Rudd vs. Gillard scored on leadership qualities after a decidedly septic month.
For the six years I worked as an adviser to John So, the media tried their best to paint a picture of Melbourne City Council as ‘Clown Hall’. Great sport, but the mud wouldn’t stick. His fellow councillors managed to successfully rake the muck; however, John’s integrity was never really at question.
This month all but a few of the prominent federal Labor MPs managed to dive, naked into a quagmire from which it is doubtful cabinet ministers will rise. If they do, they will be forever soiled. That’s because Australians who watched the spectacle with protuberant eyes inevitably copped some grit. It was dirty.
Normally you feel some shame when your highest representatives debase themselves, particularly when it is on foreign shores in the dead of night (we forgave him the strip joint but never the Willard Hotel).
Every splatter of this sordid tale appears to have been covered so let’s not go there; we have better things to do. That said, there’s one thing to emerge crystal clear from this murky mud bath: our leaders do not appear fit to lead. But, rather than this being just a hunch, we went looking for some science, scoring Rudd and Gillard against the qualities of a great leader.
How did you score our finest ambassadors? The moral of the story? It ain’t easy at the top. Or the bottom.
Ellis Jones knows Australian government relations. We develop effective campaigns, manage issues and help politicians and senior bureaucrats connect with stakeholders.
Image: Wikimedia Commons
Posted by rhod. Categories: government Tags: gillard, leadership, mud wrestling, rudd
2 Comments
By Greg MundyFriday, 02 March 2012
The one thing you haven’t scored them on is a record of achievement – all the qualities you list are relevant but you could score highly on all of them and still do no good work. Some of them are just about appearances. I don’t like either Rudd or Gillard but if you list Health Reform, Disability Insurance, Carbon Tax, Charities reform, social housing (eg NRAS) and I could go on, both actually have done things. I think this means your vision score is wrong and your integrity one wrongly targeted
By rhodFriday, 02 March 2012
You are right Greg, some very good work has been done by the government (and in that i include the many talented bureaucrats so often overlooked). Without being party political, we’re dissecting – with humour – the events of the last 3 months which unfortunately have overshadowed and diminished any achievements made. As many commentators have said, recent behaviour reveals a set of motivations that seems to have very little to do with representing the people of Australia and governing the nation. That lessens all of us as we went to the polling booths. But before we fall into a funk, there’s always John Clarke and Bryan Dawe to remind us of what it’s all about!!