My Take on the Release of Kevin is a Happy Little Vegemite Video

(Credit: Fairfax)

Here is my personal (outsider) opinion following this article about “Kevin is a Happy Little Vegemite” video. I am shocked beyond belief by some readers’s naivety reflected in their comments when they believed that Gillard’s office authorised the leak of this  video in an attempt to discredit KRudd during this chaotic period. Anyone remembered the Australia Day protest fallout?

I suspect it’s actually it could be an immature or disingenuous ALP member trying to complicate the current distraction, force a premature showdown between the two leaders, which will result further self-harming division within ALP. I guess all is far in love and politics. Either ways, Coalition still wins!

ALP could have been a good government for Australia. However for their sheer lack of party unity (reminded me a lot of NSW ALP’s frequent turnover of Premiers before the last state election loss) reflects in their inability to pursue the right policies for Australia, they have lost the public’s confidence to govern and therefore deserve to lose in the next election.

Sidenote: My Australia experience had taught me some of the challenges to run a government in a two-parties system. I am just grateful that the Singapore political environment so far as allowed my government not only to govern for the present but afford the space to undertake long term policies for the benefit of the country.

The State of the Federal ALP Government as described by Clarke and Dawe

As a casual observer of Australian politics I can’t help feeling tired and fed up with the current performance of the ALP at the federal and state levels. This video by Clarke and Dawe had accurately described what’s happening in the Labor government. This is a government that lost its agenda setting ability and is either in denial or lacked ideas to reverse its current position.

I had so much hopes for Australia when the ALP (Australian Labor Party) went through a disciplined and focused campaign to defeat the second longest serving Prime Minister – John Howard and took office. At the start, Rudd looked like a capable PM, financial conservative guy with foreign affairs expertise with Gillard looking liked a capable, strong deputy PM and taking on industrial relations and education portfolio amongst other things. Things looked pretty good and I thought Australia was entering into a golden age of economic and social policy progress. My admiration went to their latest level when a centre-left ALP managed to keep the Australian economy in shape through the darkest times of the 2008 GFC (global financial crisis) by riding on the China boom.

But since then everything seem to fall apart and I had my dose of reality check. This government was unable to defend their policies has gradually lost its support for its programmes and overall support despite a negative and uninspiring opposition. Australians were increasingly more worried for their future despite a blooming economy. The ALP’s internal discipline faltered, the great opportunity to push through difficult reforms despite a federal-state ALP government never came, education review led to more questions about Australia’s research future, national infrastructure investment did not fly, home insulation programme was canned, the mining super profit tax was watered down, climate change agenda captured by  the Coalition, refugee issue remained a question mark.

As a Sinophile, I was most disappointed by the dearth of leadership and ideas to engage China in a meaningful and with the forward looking vision to prepare the country for the rise of a new global power and the new opportunities beyond natural resources. Instead I saw policies and behaviours that reflected tints of yellow peril. United States is without a doubt still a global superpower and an important ally, but Australia has to prepare for the new reality.

If the federal ALP government wants to retain the confidence of the Australian public, they better get their act together and stopped repeating that these are difficult times for any government. Stop the denial and take it on the chin! Guess what? That’s why the Australian public voted them into government in the first place.