The Road To Ruin - What does it really say?

The Road to Ruin

By now most of you will have heard of and seen the media reaction to Nikky Savva's book The Road to Ruin. The media (of course) have focused on the salacious but unfounded thought of the Prime Minister and his Chief of Staff bonking away in the PM's office. This of course is to totally miss the point.

To be very clear the book never alleges an affair between Tony Abbott and Peta Credlin. There is simply no evidence for that. However the book does allege that the two of them (PM and Chief of Staff) were simply unsuitable for the job at hand.

It's important to recognise who Nikky Savva is. She's a successful columnist with the Australian. (the conservative broadsheet owned by Rupert Murdoch.) Her columns tend towards the sensible, with a clear right wing bias. She claims to have been more leftist in her youth, but has come more to the right wing with age. She is married to Malcolm Turnbull staffer Vincent Woolcock and it's through this prism that I tend to view this book.

One of the surprising things about this book is the amount of people who went on the record to talk about their time under the Abbott and Credlin regime. In my view such intimate access could only have come with Prime Ministerial approval. I'm not saying Savva wrote the book because Turnbull asked her to, but it's my guess that Turnbull felt that an explanation in the public sphere of why his coup was nessesary would benefit his Government.

The book paints a picture of Credlin as an emotional roller-coaster. A difficult person to work with for sure, but a master manipulator. Savva alleges that Credlin jealously guarded access to the Prime Minister, but also forced anyone she disliked to resign. There were two traits that seemed to get you on her list. First was intelligence. Anyone smarter than her was a threat, not an asset. The second was gender. She seemed to dislike powerful females.

The two (other) most powerful women in Abbott's life were of course his wife Margie and Deputy Leader of the Liberal Party Julie Bishop. Both were subject to Credlin's wrath. Credlin sought to keep Margie as far from Abbott as possible, even going so far as to ask staff at Kiribilli House not to order food for Margie or to shop for the family.

Julie Bishop however could not be dismissed so easily. She was Foreign Minister and Deputy. Credlin interfered deeply in the policy realm. It was Credlin who vetoed Bishops trip to Lima Peru for a climate summit, stating that Bishop couldn't be trusted to hold the party line. Bishop was able to prevail on that occasion.

So to sum up Credlin was unable to set up the kind of environment that uses employees strengths. So focused on her own inadequacies, she moved on all the best performers, making herself the smarted person in the room. Then without a hint of irony she complained about the loss of institutional knowledge.

As for the public face of the debacle, Tony Abbott. He's portrayed as a dullard, under Credlin's thumb and caught in an unreal bubble of his own (and Credlin's) creation. She felt she had to babysit him whenever he was in the media spotlight, not to do or say something stupid. (like eat an onion for example). That led to a massive backlog in her in-tray, meaning work just didn't get done.

She would brief against other ministers to the media and he did nothing. Famously she let it be known that she had tried to stop him from knighting Prince Phillip. When the Prime Minister's own Chief of Staff is briefing against her boss, it is a sign that their relationship has failed. Abbott stalwartly held her close.

Abbott's inability to override her forceful personality was his downfall. His inability to assert himself as the boss was negligent on his part. In fact he referred to her as "the boss" in private. He could not bring himself to fire her, or at least move her on.

So, What do we make of this book?

On the whole I believe it. Nothing printed here seems to contradict the experience of those two years.

I must admit I have always felt a deep personal loathing of Tony Abbott. He makes my skin crawl. He reminded me of the bullies I used to know at the selective boys high school I attended. These were often the children of middle class professionals with higher than average IQ's who seemed to carry deep insecurities and only found relief from their inner demons through violence. While their IQ's were high, their EQ's or emotional intelligence were pathetic.

Tony Abbott, a Rhodes Scholar seems to have had a high IQ at some time, however his EQ remains minuscule. He's a shell of a man at the moment muttering "I could have won" to anyone who will listen and blames Julie Bishop and Scott Morrison for his demise. The actual author of the downfall of Tony Abbott can be placed squarely on the shoulders on one man.

Tony Abbott.

Who killed the PM?

And Now Our Nightmare Has Ended?

I haven't posted anything since Malcolm Turnbull took over as PM of Australia. The reason is simple. I had nothing to say you couldn't read hundreds of other places, including the mainstream media. I can change that now.

