Election 2010

Paul Keating, who’s been pretty vocal of late, has called Tony Abbott a nutter. It’s a bit of a shame he’s not still in parliament. Join us here from 2pm to see if any of Question Time’s current participants can come close to Keating’s sledges.

It’s little wonder the Australian people, not to mention his own Coalition colleagues, are utterly confused about Opposition Leader Tony Abbott’s sham paid parental leave scheme funded by his great big new tax on business.

As soon as his International Women’s Day thought bubble hit the airwaves, there was instant disbelief.

After all, this was the man who, as Workplace Relations Minister, declared that a paid parental leave scheme would only happen over his government’s “dead body.” And who then proceeded to kill off the paid maternity leave proposal put forward by the then Sex Discrimination Commissioner.

Continue reading "Tony Abbott is driving would-be parents crazy" »

The PM has had a busy weekend, flitting around between the Premiers, spruiking his health plan. But insulation is still in the air and the Opposition isn’t about to let it drop. Join us here from 2pm for live coverage of the House of Representatives Question Time.

FORMAL acknowledgement of the first Australians as the original owners of the land is now de rigueur for Rudd Government ministers and MPs. It usually goes something like this: ``I would like to recognise the original owners of the land upon which we meet and acknowledge them as the oldest continuing cultures in human history.’‘

It is intended as a heart-felt gesture of respect and has been received well by all concerned. But it is now being uttered so often and in such a pro-forma way, whether it be at the start of a National Press Club address, or an opening of one event or other, it has begun to ring hollow.

Even among strong supporters of the Aboriginal cause, there is a sense that the acknowledgment, sometimes trotted out with all the emotion of an instruction to stow your tray table and put your seat-back in an upright position, is devaluing the poignancy of Mr Rudd’s historic apology to the Stolen Generations.

Continue reading "Abbott slams Rudd team’s robotic lipservice" »

Today’s battle is over who’s responsible for the gridlock in the Senate. Join us here from 2pm for live coverage of the House of Representatives Question Time.

Continue reading "Question Time Live: 11/03/2010" »

There is no point in complaining to my parents about what the Rudd Government has done to people in higher income brackets. My parents paid 60 cents in the dollar, worked a six-day week, raised two kids, five cats (not at the same time) and a dog and still saved for their own retirement.

In fact, there is no point discussing any sort of paid maternity leave system with my parents or anyone else who had children more than 10 years ago. Many didn’t have access to one, they don’t see the need for one and they don’t think mothers today deserve one.

And don’t get them started on the Baby Bonus.

Continue reading "A super idea for supporting new parents financially" »

Which political leader has just adopted a policy to champion the rights of working women underpinned by progressive taxation? Not the Social Democrat, Kevin Rudd, but the Conservative, Tony Abbott.

I have dumped on the term ’progressive’ in a previous Punch piece, but I suspect that’s how many would have described Tony Abbott’s maternity leave policy if it had been announced by Kevin Rudd.

You will like Tony Abbott’s policy if you accept the importance of parental engagement with a child in the first year of that child’s life. The policy with the longer period of paid maternity leave is a better policy.

Continue reading "Abbott the progressive?" »

Kevin Rudd likes to trumpet his wish to end the blame game. But in reality he rips it up, particularly in health.

First he blames senior Australians for living longer and healthier lives, and uses the Intergenerational Report to belt up on them, labelling seniors a ‘burden’, a ‘problem’ needing a solution.

Second, he blames the Senate for not allowing him to break his promise not to reduce (or abolish for some) the Private Health Insurance Rebate. He even seems to blame his failed ETS ‘tax on everything’ on the Liberal Party, because we changed our leader to reflect the wishes of the Party and the electorate more generally.

Continue reading "We should have a debate on population and immigration" »

John Howard told The Punch at Friday’s Liberal Party get-together in Mosman that Tony Abbott “hasn’t put a foot wrong” since becoming Liberal Leader in December. It now looks like in the past 24 hours that Abbott has done just that.

The reaction from surprised business leaders, a cynical public and his own irritated MPs suggests that Mr Abbott’s maternity leave scheme is a poor bit of policy which has also been badly managed politically.

While business has a tendency to complain about any new cost that comes its way, and the public a habit of being cynical about everything, it’s the political mismanagement of the issue, which saw Mr Abbott offer a qualified apology to his own MPs today, which may have done the most damage. It certainly gave Labor its first good Question Time of the year, after weeks of drift and distraction over the insulation scandal, and successive drops in the polls in the backdraft of the failed ETS.

Continue reading "Abbott’s first mistake" »

It’s the battle of the baby bonus today as Tony Abbott’s wildly ambitious plan to pay parents bucket loads of money gets put through the wringer. Join us here from 2pm for live coverage of Question Time.

Meanwhile the BBC’s Australia correspondent has written a piece about Kevin Rudd BC and AC - Before Copenhagen and After Copenhagen. Interesting outsider perspective.

For someone who has been intimately involved in healthcare both at the coalface as a registered nurse as well as an academic for over 50 years I am appalled, but not surprised, at the current wave of negativity concerning the Federal Government’s Health Reform Plan.

Not only is the commentary negative, it is also blatantly misinformed in the majority of cases. But more concerning than this is the fact that mainstream debates around the issues at stake have been once again hijacked by the vested interests who have the most to lose by substantial changes to the current system.

Leading this negative commentary is the Leader of the Opposition Tony Abbott,  the Minister for Health when money was being siphoned from the health system.

