Mungo is right this time

A political crisis like '75? Tell 'em they're dreamin'

I don't normally find much to agree with in Mungo McCallum's political commentary (he was one of the worst Howard haters around, if I recall), but he is right in his comparison of the 1975 Whitlam crisis and the fake crisis the Right is trying to promote today:

And this brings us to the second difference: the crisis of 1975 was actually about something. The government had attempted to bypass both the states and the Treasury to raise an overseas loan of $4 billion and the whole process had gone horribly wrong. A cast of weirdos in white shoes and green sunglasses had emerged making improbable promises and brandishing carpet bags. Whitlam had been forced to sack two of his most senior ministers for deliberately misleading parliament over their own roles in the affair.

This gave Malcolm Fraser the "unusual and reprehensible circumstance" he need to justify the blocking of supply, a move only made possible by an unprecedented breach of convention: on the death of a Queensland Labor senator, the state premier Joh Bjelke-Petersen had appointed as his replacement not another Labor member, as was accepted practice, but an anti-Labor stooge. With the numbers in the senate Fraser committed his own breach of convention, confident that it would force Whitlam to an election.

Whitlam fought back, attempting to find alternative means to pay the civil and military public service. Lawyers, up to and including the chief justice became involved, both openly and covertly and there was talk of both a general strike and of military intervention. This really was a political crisis; no wonder the place went apeshit.

But today... well, what crisis? The polls are against the Government, as are the shock jocks and sections of the media, but for the administration, it's pretty much business as usual. By international standards the place is in good shape, and although there are plenty of dissatisfied voters, there are no signs of a genuine people's revolt – the streets are largely empty of marchers. And as for the Parliament – it's noisy, but no more so than it has been in other times in its history. In the uproar after the crisis of 1909 the speaker dropped dead in his chair; Harry Jenkins remains robust.

Compared to 1975, it's pretty Mickey Mouse stuff. Whitlam had to sack cabinet ministers; Julia Gillard is having problems with a single backbencher. Fraser responded by blocking supply; all Tony Abbott can block is parliamentary pairings. Fraser's lust for power at least produced drama on a grand scale; Abbott's manifests itself in stunts and spite. Wacky and frantic it may be, but 1975 it's not. Trust me; I was there.

He is spot on.