There has been a great deal of questioning of the media's role in Australian political life. Both traditional and social media have been blamed for the new unstable era of Australian politics. I think it's a nonsense pedaled by angry and scared politicians who barely comprehend what in happening and so blame the media, not their own behavior.

The day of 14/09/15 will always be remembered by political tragics as the day Tony Abbott fell, but whether it becomes a sea-change event in the life of our nation is still an open question.

The way the media in Australia treated this event was telling, best summed up by the reaction on Q&A when the results of the Liberal Party votes came through.

Listen to the audience reaction. First there is an audible intake of breath at the news the result was in, then a long sigh of relaxation as they realise the result has gone the way they hoped. Thank God for that they seemed to say. Even bearing in mind the bias of a Q&A audience (Malcolm Turnbull is the darling of Q&A crowd) it's pretty clear that Australia wanted this change. The voters of Canning that weekend certainly showed their appreciation, with election results rising 5% for the Coalition over predicted pre Turnbull levels.

Social media lit up with the #putoutyouronions hashtag going viral. This was an unpopular leader being given a bronx cheer on the way out. In short Australia wanted him gone.

Overseas the reaction was more concerned. Most non Australian media which covered the situation raised an important issue. Malcolm Turnbull was the 5 Australian PM in 5 years. What was causing this instability in a nation that has low(ish) unemployment, never entered recession during the Global Financial Crisis (GFC), a fairly low level of debt (although action was necessary) and reasonably good fundamentals.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ipdFbtFVe7o

So what is going on here? After 3 PM's between 1983 and 2007, we have now had 5 between 2007 and today. Has the Australian public changed so much between 2007 and 2015 that new rules apply, or is there something else going on here?

I would suggest that while there have been many changes in Australian society since the turn of the century, social media has been the most powerful one. Many people now have their news filtered through Facebook. They wake up and check their account to see what has happened during the night and early morning. I know i do. My Facebook account is filled with stories from ABC, BBC, CNN and the Guardian to name just a few. What I don't see is The Daily Telegraph, The Herald Sun, Fox News etc. Why not? Well 2 reasons:

1. The News Corp sites all have a paywall, so I can see the headline and the 1^st paragraph mostly, but that's it
2. The News Corp sites all give me a headache when I try to engage with ideas I fundamentally dislike at 7am.

My Facebook friends tend to skew in a similar political directions, so they are likely to share and like stories of the same political persuasion as me. From the refugee advocate who works for a minor political party and shares the latest stories of the horrific things going on in Detention Camps on Nauru and Manus Island to the Labor Party local government Councillor who is globally aware and posts about interesting labor market issues in North America in particular given he has a spouse from Canada. Indeed it's quite jarring when someone posts something not from this mindset.

It's easy to be caught in an echo chamber under these circumstances. But here's the thing. I think one thing tends to pull us out of an echo chamber better than any other force. Employment. Employment in a non-political role means you must interact with people with all different types of political opinion. Sometimes you meet people vilified in the mainstream and social media. Personally I developed real affection for the sassy Muslim girl who was always 1 step ahead of me as her manager, or the refugee, who was my boss and was the most driven man I have ever met. Then there was the damaged conservative bloke who had seen it all before and used to roll his eyes at my crazy ideas, but was quick with a joke and would explain to me how my idea would screw up everything..... It's these interactions that are the antidote to the echo chamber. Real people.

So I don't think that the echo chamber effect is responsible for some massive change in the Australian voting public. There are some Australians caught in an echo chamber, but they tend to be career politicians and media types(only interacting with people like them), retirees and the unemployed/disenfranchised. It's no coincidence that the stereotype of the typical racist is an old racist bloke listening to Ray Hadlee and Alan Jones. He gets no other input. Of course he's going to fear muslims and refugees, he's never met either and all the voices in his echochamber are afraid.

Which leads us back to the political class and the echo chamber. These people don't have the balancing factor that is employment. They only interact with like-minded individuals. It's this that I see as the cause of all the instability in recent years. Take the ousting of Kevin Rudd.

The Rudd Government had been quite popular and Kevin in particular was well liked as a PM. The Rudd Government had made Climate Change Action a top priority. Rudd forced then opposition leader Malcolm Turnbull to back his plan for an ETS. Turnbull agreed, but was deposed in favor of Tony Abbott by the God fearing, science denying nutjobs that form the right in the Liberal Party.

