Tony Abbott: As a journalist I was a frustrated politician. As a politician I am a frustrated journalist.
Annabel Crabb: What were you as a priest?
Tony Abbott: I was just frustrated!
So I paid my money and went to see Annabel Crabb *swoon* and Tony Abbott *hmmmmm* in conversation about Battlelines, the latter’s manifesto, at the Sydney Writers’ Festival. What I was hoping for was a conversation about ideas, something beyond the daily grind of sound bite politics, something of Abbott’s more profound motivations behind his actions and beliefs. And to his credit, I felt I got a jot of that, but truly a jot. The Big New Tax line got rolled out a few times, and how Rudd can’t be trusted because he has given up on the ETS (after your party agreed to it, then backed out at the last moment and refused to let it through the Senate, which is probably a good thing anyway as it was totally ineffectual policy, but it seems a bit rich to blame Rudd for backing away from it in that context *gasp*), but at the end of it I kind of decided that I can’t blame Abbott for the flimsiness of the discussion of ideas. In the media climate we currently enjoy (read: endure) politicians are not allowed to discuss ideas. They have no opportunity to float something to see how the electorate will respond without being held totally accountable for a mere suggestion, and we end up with is a dearth of creativity and simplistic along-party-lines policies.
I would have loved to hear Abbott speak favourably of something the government has done, just to prove that for once an idea could outweigh the politics, equally I would love to see Rudd endorse an opposition policy, but realistically, as much as I would like to see it happen, leading figures of either party cannot be seen to be in agreement on anything of substance, no matter how reasonable. And that is so disappointing, especially when the major parties have more common ground than disparate beliefs. Maybe I am just an idealistic hippy, but we can’t we allow our politicians to agree occasionally?
