Mark's Blog: The Rostra and the Coleseum: Wednesday Night is Fight Night

A blog post for those who aren't familiar with Australian politics or the State of Origin....

If you live outside of Australia you may have heard that we have a new-old Prime Minister, as of Wednesday night. Kevin Rudd, ousted in a coup by his deputy Julia Gillard almost three years ago to the day, contested and won the leadership of the Australian Labor Party and returned to the Prime Ministership.

In fact, you probably heard or read about it before most Australians, as the Labor Party ballot took place minutes before the start of a rather important sporting event in these parts - Part 2 of the annual three match "State of Origin" rugby league series between NSW and Queensland. In a packed pub in Rudd's home state of Queensland, one of the punters remarked - without a hint of irony - that it was amazing that when the news came through, everyone even forgot about the football "for a couple of minutes".

The ALP is divided in to two formal factions (left and right wing) and has powerbrokers whose support is critical for any leader. Rudd backed down from trying to get an emissions trading scheme through parliament and looked weak; crucially, he had also made himself incredibly unpopular within the government for his perceived dictatorial and bullying style of leadership. The 'faceless men', as they are called, swung behind Gillard who affected a swift coup to topple him. She vowed to get right the three policy areas over which the government had been floundering - the carbon tax, the mining tax, and asylum policy. She promised the electorate she wouldn't introduce a carbon tax. With no overall majority after the subsequent election, Gillard formed a minority government, for which she needed the support of the Greens - and so she introduced the carbon tax and the word "Juliar" appeared on the back of utes alongside stickers of Australian flags labelled "love it or leave".

And here we are three years later. Despite some great reforms and legislation by this minority government - a National Disability Insurance Scheme, a revolution and significant increase in school funding, a mining tax and a price on carbon, mistake has followed mistake. The poorly structured carbon tax has barely raised any money in its first year (resulting in derision from all sides) and the mining tax has been similarly ineffective - exacerbated by the collapse in commodity prices that has hit government revenue. Asylum policy remains a shambles; attempts to offload asylum seekers to Malaysia (a country that has not signed up to the UN agreement on treatment of asylum seekers) failed (being in breach of their human rights) and the absymal state of the off-shore centre a Manus Island is a national disgrace, with refugees waiting in detention indefinitely whilst they are 'processed' (being, er, a breach of their human rights). On top of that, Julia Gillard has done a poor job of marketing the government's successes.

Polling only 28% with three months before the election, Labor MPs realised that only the return of the populist Rudd would give them a remotely fighting chance to hold on to some seats; even though many of them blamed him and his supporters for 'destablising' the government from within. Such is the antipathy on the front bench, one third of the Cabinet resigned rather than stay on under him. This is now the third Rudd challenge in three years and follows only a few months after he promised, explicitly, to never challenge again (although the last one was so ridiculous you couldn't make it up - Gillard pre-empted Rudd and called a leadership ballot, only for Rudd not to stand when it came to the voting, leaving everyone rather bemused about what had actually happened).

Whether Rudd will do enough for Labor to hold on to power remains to be seen; but it is certainly less unlikely than it was on Tuesday. For sure, much criticism of Gillard, Australia's first female Prime Minister, was unfair, sexist and totally disgraceful - from the Liberal backed "ditch the witch" campaign to a (now sacked) radio DJ in Perth who two weeks ago asked the Prime Minister to confirm that her long time partner Tim "wasn't gay". But she made many mistakes and, whilst "gutsy", "resilient" and "determined", nobody really knows what she stood for, other than re-election.

Perhaps her greatest speech in Parliament, which went viral on YouTube, was this brilliant indictment of the misogyny of the Leader of the Opposition, Tony Abbott:

So in honour of the return of Rudd, here is a clip of out-takes from an attempt for him to speak to camera in Chinese....

If all of this politicking is far too Machiavellian, here is something equally brutal but a bit more visual. Having won the first match in the series, NSW lost to Queensland in the second game in Brisbane on Wednesday night, shortly after Australia got a new PM.

So, especially for Ed and any other fans of Gareth Chillcot's "Heroes and Villains" video that featured the legendary 99 call, here is the Australian rugby league alternative. Except you don't need to see a highlights video; just watch any State of Origin game.

Here is the best brawl from Game 1, two weeks ago:

Paul Gallen (8) received a week's ban, but was totally unrepentant, claiming, with some justification, that footage of brawls was used extensively to market the series, so he didn't quite see what the problem was.

And this was Wednesday night: