Gerard Henderson, Chairman Rudd, the latest essay and five more years

Fragging used to be a solution to leadership issues in the Vietnam war, but these days the Liberal party seem to have invented a new approach called we might call debulling.

There's Wilson Tuckey going around calling his leader arrogant and inexperienced, while Tony Abbott cavorts around  pretending that he's the new policy messiah when he's just a naughty boy.

And they wonder why Malcolm Turnbull is suddenly the sixteen per cent boy. As a result, even the commentariat columnists seem to have given up heart. Here's Gerard Henderson, having a go at Rudd's essay shows his tribal loyalty.

The Prime Minister’s essay tells us much about his economic thinking. It will serve as a benchmark to assess his policies in, say, five years. From here, Rudd is on his own. He believes he knows the causes of the GFC and that he has the solutions to Australia’s economic problems. It’s a big call.

In five years!? Say it ain't so, you're wanting to take a look at PM Rudd and the effectiveness of his  policies in five years time? Five years!

Dearie me. That's a big call - according to whiz kid Abbott, the next election is there to be won. But Henderson clearly can't see it, and he spends his entire column refusing to land a glove on Chairman Rudd.

His chief points seem to be that Rudd is tribal and partisan. Hello? A politician that's tribal and partisan? I guess that must be a shock to Malcolm Turnbull.

So the chief interest devolves around how early Henderson can get in an astute, worshipful mention of his departed demi-god John Howard.

He manages it in a most seemly way, and for all those betting and tipping, it comes in the fourth paragraph:

... his (Rudd's) latest essay turns on far more partisanship than any that John Howard and Peter Costello engaged in while the Coalition was in government between March 1996 and November 2007.

Yes yes of course. John Howard and Peter Costello, blessed as they were with humility and insight and a grip on reality, were always ready to acknowledge their huge debt to Bob Hawke, and were even more righteous in their praise and love of Paul Keating and his economic policies. I remember the way they praised and honored Keating all the way to the election that saw them come to power.

But the evil Rudd lacks their generosity because he's politically tribal. Whereas Work Choices was politically cosmopolitan.

Obsessed as he is with the past, Henderson is piqued by Rudd's essay failing to mention either Howard or Costello - why that's grounds for instant failure and perhaps dismissal from the pious worshipful church of Henderson - while even Hawke and Keating only get a fleeting reference. I understand that the role of Sir Edmund Barton in federation and as our first prime minister is also overlooked.

Perhaps Chairman Rudd will need to take out an errors and omissions insurance policy when it comes to his next essay - I dread the thought, but the kind of easy free kick Henderson keeps on giving him make me think we could be listening to the insights of Chairman Rudd every time he goes on light duties. Keep the man at the coal face, for the love of the lord.

But back to the essay. Henderson complains that it's light on names, but you have to suspect this was a cunning ploy by Rudd to remove what might be called the Hayek factor. When Rudd dragged in his name last time, the commentariat went loopy, offered up a tasty morsel on their pet turf.

This time around all that Henderson can do is moan about the omission by Rudd of Bill Clinton and Gordon Brown from the conversation, and meander back to the odd sight of Gordon Brown and Chairman Rudd in each other's pockets at St Paul's Cathedral in London in March.

But Brown is cruising for a bruising while Henderson is calling Rudd as having another five years of policy implementation. It's a big call. So what's left for our prattling Polonius? Not much, except for fierce resentment about Chairman Rudd still tipping the bucket over neo liberals and refusing to acknowledge how the sun shone from all parts of John Howard, even unto the tips of the bushy eyebrows.

The problem with Rudd’s partisanship is that it is capable of adversely affecting his long-term solutions to Australia’s economic problems. If right-of-centre politics is responsible for the GFC, then the British economy should be in a stronger position than Australia’s. It isn’t.

But to acknowledge this Rudd would have to concede that the Howard government made some correct decisions on taxation and expenditure, industrial relations including waterfront reform and financial regulation and oversight.

For the love of the lord, enough with the wonders of the John Howard government. He and Peter Costello have gone, or are going. It's over. Live with the dream if you like, or work out ways to get back into power. 

The best Henderson can do is a short paragraph of feeble anxiety about re-regulating the labor market and the emissions trading scheme, and the impact on the power industry and employment.

It's almost an after thought, before the concluding wrap up and the fateful mention of a further five years of Chairman Rudd.

It's a petulant and sulky conclusion. Rudd is on his own, and he thinks he has the solutions to Australia's economic problems. Sure it's a big call, but when the commentariat keep wandering back a decade as if it's somehow relevant to today's policy issues, they hand Chairman Rudd yet another free kick.

A child who was born in the month John Howard came to power would have already celebrated their thirteenth birthday. Meantime, there's a loon like Tuckey still stomping around the corridors of power like a jolly swagman, and Tony Abbott introducing all kinds of chaos and confusion as he prances and preens about like a policy peacock.

Last time I looked Abbott was the shadow minister for families, housing, community services and indigenous affairs, and here he is acting like the de facto leader in a policy vacuum.

Golly, I feel like the coach of the Roosters at half time. Come on Liberal party and commentariat columnists, get your act together. Are you telling us you don't know the cause of the GFC and you don't have solutions to Australia's economic problems that are competitive with Labor and saleable to the electorate? That's a big call.