Campaign Countdown

Kevin Rudd last night gave his his first real interview since being knifed as Prime Minister while still recovering from the knife of the surgeon. Both wounds are evidently still very painful. 

A very frail sounding Rudd spoke to a very sympathetic Phillip Adams and confirmed that he would campaign for Julia Gillard and attend the Labor Party launch, but on a couple of conditions:

I will be there but on the condition that I don’t have a major relapse before then and secondly, that I’m not a distraction from what I think is a pretty serious debate about what sort of future we want for our country and I don’t think it’s a debate which we can allow - with only two and half weeks to go before D Day, that we can’t allow to be trivialised.

Continue reading "Campaign countdown: What the hell to do about Kevin?" »

Julia Gillard appears to have decided that conflict, for all its bad press, can be a great source of political strength.

Like Russell Crowe’s Gladiator screaming to the crowd in the Colosseum “Are you not entertained?”, Gillard is frustrated but aware that the only way to capture the electorate now is with a display of brute political force.

Combined with a negative attack plan on the Opposition leader, she plans to take it up to Tony Abbott by challenging him to another debate. We also know that this challenge is slightly disingenuous, but more about that in a moment.

Last night she told Today Tonight that it would be “game on” for round two:

Continue reading "Campaign countdown: Real Julia tries to pick a real fight" »

Julia Gillard might be daily pleading Cabinet-in-confidence about conversations she had as Deputy Prime Minister, but someone’s not honouring the code of silence.

For the second time in two weeks Laurie Oakes last night had a bombshell for the PM - this time revealing she had spoken out in Cabinet against the Government’s paid parental leave scheme and the rise in the pension, arguing they wouldn’t win votes where they were needed.

This came on the back of Oakes’s scoop just before the campaign started that Gillard had backed out on a deal with Rudd the night before she took his job. Hmmmmm, could someone from inside Cabinet be trying to destabilise the PM?

Continue reading "Campaign countdown: Has Rudd gone off the reservation" »

It’s demonstrative of how uninspiring the first week of the 2010 Federal Election campaign has been that Tony Abbott could have felt pretty chuffed last night that he didn’t really lose the Great Debate.

Yes Nine’s Worm gave the debate to Gillard by an overwhelming margin, but Seven’s Polliegraph had it almost line ball and various online polls and political commentators handed victory to Abbott. News this morning that Newspoll has tightened again to 52 to 48 to Labor, in significantly from last week’s staggering 55-45, will no doubt add to the spring in his step.

It’s all subjective really, but what last night did do was put Abbott back on track after his shaky start to the election campaign.

Continue reading "Campaign countdown: When you win by not losing" »

Update 7.30am: The SMH this morning says some Liberals are a bit rattled by Tony Abbott’s performance yesterday, and are worrying if he’s got what it takes to last the five week campaign without stuffing up. You can read the piece here.

Not that it matters terribly much at this early stage but the government won the day. After declaring WorkChoices “dead, buried, cremated”, Tony Abbott was cornered by questions about his plans for workplace changes in future. His tortured response was he couldn’t guarantee that nothing would change in future. An honest answer, but a gift to Julia Gillard.

Julia Gillard rocked up to the 7.30 Report with her customary composure despite a set of questions from a frustrated Kerry O’Brien on the “moving forward” slogan that has become one of the early talking points of the campaign.

Continue reading "Campaign countdown: I’m Julia, and I’m a workaholic" »

Kevin Rudd might be flat out carrying on like one of those sacked Japs who keeps showing up for work - UN secretary-general Ban Ki-Moon had a meeting in New York yesterday with Mr Rudd in his capacity as, erm, a backbencher. But there’s now a strong view in Labor circles after Laurie Oakes’ bombshell question to Julia Gillard at the Press Club yesterday that the former PM has in fact been a very busy little bee.

Leo Shanahan has had a close look below at Oakes’ question in a piece he filed straight after Gillard’s Press Club ambush yesterday, and the 170+ readers comments are illuminating as many people clearly believe the new PM should reveal to the public exactly what transpired with the alleged leadership deal.

