Milne Watch 3

I note that Kim from Larvatus Prodeo has beaten me to the keyboard on this, but Glenn Milne has produced an inane channeling of Shadow Education Minister Christopher Pyne that is complete guff even by his standards.

Under the misleading title 'New Class Warfare', Milne has hoisted Pyne onto some form of 'pantheon' he has constructed (of what, shadow ministers?), and some form of 'ascension' (to what is unclear, except to the Shadow Ministry). Milne has basically reproduced what Christopher Pyne will say in Parliament this week about the Federal Government's new Education bill under the spurious guise of an analysis of schools policy:

this amounts to a realisation: that it was Rudd's successful subterfuge of political values that led directly to his victory in November 2007. The Coalition to date has allowed itself to be mugged by the proposition that Rudd is John Howard lite, without putting up a decent fight to the contrary. And it is Christopher Pyne who lighted on to this proposition first.

Pyne, one of Turnbull's key leadership backers, has now been promoted into the frontline education portfolio and it is Julia Gillard, his opposite, whom he now has in his sights. Pyne has finally assumed his rightful position at the epicentre of the Opposition, a role that was bloodymindedly denied him by Howard for two reasons: he was a Liberal progressive and he was a supporter of Peter Costello. It was enough to generate such negative personal energy from Howard that he continually blocked Pyne's promotion in what turned out to be part of an act of self-destruction.

Pyne is now where he wants to be in the Liberal pantheon and, more critically, where Turnbull wants him to be. If Pyne gets his way, Gillard is about to be the first to have to come to grips with his ascension by way of her introduction this week into the parliament of the Schools Assistance Bill 2008, the new quadrennial funding legislation for the private and state school systems.

To give Mine some credit, he admits in the column that he has basically reproduced what Chris Pyne told him and passed it off as an op-ed piece for The Australian:

One quick postscript: much of the research work on this issue was done by the former Opposition education spokesman, Tony Smith. Smith voted for Brendan Nelson in the recent leadership ballot and went to the outer ministry. He still handed over his homework to Pyne, a Turnbull numbers man.

That constitutes a message and it is this. Memo to Kevin Rudd: these guys think they can win. And they will now do whatever it takes to do so.

Memo to readers of The Australian. If you want to see the Media Releases of Coalition Shadow Ministers, you can get them off the Web without having them passed off as the 'analysis' of Glenn Milne. And you can get them without words such as 'pantheon' and 'ascension'.

Milne Watch #2

In a week where the Canberra commentariat universally decided that the Federal Government was too boring to pay attention to, so offered their advisory services pro bono to the Federal Opposition, there was a lot of competition for the silliest column on the question of whether Peter Costello wanted or did not want to be leader of the Federal Liberal Party.

Glenn Milne's prognostications were on a par with others - and no more silly than those of Paul Kelly, who takes himself more seriously - but this snippet from the Sunday column caught my eye:

Key former Costello supporters have now switched to Turnbull.

I ask them: "If Turnbull mounts a challenge and Costello rings to say, don't do it, what would be your response?''

They say: "Peter has now dealt himself out of the party's future; therefore, he has no say in it. We will make up our own minds''.

So there you have it. 'Key fomer Costello supporters' - whoever they are - not only receive the same questions from Glenn Milne, but collectively offer the same answers. They 'will make up their own minds'.

Repeat after me: We are all individuals!

Milne watch

Today marks the beginning of an occasional blog piece on this site noting the contributions of News Limited Federal politics pundit and occasional pugilist Glenn Milne.

I am particularly interested in examples of:

1. Shameless spruiking on behalf of Peter Costello;
2. Passing off comments from Liberal Party staffers as original political insight (e.g. "ute men decided the Gippsland by-election").

If you have any examples of this or other characteristic forms of Milne-speak, please pass them on.

Today's edition of The Australian provided us with a very good example of the first of these.

The dinner demonstrated that Costello has taken the Liberal Party hostage. And they love him for it. But in this case Costello is both hostage taker and saviour.

The central contradiction at the heart of this gala night was that it clearly showcased why Costello should be leading the Liberals and then offered no resolution as to how - or even whether - this would happen.

First, Tony Smith, Costello's former staffer and now the Opposition spokesman on education, recited his ex-boss's achievements in government: "Commonwealth debt eliminated, surpluses replaced deficits and funding freed up in key areas of national concern."

There followed a video of Costello's killer moments in parliament. The baby-faced shadow attorney-general destroying Ros Kelly's career over the sports rorts affair, an assault that shredded the credibility of the Keating government and presaged its defeat in the 1996 election. Through to his devastating ridicule of Peter Garrett selling out his core beliefs, replete with an imitation over the despatch box of the former Midnight Oil frontman's mechanical twitchings and a rendition of Beds Are Burning.

The ecstatic reaction of the faithful served to remind everyone of Costello's capacity to instantly turn the mood in parliament. The question hanging in the air was: What if it was him, rather than Brendan Nelson, sitting opposite Kevin Rudd?

...

On the evidence of Friday night's cracker of a speech to the faithful, Costello still remains a riddle inside a question. The address was textured, by turns funny, warm, personal and packing a political punch. Having walked into the venue declaring the event neither a farewell nor a resurrection, "just a thank you", Costello observed that usually in politics you have to wait until your funeral to hear people say nice things about you.

Not while Glenn Milne's writing.