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Campaign countdown: deal done, but will it count?

Tory Maguire

by Tory Maguire

21 Jun 05:50am

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Filed under: Campaign Countdown, Election 2010, Kevin Rudd, Mining Tax, Nbn, Newspoll, Tony Abbott

33 comments

Well Kevin Rudd might be at war with the miners, but yesterday he was finally able to announce a major deal - with Telstra. The PM, who’s been clutching at small pieces of good news lately was pretty happy to demonstrate: “what can be yielded through a process of negotiation.”

The pressure is on. Picture: Kym Smith

Announcing the agreement for Telstra to shift large chunks of its operation onto the National Broadband Network was a rare moment of respite for Rudd, who this morning woke to more Newspoll pain. According to the latest survey, Tony Abbott has narrowed the gap in the preferred PM stakes.

And judging by the very clever new Minerals Council ad I saw on Masterchef last night, clearly the “process of negotiation” with the miners hasn’t progressed much.

According to this morning’s Oz: “Labor has failed to lift its primary support and the Prime Minister has reached a new high of voter dissatisfaction.”

“Although the Opposition Leader continues to maintain record high levels of personal dissatisfaction with voters, he has halved Mr Rudd’s lead as the preferred prime minister in the past three weeks.”

The primary votes still sit at 35 Labor 40 Coalition. Clearly voters aren’t thrilled with either side, considering Abbott is still so unpopular.

Phil Coorey in the SMH says Abbott is now trying to maintain a certain level of discipline, for himself and his troops, in a classic example of a small target strategy.

With the political conversation fixated on Labor’s internal workings, poor polls and its mining tax, and with the cashed-up minerals industry doing much of the opposition’s job for it, the Coalition, quite wisely, sees no need to create a distraction.

In The Age Michelle Grattan says Rudd was keen to downplay the routing for Labor in this weekend’s state by-election in NSW, saying: ‘‘It’s our long experience … that the Australian people vote differently on state and federal political matters.’‘

He’d better hope so. The Daily Telegraph this morning says the gloss has worn off NSW golden girl Kristina Keneally, who now can’t seriously distance herself from this weekend’s drubbing in the Penrith by-election.

According to the Tele:

Despite Ms Keneally’s claims (the former Member for Penrith was to blame), internal Liberal polling had Labor’s primary vote in Penrith at 33 per cent after the resignation of Ms Paluzzano, with support falling to 24 per cent as ministers David Campbell, Ian Macdonald and Graham West resigned. And Ms Keneally’s “net favourability” rating (the difference between her approval and disapproval rating) also fell from 20 to 15 in just three weeks. Focus group comments revealed voters for the first time were starting to blame her for the rot.

But by far the most fascinating contribution to the debate this weekend was from former Foreign Minister Alexander Downer in, of all places, the UK Spectator. In a scorching assessment of Rudd’s character, Downer says the PM is interested in nothing less than fame.

Its a ripping read, particularly the story about a Rudd tanty when a VIP plane scrambled to take a delegation to Jakarta after the embassy bombing in 2004 wasn’t re-routed to pick him up in Brisbane.

Downer indulges in what is a popular pastime at the moment, psychoanalysing the PM.

Rudd wants fame. He wants to be on TV every night. He wants to be recognised everywhere he goes. He wants to be the centre of attention. That’s why he casts people aside when he’s done with them, it’s why he courts the media, it’s why as a shadow minister he had his staff film him making a statement and then sent it to TV stations. It wasn’t because he wanted power, it was because he wanted to be on TV.

Rudd must be getting sick of people trying to get inside his mind. I bet he’d really love to tell them all to #@*& off!

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33 comments

Show oldest | newest first

    • Old Clive says:

      07:32am | 21/06/10

      I would hope that the people in his electorate, those who can read and think,see this article and get rid of this blot on our political landscape.

