³ÉÈËÂÛ̳

If nothing else, the Ozcar affair has been one of the most metaphoric scandals I've yet to cover. Since a battered old "ute" (a utility vehicle) is at the heart of the controversy, there's been no end to the motoring figures of speech.

Political attacks have "backfired"; politicians have been "caught in the headlights"; the Liberal leader Malcolm Turnbull has shown that he still needs "learner plates". You get the idea.

Now a swathe of bad polls for the Liberal leader have fuelled speculation that Mr Turnbull might be road kill. The Sydney Morning Herald reports that his disapproval rating has soared to 60%. The Australian reports that his personal approval ratings have seen the biggest drop in support in Newspoll's 25-year history - from 44% to 25% in the last fortnight. There's talk that senior Liberal figures could move to oust him within days or weeks (presumably, they would invite him to sit in the ejector seat), although others are urging calm (he should remain the designated driver).

Curiously, one government frontbencher compared Mr Turnbull to Mark Latham, the former Labor leader who so spectacularly self-destructed (or drove off a cliff).

Certainly, Malcolm Turnbull made two major blunders in his handling of the affair: basing his attack on an email that was concocted; and targeting Kevin Rudd at a time when the Treasurer, Wayne Swann, was much more vulnerable (to help understand why read the exchange below). They have reinforced the impression that the Liberal leader lacks judgment and is in far too much of a hurry. (There's a good piece about Paul Keating's thoughts on the matter).

Turnbull, who is by far the richest man in parliament, has always been easy depict as an out-of-touch snob from the affluent Eastern Suburbs of Sydney, with an over-active sense of his personal entitlement and personal destiny. This has always been a problem for him in the modern-day Liberal Party, since the Howard years were so emphatically anti-elitist.

But my own hunch is that Mr Turnbull will probably survive, for lack of plausible alternatives. Of course, had this all happened two weeks ago, while Peter Costello's intentions were still unclear, it might have been a different story. But there are a number of Liberals who seem to have been impressed that Turnbull kept on fighting last week, even when all seemed lost. When others might have wilted, he proved himself to be an Aussie battler - and the Liberals have always loved a battler.

Tony Abbot, a Howard diehard, has been out defending his beleaguered leader this morning, and has been touting precisely that line. "Just as Malcolm didn't flinch last week it's important that the party doesn't flinch this week," said Abbott, another product of the Eastern Suburbs and former Rhodes scholar.

So I wonder if the Ozcar affair has produced something of a political paradox: that Malcolm Turnbull has turned off a lot of voters for the time being, but endeared himself to elements within his party by showing that he can battle and that he is therefore more like them.

Still, reading the polls this morning he surely must have thought that his hopes of one day being ferried around in the Prime Ministerial white Holden had taken a detour up a dead-end.

PS: Here's the transcription of an interview between the Treasurer, Wayne Swan, and the ABC reporter, Emma Griffiths on ABC's AM programmes from Thursday 25 June. The allegation, remember, is that the Treasurer gave special treatment to a Brisbane car dealer, John Grant, who gave Kevin Rudd the use of a "ute". Mr Swan has claimed that he treated other car dealers the same...

EMMA GRIFFITHS: How many other dealers did you speak to directly on the phone? Even if it is just for two minutes, how many other dealers?
WAYNE SWAN: Well it's a matter of public record that I spoke to Mr Grant.
EMMA GRIFFITHS: How many other dealers?
WAYNE SWAN: Well it's a matter of public record that I spoke to Mr Grant and I spoke to many other people and many other...
EMMA GRIFFITHS: Put it on the public record who else you spoke to. What other car dealers?
WAYNE SWAN: Well I have put it on the public record that I spoke to Mr Grant, Emma, but that is simply irrelevant...
EMMA GRIFFITHS: But you're not answering the question Mr Swan.
WAYNE SWAN: Well it's not exactly the right question.

• Bookmark with:
• |
• |
• |
• |
• - What's this?

As suspected, Daryl Melham, the Labor MP who wants to stop Britons living in Australia from being allowed to vote in federal elections, has set a rather frisky cat among the pigeons.

It has produced a really strong thread of comments, as these kind of national identity questions always seem to do.

Many have obviously remarked on the constitutional links with Britain but pazzarooney raises the question of the cultural inheritance, as well.

As anyone who lives here knows, modern Australia is a rich and vibrant amalgam of all sorts of cultures, ancient and more recent, which are expressed in all manner of ways: from the art that hangs on peoples' walls to the varied menu of food that they sit down to eat; from the sports and hobbies they participate in to the places of worship they attend on a Friday, Saturday or Sunday.

But the cultural influence of Britain remains surprisingly strong, especially given that the proportion of UK-born residents has been declining steadily over the past 25 years.

