A comment on one of my recent posts; The Morrison government has no sense of urgency on our future … or perhaps the marketing plan isn’t finished suggested that I write a post on the effectiveness or otherwise of the Gillard Government.
There are many ways to measure a government. Polling at the moment has the Coalition 53/47 in front of Labor, but they don’t give us any idea of effectiveness.
You can take an interest in the economy, the ballot box or even the health of the nation but even then you don’t get a clear picture.
Most people use their gut feeling that is probably infected, to a degree, by media propaganda.
Fear and apprehension during a crisis usually sees voters sticking to whoever is in power. The Prime Minister’s popularity is sky high but as the recession hits where it hurts over a long period of time the polls will shift.
Back to the subject …
During my research I came across a novel way of measuring a government’s effectiveness that eliminates the emotion. It has an important flaw that I will address later.
This method, which incidentally doesn’t have a name, but measures a government’s ability to pass legislation. (The Guardian’s Nick Efershed devised it.) The article was written in 2013 and updated in 2018. Passing legislation is a government’s most important function and is a measure of its ability to get things done.
Evershed explains his methodology this way and also its pitfalls:
“One way might be to look at the ability of a government to pass legislation. Admittedly this is a quantity over quality approach, but it does offer us a quantitative measure of a government, political party or prime minister. Someone that gets a lot of legislation passed might be considered to be good at getting things done.”
The results based on a government’s ability to get things done are as follows:
“Julia Gillard had the highest rate of passing legislation with a rate of 0.495, followed by Bob Hawke at 0.491.
Click here for the interactive graph on mobile.
Malcolm Fraser was the highest-ranked liberal party prime minister on the list, at 0.481.
The parliament with the highest rate was the 36th parliament, with Bob Hawke as Prime Minister. You can see the rate of legislation has increased over time as well, with recent governments passing far more acts than in the early days of the commonwealth.
Click here for the interactive graph on mobile.
The Coalition came out on top as the overall party, with a rate of acts per day of 0.365 to the Labor’s 0.360.”
Here you will find an updated list of Prime Ministers with their legislation lists from Gillard to George Reid. A thought-provoking aside to the graph is just how much legislation gets past nowadays.
As interesting as all this is it doesn’t explain the full story. For the past decade Australian politics has been characterised by hung parliaments, revolving door leadership and the destruction of our democracy.
A government cannot be judged just on its ability to get things done. The quality of its legislation must be taken into account.
How does it improves the standard of living of the population? Is it fairly balanced? Does it contain equality of opportunity (particularly in education)? We must also take into account the ever-increasing complexity of society.
Within their ideology conservatives have a reluctance for change and when it is necessary it is in incremental doses.
Now before we move onto Prime Minister Gillard let’s take a look at each party’s achievements the Liberal Party’s has listed on their web site – and other than the GST – it is a rather bland list that has nothing that speaks of a daring progress for the collective but more for individual pursuit.
You will see how much better off the nation is when we work as a collective rather than individual units.
This is The LNP list and this is Whitlam’s list (at bottom of article).
Now back to the crux of the matter. Julia Gillard, given that those before and after her were handicapped with severe character defects, might it be considered premature to judge pass judgement on her prime ministership.
There are, however, some things we can say about her with a degree of confidence.
Ms Gillard in her post leadership period has been moderate, dignified and measured. She hasn’t been tempted, thus far, into voicing sarcasm towards others even though she might be justified in doling so.
She has buried herself in the things she is most passionate about; in education, women’s rights and mental health.
“She has,” wrote Nicholas Reece in The Sydney Moring Herald, “judiciously weighed in on select issues, but not become the story like other attention-seeking former PMs. Indeed, she has grown in stature and dignity.”
When she attended the national apology to victims of institutional child sex abuse the victims wanting to thank her mobbed her.
When she announced the Royal Commission in 2012, Paul Kelly, writing for The Australian described it as “the dismal, populist and doomed quality of Australian governance.”
Being the first female Prime Minister of Australia gave carte blanche to those, mainly men, in the media, lacking any form of social acumen, to attack her relentlessly using misogyny and malevolence.
However, If you were to strip away the character assassination by the Murdoch media, the potty mouth of Jones and the daily blatant lying of Tony Abbott then you find a government led by Rudd then Gillard (over 6 years) who successfully passed over 500 pieces of legislation.
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Less-informed voters unfortunately outnumber the more politically aware. Therefore, conservatives feed them all the bullshit they need. And the menu generally contains a fair portion of untruths.
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So despite the pubic perception being painted by these megalomaniacs the legislative and policy record of the Labor governments is in fact impressive.
They dismantled Work Choices and replaced it with Fair Work Australia. They instigated Paid Parental Leave, NDIS and reformed secondary education while expanding tertiary education, improved the pay of low paid workers and removed over 80 forms of discrimination against same-sex couples, the apology to the Stolen Generations, instituted a carbon price, establishing the Royal Commission into Child Sexual Abuse, reformed Murray River water management, transforming federal-state hospital funding arrangements and improved relations with China and India.
It must be said that both had difficulties (if only perceived) in managing a capitalist economy just as Ben Chifley did against the power of the banks and Gough Whitlam against the power of the multinationals. Rudd and Gillard came up against the power of big business in implementing a tax on carbon.
And then Gillard came up against the power of the Murdoch machine whose purpose – it seemed – was to destroy her. In some ways being the first female Prime Minister worked against her. The country wasn’t ready for her, especially as she was seen to have knifed her predecessor. Ladies don’t do those sorts of things. She was never able to balance her toughness with her compassion for people.
She made a mistake in appointing Peter Slipper as Speaker of the House of Representatives. And a mistake too in promising specific timelines for returning the budget to surplus and she should not have conceded that a period of fixed carbon price leading to an emissions trading scheme was effectively a tax after she said she wouldn’t introduce one.
So how does one judge the Gillard government? It has to be remembered that they were never beaten on the floor of the House.
In a time of enormous economic challenges they did attempt to address the problems of the 21st century by incorporating growth with fairness.
During her tenure as Prime Minister history will kindly record that her speech denouncing Tony Abbott’s misogyny did more to embolden women to speak up against those who would harm and belittle them than any speech before her, and probably after.
Here it is as a reminder. Enjoy!
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My thought for the day
At some time in the human narrative, in our history, man declared himself superior to women. It must have been an accident, or at least an act of gross stupidity. But that’s men for you.
PS: Comparing one parliament to another is rather futile as circumstances differ with the times. However I have read that historians regard the first Hawke ministry as being the best ever.
As to the current tenure of the LNP, well, you be the judge.
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