Continue reading "The medical profession is sabotaging its own salvation" »

Anyone trying to understand the politics of the federal health takeover purely from a policy perspective is only seeing half the picture. Beyond the rights and wrong of hospital funding is an attempt to shift the political game onto Labor’s home turf.

If you wanted to beat Geelong you wouldn’t go to Skilled Stadium, if you wanted to run over the Broncos you’d stay away from Lang Park because local knowledge and crowd loyalty can have a real impact on the final result.

Likewise in politics, where home ground is not dictated so much by geography, but by the issues being fought over.

Continue reading "Home-ground advantage counts in politics" »

In an election year many politicians including the Prime Minister and Opposition Leader will travel the nation hoping to impress the electorate and attract votes.

They will discover that Australia is divided into two groups - those in the bush who wear elastic sided boots as standard acceptable attire and those who assume they are missing out on something typically Australian and promptly buy a pair.

The Prime Minister Kevin Rudd wears boots all the time no matter whether the occasion is formal or informal. The Opposition Leader Tony Abbott wears them when dressed in jeans and casual shirt but he did not wear them when temporarily lost at Fossil Creek. Bill Clinton has two pairs and both George Bush and Arnold Schwarzenegger each received a pair as a present from John Howard during visits.

Continue reading "Beware the politican in a brand new hat and boots" »

Bring on the battle for the most generous publicly funded paid maternity leave scheme, in fact, let’s have all all out electoral bidding war on the issue with both sides throwing lots of money.

Tony Abbott has marked International Women’s Day by announcing a proposal to introduce a scheme that would see working women paid 26 weeks of leave at their salary level at the time of the birth.

The Opposition Leader stopped short of calling his plan a policy, saying it needed work and consultation with interest groups. Lots of women will be cheering at even the mention of it so I’m loathe to talk Mr Abbott’s plan down, but there’s one thing about it that really bothers me.

Continue reading "Abbott’s parent plan could pit women against each other" »

It is Tony Abbott’s 93rd day as Leader of the Liberal Party and he’s being cheered as a hero. He’s just arrived at the Mosman RSL, one of the few affordable venues in the richest suburb on Sydney’s ultra-conservative North Shore, and the member for Warringah is not among friends but fanatics.

If Abbott is trying to argue that it’s a marathon not a sprint, and that the party has a lot of work to do ahead of polling day, tonight is not the night for such dispassionate political cliché. It feels like a dress rehearsal for a victory party.

Every single person that I speak to on the night not only believes that the Libs can win, many are saying they will win.

Continue reading "The sweetest upset of all?" »

The first thing the ALP needs to do now Belinda Neal has lost her pre-selection for the seat of Robertson is tell Kevin Rudd that the new candidate likes to be known as Deb O’Neill, not Debbie as he called her yesterday.

The second thing is they need to stick a big picture of Neal on the wall of the state secretary’s office as a reminder that the members of the party are much better at choosing candidates than they are.

It sounds pretty simple, but it’s a lesson that’s been long in the making, and one the Labor heavies in NSW are yet to fully grasp. And it’s not just important for voters and party members, as contrary to what you’d expect, being imposed on one’s constituency is no tea party for a candidate either.

Continue reading "Deb dumps Belinda and sends a signal to the machine" »

AS Kevin Rudd ploughs through the media analysis of his political woes and weighs the counsel of advisers and the trends identified by pollsters, the man known as Kevin 24/7 may be in need of some more homespun and maternal advice.

Kevin, it’s past your bedtime. Get some sleep.

The fatigue factor has been largely unexplored in the context of the Prime Minister’s poll slump and the corresponding surge by Opposition Leader Tony Abbott. There has been a longstanding and well-documented view within Labor circles that Rudd’s workload and sleeping habits are so punishing as to be unsustainable.

Continue reading "Has Kevin 24-7 been caught napping by a fresh opponent?" »

IT’S not just that Health Minister, Nicola Roxon has acknowledged that taxes may need to increase to fund Labor’s health policy in the longer-run. Or, that Treasurer Wayne Swan has admitted a full federal take-over of the nation’s 764 public hospitals could yet be pursued.

Such frankness should be welcomed in our political leaders. It’s just that in both cases, the comments underscore the fact that in complex reforms, there is many a slip `twixt policy cup and delivery lip.

Put another way, there is a huge distance and many hurdles between Kevin Rudd’s radical health reform promise, and the tangle of changes needed to make things better for patients. Those ``slips’’ are already apparent.

Continue reading "How the health overhaul became a big stink over tax" »

Back in October last year, I promised a group of Aboriginal stockmen that I would soon return to observe progress in the re-establishment of an Aboriginal cattle industry in the Northern Territory.

It was not a promise that I considered I could break just because I now had a different job. The problems of indigenous Australia need to be taken seriously by Australia’s leaders and not just by the ministers and shadow ministers with special responsibility for them.

That’s how I came to be on a quad bike, low on fuel, following tyre tracks in the gathering dark earlier this week. That’s how I sampled a witchety grub and honey ants dug up by the women of an outstation called Ukaka.

Continue reading "Abbott: Why I journeyed into the dead heart" »

Kevin Rudd’s festival of contrition and humility has now entered its fourth day with the PM’s address to the National Press Club on his health reform blueprint becoming a showcase for his new laid-back, softer style.

You can see the latest news coverage of the health plan here. More interesting politically was to observe the continuing shift in Mr Rudd’s demeanour. He’s officially buried crotchety Kevin and is now conciliatory Kevin, self-flagellator always at the ready, as he admits his faults and flaws.

He even expressed his relief at the happy news that his nemesis, the surging Tony Abbott, had not vanished overnight in the dead heart of the Australian desert.

