Flabby

From Peter Hartcher's column in today's Melbourne Age -

the receding floods have left Julia Gillard and Labor newly exposed. A government has much greater freedom of action than an opposition. Gillard's first choice was to decide whether to respond boldly as a national leader or incrementally as a manager.

Bold leadership would have seized the floods as an opportunity to achieve big things, above and beyond the immediate contingency.

For example, Gillard might have declared that the floods across all the eastern states was not just a problem of recovery but an opportunity to rebuild better than ever.

She might have declared it as the moment for a new national productivity drive, a national economic rejuvenation. Drawing on examples such as the Great Chicago Fire of 1871 that allowed the creation of a thrusting modern metropolis and the invention of the skyscraper, she could have turned adversity into opportunity. But Gillard became Labor leader as the embodiment of the party's panicked retreat from ambition. Rudd, Gillard and Swan lost their nerve over emissions trading, immigration and the mining tax, and shrank Labor to present a smaller political target.

The Gillard government has now demonstrated that it is the same creature in the face of unexpected calamity as it was in the face of an election campaign. The flood response confirms that the Gillard government is cautious, timorous, and managerialist. This isn't necessarily bad, just small.

Small and disappointing