Gerard Henderson, Chairman Rudd, Gough Whitlam and a gerbil view of history ...

It's gerbil week here at the pond, pleased and happy as we are that the little critters have finally had their moment in the sun. Well perhaps not in the sun, unless you're of certain views as to where the sun might shine ...

The Murdoch press have been making hay with Miranda the Devine's rogering gerbils remark - You've been rogering gerbils: Miranda Devine's 'gay slur on Twitter a typical outing. It even led Sally Jackson to marvel in the Oz at a 'media scandalette', which along with the term 'gerbilgate' suggests that Murdoch media hacks will leave no stone unturned in their desire to ravage the English language. (here). As for the universally embraced concept of a 'twitspit' ....

Naturally now when we head off to the Sydney Morning Herald, we immediately think of gerbils and their fate, and sure enough there's Gerard Henderson gerbiling away in Rudd's task is to justify mining tax ... which is to say rogering history in his usual way. Well at least it makes a change of metaphor from talking about a prattling Polonius ...

In his determined bid to stop big mining companies from being taxed, Henderson heads off down a card-sharp path with this opening bid in the history wars:

The times do not suit a Gough Whitlam-style criticism of a key industry. In April 1974, for example, the Labor prime minister alleged Australians had "been subsidising mining investors - mainly foreign corporations". Most Australians today understand that, since European settlement in 1788, the prosperity of the country has depended on foreign investment.

You see, you start with the opener of a "Gough Whitlam-style criticism of a key industry" and in a nanosecond, you can reach for the ace of spades, a lack of historical memory in your readers and in Rudd, his colleagues and advisers. Only in Henderson does the eternal flame of history burn brightly:

Rudd, his colleagues and advisers come from a different generation to the Labor politicians and aides who made up the successful governments led by Bob Hawke and Paul Keating. Hawke and Keating were seared by their close knowledge of the disastrous Whitlam government.

In his memoirs, published in 1994, Hawke referred to its "fiscal irresponsibility". In a series of articles in 1987, Keating criticised "the Whitlam vision", which he regarded as consisting of government spending as a principal means of achieving greater equality.

Okay, the grand thesis is now building. Is there a second ace in the hand? Of course, as irony of ironies, Henderson reveals with a Penn and Teller flourish that Ken Henry is a not so closet Whitlam-ite, possibly even a wombat loving high taxing socialist, and we all know what that means. And worse he delivers his addresses at the Whitlam Institute. Nudge nudge, wink wink:

Last November, in an address to the Whitlam Institute, Henry effectively supported the fact, in its three years in office, the Whitlam government presided over "spending growth of around 56 per cent in real terms". The Treasury secretary acknowledged that subsequent governments chose to fund the additional expenditure though increased taxation rather than by increasing public debt, which had been the Whitlam approach. According to Henry, in the first half of the 1970s increased expenditure was good policy. This is not the view of Hawke and Keating.

Oops, this case is becoming way too convincing. First we must therefore show a little dissembling, a little moderation, perhaps even a denial of the central thesis:

Rudd is much more responsible than Whitlam.

Okay. First class job. The Ruddster's much more responsible. Now let's sweep that aside, go for the kill, land the fatal blow to the jugular:

But he exhibits Whitlamesque characteristics in publicly attacking business leaders and commentators who disagree with him - whether on the now dumped emissions trading scheme, the resources tax or whatever.

Whitlamesque characteristics! And the crime which leads to this character assassination, about on a level with Stalin accusing Trotsky of revisionist tendencies? He dares to publicly attack business leaders and commentators who disagree with him, when he should just go to a corner, sit down and shut up, put on a dunce's hat, and allow whomever to throw eggs at him.

The cheek of the man, for daring to publicly attack business leaders and commentators. What a gerbiling disgrace.

Why Tony Abbott never attacks anyone, such is the sweet and guileless nature of the lad. And it's not as if anyone has been using colourful language when they attacked Chairman Rudd:

It's easy for Rudd to attack mining companies - especially when such entrepreneurial types as Clive Palmer accuse Wayne Swan of being a "socialist", even a "communist".

See! A calm and rational response to the matter of the tax. Compare that to Chairman Rudd's grandiose, delusional, dare we say Whitlamesque pronouncements. We're just waiting momentarily for the Ruddster to call Clive Palmer a Stalinist or a Gaia molester or a Nazi sympathiser. But back to Henderson gerbiling on:

However the real task for the Prime Minister is to explain why Australia needs a resource rent tax and why it is in the national interest for Australia to have the world's highest-taxed mining industry.

This requires the policy advocacy of a Hawke, a Keating, a John Howard or a Peter Costello kind. It was Whitlam who advocated the tactic of crashing through or crashing. But few Australian politicians crashed as comprehensively as Whitlam.

You see! QED. Chairman Rudd is a crash through or crash politician in the mould of a Whitlam.

Oh dear. The things the commentariat do in the name of history. Henderson is of course reliant on the way that for many readers Gough Whitlam's government is but a dream.

But for starters, you'd have to be extraordinarily obtuse - in the Henderson manner - to confuse the bureaucratic nerdy geeky Chairman Rudd's personal style with Gough Whitlam's Latin quoting intellectual academic come lawyer style. Whitlam had a sharp tongue and wasn't afraid to use it.

Launching his book on November 11, 1985, Whitlam said he had seen a headline that said "Sir John breaks his silence".