Continue reading "Rudd: I don’t pretend to be some sort of perfect leader" »

With an election to be held sometime this year, it’s time to start pondering that important but not necessarily easy question: who to vote for.

This is simple for those born into a political party or otherwise partisan, a non-issue for the apathetic but problematic for those who care but dislike Labor and Liberal in equal measure.

I used to be a traditional Labor voter by default as I would rather have bicycled from Perth to Sydney for no reason than voted Liberal. But it’s just as hard to vote for Labor these days.

Continue reading "All ready to go to the election with no-one to vote for" »

With all this public confessing, rending of garments and epiphanies going on you’d be forgiven for thinking Kevin Rudd had run screaming back into the arms of Catholicism.

The Prime Minister’s reversion was completed fittingly on the Sabbath yesterday on the high alter of Sunday morning politics, Insiders.

It’s a shrine he hasn’t visited for quite some time. Forgive me Barry for I have sinned, it’s been 21 months since my last appearance.

(Does anyone else think it’s a coincidence Rudd’s new-found martyrdom started simmering about the time the Pope confirmed the canonisation of Mary McKillop? Divine inspiration maybe?)

Continue reading "All this self-flagellation is making me queasy" »

Peter Garrett’s demotion by Kevin Rudd this afternoon has all the hallmarks of a sacking - it is humiliating, it is based on poor performance, and it leaves him with virtually no power in his narrowly-defined portfolio.

But it isn’t a sacking, because Kevin Rudd does not want to give the Opposition the satisfaction of claiming a ministerial scalp, with all the political momentum such a blow would generate.

Sneakily announced late on a Friday to avoid mass media scrutiny throughout a full week, and with the Parliament not sitting next week, Kevin Rudd said his decision to limit Garrett’s responsibilities followed a long conversation with his besieged Environment Minister today.

Continue reading "Garrett: when a sacking isn’t a sacking" »

Kevin Rudd has enlisted his MPs as an insulation scheme army, ordering them to help out by visiting insulation companies to help distribute the Government’s $41 million rescue package. The heat appears to be off Peter Garrett. Join us here from 2pm as we cover Question Time live.

When I read Jamie Briggs’ most recent contribution to The Punch on industrial relations I wasn’t in the least bit surprised.

It was a predictable salvo in the hundred year war on industrial relations in this country. This war is the battle line between the two major political parties, driving the partisanship and iron discipline of our respective parties.

Labor has always believed that a fair go should apply, that workers need protection and that everybody deserves dignity at work. This belief is not driven by theories or politics but by more practical issues – of making sure a worker can live off their wages, that they have job security if they do a good job and that there’s an umpire to ensure fairness.

Continue reading "Workchoices architect needs some real life experience" »

During the 2007 election campaign, voters were led to believe via a massive scare campaign that Labor would provide wage protection.

The cruel irony is that whilst the Howard Government achieved real wage increases of over 19%, Labor’s new laws are actually leading to wage decreases.

Continue reading "No reward from the new Government’s new Award" »

Kevin Rudd has a big political problem.  Tony Abbott has thrown him off balance with a couple of short jabs and he is struggling to regain its composure. 

Tony Abbott has achieved this by punching at the key failures of the Rudd Government. It has changed the dynamic on the ground all of a sudden.

Labor’s marginal seat holders who just months ago were dreaming of an easy victory in the campaign this year are now talking darkly about the PM’s performance and wondering whether Julia just might be better. They are demanding some action to turn this around. They want something done to stop Tony Abbott and his momentum.

Continue reading "Labor’s IR scare campaign: can the souffle rise twice?" »

It was so simple for the Opposition. Keep hammering Peter Garrett on the details of when exactly he saw Minter Ellison warnings about the risks associated with the Government’s home insulation scheme.

If they didn’t get his scalp, they would at least have a strong message about Ministerial incompetence in the Rudd Government for the Federal Election campaign.

Then this morning Liberal Senator Simon Birmingham jumped the shark.

Continue reading "Coalition’s own goal in the insulation shoot-out" »

The Opposition is now saying Peter Garrett’s canned insulation scheme is a bigger threat to Australian families than terrorism and Kevin Rudd’s now very upset. There will probably be a lot of shouting this Question Time. Join us here from 2pm as we cover it live.

Peter Garrett has not been sacked as Environment Minister – and you can bet your possibly electrified house on the fact that he will not be sacked by Prime Minister Kevin Rudd.

If anything was going to tip Garrett over the edge it was the revelation that a risk assessment report was prepared in April last year by respected law firm Minter Ellison but that – remarkably – the minister only read it 11 days ago.

But after holding the line during Question Time, with the Opposition moving a predictable but justified censure motion calling for his head, Garrett is emphatic that he doesn’t need to go, and Rudd insistent that he won’t go.

Continue reading "Why Kevin Rudd will not sack Peter Garrett" »

WHEN Abraham Lincoln famously said that a house divided against itself cannot stand, he didn’t have the Liberal Party in mind. But had he been born 250 years later, he may well have.

Although, in the case of the Libs it’s more of a church than a house. Tony Abbott and Barry O’Farrell may be breathing a sigh of relief after the party’s NSW upper house preselection vote on Friday which saw David Clarke, the so called head of the party’s “religious right” fend off a challenge from the less religious right.

But what will concern them is that Clarke won by only 14 votes, which means in real terms that 7 more people voted for him than David Elliot, the former Australian Hotels Association executive being backed by Clarke’s former staffer Alex Hawke.