      Reply

    • Bruce says:

      11:20am | 21/06/10

      Yep !!  I read the article in the “Spectator”. Pretty much sums up rudd. I would also refer to Mark Lathams book and his comments about rudd. Lathams book is a great read. It really does make you wonder why the labor party would have picked rudd over gillard for the leaders position before the last federal election. Gillard would have won the last federal election easily.

    • John A Neve says:

      12:00pm | 21/06/10

      Old Clive,

      I am surprised by your comments, do you mean that after many years of coalition rule, we still have people who “can(not), read and think”?
      Surely this is a “blot on our political” conservative parties?

      If there is in fact, a “blot on our political landscape”, I’d suggest it is caused by those rusted on party supporters. What do you think (if you can) Old Clive?

    • Old Clive says:

      01:31pm | 21/06/10

      Oh Dear naieve nevee.When I was in primary school we had syntax, I am not a bible basher by any means but now we have sin tax, homosexuals are gay and normal perople are homophobtc, but to answer your question, the population managed to struggle up to a decent standard of living after the reign of Hawke and Keating,then they were bombarded by paid actors playing out the role of disgruntled battlers during the last election campaign, and for the past 2 and 1/2 years we have been subjected to actors trying to play the role of government. They had 10years to learn what government was all about but like most of the electorate they don’t know how to think or read or else they would not have made so many mistakes on the policies that they made up on the run. If you go to the T.A.F.E. in Hervey Bay they may be able to teach you to think properly, but al lkast tou have nailed your flag to the mast.

    • Wayne Fehlhaber says:

      01:41pm | 21/06/10

      John Neve :  No old mate , that’s not what Old Clive meant. What he is telling us is that it took only 2.5 years to see that the Rudd devastation was a” blot on our political landscape “.
      Judging by the N.S.W. by- election result and later comments from voters , most of the Australian electorate has seen fit to remove the blot.

    • persephone says:

      07:34am | 21/06/10

      ‘Small pieces of good news’, Tory?

      By which you mean historic events like a parental leave plan and a major agreement with Telstra which will totally change the way our communications network works?

      ‘Small pieces of good news’ like our improving economy, steady interest rates and better than expected employment figures?

      With any other government, none of these above would be regarded as ‘small’. They would dominate the media dialogue for days, if not weeks.

      If State politics had any huge impact on the Federal scene, then we wouldn’t have had a Liberal government in power for twelve years. The fact that we did - when Liberal governments were falling over in every state - shows that Penrith is irrelevant.

      And Alexander Downer has always resented Rudd, who outdid him in every respect - not only when they were in the diplomatic core, but in politics. Downer has been putting out opinions similar to the one quoted since at least 2001. It’s not news.

      And strangely, although you quote some of Newpoll’s findings, you spin them well.

      The 2PP result, for example - why no mention of that? 52% Labor, an improvement of the last poll and - more importantly - the trend of the past several Newspolls shows that Labor is improving its 2PP position.

      And Abbott is still way behind on every measure. If anything, you could argue he’s pulling the Liberal vote down.

      Reply

    • Wayne Fehlhaber says:

      08:55am | 21/06/10

      persephone , the reality is that Labor’s primary vote is stagnant , and the 2pp is not a good support post for Labor after seeing the results of the Penrith by-election.
      The defacto Labor/ Green vote may not save Rudd’s skin after all

    • watchingwithinterest says:

      09:00am | 21/06/10

      Perse,

      The 2PPP is irrevelant and you know it.  It assumes that those that vote green will preference labor 2nd on the same basis as they did at the last election.  The fact that the green vote has more than doubled since the last election makes this highly improbable.

      TELSTRA: I just see more of the same. Labor has fixed their difficulty with Telstra by doing what they always do and that is throw BILLIONS of dollars at a problem until it goes away.  What about value for money? Labor is not providing details on how this figure was arrived at and on their past efforts it is hard to draw any other conclusion than that they would have paid too much.  if they could show value for money they would be waving the details around for all to see.

