBAs, two MPAs and four PhDs on the government benches. Two more have Masters of Philosophy from Cambridge.
Fulbright scholar Greg Hunt has an MA from Yale to add to his BA and LLB from the University of Melbourne, with honours. Former WA treasurer and attorney-general Christian Porter, a one-time prosecutor who arrived in 2013’s record intake of MPs, has an impressive four degrees, including a Master of Science in Political Theory from the London School of Economics where he topped his class. And he’s a mere backbencher.
Three government MPs are medical doctors, including Dr David Gillespie, a gastroenterologist who won independent Rob Oakeshott’s old seat of Lyne. He is also a farmer, one of 16 in government.
There are at least 30 solicitors and barristers, and five former police officers, including Jason Wood, once a Detective Senior Sergeant in Victoria’s organised crime squad and counter-terrorism unit.
Luke Simpkins also was an officer with the Australian Federal Police and an Army officer of 14 years. Senator David Fawcett had 22 years as an Army officer and RAAF test pilot, and has a science degree and an MBA.
Another humble backbencher is Brigadier Andrew Nikolic, possessor of two master’s degrees, with wartime roles in Afghanistan and Iraq as chief of staff and deputy commander and a post as UN Military Observer in Israel, Syria and South Lebanon.
These are just some of the high achievers representing us on the government benches. They could be earning a lot more money with a lot less scrutiny and scorn than they get in parliament.
Like all politicians, they do it for reasons both altruistic and self aggrandising, but most express the desire to serve.
Take Angus Taylor, 47, another backbencher from the class of 2013.
He has not forgotten the lesson of his grandfather, William Hudson, commissioner and chief engineer of the Snowy Mountains Scheme who, “abhorred snobbery and judged people on character and conduct, not rank.
He worked prodigiously and was extraordinarily humble. The Snowy was never about him.”
In his maiden speech last December, Taylor said: “Some people say politics is about power. I do not agree. It should be about leadership, service and making an enduring difference to the lives of others… (to) make my children proud.”
This is the quiet truth, aside from the headlines about Clive Palmer’s toilet habits or Jacquie Lambie’s predilection for well-hung young men.
Galvanised by the political farce of the Labor years, the Abbott government is full of people driven to revive the nation; serious people who will make the machinery of government work again.
So before we bag a one-year-old administration full of new MPs brim full of promise and idealism, let’s give them a chance, as the prime minister says, to be their “best selves”
Because, judging by their CVs, their best is about as good as it gets.