Continue reading "Backroom politics crash the party" »

The truism goes a politician should wear out a couple of pairs of shoes in the lead up to an election, but for the Labor Member for Robertson Belinda Neal, her best strategy for a last-ditch bid at career salvation would be to stay indoors and put her feet up.

You see Neal has a way of alienating people that’s unique for a back bencher in the Federal Parliament, especially one who took her seat by just 184 votes at the last election.

And now the ALP has a big decision to make. Turf out a sitting member married to one of the most powerful men in the NSW division, or stay with a candidate so deeply unpopular senior party figures think she’ll be annihilated come Federal Election time. It’s more complicated than it sounds.

Continue reading "Belinda Neal: a one-woman political phenomenon" »

Local candidates are the political equivalent of sausages – we might accept they are part of the democratic process, but we don’t really want to know what goes into making them.

And like sausages, local candidates come in all shapes and forms, from the top-shelf gourmet that you would be happy to eat at a Hat restaurant to a sad sack of something that reeks of fat and sawdust.

But in an era of presidential politics, do local candidates really matter? To stretch the sausage metaphor to breaking point, it really depends on what they’re made of, how they’re cooked and what else they are served with.

Continue reading "With local candidates, there’s always a snag" »

IT may have been more advertising genius than substance but Kevin 07 was a political juggernaut and it rolled right over John Howard’s competent, if tired administration. In so doing, it re-wrote the rules showing voters will bench governments when the economic indicators are favourable if they are bored enough. Back then, Kev-0-Sev had the magic and no matter what Mr Howard did, nothing worked, from backflipping on IR, to embracing the first Australians, to going green with a cap and trade scheme.

Voters had simply had enough. Kevin Rudd was future boy. A Mandarin speaking former mandarin. A square peg who had suddenly found a square hole. As the anti-Howard he was “same same but different’‘. What ever it was, it worked in spades - and they were used to bury the Howard decade.

Yet now, less than a term later, that magic has faded. A pallid looking Rudd is struggling to connect, his 07 mojo ebbing just when he needs it to flow. Is it the emergence of “Straight-talking Tony’’ or is it that having the Opposition back in the game has exposed structural weaknesses previously unnoticed?

Continue reading "10 things Rudd can do to get his mojo back" »

You know things are going seriously awry when the party of the workers starts blaming the workers.

But that’s exactly what’s happening within the ALP over the insulation rollout debacle.

Ignoring proceedings in the Labor State of NSW where bosses can be tried for industrial manslaughter, federal Labor is saying that the minister responsible for the rollout should be exonerated from blame in the deaths of four insulation installers.

Continue reading "Kevin Rudd stars in the final scene from Animal Farm" »

It should be a great time to be a Green: a first term Labor Government governing from the centre; the defining local and international issue is an environmental one; our lives are being buffeted by one extreme weather event after another.

2010 is a crunch year for the third force in Australian politics and, for many, the great hope of progressive change, with a federal election beckoning, the dream of controlling the Senate is looming large

But something is not happening for the Greens right now: despite growing disillusionment in the Labor Government, their vote is flat-lining in major polls and it is twice as ‘soft’ as the two major parties. We asked voters how strong their voting intention was, and these were the results.

Continue reading "Greens struggling to grow in heated political climate" »

Some time in 2003, John Howard bowed to the bleeding obvious when he formally declared the Work/Family issue to be a barbecue stopper. In the end, though, Mr Howard chose to do nothing to help Australian barbecues run more smoothly.

Indeed, his WorkChoices adventure dramatically reduced the capacity of Australians to balance their lives with the demands of paid work. Leave entitlements were jeopardised, the power of employers to impose particular rostering arrangements was enhanced, and job security plummeted.

At about the same time, Tony Abbott showed similar disdain for working families when he promised that a paid maternity leave scheme would happen over their Government’s “dead body”.

Continue reading "A real agenda for work and family" »

Watching Kevin Rudd struggling on morning television every Friday must be a particular form of torture for the Prime Minister’s advisers.

Over the past three weeks Rudd has been unable to answer questions asked live by viewers to Seven’s Sunrise program, and on two weeks has had to promise to come back seven days later with replies.

So much for the immediacy of television. The viewers would have been batter off sending him a letter.

Continue reading "The sun is setting on Rudd’s Sunrise strategy" »

WHEN calls came in the lead-up to Australia Day to remove the British ensign from our flag, the idea was slapped down. Australians had fought and competed under this one, the Government said in an argument more often deployed by monarchists.

When the idea of putting the republic back on the agenda came up, this time from Attorney General Robert McClelland no less, it too got short shrift from the leadership when asked publicly. Perhaps this is unsurprising from the socially conservative Rudd Government. But the agent of both of these off the cuff rejections, was not Kevin Rudd, but rather, his deputy, the left-aligned, Julia Gillard.

There is a growing body of evidence that ``Red Julia’’ as some on the Right have derided her, has been busily repositioning herself to be in contention for the Labor leadership should Kevin Rudd’s star fade. I’ll come back to that shortly.

Continue reading "Red head to blue rinse, Gillard’s evolution" »

This morning’s Channel 10 news debate between Finance Minister Lindsay Tanner and his Opposition counterpart Barnaby Joyce was the first time the two have gone head to head since Joyce took up the job.

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The clash was a good example of how a political debate can appear one way in Canberra and unfold in another when it comes time for people to actually tune in.

To give a cricketing analogy, Tanner has won the test match of a parliamentary sitting fortnight but Joyce just won the higher rating Twenty 20.

Continue reading "Tanner wins the week, Joyce wins the day" »

It’s fairly clear to anyone who watched Kevin Rudd on the ABC’s Q & A this week that a group of young Australians very succinctly exposed the shallowness and symbolism that underpins much of Labor’s “policy” argument. 