      Penrith irrevelant - that is so ALP wishful thinking.  If you really want to help the ALP I suggest you get your head out of the sand, be objective and start telling your local member what they need to hear instead of what they want to hear.  The first step in making things right are admitting that they are wrong

    • Philip Crowley says:

      10:37am | 21/06/10

      I have it on no authority that the goddess of the unconscious, of intuition and mystery is a Hawker Britton plant ;]

    • Passing Wind says:

      10:41am | 21/06/10

      Don’t worry so much, Perse. No doubt you will be out wearing your Green or Family First T-shirt conning the voters.

      (Premier Kristina) Keneally was accosted by Greens campaigners during her visit and shown leaflets telling Greens voters to give their preferences to (Labor’s) Mr Thain. The Greens alleged the slips were handed out by ALP members who were not wearing official T-shirts - a grab for preference votes as part of a ‘’dirty tricks’’ campaign.

      And no mention of Labor on the how-to-vote card, either.

      Two months ago we saw the same Labor cheating in South Australia.

    • Nath says:

      11:31am | 21/06/10

      You do realise the Telstra agreement is NON BINDING, meaning Telstra can pull out anytime they want. Its a good thing to hold over the Governments head in the future.

    • persephone says:

      05:50pm | 21/06/10

      Wayne

      you’d kill for the Libs to have that 2PP and you know it.

      NSW is part of the polling figures, and there’s no sign that voters are blaming Rudd for State Labor’s failings.

      We know - and by that I mean ‘you and me’ - that State elections and Federal elections are two different things.

      I’m willing to concede anything anyone likes about NSW Labor but there’s little evidence their woes are depressing the Federal vote.

      watchingwith interest

      the 2PP vote is calculated the way it always has been. Didn’t see anyone complaining about this when it favoured Abbott.

      Allocating preferences according to past election trends has always been shown to be more accurate in predicting election outcomes than gettiing people to allocate them themselves.

      And the deal with Telstra will mean the saving of billions of dollars, as the government was quite determined to continue rolling out the NBN on their own if necessary, which would have resulted in a duplication of services (not necessarily a bad thing if you believe in competition, but costly for taxpayers).

      So this deal saves money, by reducing duplication.

      PC

      that adds so much to the debate, doesn’t it?

      Accusations like this suggest to me that people think I’‘m so good I must be a professional (hint: the timing of my posts today shows that I’ve been elsewhere all day; further hint; might have something to do with doing real work) and further, that they have no answer to my arguments.

      Keep them up, they’re good for my morale.

      PW

      no, I won’t be.

      Nath

      you do realise that’s irrelevant to whether or not it’s a good initiative or not?

    • persephone says:

      05:54pm | 21/06/10

      Oh, and given the only arguments put up here are about the Telstra deal, I take it everyone agrees with me that paid parental leave, the improving economy, steady interest rates and low unemployment rates are all Labor achievements?

      And no one defends poor little Alex. Shame!

      Or argues against the proposition Abbott’s pulling the Liberal vote down.

      All very interesting.

    • Aitch B says:

      08:08pm | 21/06/10

      No, Pers….. I’m sure many do disagree but are tired of the same old same old Persephone tilt on politics and can’t be bothered.

      All very predictable and often uninteresting.

    • Wayne Fehlhaber says:

      08:20pm | 21/06/10

      persephone :  like you said , you know and i know .  The 2pp is based on the trend in the previous election which certainly won’t be the same this time round. The 2pp trend which showed up in the weekend by-election shows a fall away from Labor , translate that result to the federal election and…......... Its a reality check for Labor perse.
      The Greens increased primary vote ensures that there will be a sizeable
      leakage to the Libs and others.  2pp is too difficult for pollsters to work and they can only rely on the last results available to them .
      The evidence of a depression of Labor’s federal vote is borne out by comments from people out and about voting on Saturday in N.S.W.
      There were several news clips relating to the peoples views at the polling booths. Im sure you would have seen those presentations during the weekend.

    • Against the Man says:

      07:34am | 21/06/10

      Rudd’s got 2 main problems at the moment that he needs to sort out before he gets anything else done.

