What’s Your Poison - The Beattie Gambit

Full show here:

The short version: Beattie was a master of taking full responsibility for a crisis under his wash by reframing the issue as who is best equipped to deal with the crisis. The origin of this was his work in the early 2000s as the Queensland ALP was embroiled in a corruption inquiry into, you guessed in , political donations and branch stacking.

Rather than minimising the issues or reducing it to a defensive play. Beattie’s schtick was to fully embrace it: “This is terrible. I’m so outraged it’s happened in my party. That’s why I’m the only one who can clean it up”. I couldn’t find any footage of Beattie in action but found this snippet from ABC which is a master class in owning a problem of your on making.

I also found this background piece interesting; I wasn’t aware of his attempt to get Joh to end the gerrymander. I would love to find a copy of ‘Dance with the Devil’.

The point ? I think the shift in Victorian leader is an attempt Beattie Gambit; Ben Carroll’s main pitch will be ‘I am the best person to deal with the mess in Victoria’s building industry’. Not sure he is a Peter Beattie, but the logic is sound.

It was also good to meet Keith, who lost the seat of Menzies after one term as part of the anti-Dutton wave. While I am obviously not from his side of politics, its good to know principled people are thinking through the essence of the Liberal Party as it seems to pretty critical there is a viable Opposition to hold government to account, rather than simply a chorus of angry voices. You can read Keith’s full essay here.