The most worrying result for Ms Gillard, who may be just one day away from calling an election, is that if Mr Rudd is the source of the leak to Laurie Oakes, it signals that the former PM is now well and truly off the leash and may continue to dump on his successor and her factional boosters in the lead-up to polling day. 

Continue reading "Campaign countdown: Is it payback time for Kevin?" »

Listening to Wayne Swan’s press conference to update us on the state of the economy yesterday it was as if Little Britain’s Vicky Pollard had been asked to explain our finances.

(Dramatic recreation)

“Treasurer: Yea but, no, but yea, but no but. That wasn’t even there before da mining tax cause so we didn’t lose da $7.5 billion. Anyway commodities are worth more now. Anyway shut up!”

Listening to it you were conscious of the fact the words were English, but as it progressed it became apparent those words had no necessary connection to one another. It was a kind of absurdist, avant-garde approach to answering questions which could see our treasurer hailed at the forefront of the “Aussie new wave” of economic analysis.

Continue reading "Campaign countdown: Yeah but, no but, Swan explains" »

Chris Trevor is as mad as hell but after a bit of a think he’s decided that he’s going to keep on taking it some more.

Julia Gillard is facing her first outbreak of Rudd-related and faction-related niggle since winning the leadership just on three weeks ago, with little-known Queensland backbencher and Rudd loyalist Chris Trevor going public to denounce the treatment of the former PM and warn it will cost Labor seats in the Sunshine State.

The one downside with Mr Trevor’s stand is that it isn’t really much of a stand as all - as, quite pathetically, Mr Trevor said that he was so bitterly angry about the treatment of Kevin Rudd that he thought about quitting and has now decided not to. Stands don’t get much lamer than that. You’d be generous giving it a three out of 10.

Continue reading "Campaign countdown: The mouse that (almost) roared" »

A slithering cephalod with an unbeaten track record of World Cup soccer tips might throw his eight legs in the air at despair at the question. But with the election campaign seemingly days away, Campaign Countdown thought it would be worth a quick squizz at what the different betting markets are saying about the federal election.

Despite the narrowing in the polls this week, the gap between the major parties according to the bookies is so great that you would almost put your house on the ALP. Since Julia Gillard took over from Kevin Rudd almost three weeks ago, all the agencies have gone from offering a near even-money bet, or marginally favouring the ALP, to massively favoruing Labor for a second-term.

The biggest gap is at Centrebet where Labor is paying $1.22 to win and the Coalition $4.10. IASbet.com has Labor at $1.25 and “any other party” at $3.75, Luxbet has Labor at $1.24 and the Coalition $3.95, Sports Alive has Labor at $1.25 and the Coalition at $3.85 and Sporting Bet Labor at $1.28 and the Coalition at $3.50.

Continue reading "Campaign countdown: What would Paul the Octopus do?" »

Julia Gillard has kept Labor in a winning position - but unsurprisingly, Labor has shed votes to the Greens after the new PM did a passable impersonation of a couple of notable recent conservatives on the border protection question. You can read Phil Coorey on the latest SMH-Nielsen poll here, an interesting take from Mal Farr in The Daily Telegraph on how Kevin Rudd might have handled the so-called Dili solution here,  and Peter Van Onselen on how both Labor and the Coalition have bungled the issue here. Below is my take on Gillard’s last week in which asylum seekers dominated.

There was something laughable about the ham-fisted symbolism of it all – our new Prime Minister Julia Gillard selecting western Sydney MP David Bradbury as her First Mate for a naval exercise off the coast of Darwin last week so they could be photographed scouring the Arafura Sea for pesky queue-jumpers.

According to Google Maps, Bradbury’s marginal seat of Lindsay is 3932km from Darwin. It contains two water features, the Nepean River and the Penrith Aquatic Centre, neither of which are navigable from the Top End.