      The insulation associated deaths and the role of the government in them needs further clarification. Why did things go wrong? Why did people die? Was it preventable? What is Garrett the puppet not telling us to protect the PM? Can families sue the government?

      The whole mining tax issue. Why was it so badly introduced? Do we have the mickey mouse club running the country? In the private sector such activities would have led to losing their job. Rudd and mates need to come clean on why they did what they did. Did we really need the $38 million dollar ads to explain why Kevin can’t speak for himself.

      Reply

    • Diamantina Dick says:

      07:53am | 21/06/10

      Well done Telstra, drag the negotiations on until the Government hand weakens to the point where they will do the deal at any price. I read the Government will not release the cost saving data used to justify the 11Bn to Telstra. If anyone needed further evidence they think the electorate are fools, this is it.

      Reply

    • Joan says:

      08:20am | 21/06/10

      Yeah, big spend and buy-off by Rudd as always,  and as always Rudd crows with little or no detail.  Why does anyone listen to this guy as he presents his half-baked proposals as a fait accompli.? Rudds costly half-baked proposals and flops wouldn’t get to base one at Masterchef. Has anyone toted up the billions Rudd has spent or promised to spend since the begining of the year?

    • coxie says:

      08:21am | 21/06/10

      Two words describe Labor’s problem: Kevin Rudd

      Reply

    • Holly says:

      09:16am | 21/06/10

      Oh dear Joan and your ilk- what a miserable negative approach to life you have.  I am really happy the Telstra deal has been announced even though I have no Telstra shares - damn why didn’t I rush out and buy some a couple of weeks ago.  I am happy to know we have a government that is prepared to make tough decisions in the interests of this country.  Life is good and I would have to be one of the lowest of the low income earners.  I could list the considerable number of achievements of this government but you still would not be happy.  It must be a terribly depressing place being a coalition supporter.

      Reply

    • Evan Findlay says:

      10:35am | 21/06/10

      Tors, we all know that the likes of RIO and BHP are not interested in any deals on the RSPT. They are acutely aware that many mining countries are watching the Rudd government with glee to see if they can pull this off. The last thing the likes of RIO, BHP and Xstrata want is having to pay similar taxes in most other countries that they mine. For the likes of “Twiggy” his mining interests are solely in Australia and whilst the current policy is not to his liking he is prepared to negotiate for a fairer policy and for the betterment of Australia. The likes of RIO, BHP and Xstrata are only interested in their bottom lines, hence why the government has very little time for them.

      Reply

    • Ben says:

      01:55pm | 21/06/10

      Just because (you think) the big miners are interested soley in their profits, doesn’t negatate the need for negotiation and consultation.

    • Evan Findlay says:

      02:35pm | 21/06/10

      Ben, you completely missed the crux of my argument. I never advocated the obstruction of negotiation. My point was that the international players are not interested in negotiation because other countries in which they mine are considering the same tax. The international players need this to fail. They do not want compromise, they want the whole tax to go away.

      And could you please name me one mining company that is not solely interested in their bottom line!

    • Holly says:

      10:46am | 21/06/10

      I think I read in the Australian that Twiggy is having trouble negotiating deal to access private infrastructure - i.e. rail line owned by one of other companies.  He might therefore prefer to have more government owned infrastructure.

      Reply

    • loxy says:

      11:05am | 21/06/10

      Doesn’t really matter for me anymore what Rudd does or doesn’t do. Am I happy with his performance - no but I will never, ever vote for that nutcase Abbott and although the polls clearly demonstrate general unhappiness with Rudd’s performance (rightly so), they also show that the vast majority of people feel as I do about Abbott. With Rudd’s performance to date, this next election should have been a piece of cake for the Libs to win by a landslide - but they stupidly go and make it an almost impossible feat by making Abbott the head of their party.

      Reply

    • Sherman H says:

      12:37pm | 21/06/10

      I am a Telstra share holder and I will be voting for Rudd. Tony Abbott will not precede with the National Broadband and its not in my interests to vote for him

      Reply

    • PaulB says:

      01:42pm | 21/06/10

      You must have a lot of TLS shares for that to be your only basis for voting Labor.  I’d like to think you saw a bigger picture than just your portfolio.

