Leadership struggle coverage focusses on personality over policies
Today Prime Minister John Howard emerged from a cabinet meeting to tell the country that neither he nor his Treasurer Peter Costello would be stepping down from their respective positions. This is despite the past 48 hours seeing heightened tensions in co-alition party ranks, due to claims on the weekend that Costello and Howard had in 1994 made an agreement that the PM would hand the top job to Costello after one and a half terms. Amidst the speculation about whether this is the end of the matter or just the beginning of another colourful leadership stoush, the media’s obsession with the personality component of the story is running high. The Wire put it to Australian National University Professor of Political Science John Warhurst that the Australian media loves a personality contest.