Continue reading "Campaign countdown: she will decide who comes here" »

When Julia Gillard stepped to the microphone at the Lowy Institute on Tuesday morning she was hoping to neutralise border protection as an election issue. Instead she had the opposite effect.

East Timor’s President Jose Ramos-Horta was on Lateline last night showing how it’s done. His performance in sensible diplomacy and measured thinking made Gillard’s 24 hours of backdowns, rewrites and plan B’s look terribly amateur.

And instead of taking heat out of the issue, Gillard has handed Tony Abbott the ammunition he’s been desperately looking for since her elevation at the end of last month. Here’s how it’s played out so far.

Continue reading "Campaign countdown: the 2-day border protection plan" »

Update 4.50pm: The Prime Minister appears to have got herself into serious hot water over her plan for a regional processing centre, just telling Brisbane radio 4BC that she never said where it was going to be. You can listen to the interview here. The Australian is also reporting East Timor’s Prime Minister Xanana Gusmao has requested Gillard hold off calling him until her plan is more mature.

Julia Gillard took to the high seas yesterday in a bid to sell her new Dili Solution on boat people, but it was her voyage on HMAS Lateline last night that may have left her feeling a little green about the gills.

A slightly disheveled-looking PM was grilled by Tony Jones over the details of her plan for a “regional processing centre” for boat people and put in a less than glossy performance.

Under pressure from Jones over her failure to deal with East Timor’s Prime Minister Xanana Gusmao before announcing her bold plan, Gillard uncharacteristically fell back on bureucratic speak, putting words like “tasked” and “auspiced” on high rotation. (“Auspiced” - good grief).

Continue reading "Campaign countdown: Gillard’s boat springs a leak" »

Julia Gillard is expected to announce her people smuggling policy today, after a Cabinet meeting yesterday to determine just how un-PC the Government could afford to get on the issue. Tony Burke had the fun task last night of going on Q and A without giving away what might be in the announcement, a piece of rhetorical gymnastics he performed admirably.

But Tony Abbott might have blinked first - with this morning’s Daily Telegraph reporting his new “get tougher” stance on boat people would include a presumption against refugee status for anyone believed to have destroyed their own documentation.

According to Simon Benson: “The power to rubber-stamp applications will also be removed from assessors at Christmas Island, with the minister for immigration under a Coalition government granted the right to intervene in any case to refuse entry through the courts.”

Continue reading "Campaign countdown: and then a jump to the riiiiiight" »

Another sunny Sunday afternoon - another announcement of the interception of boat-load of asylum seekers off Christmas Island. Yesterday’s news came about lunch time, in the form of a press release from the Minister for Home affairs (did you know we had one of those?).

“Initial indications are that 34 passengers and two crew were on board the vessel. While their nationality is yet to be confirmed, if these asylum seekers are Sri Lankans or Afghans, the processing suspension introduced by the Government on 9 April 2010 will apply.”

Just in time for Julia Gillard to announce her policy on boat people, which she is expected to do tomorrow in a speech to the Lowy Institute. In a move that got lefties atwitter this weekend, Gillard prefaced this week’s announcement with a declaration the time for political correctness on the issue was over.

Continue reading "Campaign countdown: those boats just keep on coming" »

By the time most of you read this article, Julia Gillard will have pulled off an extraordinary political coup - her second in one week - and one which again puts Labor in the box seat to win a second term. At 8.30am the new Prime Minister is expected to stand up and announce that a deal has been struck on the mining tax, killing stone dead the one issue which more than any other was threatening to derail Labor’s campaign for re-election.

If Kevin Rudd was the major personality flaw in Labor’s re-election equation, the Resources Super Profits Tax was its biggest policy failing. There were three key problems with the tax - many voters could not understand why Canberra was going after the one industry sector which had helped us weather the global financial crisis, Kevin Rudd was proving inept and ineffective at negotiating with the miners over its operation, and the proposed use of $38 million in public money to fund an advertising campaign extolling its virtues had offended the taxpayers deeply.