These young people displayed a healthy scepticism and an ability to see through polly-speak that many of our national journalists could learn a thing or two from. Indeed, in the aftermath, some journalists seem almost shocked by Rudd’s inability to clearly answer a question which isn’t scripted and for which he has not been briefed. 

(Despite the embarrassing prelude of the “Ask the PM” Sunrise questions, which saw Rudd floundering.)

Continue reading "Hollowmen and shallow decisions" »

Can you believe today’s jobs figures? I don’t like the odds of the Government being able to resist another day of Barnaby bashing with that economic indicator under its belt.

Who knew the lower north shore of Sydney was a hunting ground for anti-immigrationists. This flyer popped up in mail boxes last weekend in more than one apartment block, in more than one suburb. Unauthorised of course, and probably the work of a nutter.

But it’s an election year, and these things don’t tend to happen in a vacuum. During the next six months there’ll be a lot more of this rubbish peddled by those outside the political mainstream.

Scott Morrison has requested we be able to debate immigration without labeling people racist. That’s more than fair. But keeping the debate clean is a two way street.

Continue reading "Want to lose “racist” from the debate, lose the racism" »

Today’s insult of the day - Wayne Swan called Joe Hockey “Sloppy Joe” over his comments about interest rates and stimulus spending. The election campaign has started and it’s about economic credibility. Join us from 2pm for Question Time.

Who does the ironing at your house, and other big questions of national significance could be on the agenda for today’s Question Time. Kevin Rudd will be glad to be back on familiar ground after his experience last night in another chamber, with another set of questioners altogether. Join us here from 2pm.

Ahhh, now we get it. Lindsay Tanner is smarter than that “freak show” Barnaby Joyce.

In case we didn’t get the message in parliament last week (we can be a bit slow sometimes) Mr Tanner spelled it out again on Meet the Press on the weekend. Not only is Senator Joyce “off the planet”, his team mate Joe Hockey is a “lightweight”.

Yesterday in parliament he repeated the lesson again for those who’d wagged the last one or drifted off while doodling on our pencil cases. Mr Hockey is “out to lunch”, and again he filled us in on Barnaby. According to Mr Tanner, Senator Joyce is evidence of “a very big question mark over the leader of the opposition’s judgment for appointing him in the first place.”

For someone who’s so much smarter than his counterpart, Mr Tanner seems to have skipped the chapter in Politics for Dummies called “Australians don’t like smug politicians who reckon they’re smarter than everyone else.”

Continue reading "Political snobs risk turning Barnaby into a martyr" »

Barnaby Joyce’s move to clarify he is not in a homoerotic relationship with Tony Abbott is the latest example of politicians taking us somewhere we just don’t want to go – into the bedroom.

Following hot on the heels of Tony Abbott’s foray into the ‘gift’ of virginity, Joyce’s gaffe unnervingly suggests that the Coalition has things other than the management of the national economy on their mind.

For Australians, politicians are a bit like our parents – we innately accept that while they probably have sex, we would rather not confront the fact.

Continue reading "I do not want sexual relations with these people" »

The Rudd Government claims to be superior in economic management. How so?

The real reason Australia did better than most developed countries in the recent financial crisis was that the Coalition had by 2006 repaid the $96 billion debt run up by Labor, left a $5 billion Education fund, a $60 billion Future Fund and a $22 billion surplus!

Add to this a virtually strike free environment, whereby employment grew, wages grew and exports grew.

Continue reading "Who’s the real economic freak show?" »

The showbiz maxim about never working with children or animals was on full display tonight as our Prime Minister arrived for a chummy yarn with a nice bunch of kids only to endure a torrid pummeling about broken promises, weak leadership and political expediency.

In a display which put us journalists to shame, a roomful of young adults gave Kevin Rudd one of the toughest grillings of his prime ministership as he agreed to an hour-long solo appearance on the ABC’s Q&A at Old Parliament House, Canberra.

You could see the clutch slipping from the start as the first series of questions directly accused Rudd of being more talk than action. His body language was awkward and what he had probably envisaged as a friendly bit of to-and-fro banter looked as uncomfortable as an all-in press conference - only more so, as the kids were so civilised in their pursuit of the PM that he couldn’t cry foul over unfair treatment.

Continue reading "At the end of the day, the kids caned Kevin on Q&A" »

Well what can I say about the first parliamentary week as shadow finance minister?

Tony wanted a speech and I delivered it at the Press Club. It would not have mattered if the speech had categorically disproved the theory of relativity, the issue would be the slip and when the question came where I had to, on my feet and in my head, quickly add up Labor party expenditure via MYEFO for the next four years, I said billion when I should have said trillion.

In that split second my head said trillion my heart said you have got to be joking that is enormous. My head was right but the result is for all to see on YouTube.

Continue reading "Freak show? At least Barnaby didn’t blow the budget" »

Kevin Rudd says it would take only two or three out of every hundred voters to change their minds for Labor to hit the fence. He’s right.

The political atmosphere of 2010 is already noticeably different, more competitive than last year. Liberals are certainly more up-beat having ``regained their mojo’’ as frontbencher, Eric Abetz put it. Labor MPs are correspondingly edgy.

Self evidently, what the PM wants to guard against, particularly inside the Caucus, is the conclusion that a second term is assured. The two Newspolls conducted this year have told the story. That is that Tony Abbott’s ascension to the Liberal leadership, and the clarity it has brought, has consolidated the previously crumbling conservative base. It’s primary vote support has just eclipsed Labor by one point, 41 per cent to 40.