How did these people become science denying idiots?

1. Self deception. If 97% of doctors say I have lung cancer and need chemotherapy, I should go to get the treatment I need. What i shouldn't do is up my cigarette intake and hope for the best.
2. The Echo Chamber. Everyone I know seems to agree with me that 97% of doctors are wrong and we should smoke more because we have bought shares in the tobacco company and a rising sea level lifts all boats....
3. The Death of Intellectual Curiosity. If you are deceiving yourself about the above, you won't want to hear anything about cancer at all because deep down you know you are deceiving yourself and any information that confirms the truth is both to be rejected and feared.

So the echo chamber can reinforce the self deception that we all indulge in from time to time. However when you are a powerful group faction in the Government it becomes highly dangerous and causes terrible damage.

Case One

Rudd has placed a great deal of work and hope on the Climate Change Summit in Copenhagen in 2009. He had even been given a special role by the chairman (The Danish PM) to rally support for real reform. Then the climate summit at Copenhagen happened. The world was not ready to come along with us. Rudd then fumbled around for some time before dropping climate change in the "too hard" basket. Voters were angry and his polling numbers dropped precipitously.

Most 1^st term governments become unpopular in Australia. John Howard in particular had a tough 1^st term with lousy polling, but was returned after laying out a plan for financial reform. The last public opinion poll of the 1^st Rudd Government had Labor leading 52%-48% Two Party Preferred (TPP). Rudd was still a popular PM in the prime of his power.

But Rudd had never been liked inside the party. He was abrasive, dismissive, made too many "captains calls" and became a hated man. An Anti Rudd faction began to form. They got there hands on some "dire" internal polling that claimed Rudd could not win the next election. So they gathered the numbers and rolled him. It was quick, clean and made Australia cry out in unison WHAT THE FUCK?

You will notice that the media played little to no role in Rudd's downfall. There was little speculation leading up to it, it was all the politicians. The Labor Party acted in a shallow, unprofessional, vindictive and immature fashion. So anyone counselling that the new instability since 2007 is the media's fault (be it mainstream media or social) has little evidence to back their theory from Rudd's demise.

Case Two

Julia Gillard took this shambles of a political party to minority government in the election of July 2010. Rudd refused to step down and resign from Parliament as deposed PM's are expected to do and his strategic leaking of sensitive information about Julia Gillard's positions in cabinet under his Prime Ministership. After the election he was appointed foreign minister, but he never really gave Gillard a chance to chart her own course because he was sniping and undermining her every step of the way. Which was his plan all along. Tony Abbott and Pete Credlin have both claimed credit for the defeat of Julia Gillard but the truth is the Liberal Party didnt defeat her. Rudd did. Of course the News Limited papers sniped every day and wore away at her, but without the underlying instability of having a highly popular PM doing everything he can to destroy her from the ministry and then the back bench, all the negativity from the media would have mattered very little. Julia's downfall was not due to the media reporting she was in trouble, the trouble was already there. Blonde bespectacled trouble. Rudd and his supporters are totally to blame for the instability from 2010-2013. Not Murdoch, not Twitter, but Kevin Rudd.

Case 3

Kevin Rudd took over again in 2013 in time for the 2013 election in an attempt to salvage the situation and "save the furniture". He got his wish. He defeated Julia Gillard and was PM again. For less then 3 months. He achieved his goal of destroying Julia Gillard's Prime Ministership but the fallout was completly predictable. The Australian voters were completly sick of the soap opera. Anyone arguing that the Labor Party deserved another term were kidding themselves and Australia gave them the kicking they deserved. Anyone blaming the media for Rudd's second demise really has issues with reality.

Case 4

Tony Abbott ran the worse government I can remember. He systematically destroyed his credibility with bizarre and ridiculous pronouncements. He had the most obvious case of echo chamber fever I have ever seen. Australia saw it to. He surrounded himself with like-minded individuals so much that his cabal seemed to regard anyone with slightly varying opinions to the norm as an enemy. Then he alienated anyone who disagreed with his bizarre views, picked fights with absolutly everyone and his administration blamed their mistakes on everybody but them. He had to go. Turnbull was the logical candidate to replace him, giving 5 PM's in 5 years. Once again, it wasn't Twitter, Facebook, the Fairfax Press or the ABC who brought Abbott down, it was his bizarre take on reality.