In just one week Julia Gillard has killed each of these three problems - she appears to have struck a deal which the miners are prepared to wear, she’s done so by sitting and down and negotiating in a manner which Kevin Rudd could only dream of, and she’s already killed off the prospect of a damaging and expensive advertising war on the eve of the election campaign. It’s a massive win for her so early in her prime ministership and a very serious blow to Tony Abbott who has been campaigning on little else for the past few months.

Continue reading "Campaign countdown: Julia on the cusp of another coup" »

The passing of Kevin Rudd’s prime ministership has caught many publishers off-guard and this website is among them. Last month we launched a subscriber competition offering entrants the chance to win a $1000 Tiger Airways voucher for the best description of Kevin Rudd in five words or less. In the middle of the competition we sort of lost the prime minister.

We are not alone in this predicament. Both Annabel Crabb and David Marr have just released books about that guy who used to be PM – you know, what’s his name – and satirist Jonathan Biggins is putting the finishing touches to a book about the Ruddster due out in September.

The interesting thing about our competition is that in the initial weeks the entrants reflected many of the gripes and grievances which cost Rudd his job, and as it came to a close last week, and with Julia Gillard securely installed as PM, it turned into a derisory reflection on the Rudd era.

Continue reading "Campaign countdown: Kevin Rudd in five words or less" »

Catching up on the coverage of these extraordinary few days of Australian history, the strongest indication that Prime Minister Julia Gillard will call an early election comes from the language she has cleverly used to concede that she does not have a popular mandate.

With her brief remarks at her first press conference as PM - which bizarrely enough was played live on TV in South Africa, via Sky News UK, at about 4am in the morning last Thursday - Gillard was at pains to acknowledge that it was the party and not the people who had installed her in the top job.

By emphasising this fact, Gillard has put herself in a position where calling an August election would not look like an opportunistic bid to capitalise on her honeymoon and the Opposition’s rethink of its tactics, but a sincere and almost urgent gesture aimed at giving the public a chance to legitimise or reject her prime ministership.

Continue reading "Campaign countdown: Julia can go early, easily" »

Update: Today’s Newspoll results, as reported by The Australian, show Labor’s primary vote has leapt seven percentage points from 35 per cent after three days of Julia Gillard’s leadership.

During question time last week whenever the opposition attacked Kevin Rudd over asylum seekers Labor MPs would blow on invisible dog whistles. In retrospect that just looked like an early practice session for the Government’s new band.

Prime Minister Julia Gillard’s decision to abolish Kevin Rudd’s plan for a big Australia has as much to with concerns with over asylum seekers as it does over population.

Up until this point the Opposition had been cynically and successfully able to merge peoples concerns over asylum seekers and a Big Australia policy. Gillard knows this and yesterday’s announcement was all about whistling a new tune of her own.

Continue reading "Campaign countdown: Julia now whistling her own tune" »

1.55pm: Well, thank you so much for joining us on this live blog over the past 18 extraordinary hours. The Punch will now resume our usual daily coverage of House of Representatives Question Time here. Please join us to see how our first female Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, performs in the hot seat.

1.50pm: Greens leader Bob Brown has just described Julia Gillard as “such a high quality woman.”

1.14pm: Tony Abbott is holding a short press conference.

The Labor Party have dumped their leader but they haven’t changed their policies. They’ve changed the salesman, but they haven’t changed the product. Julia Gillard made it clear that she is committed to the same policies, the dud policies, Rudd was committed to.

1.10pm: BHP has just announced it will pull it’s RSPT attack ads, as requested by the new Prime Minister.

12.58pm: Julia Gillard is about to be sworn in at Government House in Yarralumla. Our first female PM sworn in by our first female GG.

12.38pm: And the press conference is over with a round of applause. Her performance was confident, clear and no-doubt reassuring for some members of the ALP.

12.35pm: Gillard has indicated she has to leave soon so she’s not “diabolically late” to see the Governor-General and be sworn in.

