The Cult of the Personality in Politics

Agamedes just wishes that this drivel-driven election was over.

Do you need new -- lateral -- thinking for your own problems? email nick leth at gmail dot com. Need solutions? No worries. Now.

There's an article in today's paper which shows the true depth of journalistic political analysis. And it's not very deep at all.

In "Will the real Julia please step up?" (The West Australian, 7 Aug 10), Andrew Probyn demonstrates his lack of actual analysis.

Apparently, a speech by Kevin Rudd "had more cut-through than the one dimensional approach adopted by Ms Gillard for most of the campaign." Probyn then quotes from Rudd's speech:

I support... because the work that we have begun in keeping the economy strong, the work we've begun in building our hospitals and building our schools, building our universities and building the National Broadband Network and acting on climate change, we've got to finish that work, rather than have it chopped up half way through."

The economy? Spent furiously, to keep Australia going. I guess that "half way through" is because we still have to tackle the more difficult problem of recovering from the debt incurred.

Building our schools? Lots of new PCs, lots of new buildings. No sign of funding for PC support, nor for filling the buildings with furniture, books, whatever. Indications are that we are stopped, rather than "half way through".

New Australia-wide school curriculum perhaps? That sounds like a good idea. Will that be stopped if Labor fails to win the election?

Universities? Sorry, I missed the "work" in support of universities.

National Broadband Network? An announcement that a heap of money will be spent. Is that counted as "work"?

Climate change? Wasn't that abandoned? "No-one else is doing the right thing so why should we?" Perhaps Rudd counts it as "work" that we have moved from, "Do nothing at all," to "Let's have a pointless discussion sometime in the future."

And that quote from Rudd's speech was selected by Probyn as an example of the tremendous "cut-through" being demonstrated by Rudd. Did Probyn actually read the quote before he cut-and-pasted it to fill a gap in his article?

The cult of the personality

Really, it's a bit sad if an article as light-weight as Probyn's could be counted as part of our political debate. Still, it matches the light-weight nature of the politicians.

Is there anything more embarrassing than Julia Gillard referring to "the Julia Gillard government"? Does she also say, "I'll just put on the Julia Gillard shoes and go for a walk with the Julia Gillard team of minders"? What a pathetic piece of self-centred political posturing!

All part of the cult of the personality, I guess. It just sounds a bit more ridiculous when the cult personality herself uses the phrase.

Then it's back to Probyn: "the ALP thought the Government so bad that a prime minister had to go." Come on, now! They sacked the party-appointed prime minister -- the rest of the government simply moved one chair closer to the top. If the government was thought to be really bad, surely the entire government would have been replaced.

But no, Probyn is right. We are governed by just one person.

Or, rather, we vote for dozens of politicians based on advertising (and news reports) which focus on one person. Are you voting for your local member? No. Are you voting for a political party? Not really. Are you voting for the person who is -- this week -- the public face to a political party? Yes!

Is this the "real" Julia/Tony/Bob? (Note the cosy use of first names.) Vote for the carefully dyed hair and elegant clothes... Vote for the six-pack and happy family... Vote for... well... Bob Brown gets barely a mention in the press, I'm not sure which personal characteristics we should vote for.

Do any of them have policies? No... They all have spending plans. What is their policy on environment, schools, health...? All we know is, here are millions of dollars directed to buy our votes.

We see money being promised now. Will it be continued? No idea...

A policy would say, for example: We support protection of the environment rather than development of new industry. Or perhaps, We will ensure that age pensioners live comfortably by providing a pension that is at least 10% of a politician's salary. Or, We will do everything we can to have non-elective surgery performed within four weeks of diagnosis.

Okay, those are just rubbish policies. What I'm trying to say is, a policy is a description of the long term aims of a political party. All we are seeing now, is a lot of short-term promises. Why? Because they are all afraid that we will vote them out if we find out what they really mean to do... And that's the polite interpretation.

As an alternative to actual policy, political parties put up personalities.

But why not?

It makes it so much easier for us to choose.

And we know that our vote doesn't really make a difference.

Certainly not to the hidden plans and policies of the political parties.

Independent thinking & independent analysis of your problems by Agamedes Consulting. Support for your thought: email nick leth at gmail dot com