"I thought," Gough said after a long pause, "another hiccup!" (Cohen, p204)

Or how about this, which might easily be applied to Henderson today:

Accused of poor taste because he had recounted Kerr's interest in Elizabeth Reid, Whitlam said:
"What the Establishment may call poor taste I must, in the circumstances of 1974 and 1975, call the truth of the matter.

"The fact is, it has always been the Establishment's first line of defence to raise the mealymouthed cry of poor taste whenever its interests or, in the case of people like Sir John Kerr and Sir Garfield Barwick, its tools are under attack.

"Let's cut through the humbug on this matter. In the orchestration of the destruction of my Government, no rumour or innuendo, from moral turpitude to financial corruption, was deemed outside the rules of the game, because in this country the Establishment makes its own rules and sets its own canons of taste." (Cohen, pp202-3) (both found here at a neat site about the Whitlam dismissal).

And then there was Whitlam's political style, exemplified by his two week "duumvirate" with Lance Barnard, upon his government assuming power:

The Caucus I joined in 1953 had as many Boer War veterans as men who had seen active service in World War II, three from each. The Ministry appointed on 5th December 1972 was composed entirely of ex-servicemen: Lance Barnard and me.

And then there were the scandals and controversies that littered the Whitlam government, way too many to list here. You can get a flavour of them at the wiki here.

A few of my personal favourites include Lionel Murphy's raid on ASIO, the Vince Gair night of the long prawns affair, the 1973 oil crisis (though Whitlam can hardly cop the blame for what was a world crisis), the lovelorn Jim Cairns as treasurer, and the rampant energy man Rex Connor, a deluded economic nationalist whom Whitlam was unable to control, and who decided that the way to develop Australia was to build a national energy grid and gas pipe-line from the north-west shelf to the south-east. (here).

Next thing you know Connor's on the phone to Tirath Khemlani to tap into petrodollars, and the rest, as they say is history. In its last days, the Whitlam government gave a good impression of South Sydney rugby league team on a bad day, with the coach in the dunny and the players wandering around the field like headless bunnies ...

In all the nonsense scribbled by Henderson he manages to overlook the one key comparison between the Rudd and Whitlam governments - an obstructionist and difficult Senate. By 1974, the Senate had rejected nineteen government bills, ten of them twice, in much the same way as the current Senate has - perhaps sometimes to Rudd's relief - kept much government legislation dithering on the sidelines.

As for the crash or crash through mantra, while this might be true of the early Whitlam, by the time he'd reached his second term, he was a gambler without chips, and it was his inept team, whom Whitlam was unable to control, that did the crashing, while the hapless captain stayed in the bunker.

The point of all this revisiting of a long time ago being that to make fey, superficial and silly comparisons between chalk and cheese is a hallmark of Henderson's scribblings.

It's a bit like the boogeyman parents use to scare small children. Watch out, there's a monster under your bed, and his name is Gough Whitlam. And now dear kiddies there's a new monster under the bed and surprise, while his name is Chairman Rudd, he's really Gough Whitlam. Who is really Freddie Kreuger ...

But the commentariat can't have it both ways. You can't have the likes of Peter Hartcher in How a toxic elixir destroyed the prism of trust explaining how Chairman Rudd has dived in popularity by making craven calculations over convictions, devising pragmatist vote-catching policies in Sussex street style over principled decisions ... and then doing a 180 degree turn to explain that this craven calculation is also the hallmark of a crash through politician. As Hartcher puts it:

By playing the clever manipulator of a public of mug punters, Rudd has merely exposed himself to the public as exactly that. And the people are reacting accordingly.

Australians will never see Rudd in the same light again. Every policy will now be seen as just another piece of clever politics. What's the point of Kevin Rudd? Australians don't know any more.

It's a better read of the current Rudd policy settings, and it's a much better read than Henderson's mumbo jumbo recourse to Whitlamesque nonsense about crash through carry ons up the Khyber.

What Henderson is doing isn't so much history as personal wish fulfilment, a projection of his dearest fantasies. He'd like the Ruddster to be Gough Whitlam, he'd love Rudd to do a Whitlam nee Rex Connor, and try to crash through, and instead crash and comprehensively burn ...

It would make for an interesting hour's therapy session with quack of his choice.

Meanwhile, we look forward to Henderson explaining and justifying the miners' case for avoiding tax, and without the hysterics and posturing that recently marked the taxing of the tobacco industry ... which saw the Institute of Public Affairs do special pleading about a three billion dollar payment due to the coffin nail sellers for government infringement of their "intellectual property rights". (cf Media Watch's excellent Smoking Out the Spin).

The rest of Henderson's column is a standard bit of growling about Rudd in Polonius style, but I wish he'd someday spend as much time explaining the virtues of Tony Abbott.

In either case, I have my suspicions of a man so careless with the historical record and so lax in historical comparisons, and so disinterested in anything but a partisan reading based on a specious linking of two quite distinct people operating in two quite distinct historical periods and circumstances ...

As usual I feel a poem coming on:

Yesterday is History,
'Tis so far away
Yesterday is Poetry
'Tis Philosophy

Yesterday is mystery
Where it is Today
While we shrewdly speculate
Flutter both away (Emily Dickinson, here).

Oh and as for that gerbil under the bed, the crash through or crash monster, here he is ...

(I know, I know, I've used it before, but it really does look like Gough Whitlam and Chairman Rudd combined, doesn't it, lurking under the bed with those red commie eyes. And that mining tax shoe is the only way to lure it out so you can kill the beast. Or at least gerbil it with a water pistol):