12.31pm: Gillard said she would stay in her own home instead of the Lodge until when and if she wins a general election.

12.30pm: Am glad to see the Prime Minister-elect pulled herself together very quickly after a slightly shaky start. She’s speaking clearly, with authority - Tors.

12.26pm:

Hard work matters, but for families like mine, quality government services matter, and for families like mine being treated properly in your work place matters.

12.24pm: On being the first female PM:

I didn’t set out to crack my head on any glass ceilings.

12.23pm:

This isn’t my first day in the parliamentary building, I’ve been here since 1998, and I would defy anyone to analyse my parliamentary career and find that I have done anything but made up my own mind.

12.22pm:

I believe my track record as a member of parliament bears this out ... I believe in consultation, I believe in getting the best.

12.20pm: On where how the Rudd Government had lost its way:

I believe that we have on a set of issues… not delivered the kind of stability the Australian people expect.

12.16pm: On Rudd’s future role in the Government:

Today is obviously a difficult day for Kevin, for his family.. there are plenty of time for those discussions.

12.15pm: Gillard says the election will be “in the coming months”, but in the meantime she’s asking for the Australian people for their “consideration and support.”

12.14pm: Swan says of Rudd that it’s a tough day for the former Prime Minister “but he’s worked very hard.”

12.12pm: Wayne Swan has described Julia Gillard as a “first class deputy Prime Minister, she will be a first class Prime Minister.”

12.10pm:

We should not be afraid of the future. There are some days I delight you, on some days I will disappoint you.

12.08pm:

Ultimately Kevin Rudd and I disagreed about the direction of the Government. I believed we need to do better.

12.07pm: On the mining tax Gillard said:

To reach a consensus we need to more than consult, we need to negotiate.

She also said the Government RSPT advertising campaign will be cancelled, and has called on the mining industry to do the same.

12.06pm: Gillard says she believes in man-made climate change, and thinks we need a price on carbon.

12.04pm: She’s given credit to Bob Hawke, Paul Keating, John Howard and Peter Costello for putting the economy in the position to survive the GFC, “and particularly to Kevin Rudd” for guiding us through it.

12.02pm: “Hardwork and teamwork” have been Gillard’s “compass” during her tenure as Deputy Prime Minister and Kevin Rudd’s deputy.

I love this country and I was not going to sit idly by and watch an incoming opposition cut health, cut education and slash worker’s rights.

I take my fair share of responsibility for the Rudd Government’s record.

I also acknowledge that I have not been elected by the Australian people.

12pm: Julia Gillard’s press conference has started with the words she is honoured to lead the country she loves. She too is emotional, with a shaking voice and damp eyes.

Continue reading "As it happened: Julia Gillard becomes our first female PM" »

The true states of mind of our politicians can be a tricky thing to pin down, but in less than 24 hours we’ve caught a couple of glimpses of what’s really going on in Kevin Rudd and Tony Abbott’s minds.

This morning’s Sydney Morning Herald reports Kevin Rudd’s chief-of-staff has been quietly sounding out MPs, making sure the PM still has the support of his troops.

Meanwhile Tony Abbott has taken the extraordinary step of denying details revealed in an official party room briefing to journalists - for fear he may look too cocky.

Continue reading "Campaign countdown: it’s a confidence game" »

Kevin Rudd and Tony Abbott last night called on divine intervention, in the form of the approval of a room full of Australia’s Christian leaders, brought together by the Australian Christian Lobby.

The devout Catholic and the slightly more pick-and-choose a church PM were both keen to display their credentials.

Rudd even managed to link the handling of the GFC to the wellbeing of parishes around the country, saying: “Imagine what would be happening in each of your parishes, in each of your church communities, if such a large slice of people, frankly, weren’t able to work and weren’t able to properly cater for their families.”

Continue reading "Campaign countdown: praying for salvation" »

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.”

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.

