WI Beazley as Labor Leader 2007?

For followers of Australian Politics the last few days about the proposed carbon tax and the opinion polls really had me thinking about how different things could've been if Beazley won the 2007 election. Irrespective of whether the mining tax or the carbon tax are good policies, they have not been communicated well at all.

Under Beazley how different could things be? He was an experienced minister and experienced parliamentarian, I concede not a inspiring leader but one would think he would have implemented his policies far better then the current Labor leadership.

I think it would be a close election in 2007, but ultimately I think he would win. Howard was just there too long and work choices basically confirmed his defeat. The tragedy for Labor is that after spending 11 years in opposition they finally came to government and basically botched it. They can claim some small victories, but there can be no denying they fall far short of the hopes and aspiration the public had when changing the government.

It's very easy to blame it all on Kevin (or Julia), but I'm interested in any thoughts as to what a Beazley led Labor Government would look like.

Not sure what the POD would be to get him there as he was essentially on borrowed time at the end. At a stretch I thought about Crean going the distance and facing a disastrous result in the 2004 election. Latham and Beazley would be the front runners in the aftermath and perhaps the party would decide a safe pair of hands is preferable to the untested Latham. Latham remaining active in the party would likely veto Rudd or Gillard's ambition.
 
You have to realise that Oz politics are totally unknown outside our country. Most folk wouldn't even know the names.

My take on this is that Beazley, although a really straight good bloke, never had a chance of winning. He never had the political smarts to outwit the Nat/Libs, so the thread becomes moot.

Almost like a "sealion" thread.
 
You have to realise that Oz politics are totally unknown outside our country. Most folk wouldn't even know the names.

My take on this is that Beazley, although a really straight good bloke, never had a chance of winning. He never had the political smarts to outwit the Nat/Libs, so the thread becomes moot.

Almost like a "sealion" thread.

I realise most people aren't knowledgeable about Australian politics, but there's quite a few on this board who are.

Also I disagree. The opinion polls published during Beazleys tenure showed Labor consistently winning the 2PP. The Preferred Prime Minister is rarely a deciding factor in Oz elections. Also people find it difficult to imagine an opposition leader as PM until they are actually doing the job (I acknowledge Rudd was an exception here).

I think Beazley could have won the 2007 election, people were just dead sick of Howard and he has used up all his political capital by that point.
 
You have to realise that Oz politics are totally unknown outside our country. Most folk wouldn't even know the names.

My take on this is that Beazley, although a really straight good bloke, never had a chance of winning. He never had the political smarts to outwit the Nat/Libs, so the thread becomes moot.

Basically right. His personality was his own worst enemy. He looked more at the "big picture" than the Government did. Howard was in it to win power and remain in power. The result was that Kim often ended up supporting the Government in a bipartisan effort for "the good of the country". A perfect example was the Tampa affair. Howard who at the time was actually looking like he might lose the next election, cleverly used the Tampa affair to box Kim into a position where he ended up supporting the Government over it.

Kim's biggest problem though was that he was always at a disadvantage because he was from Western Australia. That placed him outside the main power centres of the Federal Labor Party. He basically became Leader more by being the last man standing, after the massive defeat of 1996 rather than necessarily he was what the power brokers necessarily wanted.

Being from WA also placed him at a severe disadvantage when up against the Government under Howard. Howard would often time important announcements so that they would appear in the press on a late Thursday or Friday afternoon. Those were the times when Kim was flying home to his electorate for the weekend. He'd consequently be on the backfoot and several hours behind the government in reacting to those pronouncements.

A slightly more interesting counterfactual might be to explore the possibility that Beazley didn't support Howard over Tampa and instead went for Howard's throat and played him hard on poor economic performance (despite the Howard/Costello "heritage", the first term of their government was very poor in economic matters). If Kim had, had the killer-instinct, he might have beaten Howard. If he'd exposed the Howard rhetoric on Refugees and Asylum Seekers for what it really was - an appeal to the lowest common denominator in an effort to gain back the Hasonites who'd fled the Lib/Nat coalition for the PHONies, he'd have been in with a chance, IMHO.
 
Beazley would have been a solid, if conventionally Labor PM and could have won the 2007 election, but then again so could the Coalition. Depending on whose at the Treasury, will dictate how the response the GFC goes. Beazley certainly didn't have the reputation of being a complete arse-hole in private like Rudd did and I think Beazley wouldn't do stupid things like the Mining Tax would be avoided and Climate Change would be handled much differently.

