Dear Mr Rudd,
I’m sorry to take up five minutes of your time. I know you’re very busy on the campaign trail, kissing babies, spending money, flipping your hair, but we have to talk.
You see in all the excitement of being Prime Minister again there’s something you’ve forgotten, some realities that have been swept under the rug.
Mr Rudd, there are some elections you don’t want to win.
I know, it will be excruciatingly painful for you to give your concession speech on September 7, and we know you really wanted the job.
Don’t look at us! But imagine for a second if you do pull off a Keating and win. It would be sweet. It would be delicious. For a few weeks. But then reality would set in.
Kevin Rudd (Photo: Flickr, Australian Civil-Military Centre)
The economy is faltering. It’s still doing well, but the mining boom is over. Unemployment is ticking up, China is buying less and the surplus won’t be here till after the next election.
The boats won’t stop, no matter who is in power. The International Organisation of Migration told me “nothing will stop the boats.” They’ll keep coming and they’ll keep destroying your credibility.
And governments have a use-by date. Sometimes you’re lucky, like Howard or Menzies, and you can ride a wave of goodwill and opposition incompetence to a glorious future. But more often than not it’s a shit fight, with no winner and no glory for anyone.
We can look back in history and see other elections the their victories were short-lived. A classic example is 1993 when Labor was tired and worn-out. They had done everything they wanted to do and all that was left was Keating’s hatred for the Liberals. They won, just, and it was the “Sweetest Victory of All”.
But all that guaranteed was that in 1996 voters threw him out so violently and it guaranteed Howard two terms, despite the rockiness of his first.
The Liberals have seen this too. In 1980 Malcolm Fraser won comfortably, but if he’d lost, Bill Hayden would have become Prime Minister. Hayden was no Bob Hawke and Keating wasn’t his Treasurer.
He would have been gone in two terms and the Liberals could have got the credit for the economic revolution the Hawke/Keating governments undertook.
If you win this one Kevin, you will get a pounding in 2016 the likes of which Australia has never known and 1996 will look like a slap fight in the kindergarten playground.
Save the furniture, Kevin. Win Chris Bowen’s seat for him, maybe Bill Shorten’s if you’re feeling generous. But don’t actually win. Because, if you do, you will regret it.
