Dandrews' strength of leadership vs. Scotty's dithering

[watt price tully]

This thread is about the demonstrated strength of Daniel Andrews Leadership v the demonstrated dithering of Scotty from Marketing.

With respect to the leadership of the ALP I’d love to see Penny Wong as leader as she’s simply miles more talented than anyone else on either side of the major two parties: the ALP and the anti-ALP. Sadly she doesn’t want it, she’s a senator and it seems unlikely.

[roar]

Albo is the bloke down at Salvation Army soup nights who accompanies the sing-alongs with a tambourine. He seems nice enough, but it's really hard to tell if he's a volunteer or one of the homeless.

Hahaha, that's a great description!

[pietillidie]

With respect to the leadership of the ALP I’d love to see Penny Wong as leader as she’s simply miles more talented than anyone else on either side of the major two parties: the ALP and the anti-ALP. Sadly she doesn’t want it, she’s a senator and it seems unlikely.

She's still the most competent Australian politician by a country mile, and the only one with the cognitive engine to make difficult calculations on the world stage. Not everyone's cut out for the dirty business of leading, though, but at minimum you'd want her to be your foreign minister.

Morrison reminds me of a headmaster at a small rural school who occasionally gets in the local paper when there's a school fete. Not being Abbott, Trump or Johnson is a good thing, but aside from that he's not quite big city material.

How long can a country tread water without going backwards given other countries are advancing? Doing nothing is definitely better than doing something idiotic like Brexit, agreed, but you do shake your head at how slowly things move.

[eddiesmith]

Says a lot about Penny Wong as a leader that she is much more comfortable sitting in opposition slinging shit at the government than standing up and doing something about it.

[Tannin]

^ A more than usually meaningless post. Does anyone know what that is supposed to mean? If there is a point in it at all - something I doubt - it is not even hinted at, never mind made.

[stui magpie]

A Senator can't be prime Minister or even leader of the Opposition, can they?

[David]

Certainly not by usual conventions, but there are rules that permit a senator to be elected prime minister so long as they subsequently resign from the senate and contest a lower-house seat within a three month period (as happened with John Gorton in 1968).

So it’s not impossible that Wong could contest the leadership and then contest some relatively safe Labor seat in SA. But it goes without saying that she’d want to make a move like that with the support of the party room, so it would make much more sense for her to just make a move to the House of Representatives ahead of time with the blessing of the party rather than going through the back door, and it’s telling that the one time it happened (with Gorton) there were exceptional circumstances, namely the death of a sitting PM and a stand-off between the Liberal and Country parties.

[eddiesmith]

Nothing stopping her from standing for a seat in the lower house, but she is clearly happy slinging shit from the senate. Opposition suits her well.

[Tannin]

For someone who never does anything except sling shit - and I do mean never - that's a funny thing to say.

Wong has been an important part of government before, of course, but don't let facts get in your shit-slinging way.

My view: Wong doesn't have the charisma to be a great candidate. She'd make a good leader, but I'd prefer someone with more voter appeal.

[stui magpie]

KRudd had voter appeal but nothing else, Albo may well be a good leader but has the voter appeal of a damp dish cloth.

If Labor had anyone who had the required leadership and technical skills as well as charisma, they'd surely be in some sort of leadership role by now. I'm not familiar with any who'd fit that description.

[Tannin]

I agree 100% with your first para, Stui. I suspect that there are several worthy candidates on the front bench already, but they need to be exposed more so that their talent has a chance to shine. (Or be exposed as Rudd-like posturing, as the case may be.)

[David]

If Labor had anyone who had the required leadership and technical skills as well as charisma, they'd surely be in some sort of leadership role by now. I'm not familiar with any who'd fit that description.

This has been my concern with Labor for a long time. I don't know precisely what their problem is, though it seems to at least be in part a result of their culture, which rewards the ruthless and careerist and presumably scares off any idealists or potential reformers from even joining the party to begin with, or destroys them long before they get into a position of power, or kills them inside by the time they get to the top. So you end up with, basically, a collective of apparent robots with no personality or charisma that no normal person can relate to, who have become emperors of their own domain (i.e. the party) but look like aliens to everybody outside of it. Wong is probably better than most and would make an extremely competent leader, but at the end of the day comes across as the same basic kind of person as Albanese, Shorten, Marles, etc.: someone who isn't inspiring, doesn't seem trustworthy and doesn't seem to have much of a vision for the future.

On the other hand, perhaps we need to lower our expectations: if Scott Morrison can be PM, maybe anyone can be?

[Tannin]

Yes to all of that ^

[eddiesmith]

I look forward to Daniel Andrews strong leadership being on show when he comes out and sacks himself for branch stacking

[Tannin]

He has already sacked the branch stacker. Do try to keep up.