I would avoid Latham because given his character flaws and nature, anything he touches eventually turns to shit.

Beazley also has a solid support base from the right factions within Labor, unlike Rudd who had none and Gillard's Victorian left.
 
Latham had considerable promise when he started out. He did some interesting and influential policy development, which is what brought him to the attention of many commentators. You're right, he has shown himself to be ultimately a rather flawed personality but some of that might well be because of the outright rejection he received. I don't think he could have matched up to Howard who was clearly the better politician (if that is something to be proud of).
 
Its amazing how many people condemn Latham now as a flawed personality, but at the time he was seen as a visionary leader that would take Labor to victory. Not many people would admit to saying that now.

A funny quirk of Australian politics is that any opposition leader that takes a comprehensive policy to an election almost always loses. The best examples I can think of are Hewson (who perhaps had the most policy proposals of any opposition leader ever). Hayden and of course Latham. It's as if Australians would prefer an opposition that doesn't have any plans and adopts a
me-too' mantra. Worked great for Howard in 96 and Rudd in 07.

re Beazley as PM. Personally I think he'd have done a good job and very likely Labor would be still enjoying a good lead now. IMHO they are doomed at the next election and I would be surprised if they last the full term.
 
I don't think a Beazely victory could happen in 2007, its simply too late, he only got back in because Latham was such a car crash and he couldn't hold on for so long due to both generational and factional reasons.
Labor needed to move on to a new generation rather than stick with the old one despite Latham, so I think the real question with a 2005 POD is who will succeed him and Rudd is more likely than Gillard.
If we are looking for a Beazely Premiership then I think 2001 is a much more plausible one, but I reckon that Howard was going to win. While the Coalition was on the nose I suspect that Howard would wedge Beazley to death in every TL even without Tampa.
Kim Beazely may be the better human being but I challenge you to find some one better at wedging the opposition than John Winston Howard.

EDIT: I agree Beazely would have done a better job than Rudd or Gillard and I agree with euromellows that Labour looks doomed at the next election (which I suspect will be early) but despite having the potential to be a good, if not great PM, but Beazely wasn't a very good Leader of the Opposition. Kevin Rudd in contrast was one of the greatest Opposition Leaders in recent times though a rubbish PM.
 
My take on this is that Beazley, although a really straight good bloke, never had a chance of winning. He never had the political smarts to outwit the Nat/Libs, so the thread becomes moot.

Almost like a "sealion" thread.

You're wrong.

Howard was all but gone in 2007 thanks to his disintegrating hold on his party (the APEC leadership debacle), his unpopular labour market deregulation, and the fact interest rates had risen continuously since his reelection in 2004 on the promise of "interest rates will always be lower under us than under Labor." Plus the plain old political fatigue of a government that had been in office for more than a decade.

Stating this thread's hypothetical to be a 'sealion' type event is a bizarre and n00bish thing to write.

If we are looking for a Beazely Premiership

Hah, "Beazley Premiership." I've often wondered if he might have been parachuted into state parliament if he'd lost his federal seat in '96, thence to become the next Western Australian Labor premier instead of Geoff Gallop. But that's just my interest in the politics of this country asserting itself.

Meanwhile, in the Australia of 2007 John Howard faced a PR disaster in the failed challenge that Peter Costello launched just a few months out from the election. Said challenge would still have happened if Beazley had retained the leadership of the Opposition IMO. In fact Costello is probably more likely to go hard at removing Howard from office if he thinks he 'only' has to face Beazley at the polls instead of a fresh new political star.

Very Possible Scenario: Peter Costello in early 2007 openly calls for a partyroom leadership spill, he doesn't bother with any of this nonsense about getting the party elders/the conservative commentariat to pressure Howard into retiring voluntarily as he did in OT. He decides on crash or crash through.

And he looses the ballot for leadership, naturally, as the Liberal Party room is dominated by MPs elected under PM Howard who are convinced he's an electoral King Midas while Costello is electoral death. The member for Higgins then goes to the backbench.

You can argue this makes the election easier for Howard to fight, but that would only be the case if Peter Costello decides to quit politics altogether. My guess, which is supported by the man's history on the front bench, is that Costello always had a hope for the top job as long as the Coalition retained office, that he wouldn't quit parliament if there appeared to be a reasonable chance of Labor losing the election. Which, as far as the entire federal Coalition of 2007 was concerned, there would appear to be if Kim Beazley was the ALP's leader that year...