Continue reading "Campaign countdown: deal done, but will it count?" »

This isn’t about beating up Kevin Rudd. He’s doing a fine job of that to himself. Tonight he was back in “7.30 Report Land” and walked straight into a question about something he said to the miners’ table at last night’s press gallery ball in Canberra. His expression slightly but perceptibly darkened as Kerry O’Brien asked what the PM meant when he singled them out and said “we’ve got a long memory”.

Rudd said the comment was a “throwaway remark” but it is hard to interpret as anything but a threat, however jocular the delivery. This is the second time this week Rudd has been forced to characterise a comment as innocuous after it has been said, having forced to defend a remark he dropped about a female reporter’s outfit on Tuesday.

The problem is that remarks from a Prime Minister are anything but throwaway when they are so frequently repeated.

Continue reading "Campaign countdown: Back to 7.30 Report Land" »

It is now clear exactly when Kevin Rudd will hold the election.

I have consulted widely among MPs, journalists and psephologists and there is only one conclusion I can draw: the election will be called between next weekend and April next year.

I do not make this call lightly and some signs are still pointing to the contrary, but this is good mail, and the most accurate that you’ll encounter.

Continue reading "Finally, a column that can predict the election date" »

Tony Abbott will be giving surf lessons to a refugee after activist organisation GetUp! paid over $16,000 to secure the event in the Mid-Winter Ball charity auction.

Abbott, not the most avid Twitter user in the Parliament, posted his third update of the month after the auction closed, saying: “I’m looking forward to Getting Up on the surfboard with my successful auction bidders.” He will go surfing and have breakfast with Riz Wakil, an Afghan man who as an asylum seeker spent time in detention centres and was recently granted refugee status.

Wakil arrived in 1999 and is now an Australian citizen running a printing business in Sydney. He said: “[Abbott] can teach me a thing or two about surfing and I’ll teach him what refugees go through to build a new life in Australia.”

Continue reading "Campaign countdown: Promises you have to keep" »

Prime Minister being photographed with babies – check. Opposition Leader warning MPs they remain underdogs – check. Character-questioning stories about the Prime Minister’s past behaviour out on the town emerging – check.

When can we just call this a campaign?

The phrase “it’s on like Donkey Kong” is the first line of a 1992 song by Ice Cube, Now I Gotta Wet’cha. It was more recently popularised by Seann William Scott’s character, Steve Stifler, in the American Pie movies. Explanations of the phrase offered by Urban Dictionary say it signifies “the highest level of go time” and of course is a significant escalation to “it”, whatever “it” is, being merely “on”. The signs are that in federal politics as of this week it is indeed on like Donkey Kong.

Continue reading "Campaign countdown: when it’s on like Donkey Kong" »

Lindsay Tanner was just on AM and made an observation so obvious it was almost funny. He said people only complain about the consultation process when they don’t like the outcome.

That might explain why people in the ALP are now complaining that Kevin Rudd and Wayne Swan came up with the Resources Super Profits Tax all on their own, without even consulting the other half of the so-called “kitchen cabinet”, Tanner, and Julia Gillard.

Tanner denied the claims, saying as Finance Minister he’s a key part of the Budget process, but he did stop short of asserting anyone else in Rudd’s increasingly invisible cabinet was brought into the loop. If Rudd and Swan were responsible for formulating the RSPT, their back bench is now holding them responsible for stopping the bleeding it’s caused.

Continue reading "Campaign countdown: Just fix it Kevin and Wayne" »

Leadership destabilisation has a habit of becoming self-fulfilling. The more people in a party diss the boss the lower he drops in the polls.

The lower he drops in the polls the more people in his party diss him. Rudd seems to be in a death spiral this long weekend. Crusty old party elders such as Graham Richardson and Keith De Lacy are joining the pack of baying wolves.

Rudd’s about as popular as Tim Cahill in his camp this morning.

But as Matthew Franklin and Samantha Maiden quote a Labor source in this morning’s Australian: “Nothing will happen unless Julia acts. And there is no sign she will. She is being a very loyal deputy.”

