Sam Butler: In Meme Veritas

On the night in 2007 that Labor won the federal election, a Kevin Rudd meme – a “lolKevin” – went into interweb circulation. It was a photo of an authoritative-looking Rudd with a very simple imploration below: “Don’t fuck it up.”

The meme must never have reached Rudd’s office. Perhaps if it had, this government wouldn’t be in the mess it’s in now.

The fact is, Rudd did fuck it up. The power went to his head almost immediately and he became his own worst enemy. He alienated himself from almost every member of his own party, cementing his power base solely in high opinion polls. As soon as they started heading south, Rudd’s fate was sealed.

Julia Gillard’s move against him soon became a matter of when, not if. But like Rudd, she too is her own worst enemy, kicking so many own goals that an aggressive, extremist god-botherer like Tony Abbott now seems a valid alternative and our likely next PM.

But the worst thing Labor could do now is replace the current prime minister with an ex-PM they told the world was so bad he needed to be dumped before the end of his first term.

Remember, at the time Rudd was replaced there was plenty of polling to suggest, as it is once again, that the replacement, Gillard, would send Labor’s vote skyrocketing back up. In many ways Gillard and Rudd are mere symptoms of Labor’s bigger problem – governing short-term for the 24-hour news cycle and letting one opinion poll taken in any one week determine who should lead the party.

Although Australians don’t directly elect our head of government, there is an expectation that they deserve at least one full term to sink or swim – we have after all turfed out a one-term government only once before. By junking its prime ministers NSW-premier style, Labor sends the message that incumbency means nothing and they have no genuine confidence in their own governing. It also signals to voters not to expect that the party leader they (indirectly) vote for today will be there tomorrow – hardly an indication that they respect their wishes.

Labor has very little hope of winning the next election. But if they stick with Gillard, despite her many faults, they’ll at least be able to say with a shred of credibility that this time they stood firm in the face of adversity, ignored the polls and governed in the interest of long-term stability and fully implementing their big-ticket policies, several of which are actually commendable. That should minimise their losses and give them a fighting chance of reclaiming power in 2016.

But like Rudd, they’ll probably just fuck it all up instead.