Continue reading "Three in 100 Aussies can destroy Kevin Rudd" »

As the cut and thrust of a new Parliamentary year begins it is worth reflecting on the fact that more thn ever, 2010 will see politicians of all stripes and colours in the face of average voters. 

2010 will undoubtedly become known as “the year of the election” with three state and one federal election all due between now and December 31.  Who then are the politicians that will this year provide interesting watching for the rest of us? 

Of course it would be easy to concentrate on the big hitters and those who will shape the meta-narrative, which pundits call ‘the debate about the debate’.  Among them you would include; Rudd and Abbott, the State Premiers, Bob Brown and Wayne Swan, (in fact nearly all the ministry).  But, everyone will watching them, so here instead, I present a guide to some of the less obvious players in our parliaments but who nevertheless will provide some of the most interesting political subplots of 2010.

Continue reading "The ten politicians to watch in 2010" »

This is a guest blog by journalist and former senior Howard Government press secretary Niki Savva, whose book So Greek, confessions of a conservative leftie, has just been published by Scribe. We thank her for this post and wish her well for the book, it’s a terrific read.

If anyone out there stumbles across the real Kevin Rudd, could they please call his wife and kids. They are very worried because they haven’t seen him for a while and have apparently lodged a missing persons report with the police.

There have been images of Rudd on television and in the newspapers, usually smiling and joking, often with toddlers, but there is no proof it is really him. Or anybody, really. He just looks and sounds like a clone of someone he wishes he was.

Continue reading "Kevin Rudd, the man who wasn’t there" »

Political predictions usually come with a face-saving asterisk, or an alarming promise that you will drop your pants in Martin Place if they don’t come true.

We’ll try to avoid both here – especially the second you’ll be relieved to hear – and instead offer a dispassionate snapshot of the federal political scene as Parliament resumes today for this election year.

It’s not based on today’s Newspoll which shows that Tony Abbott - who unlike Malcolm Turnbull offers a much clearer alternative to Labor especially on climate change - has helped the Libs sneak ahead in the primary vote while still falling short of winning office. Nor is it some bid to spoil Rudd’s attempt to claim underdog status with his pep-talk to MPs yesterday where he warned that Labor could lose. 

Continue reading "Why Kevin Rudd will still win the election" »

If you are already sure who you are going to vote for at this year’s federal election then consider yourself a member of a minority group: the ‘rusted-on voter’.

As this week’s Essential Report illustrates, we have become a Nation of Softies, voters who can be wooed and repelled by our politicians all the way up to voting day.

It is a change in our political culture from previous generations who inherited a party from their parents and stuck with it through thick and thin.

Continue reading "Election 2010: It’s the year of the softie" »

Today marks the return of Parliament in Canberra, in an election year. For some this will be of no interest, for others it is a captivating period in which the intrigue, dynamics and more subtle nuances are followed each sitting day.

I am firmly of the view that as Australians, we should be very proud of the vigorous nature of our democratic processes.

After all, millions of people throughout the world are prepared to risk their lives in pursuit of democratic principles being introduced to their nation.

Continue reading "Parliament is back: let the bells ring" »

Climate scepticism is all the rage these days and it’s become very fashionable to doubt the scientists and suspect global fraud.

The sceptics will denounce mainstream opinion for attempting to supposedly silence them, all the while loudly denouncing their opponents on talkback radio, the internet and mainstream press. They criticise minor errors in massive reports and loudly attack sloppy emails, but they play fast and loose with the facts themselves.

Sceptics are rarely accountable for their statements on temperature, on climate or carbon dioxide levels, preferring instead to rely on unsophisticated arguments like ‘it’s crap’.

Continue reading "Climate changes sceptics a threat to national security" »

Ordinarily the first parliamentary sitting week for a new opposition leader is a chance to redefine themselves, introduce new ideas to the public, perhaps break the shackles of received wisdom about their view of the world.

But like John Howard when took the Liberal leadership (again) in 1995, Tony Abbott makes his first parliamentary charge as Opposition Leader this week as a relatively well-known political quantity. So do the cliches about him match the perceptions of people in the street? Being the new leader, and seeing as we did the same number on the Prime Minister and Malcolm Turnbull last year, we decided to ask people some simple questions about what they thought of the Member for Warringah.

So was there a surprise, like in the Rudd survey when people said they perceived the Prime Minister as somehow physically small? Nup; respondents described Abbott almost as a caricature of how he’s caricatured: a straight-talking conservative bruiser, hated by some for his views on social issues, known for them by all.

Continue reading "The alternative" »

Taxation reform as a political issue may not float many people’s boat but in an election year it promises to be as entertaining as a day in the life of Jack Bauer. We have two political leaders - Kevin Rudd and Tony Abbott - who are equally unconvincing on the economy and who must grapple with a political hot potato.

The Rudd Government will soon respond to the final report of Australia’s Tax System Review Panel. The Panel, headed by Treasury Secretary Ken Henry, will recommend the most comprehensive reform of the tax system in a generation.

Taxation reform is a policy challenge more complex than quantum mechanics.  Australia’s existing tax system has outdated Commonwealth-State financial arrangements and effective marginal tax rates that discourage people on welfare from participating in the workforce. Australia also faces significant economic challenges that are intimately related to the taxation system, such as an over-reliance on mining for national wealth; an aging population; and the need to reduce the carbon output of the economy.