Continue reading "Campaign countdown: The woman holding the Ace" »

It’s been a long week for the Prime Minister. He’s gone from more shocking poll results, to being bashed around by mining magnates in Western Australia and will head to Queensland today to face more of the same.

Perhaps though he can take the weekend and reflect on his communication skills, because lately, despite his arguments to the contrary, they’ve been lacking.

Think about this: if the consultation process over his mining tax has been as good as the Government claims, why was yesterday the first serious meeting between Kevin Rudd and Twiggy Forrest over a month after the policy was announced?

Continue reading "Campaign countdown: the failure to communicate" »

It was the trip up the Swan River that Kevin Rudd was always going to have to take.

He could no longer fight the urge to visit Perth and head deep into the heart of that state that fears his new tax above all others.

Yesterday was a first for this Prime Minister: he showed up somewhere and was greeted by an angry mob of protestors. He couldn’t very well tell them to “go get a job” like Paul Keating did to rowdy university students.

Continue reading "Campaign countdown: Visit to the heart of darkness" »

Can Bob Hawke save Kevin Rudd? Can the man who was so popular and led so much reform in Australia in the eighties help Kevin Rudd sell his mining tax today?

You couldn’t think of two more different Prime Ministers than Bob Hawke and Kevin Rudd, despite the fact both have enjoyed astronomical levels of popularity in the past. But it is perhaps the way that Hawke and Rudd managed the introduction of big reforms that seems to have really set the two apart.

So can Rudd learn from Hawke? Well Hawke’s former resources minister has told The Australian he has to , while The Age reports that Hawke could already be playing some role in negotiations with the miners.

Continue reading "Campaign countdown: Can Bob Hawke save Rudd?" »

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd appears to be embarking upon an interesting election strategy.

It is to remind people that although they are showing many signs of being sick of him and rather suspicious of his policies, the man who is set to replace will, much to their surprise, become Prime Minister: “If what we see in the polls today is reflected on election day, Mr Abbott would be the next prime minister of Australia. Let’s just be upfront about that,” he told the ABC yesterday.

To the untrained eye this is a statement of the bleeding obvious, but this is not the case. It is an advanced campaign political strategy: the double negative.

Continue reading "Campaign countdown: Rudd discovers the double negative" »

UPDATE 8.05am: Kevin Rudd has just appeared on AM saying “We’ve got a huge amount of work to do to explain my plans”... saying Tony Abbott’s plan is clear, cuts to health and the return of WorkChoices. “The key challenge for the government is to explain very clearly what our plans are for the future…” He refused to acknowledge that he’s broken any promises. He also said the RSPT was about “making our companies more competitive globally.”

Another week, another shocking poll result for Kevin Rudd’s Government.

This time it’s in the Fairfax papers, who are now reporting that the Rudd Government would be “wiped out” if there were an election held now.

According to a Nielsen Poll published in the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age the Coalition leads Labor 53-47.

Continue reading "Campaign countdown: it just got a lot worse for Rudd" »

In an exciting first for parliamentary democracy, The Punch is pioneering the use of hold music for viewers of Question Time who, this week, have had to wait an eternity to hear any actual questions.

From now on, whenever Tony Abbott moves a censure motion, forcing a time-sapping division as the vote is predictably lost on party lines, the timeless classic Spanish Flea by Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass is played on our Coveritlive module. For added variety we will occasionally play Yakety Sax, following requests from our equally jaded readers.

We’ve been looking for a word to describe Question Time this week, and we’ve decided that the word is “crap”. It had been going for 32 minutes yesterday before a single question had been asked. The biggest story of the week has been the collapse in public support for the major parties, and they have both seemed hell-bent on proving the punters right by turning the Parliament into a rabble.

Continue reading "Campaign countdown: Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass" »

Much has been made of the utterly fawning press coverage which Deputy Prime Minister Julia Gillard enjoys. So here goes.

