Dreams of Kevin 07

Miss Eagle sent me a link to this article by Catherine Deveny, in "The Age" this morning.

It is funny, seeing someone just so enthusiastic, so rapturous, over a political event. (I confess I was, back in 1972.) Perhaps Catherine was born after the Whitlam election in 1972, or if she is a mere child, after the Hawke Government's victory in 1983. In that case the euphoric experience might be genetically inherited.

I went to Wikipedia for a quick check on those dates, and browsed their article on Bob Hawke, and my eyes hit on these words:

• Hawke benefitted greatly from the disarray into which the Liberal opposition fell after the resignation of Fraser. The Liberals were divided between supporters of the dour, economically and socially conservative John Howard and the urbane Andrew Peacock. The arch-conservative Premier of Queensland, Sir Joh Bjelke-Petersen, also helped Hawke with his "Joh for Canberra" campaign in 1987, which proved highly damaging for the conservatives. Exploiting these divisions, Hawke led the Labor Party to comfortable election victories in 1984 and 1987.

There is surely a lesson to be learnt from history here, for the Liberal Party. Malcolm Turnbull might join Peacock as the best leader the Liberal Party had, who never got elected as Prime Minister.

Now there's something for the bloggers to contemplate.