The broadcast media provides some of the most obvious examples. You can watch British programmes here from dawn until dusk and from dusk until dawn. The Bill, Spooks, Are you Being Served? and The Antiques Roadshow. On cable, there's a channel entirely devoted to British programming called UKTV (which is owned by the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳). I have yet to meet anyone who prefers the Australian version of Top Gear broadcast on SBS to the Clarkson original, and Channel Nine's cricket coverage is presented by a Pom, the former Hampshire cricketer Mark Nicholas.

ABC, the Australian national broadcaster, is modelled on the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳, and has a similar feel, culture and mission. At five-o'clock on the Australian east coast, you can tune into the PM programme, just as you can in Britain. It is presented by Mark Colvin, a graduate of Oxford, whose voice would not sound out of place on Radio Four in Britain.

I'm always surprised at the time devoted during ABC news bulletins to results from the English premier league, but then sport is another aspect of popular culture where the British influence remains strong.

State cricket teams compete still for a trophy purchased with a donation from the Earl of Sheffield. In rugby, the Wallabies and All Blacks fight for a cup named after the first Viscount of Bledisloe.

As the cricket writer Gideon Haigh has noted, the dominant sports here are British: cricket, the two codes of rugby, golf, tennis, boxing, horseracing, and more recently, soccer (although the southern European influence was also strong in its development on Australian soil).

One of the key figures in the development of Australian Rules Football was Tom Wills, who was educated at Rugby school. Donald Bradman used to describe tours to Britain as going home.

The media baron Frank Packer predicated once that baseball was the coming thing, but Australia stuck with cricket. Basketball, that other American invention, is struggling, and no longer has a professional presence in Sydney or Brisbane.

Just about the best thing I've read on this cultural inheritance is , which focuses on the ideas and the values that were imported from Britain, and which remain cultural touchstones to this day.

In his estimation, they include the sense of fair play, the protestant work ethic, low church puritanism, drunkenism, and "British pragmatism and distrust of theory". He also talks about "British philistinism and dislike of anything showy, theatrical, arty or 'too serious'; British good sense and the British sense of humour".

Unquestionably, there's a strong cross-current of cultural influences. Some of Britain's leading public intellectuals are Aussies, like Clive James, Germaine Greer and the democracy guru Professor John Keane. So, too, are some of Britain's best-loved entertainers, like Kylie Minogue, Rolf Harris and The Wiggles. Neighbours is more popular in Britain than Eastenders will ever be in Australia.

In the aftermath of the Hillsborough disaster, Australian television executives played a central role in rethinking and repacking English football. And English cricketers have borrowed a lot from their Australian rivals, from the coloured clothing first used in Kerry Packer's World Series to their more aggressive style of play.

As we approach that ritualistic period of mutual sporting antagonism, the Ashes will not only revive our long-standing rivalry but remind us how much we have in common.

• Bookmark with:
• |
• |
• |
• |
• - What's this?

What with 'Utegate' and its ongoing aftermath (does anyone agree, by the way, that journalists should contribute to a kind of suffix swear box every time they attach 'gate' to a scandal?), it's been easy to miss what is incontrovertibly the really big story to emerge from Canberra this week: the attempt to strip my fellow compatriots of the vote in Australian federal elections.

It's a little-known electoral fact (and this isn't a fake blog, I promise you) but British subjects resident in Australian prior to 1984 can still vote in federal elections - along, by the way, with the citizens of 48 Commonwealth and former Commonwealth countries whose names were on the electoral roll before the laws were changed. No other non-citizens of Australia enjoy this privilege.

It's a not insignificant number of voters: 162,928 to be precise. And their geographic distribution makes them even more influential.

There are eight parliamentary constituencies that harbour more than 2,500 non-Australian noters. A further 62 have more than a 1,000. Put another way, voters with a 'British subject' notation on the electoral roll are a significant presence in almost half of Australia's 150 parliamentary constituencies.

In a close election, resident Poms who have never taken up Australian citizenship could feasibly exert a disproportionate influence on the outcome.

Now the Labor MP Daryl Melham wants to end this fancy franchise. He's the chairman of a parliamentary committee looking into electoral reform, and thinks it is high time to revisit this anomaly.

What's he's proposing is an end to 'British subject' voting by 2014, which will give permanent residents enough time, he reckons, to become fully-fledged citizens and thus retain their right to vote.

'Fair suck of the sav,' he told me from Canberra earlier on (using a colloquial forerunner of Kevin Rudd's famed 'fair shake of the sauce bottle').

'We still love you guys, but not enough for you to keep the right to vote.'

There's been a lot of this kind of constitutional and legal housekeeping since the war.

