Richard Farmer's chunky bits: our finest political performers

It was a close call but Greg Combet has been rated by Crikey readers as doing the best job in the Labor cabinet. Malcolm Turnbull easily won in the shadow cabinet.

Greg Combet best and George Brandis worst. It was a close call but Greg Combet has been rated by Crikey readers as doing the best job in the Labor cabinet. The Climate Change Minister just edged out Finance Minister Penny Wong and Health Minister Tanya Plibersek in our survey in which 599 people ranked performances from one (the worst possible rating) to five (the best possible). In the shadow cabinet it was no contest with Malcolm Turnbull streets ahead of his colleagues.

At the other end of the scale there was a clear cut loser for both teams.

The average rating for the cabinet came out at 3.2 which I guess is a good overall pass mark.

Not rating as highly was the shadow cabinet at an average of just 2.0 — a definite fail.

Julia Gillard should be hoping that Crikey readers are leading the way for the rest of the country for their assessment is far less harsh than that measured by the opinion pollsters. The Prime Minister clearly rates above Opposition Leader Tony Abbott and Greens Leader Christine Milne.

Strange goings on at the UN. At the United Nations they must reckon it takes one to catch one. How else to explain that Australia, the country behind the most blatant sanctions busting of recent times, is to to play a key role on a UN security council committee responsible for applying global sanctions against al-Qaeda, the Taliban and Iran. The Australian Wheat Board dealings with Iraq are clearly seen as highly valued experience in such matters.

Ministers as public relations consultants for the real government. A quote to start the year with: Antony Jay writes in London’s Daily Telegraph on a new six part Yes Minister serial he has written with Jonathan Lynn that is about to premiere on television in the UK:

“… something we discovered: deep in their hearts, most politicians respected civil servants, and deep in their hearts most civil servants despised politicians. Part of the problem of government is that ministers always take the credit for successes, which focuses civil servants on avoiding blame. The central anomaly is that civil servants have years of experience, jobs for life, and a budget of hundreds of billions of pounds, while ministers have, usually, little or no experience of the job and could be kicked out tomorrow. After researching and writing 44 episodes and a play, I find government much easier to understand by looking at ministers as public relations consultants to the real government — which is, of course, the Civil Service.”

Election year tracking. This being an election year some regular updating of the Crikey Election Indicator seems appropriate with a posting to come every Monday. The efforts of Jenny Macklin notwithstanding, there’s not much change in week one — a very marginal decline in Labor’s chances.