    • Shelley says:

      02:19pm | 21/06/10

      Telstra deal. Great for Australia or the best Labor could do in a hurry?

      ...After more than a year of negotiations, the political pressure on NBN Co and Telstra to get an agreement asap ramped up greatly last week with the plan for an announcement on Friday. This would have been conveniently in time for the Newspoll conducted over the weekend, while also diverting attention from NSW Labor’s inevitably disastrous by-election loss in a state seat on Saturday….

      http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/opinion/political-pay-off-the-biggest-bonanza/story-e6frg9px-1225882033327

      Reply

    • Greg says:

      02:20pm | 21/06/10

      ” Announcing the agreement for Telstra to shift large chunks of its operation onto the National Broadband Network was a rare moment of respite for Rudd, who this morning woke to more Newspoll pain. “
      Though it seems some Telstra shareholders may be happy, I wonder they and all customers will be when they understand that a shaft on to NBN broadband will be at whatever unknown cost.
      It’ll not be any respite for them and just more pain of less choice it would seem.

      I am glad I am not a Telstra customer to be shafted and there might just be a few million other voters thinking the same way and would like to have a few facts aired on NBN costs.
      Tony Abbott has been consistent in his requesting the government release what its business plan is with a cost justification and with Krudd’s mob not prepared to do that, you would have to ask who the Krazy Krudd is more so than any label that gets put on Abbott.

      Reply

    • Rob says:

      02:31pm | 21/06/10

      You’ve got to ask yourself, “Where does this idiot PM think the money is coming from?”. Maybe he keeps the horn of plenty under his bed?

      Reply

    • Talon says:

      03:20pm | 21/06/10

      The deal with Telstra will count but in the negative.  An $11bn bailout of Telstra disguised as a deal.  I believe that our poor government has invested into telecom and now they get to drop essential services to country Australia.  This shot in the arm by the blind tax payer has increased their shares.  It looks as though Krudd has done us over again for big business.

      Reply

    • Destry says:

      03:43pm | 21/06/10

      The Telstra agreement is “non-binding”.  And it won’t even be presented for Telstra shareholders approval until some time in 2011.  If their shareholders vote “no”, it’s shredded.  It’s a Claytons deal.  By then, the electorate might discover that the proposed 100Mb/s network, to be finished by 2015, is already a dinosaur; Norway has started offering home internet users 400Mb/s speeds NOW.  The NBN is definitely in the national interest but it has to be the best technology available in each of the years during implementation.  If Telstra shareholders reject it, then the Federal Government should immediately nationalise whatever it needs and do it anyway. But that won’t happen because the Coalition will be in power then. Rudd has to go to the polls this year to avoid even more NSW voter rage against the State Government wearing off onto Federal Labor (NSW polls about April 2011). Rudd can’t afford to break the NBN promise (it’s the biggest 2008 election promise after taxation). So somehow he’s got to have the NBN set in stone before 2011, before Telstra shareholders decide. And how-the-hell is he going to do that? He can’t. So, no: the non-binding agreement with Telstra is a non-event. If the tens of $bilions$ wasted on wayward spending (like the BER and insulation debacles) had been put into the NBN, and all energies focussed on getting that job done and dusted (instead of internet filters and other loopy deadends) by senior politicians who had the balls to handle Telstra, then maybe it might have been a goer. But that’s just a footnote to history now.

      Reply

    • DD Ball says:

      08:14pm | 21/06/10

      The Telstra deal is a fix. Short term, and only for the headline, so as to keep his position. Rudd has not done anything smart with the Tesltra deal, and it will unravel in days to come. Firstly, the service standard will be wound back to the whitlam seventies, with any phone or cable problem being referred to some government authority. If there is a black out .. or brown out, it won’t work like phones do now. Expect more brown outs from state government mismanagement. Then there is the cost .. Basically, Rudd spent $2 billion for a morning headline.

      Reply
 
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