Maybe it takes a redhead to match a redhead but on The 7.30 Report last night Julia Gillard emerged not only unscathed but enhanced as Kerry O’Brien put her through her paces over the flawed rollout of the Building the Education Revolution stimulus spending.

It was a significant performance by Gillard, who in the past month or so has emerged as a genuine leadership force in the polls, despite no discernible jockeying on her part. And it was significant because, in this fortnight just gone, the man who runs the country and the other bloke who wants to have both ventured into 7.30 Reportland only to be wheeled from the studio drooling on a gurney and inserted into a waiting Comcar. In contrast, viewers were lavishing praise on Gillard via Twitter last night after she made O’Brien’s solid interview seem comfortable and manageable. A sample of what viewers had to say:.

Continue reading "Campaign countdown: Julia conquers 7.30 Reportland" »

While the Greens are busy measuring the office furniture and haggling over ministries in a future Abbott-Brown Government of National Unity, Kevin Rudd has been giving his saucebottle a fair old shake again and reintroducing some archaic, hokey slang into the vernacular.

The words for the day were “balderdash” and “bunkum”, used by Rudd at a (rare) Canberra gallery press conference to describe the mining industry’s claims about the Resources Super Profits Tax. And while it might be the kind of stuff you normally hear from Nanna, it made a refreshing change from the PM’s recent acronym-dependent attacks on the miners, such as his evocative claim last week that working families didn’t believe what the MCA was saying about the RSPT.

As Paul Kelly writes today Kevin Rudd has clearly decided that he must muscle up against the miners, whatever backlash he is currently facing over the shameless backflip on the $38m government advertising to promote the benefits of the tax.

Continue reading "Campaign countdown, now with more balderdash" »

Who would have thunk it? The end result of having a Prime Minister who no longer stands for anything and an Opposition Leader who’s light on for policies is a massive surge for the Greens in today’s Newspoll.

Kevin Rudd’s abandonment of the ETS and his backflips on asylum seekers, school spending, insulation and childcare - coupled with Tony Abbott’s conservatism and his inability to outline a credible and coherent budget strategy - have seen support for the Greens jump to 16 per cent. It’s the highest level of support for a third party in Australian politics since the Democrats polled 17 per cent way back in 1990.

The Greens surge and the corresponding two point drop for the ALP and Libs reflect what The Oz’s Dennis Shanahan today labels “a race to the bottom of a muddy pool” and “a total crisis in confidence in Australian politics”. Sydney Morning Herald sketchwriter David Marr lets the crowds in the parliamentary gallery do the talking, noting that yesterday they were only 30 per cent full for the low-rent slanging match over which party has ripped off the taxpayers the most to pay for government advertising.

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As election speculation hits a crescendo The Punch today launches its campaign countdown daily blog where we bring you the latest in a punchy, link-laden format, with today’s bolter being Simon Benson’s new book revealing that Kevin Rudd - and they’re his words - conspired with former NSW Premier Morris Iemma to “f..k” the unions over power privatisation. 

Swearing at airline hosties might be unforgiveable but swearing at unionists is in the same category as swearing at newspaper editors - it’s a victimless crime. But the more telling take-out from Benson’s book is that Rudd is (again) painted as a chronic non-deliverer, in that he promised to back Iemma on the controversial power sale in 2007 and then squibbed it because federal Labor was guaranteed victory in the polls and he didn’t want a distracting controversy. The betrayal killed Iemma’s premiership.   

Benson reveals that, prior to Rudd’s cave-in, the then federal Opposition Leader told Iemma :“If you help me, I’ll get elected and you will prosper. Work with me and, when the time comes, we can f ... them [the unions] together.” The meeting was attended by two other senior Labor staffers. Benson’s book is called Betrayal: The Underbelly of Australian Labor, and you can read an excerpt here. The quote about Rudd by the former NSW Treasurer, maverick Michael Costa, is a pearler.

Continue reading "Campaign countdown: who wanted to f**k the unions?" »