Up until January 26 1949, Australians were British subjects. The word 'British' survived on the front cover of an Australian passport until the late 1960s. It was not until the mid-1980s that Australians lost their right of legal appeal to the Privy Council in the UK. It was not until 1984 that Advance Australia Fair became the national anthem, and replaced 'God Save the Queen.' A Briton with dual citizenship could be a member of the Australian parliament until 1999, when the High Court disqualified citizens of a 'foreign power'.

So is it time to sever yet another of those links with Britain?

PS: There's a very lively thread still underway on 'Utegate' (that's another dollar in suffix box), many of which focus on the unlikeliness of this row. Who would have thought Kevin Rudd and Malcolm Turnbull, two of the richest men in parliament, would be arguing over a ute?

• Bookmark with:
• |
• |
• |
• |
• - What's this?

This had the ingredients of a uniquely Australian scandal. There was a 'ute' (a pickup truck), a 'mate' (in this case the prime minister's friend and neighbour, the car dealer John Grant) and a lot of savage name-calling in parliament (Question Time in Canberra can regularly be a watch-from-behind-the-sofa sort of affair).

The problem was that the at the heart of the 'scandal' has been found to be a fake - 'created by a person or persons other than the purported author of the e-mail,' according to the preliminary investigation conducted by the Australian Federal Police.

According to the version originally put forward by the opposition, the email showed that Mr Rudd's constituent - the car dealer John Grant - had been granted special attention from the government when he applied for a government loan to cope with the global credit crunch.

Not a bad return for the loan of a battered old ute.

The opposition leader, Malcolm Turnbull, thus claimed that the prime minister had abused his position, and misled parliament, and should resign as a result.

From Friday afternoon onwards, the controversy seemed to go from nought to 60 in a blur - unlike the aforementioned ute - and it always seemed that Mr Turnbull might have been a bit hasty in ramping up his rhetoric and calling for Kevin Rudd's resignation.

Now Mr Turnbull's judgment has been brought into question, since the email upon which he based his attack has turned out to be bogus.

So much, then, for the smoking gun. As far as the prime minister is concerned, there isn't even the whiff of cordite. Indeed, there isn't even a gun.

Last week was Malcolm Turnbull's best as opposition leader for the simple reason that his main potential rival, the former Treasurer Peter Costello, finally ended months of speculation and announced his retirement from politics.

Now Mr Turnbull is nursing self-inflicted wounds and facing further questions about his political judgment and his basic political skills. As noted in her recent Quarterly Essay on Malcolm Turnbull, the Liberal Party wears him like a borrowed suit that does not fit.

The opposition has now turned it guns on the Treasurer, Wayne Swann, another Queenslander who they claim gave preferential treatment to the Brisbane car dealer John Grant.

Mr Turnbull must hope that this time they are not firing blanks.

• Bookmark with:
• |
• |
• |
• |
• - What's this?

I have one of Australia's premium exports, the writer and poet Clive James, to thank for introducing me to the obscure art of the Moebius striptease.

In his latest book of essays and articles, The Revolt of the Pendulum, he speaks of this erotic dance where "the disrobing stripper is always on the point of getting dressed again, and there is no resolution to the revelation".

All of which brings us to Peter Costello.

Ever since the defeat of the Howard government in 2007, the former Treasurer has staged his own backbench version of the Moebius striptease - politically suggestive rather than overtly erotic, of course, and conducted in a manner which has teased and tantalised the Canberra press gallery without ever fully revealing himself.

So despite increasingly coy protestations that he was not a candidate for the leadership of the Liberal Party, there was an eye-catching speech here, or a headline-grabbing book launch there - always showing just enough leg to keep him in the spotlight.

Indeed, in recent months, his moves seemed to be even more intricately choreographed.

And why not? With the global financial crisis biting hard, the times seemed to suit him. Not only was he Australia's longest serving Treasurer - and arguably its most successful - but he was one of the original architects of the G20.

Despite what Paul Keating said about him being a "low altitude flyer", Mr Costello had the brains to be prime minister, along with the economic expertise and parliamentary skill and bravado.

The oft-heard criticism is that he lacked the political courage, or the ticker.

According to Costello and his allies, he was promised the prime ministership by John Howard midway through a second coalition term, but his leadership ambitions were thwarted continually by his obstinate and treacherous boss.

When Mr Howard went back on that 'deal', Mr Costello lacked the bravery (according to his critics), or the necessary backbench support (according to his admirers), to unseat Mr Howard. Perhaps he was deficient on both counts.

After Mr Howard's defeat in 2007, the member for Higgins had two clear chances to seek the leadership of the Liberal Party, but said on both occasions that he wanted to pursue a career beyond politics.

Still, he refused to categorically rule out a political comeback which meant that he became a seriously disruptive, distracting and destabilising presence in the party room and broadcasting studios.

