Glad we Sorted that Out

A fortnight really is a long time in politics. 2 weeks ago, Kevin Rudd was ensconced in the Lodge, picking fights with mining companies and otherwise busily contriving ways to lose what should have been an unloseable election. Now all of a sudden we have Australia's first female PM (although not, as you might think, the first ranga) who has quickly cut a deal with the mining companies and, you would expect, will just as quickly head to the polls to cash in on her current media honeymoon.

Rudd really had to go. The mining tax was the last in a long series of policy stuff-ups which made the Feds look spookily like their inept counterparts in NSW. What I found frustrating about issues like the mining tax and emissions trading was not the content of the policies themselves, but that they were sold to the public in such an incompetent and slapdash fashion. Rudd himself must take a lot of the blame for this. Being a typical micromanager, he found it impossible to delegate responsibility for anything to capable and experienced ministers such as Gillard, Tanner and Ferguson. The results of this everyone can see for themselves.

It's probably not surprising that Bill Shorten and others decided to act when they did and install Gillard as PM. The fact that until this week's detente, the miners were convincingly winning the PR battle is simply staggering. While it's true that most people welcome any new tax about as warmly as they would a bad case of haemorrhoids, you would think the public wouldn't have too much of a problem with this one. After all, here are some home truths about mining companies:

- They dig up as much of Australia's irreplaceable mineral resources as possible, ship it off shore and then pocket the proceeds for themselves to pay to their shareholders and their senior executives.

- They expect taxpayers to subsidise these activities by lobbying the government to construct rail, port and other infrastructure which will help them get the minerals from the mines and out of the country quicker.

- At the first whiff of an economic downturn, and having enticed workers in their thousands to godawful places like the Pilbara or Moura, they will lay off those same workers en masse rather than wait for things to recover.

- They have to be continually embarrassed by incidents like OK Tedi and the current BP spill into adopting appropriate environmental controls over their activities, rather than taking the initiative.

I'm not intending to be overly critical of mining companies; after all, they are answerable only to their shareholders and their brief is therefore to maximise profit rather than worrying about things like their employees' mortgages or environmental degradation. However, my point is that what they get up to is hardly likely to endear them to the greater population and therefore, you would expect a new tax on their activities isn't going to get the average man in the street's back up.

Perhaps that what Rudd thought too. Whatever the reason for the lack of industry consultation and ad campaign to support the tax, the government were criminally unprepared for what was always going to be a highly predictable and emotive backlash from the mining lobby. I don't know what Rudd expected them to do - dance a jig? The sight of a mine worker on a TV advertisement saying what a champion his employer is as opposed to the evil Labor government is almost Pythonesque in its irony. However because of the government's inaction people seemed to be buying it, leading to their approval rating dropping faster than Elders' share price.

So it was out with Kevin and in with Julia, who in true Hawke-like fashion, saw the value in consulting with the industry and wound up getting a deal done. Good for her. She will find that engaging with Cabinet, business and the electorate instead of behaving like a cantankerous headmaster will reap great rewards. It will be interesting to see how the election campaign unfolds but I would expect her to return Labor with a comfortable albeit reduced majority. After all, if you were a woman, who would you vote for? One of your own kind who has risen to the highest office in the land, or someone who would prefer you chained full-time to the stove and washing machine?

Finally, to Rudd's immediate predecessor, John Howard who during the week had his nomination for ICC President rejected by India, Pakistan, Zimbabwe and the West Indies. I wonder if that had anything to do with the fact that during the 1970 and 1980s, he persistently opposed South Africa's estrangement from international sport despite their apartheid policies, but then was quick to unilaterally call for estrangement for Zimbabwe as soon as Robert Mugabe implemented a similar regime.

John, just so you get it - BOTH regimes are odious. If it's not cool for black people to marginalise white people, then its also not cool for white people to marginalise black people.

But what is kind of cool is having a 'ranga, female Prime Minister - who unlike Thatcher, has a feminine side to her. Despite the inevitable barrage of political ads, I await the next 6-9 months with great interest.