Inside Canberra's Beltway

Australian voters should be forgiven for asking who the hell is in charge of our federal Government. Is it the Prime Minister and Cabinet, is it the Senate cross-benchers, or is it the Prime Minister’s Chief of Staff, Peta Credlin? Whoever it is, the Australian people aren’t happy, and a government “reset” isn’t going to change that.

Rumours are circulating through the back benches and the media that we can expect a Cabinet reshuffle, and possibly a Liberal leadership challenge during this holiday period. The problem for the battered government is that no amount of reshuffling or spin can undo the damage of the past 15 months quickly.

Many fingers, including some from within the government itself, have pointed to Ms Credlin as the root of all evil. This week, we’ve been inundated with reports – and subsequent denials – that Ms Credlin and Foreign Minister Julie Bishop are not on good terms.

On behalf of those of us who are not on the inside, I say who bloody cares? In a comparison with The West Wing – something conservative commentator Chris Kenny will hate – nobody elected Peta Credlin.

It’s an unenviable position; the chief of staff to any government head is undoubtedly a powerful position, and yet it needs to be silent and virtually invisible to the outside world, and should hold no sway at all over policy. The role of the Chief of Staff is to facilitate to workings of the leader’s office, and act as a wise counsel to the leader…and to stay in the background. 

So why is Peta Credlin all over our media?

Back to the West Wing we go: In America, there’s an idiom to describe those who are in the know, who are connected to the federal Government. If you’re described as “inside the Beltway” you’re a Washington DC insider. Beltway Bandits, as they’re sometimes known, work in or with the government; they mix with other Beltway Bandits and include the politicians themselves, their senior staff, experienced media, lobbyists and some senior public servants.

Peta Credlin is at the centre of Canberra’s version of the Beltway. Married to Brian Loughnane, Federal Director of the Liberal Party, she is incredibly well connected – as if her title wasn’t enough to open any door she needed to open.

Beltway Bandits like Mr Loughnane and Ms Credlin share one colossal problem. They don’t get out much, resulting in a vicious circle of whispered rumours and half-truths, bouncing around Canberra like so many silvery balls in a psychotic pinball machine. Hit a journalist willing to run with a story and Ding-Ding-Ding! A little nugget of inside information stands a chance of crossing the Beltway into the real world.

Peta Credlin should never have become a household name outside of Canberra’s Beltway. That she has developed such a high profile suggests that there’s a problem: she’s wielding too much power with stakeholders inside the Canberra Beltway, or she’s too visible, or too controversial, or she’s incompetent…or she’s having an affair with her boss – an unsubstantiated rumour that’s been bumping around for years.  

There’s definitely something that is newsworthy about Peta Credlin, and she’s been happy to put herself in the public eye when it could benefit Mr Abbott.

Peter Van Onselen says much the same thing in his editorial for the Australian this weekend:

Many of the attacks on Credlin are unfair; others are entirely fair. Some reporting is conjecture, and much of it would be unwanted. But there is no escaping that across newspapers and other media platforms she is getting a level of attention out of all perspective with what’s tolerable for a backroom operator.

If it were a simple case of a media pack peddling untruths, that would be one thing. But the criticisms are coming from cabinet ministers, junior ministers, parliamentary secretaries, backbenchers and even sections of the leadership team. Abbott’s loyalty prevents him from removing Credlin, and that is to be admired. But a chief of staff loyal to “the boss” shouldn’t put a PM in a position where his loyalty is tested. Not in a Westminster system.

News Corp’s Samantha Maiden reported today that Liberal MPWarren Entsch has lodged a formal complaint against the Prime Minister with the government whip Phillip Ruddock. The issue is Tony Abbott’s defence of Peta Credlin, which emerged as an accusation of sexism towards those backbenchers who’ve quietly complained about the Prime Minister’s Office to anyone who’d listen. 

“It’s not about her bloody gender for God’s sake,’’ Entsch says.

“Is Julie Bishop sexist? He needs to be very careful ­because there are a lot of cabinet ministers who have a problem with how the Prime Minister’s Office is operating.

“One cabinet minister doesn’t know what the other is doing. They are briefing against ministers out of the PMO. It’s coming from the PMO. The buck stops with him or it stops with the chief of staff.”

Warren Entsch is not the first person to complain about Ms Credlin, although he may be the first to make that complaint through official channels, and go on the record with the media. Back in late 2011, when the Liberal Party was in Opposition, Crikey’s Power Index rated the Loughnane-Credlin duo alongside Kevin Rudd and Therese Rein. Of Ms Credlin, they said: http://www.thepowerindex.com.au/power-couples/

Credlin travels everywhere with Abbott, organises his diary, hires and fires staffers, and oversees his media appearances. She's the one who's kept Abbott, once regarded as something of a loose cannon, so ruthlessly on message throughout the year. The Queen of No, as she calls herself, has also cracked down on non-media staffers fraternising with the press gallery.

She's got a lot of admirers – but also a heap of enemies. Backbenchers who have been on the receiving end of one of Credlin's savage text messages find her overly abrasive. Party elders, meanwhile, worry she's obsessed with short-term political gains at the expense of strong policies.

Without the existence of a Beltway-style echo chamber in Canberra, Ms Credlin’s profile may well have remained in the shadow of her Prime Minister, where it should be. While Peta Credlin should take much of the credit for elevating Tony Abbott to the Prime Ministership, her profile and her reputation are now a liability to the entire Abbott government.

Whether Tony Abbott can survive the demands of the Prime Ministership without Ms Credlin running his office, his diary and his media appearances is yet to be seen. The left would undoubtedly like nothing more than to see the current level chaos continue until the government implodes and an election becomes inevitable. 

The quickest way to “reset” this dysfunctional government is to reset the Prime Minister’s Office – and that means that Tony Abbott will have to get past his loyalty and replace Ms Credlin – whom nobody elected.