|
Edited on Mon Jul-17-06 04:57 AM by socialdemocrat1981
Costello had his first opportunity to run for the leadership when Hewson’s leadership was on the rocks during the 1993-94 period. During that time he did much undermining but was not prepared to consider standing for the leadership himself. When Hewson threw down the gauntlet and declared all positions vacant in mid-1994, Costello instead made an arrangement with Downer for the latter to run while he contested the deputy leadership. Costello’s rationale for this, explained in Shaun Carney’s excellent biography of him, is that he felt that Hewson was setting a trap for him whereby he would contest the leadership, stumble because of his youth and inexperience and fall over. So he allowed Downer to take the leadership and, partly because he fell into Hewson’s trap and partly because he was an incompetent buffoon, his leadership disintegrated into a mess
But you are right Matilda. What was Costello’s excuse in late 1994 to early 1995? He was deputy in the party and therefore well positioned to be considered as Downer’s logical successor. Most political sources from the time indicated that he had the numbers and Howard had also indicated that he wouldn’t run if he couldn’t assume the leadership unchallenged. There were a lot more small ‘l’ liberals and moderates in the party at the time who would have gone along with an “anyone but Howard” candidate –Peter Nugent, Steele Hall, Chris Gallus, Baden Teague are ones who immediately come to mind. Additionally Andrew Peacock was reportedly wooing Costello to run for the leadership (because he didn’t want Howard to get the leadership and had blocked Howard’s first attempt to run when Hewson declared a leadership spill) and probably could have delivered quite a few MPs into Costello’s camp. Costello had been in the deputy leadership and had witnessed Downer’s misjudgments and errors first hand and had probably learned enough about leadership and what not to do. And Howard was seen as something of a “has been” in the party –someone who had botched up his last leadership attempt and couldn’t accept it. After all the same members of the party (albeit with the exception of one member who had entered Parliament when Peacock had retired –and that was Petrou Georgiou –hardly one of Howard’s most vocal advocates) had chosen Hewson over Howard in the post-1993 leadership ballot. Costello virtually had the leadership on a plate had he wanted it. And he should have known that Howard was desperate to get his hands on the leadership and would promise anything –and that he was also deceitful as evidenced through his tenure as deputy leader under Peacock during the late 1980s. But he chose not to run for it despite the risks of not doing so.
With Howard’s recent record one tends to forget that he was not exceptionally popular during the first five years of his leadership and a truly ambitious deputy had numerous opportunities to take advantage of that. Costello was quite often seen as a more competent parliamentary performer and political strategist during the early years of the Howard premiership and indeed it was he, not Howard, who rescued the government during the ministerial scandals crisis of 1996-97. I remember some periods during the first five years of the Howard government when some members were literally pushing for a change of leadership. Costello had the perfect opportunity to use that time to develop a power base, to develop sufficient momentum within the party to put pressure on Howard and to establish himself in a position to make Howard honor the promise he had made in the 1994 pledge. He could even have mentioned the agreement behind the scenes to party colleagues –after all Gordon Brown managed to make it known that he had an agreement with Tony Blair about the leadership without confirming it publicly
And since everyone was expecting a leadership announcement from Howard in 2003, surely the most opportune time for Costello to announce that he had a leadership pact with Howard was immediately after Howard violated it. The focus in the media was on Howard’s pledge to consider his future in 2003 and Costello’s press conference after he had been slighted by Howard would have been the perfect time for him to have revealed the leadership pact. It would have given much more validity to a potential leadership challenge and may have secured Costello enough votes to do to Howard what Keating did to Hawke in June 1991 –mortally wound him and leave him vulnerable to a second leadership challenge. If Costello had resigned from the treasury at that time, revealed the leadership pact and challenged Howard, I think he may have been in a position similar to Keating and Hawke in 1991.
Incidentally Ian McLachlan would probably have corroborated Costello’s account if he had revealed it at that time had Costello asked him to. Apparently when Howard reneged on that agreement, McLachlan became disillusioned with Howard and confided the existence of that agreement to many people.
But no, Costello wimps out and doesn’t reveal why he justifiably feels slighted. Instead he waits three years until no one is paying attention and Howard is at the peak of his tenure as Prime Minister against a weak opposition and contemplating his long term future to confirm the existence of such an agreement. And then he aggravates things by stamping his feet, throwing a tantrum and demanding that Howard resigns, ensuring that even in the off chance that Howard is contemplating retirement, he more than likely won’t do so now. Of course he’s been so sloppy in organizing his numbers that he’s not in a position to do anything other than throw a tantrum and whine and hope that somehow it will make Howard and the party receptive to him by undermining them
Costello has yet to realize an important fact –to get to the top you need to have ambition, determination and a ruthless drive. Costello seems to have ambition but none of the other qualities and has more often than not given the appearance of a wet blanket when it comes to making a stand. In a sense he’s the Liberal equivalent of Beazley -no backbone/spine and no capability at adept political judgment.
|
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