For as long as he delayed his departure from politics, he therefore posed a threat to the present Liberal leader, Malcolm Turnbull, and, by extension, Kevin Rudd - especially at a time of such economic uncertainty, with the polls showing the Liberals making something of a comeback (even though Rudd retains his lead over Turnbull as the preferred prime minister).

During his witty speech in parliament, Costello wryly observed: "It is just possible that both sides of the dispatch box are happy with the announcement that I have made." Certainly, I have rarely seen Malcolm Turnbull look happier.

One of the recent problems facing the Labour Party in Britain has been its difficulty in looking beyond the Blair/Brown/Mandelson era. In some ways, the recent turmoil in Westminster, and the inability of rebels to dislodge Gordon Brown, could be interpreted as a failure of political imagination as much as a failure of political will.

Now the Liberal Party has no other choice but to imagine a future without Peter Costello and his archrival John Howard, whose three-sentence 'tribute' to his former deputy was minimalist in the extreme.

For Australian conservatives, this, then, is the definitive break with the past: more so even than John Howard's valedictory address at the Wentworth hotel in Sydney on the night of his electoral defeat (which started, curiously, while Mr Costello was still addressing his party helpers in the seat of Higgins, in Melbourne's well-healed inner east. The television channels cut immediately from Melbourne to Sydney).

Malcolm Turnbull is now much more free to contest the next election in the political centre, since the rightwing of the Liberal Party has lost its figurehead. As the Australian Financial Review put it in its front page headline: 'Costello liberates Turnbull.'

There's been lots of talk about Costello being the best prime minister Australia never had, and, less contentiously, the best leader the Liberal Party never had. For all his teasing, Australia never got the see the Full Costello.

• Bookmark with:
• |
• |
• |
• |
• - What's this?

I'm just back from a break in Britain, where the sniff of political blood has been vying for nostril space with the stench of democratic decay.

The ongoing MPs' expenses scandal, along with the Labour leadership crisis it helped precipitate, has almost completely monopolised the British media.

But there was one day last week when Gordon Brown came close to being nudged off the front pages by Gordon Ramsey - "a low-life" in the headline-grabbing estimation of Kevin Rudd.

When the Australian prime minister weighs in on popular culture, as he did with his gallant defence of the Channel Nine presenter Tracy Grimshaw, he often seems to capture the public mood.

When Gordon Brown does it, as he did after the Scottish songstress Susan Boyle was taken to a clinic following the final of Britain's Got Talent, he's accused of populist gimmickry.

The two prime ministers are good friends, ideological soul-mates and, I'm told, regular texters. What Gordon Brown would give right now for Mr Rudd's still high ratings, political self-confidence and popular touch.

On that front, so much for my pre-holiday prediction that the comedy troupe, The Chaser, might start to dent Mr Rudd's popularity. Instead, the Australian viewing public appears to have declared war on them.

The Chaser team is spending two weeks in the satire sin bin, after ABC decided to suspend the show because of public outrage over the team's Make a Realistic Wish Foundation sketch, which depicted dying children being told to rein in their deathbed wishes.

Mr Rudd said the Chaser team should hang their heads in shame, another soundbite which appears to have chimed with public opinion (although there has been the suggestion that the prime minister runs the risk of "outrage fatigue").

As we arrived back in Australia this morning, we were reminded of the main story of the moment by the health registration forms we had to fill in, the quarantine officials who boarded the flight and the heat-detecting cameras we had to walk past before reaching immigration.

Victoria has been dubbed the "swine flu capital of the world", and a flu expert quoted in has said that up to one-third of Victorians might be infected by the virus.

In other news, as they say, Defence Minister Joel Fitzgibbon has resigned after violating the government's code of conduct, thus becoming the first minister to quit since Kevin Rudd became prime minister in November 2007.

Andrew Symonds, the troubled Australian all-rounder, was sent packing after breaching Cricket Australia's code of conduct.

He was being 'too Australian,' according to the former Aussie cricketer, Dean Jones. All he wanted to do, after all, was to have a beer and watch the footie, the State of Origin match between Queensland and New South Wales. Cricket Australia took a dimmer view.

There have been the , which has damaged relations with India, and the abandonment of the Rio Tinto/Chinalco deal which will disappoint the Chinese.

So lots of talking points. Did The Chaser go too far? Should Joel Fitzgibbon have resigned? Is Gordon Ramsey, indeed, a "low life"? And is Tracy Grimshaw the early front-runner for Australian of the Year?

And the news just keeps on coming. Peter Costello, the former treasurer and longtime prime ministerial wannabe, has today announced he is quitting politics at the next election. More on than later...

• Bookmark with:
• |
• |
• |
• |
• - What's this?