You see the vicious circle here for the Libs if they think they're still in with a chance against Beazley Labor? It actually raises the possibility of the Liberal leadership tensions being at their worst for the longest time possible, with an ex-treasurer being constantly accused of undermining his PM from the backbenches. This is exactly the kind of thing that couldn't have happened with a seemingly all-powerful new Opposition leader Kevin Rudd on the scene. It can only happen if 'poor, hapless' Kimbo is the Howard government's chief adversary.

That hypothetical aside, euromellows has already made the case for the polling, I've made the case for the actual political landscape as it was, not some simplistic impression of what people reckon the politics of 2007 were about (ala all this nonsense about an Australia circa 2007 free of the hugely unpopular Workchoices legislation, and the interest rate rises, both of which are impossible to butterfly away with a PoD set in late 2006 where Rudd doesn't challenge Beazley for the leadership).

Being from WA also placed him at a severe disadvantage when up against the Government under Howard. Howard would often time important announcements so that they would appear in the press on a late Thursday or Friday afternoon. Those were the times when Kim was flying home to his electorate for the weekend. He'd consequently be on the backfoot and several hours behind the government in reacting to those pronouncements.

How do you know this context without actually realising Beazley moved his family to Sydney for his second stint as federal Opposition leader?:confused:

In fact that's the one thing that marked him as understanding the gravity of the situation, that this was his last chance, that it was almost a case of no-more-Mr-Nice-Guy when it came to him fulfilling the NSW's ALP Right's support for him as their favourite for the prime ministership. He had to deliver. (Of course being Mr Nice Guy was the way he was to win over the general electorate. That was the personality attribute that allowed him to make his seat in suburban Perth safe for Labor despite almost getting tossed out in the anti-Keating landslide, a personal appeal he then used to beat Howard in every televised election debate they fought in 1998 and 2001.)

Depending on whose at the Treasury, will dictate how the response the GFC goes... I think Beazley wouldn't do stupid things like the Mining Tax would be avoided

Dr Ken Henry is the Treasury secretary who in OTL managed the details of the response to the Global Financial Crisis and wrote the report that advised the Labor government to create a national levy on mineral resources. Though admittedly his proposal was for a larger, more comprehensive tax than either the law Rudd designed or the one Julia Gillard amended.

But I'm sure you know that.

There, I've tried for an analysis with some meat on it, one where I distinguish between what I reckon happened, what I reckon could have happened, and what I believe can be identified as most likely having happened free of any of our collective 'reckoning'. I haven't relied on identifying Who Is Strong Because They Just Are Strong Regardless Of Circumstances .

Adopting Nate Silver's metric, all in all I rate Beazley's chances of winning that election, in percentage points, as somewhere between the low 50s and the high 60s. But Kevin Rudd was probably always going to be about 10 points higher on that curve. Hence Labor replacing Beazley with the member for Griffith a year out from the election in question--they were merely replacing a good thing with a sure thing.

Now, if Therese Rein, Rudd's wife, had been diagnosed with her illness in the second half of 2006, then it becomes almost certain that that leadership transition doesn't take place.
 

Cook

Banned
I agree with Magniac; a Labor win with Beazley as leader in 2007 was not only possible, it’s probable. But by 2007 a Labor win is almost inevitable against Howard with any halfway sane leadership (This rules Latham out). It was pretty much a drover’s dog election.
 
How do you know this context without actually realising Beazley moved his family to Sydney for his second stint as federal Opposition leader?:confused:

'cause he was still the member for Brand? He was still required to attend to matters in his electorate and made frequent visits there while Parliament was sitting, usually on the weekend as do all MPs to their electorates. Parliament usually rises on Thursday afternoon, flights out of Canberra on Thursday evening are packed with MPs and their staff. Beazley was often one of them. Where his family was resident was largely immaterial.
 
'cause he was still the member for Brand? He was still required to attend to matters in his electorate and made frequent visits there while Parliament was sitting, usually on the weekend as do all MPs to their electorates. Parliament usually rises on Thursday afternoon, flights out of Canberra on Thursday evening are packed with MPs and their staff. Beazley was often one of them. Where his family was resident was largely immaterial.

Trust me, Kimbo wasn't travelling back to Western Australia every week that parliament sat. I don't know how often he got back, but I imagine it was more akin to a British frontbench MP rarely visiting their constituency between elections than to Tony Abbot spending every weekend on Sydney's north shore.

Travelling very often to Perth on weekends would sort of defeat the purpose of his family living in Sydney. I gather he visited WA during this period with the same frequency that he visited every other state (which is something leaders do a lot of).
 
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