Fed: Hockey says share the love but Libs don't get the message

AAP General News (Australia)
12-05-2008
Fed: Hockey says share the love but Libs don't get the message

By Kate Hannon, National Political Editor

CANBERRA, Dec 5 AAP - Joe Hockey exhorted his enemies to share the love because, "quite
frankly, sharing the love is not a bad thing".

The avuncular manager of opposition business in the House of Representatives was talking
on Thursday about being kind to his opponents in the dying days of parliament as the festive
season approaches.

However within seconds of his comment he hoed into Labor backbencher James Bidgood
calling on Prime Minister Kevin Rudd to dump the MP after he took a photo of a man who
had doused himself in petrol as part of a protest and then offered the pictures to a media
organisation.

An apology in Parliament was not enough, said Hockey, Bidgood should go.

While Hockey was on message on the hapless Bidgood, he might have considered directing
the "share the love" vibe towards his own colleagues.

Some, or possibly only one, of them made much of the week hell for deputy leader and
shadow treasurer Julie Bishop who was the subject of a whispering campaign that she was
underperforming and would soon be moved.

The love was also missing when coalition senators split as they fell into a collective
heap sometime after midnight on Thursday and failed to make good their original intention
and amend the government's bill to set up its nation building funds.

The Senate debacle ended the week with what former Howard government minister Bronwyn
Bishop described as "not a good look".

The sudden lack of discipline in the Senate is not a good omen for Opposition Leader
Malcolm Turnbull as his party learns to deal with relying on support from cross-bench
senators to amend government bills.

It follows Turnbull's sacking of Nationals Senator Fiona Nash as a shadow parliamentary
secretary on Tuesday after she and her colleagues planned to cross the floor over a bill
providing tax breaks on the planting of trees for carbon sinks.

Turnbull will want them to be on song next year with the Fair Work and emissions trading
bills due to come into the Senate in the first half of next year.

But this will not be as easy as it looks with the four Nationals senators led by Queensland
maverick Barnaby Joyce who is known for his independent thinking.

Despite the compliments heaped on one another in their parliamentary valedictory speeches
on Thursday, the issue of behaviour, both ordinary and generous, became a theme of the
final days of the Rudd government's first year of Parliament.

In keeping with the tradition of a final sitting week, both Rudd and Turnbull gave
their respective party rooms a pep talk on the year just gone and what to expect in the
future.

Turnbull painted a picture of a government which had lost direction, resorting to insults
and abuse.

"Mr Rudd's bad behaviour in parliament is not a sign of triumph, he is rattled," Turnbull
told the party room.

"Next year the economic phoney war will end and the focus will be on Mr Rudd's performance."

While Turnbull was forced to defend the performance of his deputy more than once in
interviews during the week he tried hard to turn the attack onto Deputy Prime Minister
and Workplace Relations Minister Julia Gillard.

In one radio interview he described her as "very vicious and insulting" towards Bishop
in the House.

"I reckon if she spent less time rehearsing the nasty lines about Julie Bishop in front
of the mirror and more time focussing on her job we'd get some better outcomes in terms
of the government," Turnbull scolded.

Bishop, who took on the role of shadow treasurer after Turnbull succeeded Brendan Nelson
as opposition leader in mid-September has had a few stumbles since with accusations of
plagiarism and of being unprepared.

But she dug in this week and went head to head with Treasurer Wayne Swan and then Gillard
when both women stood in for their leaders in question time on Thursday.

The clash became heated on Tuesday when during a rowdy session Bishop made a hand gesture
of a cat's claw in response to comments by Gillard.

The next day in question time, when Bishop rose to ask a question of Swan a small number
of juvenile-minded government backbenchers made meowing noises.

But by Thursday the atmosphere had calmed and with both acting for their respective
leaders there was a more respectful even jocular approach from both sides.

One of the messages Turnbull relayed to his troops earlier in the week was the opposition
had come through its turbulent year with a leadership change and was no longer "demoralised".

But it would probably do for the opposition to have another look at applying the Hockey
message to itself.

As Hockey says, "There's lots of love going around, we're full of love."

AAP keh/rl

KEYWORD: NEWSCOPE FEDERAL (AAP NEWS ANALYSIS)

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