Continue reading "Tax reform: It’s a lot like 24, only in years" »

My first offering to The Punch for 2010 – and it’s a puff piece!  Gena Karpf makes great, sweet puffy marshmallows. Fruity flavoured marshmallows, chocolate flavoured marshmallows, pretty much any sort of marshmallow you could imagine really.

Anyone who sees the swooning effect that Meryl Streep’s goodies have on Steve Martin in this summer’s hit movie It’s Complicated will get my drift.

Gena’s shop SWEETNESS: The Patisserie is two doors down from my new Electorate Office in Epping.

Continue reading "A sweet deal for small business" »

Tony Abbott is perfectly entitled to his view as an individual - and as the father of three teenage girls - as to whether women should have sex before they are married.

But as the alternative prime minister, the danger for Abbott is that any airing of his private views will sound like a generalised public call for the women of Australia to keep themselves nice.

This is exactly what has happened – not just with the predictable attacks from sworn enemies such as Julia Gillard, but across blog sites and the twittersphere from politically ambivalent women have interpreted Abbott’s statement as an unwelcome free lecture.

Continue reading "Tony’s virginity troubles and the danger of being honest" »

In the wake of the Copenhagen anti-climax there’s been a political vacuum in climate change politics.

The expectations were enormous at the UN summit and the talks collapsed into rhetorical justifications by Kevin Rudd, Barack Obama and other world leaders as China and India flexed their muscles.

At home last week, the Greens tried to step in and fill that vacuum and reassert themselves in what is a bedrock issue for them.

Continue reading "Why Rudd would rather talk economics than environment" »

Under media questioning, the Rudd Government has now admitted that its much-ballyhooed campaign finance reforms have been shunted to the legislative back burner. Not only was this a backflip worthy of an Olympic-calibre political gymnast, but it reflects one of the biggest “tail-wags-dog” stories in recent Australian history.

Labor’s point man on electoral issues, Senator John Faulkner, vowed during the early days of the Rudd Government that house cleaning was high on the agenda. “Electoral reforms will definitely be in place before the next election,” he proclaimed in September 2008 when decrying the out of control “arms race” in political fund raising.

What a difference a year makes.

Continue reading "Concerns about who pays for politics on the back burner" »

Today Kevin Rudd will hold his first Community Cabinet of this election year, bringing his road show to Adelaide, no doubt with much fanfare and pageantry. According to recent news reports it also comes at not insignificant cost with taxi and hire cars fares alone clocking in at $10,000 plus for the Labor promoting talkfests.

If Kevin Rudd is serious about responding to community concerns there are a number of key issues he simply cannot ignore or baffle his way out of with his usual unintelligible answers.  He must tackle these issues head on if these visits are to be of any benefit.

First and foremost for South Australians and anyone who cares about the health of our rivers and river communities is our ongoing water crisis. It is clear that Kevin Rudd has not managed to ‘end the blame game’ on water as he promised. His so-called historic agreement reached in 2008 is riddled with so many loopholes and concessions to the States that he clearly should go back to the drawing board if he is serious about attaining real national management of the Murray Darling.

Continue reading "Will Rudd duck questions at Community Cabinet today" »

In a move reminiscent of John Howard’s “headland” speeches ahead of his successful 1996 campaign, Opposition Leader Tony Abbott last night delivered the first of his direction statements ahead of this year’s poll. And he adopted a decidedly green hue, saying it was time to scotch the misnomer that conservatives could not be good environmentalists.

The speech contained two policies - the national takeover of the Murray-Darling river system and the creation of a so-called 15,000-strong “Green Army”  - and a promise of more to follow, with Abbott conceding he did not yet have a finalised position on carbon emissions but would do so within the fortnight.

The first policy should have Kevin Rudd worried as if he had been acting as a decisive national leader he would already have stepped in to wrest control of our biggest river system off the squabbling states. The second policy seems more a bit of gimmickry - and expensive gimmickry at that, with a potential bill of up to $750 million to send 15,000 environmental fix-up folks into the bush at $50,000 a pop.

Continue reading "Abbott goes green with one top idea, one dodgy gimmick" »

Dylan fans will be familiar with the stream of consciousness liner notes on the back sleeve of Highway 61 Revisited where the Zimmer-man writes of Savage Rose and Fixable and the Cream Judge and the Clown, of Lifelessness saving the world, of the Phony Philosophers and the Beautiful Strangers.

I was compelled to re-read this unusual piece of writing this week after subbing an opinion piece written by Barnaby Joyce and have decided that if Dylan has a literary heir in this country it is the newly-installed shadow minister for finance.

Joyce has now written seven opinion pieces for our website The Punch and the marvellous thing about all of them is that you could buy a pack of Gitanes, slip into your skivvy and beret, and recite random passages aloud in a Soho coffee shop with Miles Davis’ Kind of Blue playing in the background, and the critics would hail you as the greatest beat poet since Ginsberg.

Continue reading "Barnaby knock knock knockin’ on Kevin’s door" »

Whether the recent federal Liberal party showdown over the now rejected Emissions Trading Scheme develops into a thoroughgoing schism only time will tell. Malcolm Turnbull’s robust description of new federal leader Tony Abbot’s climate change thinking is a crude reminder to those Liberals celebrating the weekend’s by-election results in Bradfield and Higgins: environmental politics is here to stay and cannot be swept under the carpet by short-term circuit-breakers.

As I argued in The Australian during August, the current schism between so-called ‘moderates’, small ‘l’ liberals gathered around Turnbull and Joe Hockey, and the conservatives of Abbot and Nick Minchin’s ilk has many of the hallmarks of the 1950s ALP split over communism which spawned the Democratic Labor Party and kept Labor from office for some two decades.