The Echo Chamber

To come full circle Turnbull was the PM change outside of the election that we wanted, indeed yearned for. Of course Turnbull's premiership was not universally greeted with joy.

http://www.ntnews.com.au/news/opinion/opinion-why-you-made-a-big-mistake-not-appreciating-tony-abbott/story-fnk0b216-1227549538389

Now Andrew Bolt can say we made a mistake if he wants, but that's because Bolt is a reality denying nutjob. He works in and actually contributes to the right wing nutty echo chamber. He says it's our fault, but he is wrong, it's not our fault we derided at Tony. He did dumb things. He deserved to be laughed at.

Of course, the fault lies with Tony. But there is one more thing. The fault of creating the echo chamber, that's Bolt and his mates at the Murdoch Press They are the enablers. They created the conditions where Abbott thought he was doing a reasonable job at reflecting the country's values, but people like Bolt, Ray Hadlee and Alan Jones don't speak for me. In fact they don't speak for the majority of Australian, they speak for a very small minority of Australia. That is the truth that Bolt, Hadlee and Ackerman forget, when they write, often it's not us the public at large they are persuading, its the politicians who are living in the echo chamber.

The Mass Media - A Users Guide

Mass Media- A Users Guide

I can remember a world before the Internet. It stands to reason. I was born in 1975. For me growing up if I wanted to know a fact, I opened up the set of Encyclopaedia’s that most households had, or if that failed I had to go the my local Library. (yes I understand the Dewey Decimal system). Discovering facts was hard work which required time and effort. These days wikipedia can answer most things for you in seconds. That's a great thing. So why do people seem more ignorant now than when before this was possible.

The Gatekeepers

Do you know this man. Anyone who lived in NSW during the 70's, 80, and 90,s will. This is Brian Henderson. He was the Newsreader for National Nine News. Most of Sydney sat down in front of the TV every night at 6pm and received good honest news from this one source. The Nine Network ran ad campaigns based on the trustworthiness of this man. “Brian Told Me” was a slogan we accepted and lapped up. Melbourne similarly watched Brian Naylor together, while in the United States names like Dan Rather, Brian Williams and Walter Cronkite brought the nation together and informed that nations understanding of topics as important as Watergate, the Downfall of the Soviet Union, to tragedies like the Challenger Disaster.

In the print media everyone had their favourite Newspaper. Some leaned left, some leaned right, but they were all written to appeal to the everyman. On today's scale they would be centrist. Everyone read their newpapers. Literacy was even measured by Newspaper Circulation. Something that would be laughable now.

So What Happened?

In short it was the internet. Here was an explosion of opinions, I could find facts without effort, rather just at the touch of a button. But this is where something interesting happened. People started to filter out opinions they didn't agree with. The Internet compartmentalised society in such a way, that you never had to listen to or think through an opinion coming from a philosophy you didn't agree with. So the centre started to shrink, and the extremes started to expand. The Old Media reacted by trying to keep the people it had, the newspapers abandoned the centre ground altogether plumbing for gaining a larger portion of an ever decreasing pie.

On the TV side one of the first to do this was Rupert Murdoch, his Fox News Pioneered the News from one side genre that MSNBC copied to far less effect. In effect the old media has become far less trustworthy that it was before, and it's our fault. We stopped watching and reading. The Old media had to become more like the New media.

Are You Saying we Need a new Gatekeeper?

Well yes and no. What I'm saying is that you need to be the new Gatekeeper. Don't just believe something because you heard it from a mate who read it in a blog and seems to be able to explain it better than you can. You need to think critically about the information you are hearing. Who is telling you this? What is their agenda? Does it mesh with the facts you already know about this subject. If it doesn't agree with what you already know, is the old knowledge correct or do you need to change your beliefs.

Remember that its only the stupid people who are certain. The intelligent ones go on questioning and are ready to change an opinion when they are shown evidence that it is wrong.

So what about you? Are you one of the Stupid ones? You don't have to be. You also don't have any excuse in a western nation in 2014. Knowledge is at your fingertips. Use it.