Who would have guessed that being transparent about his prior work history would lead to knee-jerk simplistic comments focussed on the person rather than the content?
BTW, Kelly is best known for his critical biography of Scott Morrison and well regarded for his hyper-critical policy analysis.
His criticism of modern day politicians focussing on go softly political positioning/gaming rather than policy depth being a constant that also extends to the tail end of the Rudd/Gillard era.
It's a theme that resonates as we enter the prelude to yet another nasty Federal election cycle where sustainable policy takes a back seat to non-policies, best summed up by the following:
There are two notable facts about political debate in the three weeks since the budget. The first is how much it has been dominated by Peter Dutton and his policies – or, more accurately at this point, “policies”. The second is the desperation of our major political parties to avoid actually talking about what is in front of them....
As Labor seeks to push back on Dutton’s plans, it can accurately say the opposition leader is not offering real solutions to the problems facing this country. But politically – and arguably in terms of policy too – this points back in Labor’s direction. That Dutton’s ideas can so easily dominate, via policies barely worth the name, is a sign of the vacuum in national debate that Labor has left: its inability to commandeer the national discussion, either by presenting concrete proposals to deal with the problems we see around us or by convincing us of the significance of those proposals.
Take the time to take a read.
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