Most accounts of the farcical goings on in the federal Liberal’s party room over the past few weeks have highlighted this underlying ideological conflict. The conservative coup d’état against Turnbull resulted from a fundamental policy divide over climate change dovetailing with opposition to Turnbull’s divisive crash or crash through personality.

Continue reading "Liberals fighting a Labor Party which doesn’t exist" »

A lot of my comrades on the Left of politics are walking around as if the ascension of Tony Abbott is an early Christmas present, but I’m not so sure.

While some see the rise of the Mad Monk as the Tory version of Latham’s 2004 election car crash, I think the risk is we are gearing up for a re-run of the 1999 Republic referendum.

That was the ballot where Abbott, as executive director of the ‘No’ vote managed to convince battlers to keep the Queen as Head of State because the alternative would be to have the nation run by a bunch of wankers - like Malcolm Turnbull. A decade later and the Left is still coming to terms with the anti-elite backlash that the Republic Referendum – and arguably the 2001 Tampa election – unleashed.

Continue reading "Left should beware Tony Abbott’s war on wankers" »

THE Labor Party is making a serious miscalculation if it tries to write off Tony Abbott as the Mad Monk, the Pope’s man in Canberra, a profanity-spouting bovver boy who is so socially conservative as to be unelectable.

It will also have to be careful not to attack him as the captive of lunatic elements over climate change. While there are undoubtedly plenty of nutty conspiracy theorists in the climate skeptic camp, there are also many thousands of well-adjusted but anxious Australians who simply do not believe that the Rudd Government has explained the need for such swift and dramatic action on climate change, especially when other bigger nations are doing nothing.

Tony Abbott’s victory in the Party Room is a microcosm of his potential electoral appeal at the national level. As Joe Hockey found out the hard way, you have to stand for something in politics.

Continue reading "Tony Abbott: I’ll slug it out" »

The Liberals are currently staggering around the corridors in Parliament House like a bomb has gone off. In political terms it kind of has. The past 36 hours has smashed Malcolm Turnbull’s authority, failed to produce a viable alternative candidate for the leadership, transformed manageable differences of opinion into bitter personal hatreds, left the frontbench a mess with three resignations already and possibly more to come, not to mention a looming reshuffle just to add further fire to an already incendiary situation.

Liberal MPs are openly talking about their sadness at the way the whole thing crashed around their ears. They are worried about their seats and had wanted one of two things to happen - to achieve a quiet consensus on a CPRS deal and to quietly pass the legislation, or for the talks with the Rudd Government to fail and to vote against it. Instead they have got open internal warfare.

Their biggest fear is how it will play out with traditional Liberal Party voters who cannot fathom the logic of what the party has done in embracing a lose-lose situation, whereby people who believe in climate change will give full credit to the Government for introducing a CPRS, while people who do not believe in climate change will punish the Opposition for backing it.

Continue reading "Grass roots revolt the biggest fear for battered Libs" »

I am wiping the egg off my face this morning. Last week I happily wrote off Newspoll’s recent findings of a drop in support for Rudd as a blip and then along comes this week’s Essential Report showing there is, indeed, something going on.

The fall we have picked up may not be as spectacular as Newspoll’s but we are beginning to see movement away from Labor, especially among older Australians.

A four-point fall in two party preferred vote is beyond margin for error and could mean one of three things: (i) Newspoll was right all along (albeit a little over-cooked);  (ii) Newspoll was wrong but the world has caught up with their error; or (iii) we have a blip to match Newspoll’s.

Continue reading "I love the taste of egg in the morning" »

Seventy-two channels, and still nothing on, wise-cracked the US entertainer, Bob Hope back in the 1970s.

Decades later, in this era of multi-media platforms, some people might lament that Hope didn’t know the half of it. The big challenge now, with all the information coming in, is to grade it - to pick the significant, from the loud but unimportant.

In politics, this challenge has always been there but having more information on what voters think may have made the job harder, not easier. Scandals are dissected, polls and focus group research consumed and interpreted, trends identified, and conclusions reached.

Continue reading "Fickle voters are starting to channel surf" »

Sitting in front of a blank computer screen is confronting, but strangely quite liberating.

There is a glimmer of anticipation, of unknown opportunity. There is a sense of freedom – now that is a strange coincidence. It is actually a sudden, unexpected challenge to my freedom that crowds my thoughts.

Who would have thought that in 2009, I would be sitting at my desk in the Australian Parliament, earnestly searching the internet for quotations about censorship?

Continue reading "Censoring our collective right to criticise the government" »

Whatever the reason, Kevin Rudd can take no comfort from today’s Newspoll showing a seven-point turnaround in the standing of Labor and the Coalition in the past fortnight. The poll comes as political strategist and Punch regular Peter Lewis writes today that a majority of Australians thinks Rudd is weak on border protection, according to the latest Essential Media findings.

The PM’s nightmare scenario is that there are three factors at play - disapproval at his “tough but fair” line on asylum seekers, disquiet over his economic management ahead of today’s dead-cert interest rate hike, and a sign that some voters are growing tired of the hitherto unassailable Teflon Kevin.

Unless the Newspoll is a blip, Labor is facing the almost unbelievable prospect of a nail-biter election with a two-party preferred lead of 52 to 48 over the Coalition. We’ll throw the commentary to you - what’s your take on it?

Deputy PM and Education Minister Julia Gillard joined us today on Punch TV on Sky News, discussing asylum seekers, school league tables, the economy and the next election. We also asked her about the tensions within the Left Faction over the future of frontbencher Laurie Ferguson whose seat has been abolished. Watch it here.