WHAT do left-wing ministers do in a government led by an economic conservative? Simple: they take some of the key jobs and join the club. This is Mike Steketee’s take on Rudd’s cabinet as he uses lots of calming words to say Left is cool but Left is Left, nothing is simple and the proof of the pudding is a long way down the track.
In the first Rudd cabinet, nine of the 20 ministers come from the Left: Julia Gillard, Chris Evans, John Faulkner, Jenny Macklin, Lindsay Tanner, Anthony Albanese, Kim Carr, Penny Wong and Martin Ferguson. That compares with one left-winger in the first Hawke cabinet in 1983, Stewart West.
And Gillard is benign;
Sure, Gillard comes from the Victorian Socialist Left – as Howard government ministers kept reminding us during the election campaign – and Tanner used to wage war against Labor’s Right as the left-wing secretary of the Federated Clerks Union.
But this history is about as relevant now as the Cold War is to international relations.
Is it?
If I’m a conservative now and have been since the early 60s why does Steketee presume someone who has beaten the drum for the left for decades will suddenly join the conservative club?
Doesn’t compute…..keep an eye on ‘em.
Kev
What has really happened is that Howard moved a long way to the right over 11 years – and Labor has camped in the middle ground. The Left ain’t the Left – same/same as oils ain’t oils. From my social justice perspective, that’s not necessarily a good thing – but I’ll have to learn to live with it.