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The Forum > Article Comments > Australian political leadership since Menzies > Comments

Australian political leadership since Menzies : Comments

By Alastair Nicholson, published 4/11/2011

The failure to observe human rights norms in decision making is a classic failure of leadership that we have seen in the US and Australia in recent times

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From the man who showed leadership in depriving tens of thousands of Australian children of their right to have a meaningful relationship with their father.
Posted by watersnake, Friday, 4 November 2011 8:17:18 AM
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What a mind-numbingly ridiculous article;

So, "leadership" is simply pig-headedness and using your powers to make others do what YOU want because YOU think its a good idea, and refuse to listen to others? Force other people to do what YOU (and only you) believe to be the right thing, so you can feel good about yourself?

Definitely a virtue of the people you idolize;

Menzies was a complete tyrant- arguably our most authoritarian leader since the penal era. And you forgot to mention it was HE who sycophantically joined us to Vietnam, and introduced conscription ILLEGALLY so we'd be forced to fight in it. He is also the reason why Australians pay such extortionate rates to our banks and monopoly businesses, due to his 'anti-communist' paranoia lead him in knee-jerk fashion to start taking the country in the opposite direction. The man was an ignorant short-sighted authoritarian bastard who left us worse off.
And Fraser was just a wimpier doppleganger of him; who pleaded 'liberalism' to the masses, while casually cutting services, advocating killing commies in other countries, and leaning quite far to the right indeed. And for all his 'leadership' he helped make the economy even WORSE than Whitlam did.

Hawke and Keating were just scoundrels- half the stuff they did were scandalous acts purely for political gain, and were disgustingly cronyistic with private lobbyists. And they were hardly good managers either (the recession we had to have); people only like these two mugs because they can talk casual and use a few swear words, and a few low-grade mugs eat it all up.

Howard was little better- yet ironically he listens to the people on refugees (which is supposed to be what a democratic leader does- listen to people, even on issues that distinct lobbyists don't want discussed)- but other than that, he was almost as corrupt as Keating; nonetheless (mostly thanks to Costello) the economy was good and the country was better managed than in many years.

He was wrong for never apologizing to Aboriginals- but then again, neither did the other five 'leaders' before him.
Posted by King Hazza, Friday, 4 November 2011 9:23:40 AM
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OK, so this article has had a pretty good look at the vision and motivation things that good leaders need.

What about honesty, trustworthiness, teamwork and a dozen other ethical bases?

What about hard work, energy, knowledge and professionalism, which lead others to achieve their best and to spread the ability to others to do likewise?

Why assume that good leaders are solitary - John Howard was bad, Hawke was good, etc? Did not Whitlam have about him some poor performers who held him back? Is not at least part of the successes and failures of leadership under each PM mentioned due in part to the strengths, weaknesses and histories of the organisations which promoted each one of them?

On this last, Australia's social and political organisations, including its political parties, are themselves low rent, backstabbing, dog eat dog institutions which must be improved if the standards of public debate and public leadership are to improve.

By focussing only on the leaders and virtually not at all on the environments which spawned them and in which they operated, Mr Nicholson has let far too much of significance escape assessment.
Posted by JohnBennetts, Friday, 4 November 2011 10:15:53 AM
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Alistair Nicholson:

Whew!
Posted by diver dan, Friday, 4 November 2011 12:52:39 PM
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Come on Graham, please.

Here we have the bloke who presided over the worst, most biased, unethical, immoral & discriminatory court Oz has ever seen, lecturing us on leadership, & anti discrimination.

This arrogant biased fool then goes on to lord some of the worst prime ministers we have been foolish enough to elect.

He praises Whitlam for destroying generations of aboriginals by giving them rights they were not ready for, but removing the very crutch that was allowing them to grow.

Did he mention Whitlam destroying an entire country by pushing PNG into not only self government, but independence, before they were ready to govern a Provence let alone a country.

I wont bother with the rest of the lefty rant, it's too sad.

What is it with this sudden rash of articles on leadership. I sense we are being softened up for something. That being the case, it would be an idea if who ever is behind it did a better job of choosing their writers. So far all we have got is a pile of junk from a bunch of dills.

Of course they say birds of a feather & all that, so we must have a bunch of dills with an agenda. They are not going to get far with this rubbish.
Posted by Hasbeen, Friday, 4 November 2011 1:33:51 PM
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Nicholson on ethics? What next, Mugabe on political freedoms?
Posted by Antiseptic, Sunday, 6 November 2011 4:55:31 AM
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Chisholm rewriting the Family Law Act… what? … oh f#ck. Almost as bad as Nicholson trying to usurp the Immigration Act. What is it with these judicial thugs
Posted by Howard Beale, Monday, 7 November 2011 4:30:16 PM
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