Kevin Rudd

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" »

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" »

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" »

You learn a lot about people when the pressure is on.

Some interesting facts emerged recently about what really happened during those extraordinary four weeks last year when the Oceanic Viking abandoned our Patagonian tooth fish to become home to 78 Tamil asylum seekers.

During these events the debate raged about who knew what and when. Where would they go and on what terms? The answers to many of these questions came to light during recent questioning in Senate estimates.

Continue reading "Rudd fails the Tampa test" »

Doctor Rudd may have pulled out his stethoscope and come up with a correct diagnosis about the ailing health system in the states and territories, but many of his patients are not confident about his national plan for a cure.

The Prime Minister’s push to take over funding of public hospitals by diverting some of the GST revenue that currently goes to the states has raised skepticism among not just the various health administrations, but also among most online readers who commented on news sites in the past week.

If Rudd thinks he has a tough job talking the states and territories into agreeing to the rescue plan, he may also have a difficult time convincing many voters ahead of an election due later this year.

Continue reading "The health takeover - see your doctor if pain persists" »

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" »

Nothing of substance has occurred in health reform this week. The PM has announced a position he will take in future negotiations with the states. That’s all.

Those negotiations may or may not be productive. A referendum may or may not be held, may or may not pass.

But no health reform was undertaken this week. No sick or debilitated person is better off as a result of Government action this week.

Continue reading "Diagnosis: PM has a disease called modern politics" »

As elections in two states loom it is becoming absolutely clear that voters are in the process of switching off the Labor Party.

What this means is that Australia will have a changed political landscape post March 20 - no matter what the outcome of the polls.

And the aftershocks from these elections could have profound implications for federal Labor, which will seek re-election with two crippled state divisions providing distractions and baggage.

Continue reading "The state elections could be an albatross for Rudd’s neck" »

Maybe he’s telling the truth but given his experience in the Queensland bureaucracy, it’s simply impossible to believe Kevin Rudd when he says he “didn’t properly estimate the complexity” of health reform.

A few minutes talking to anyone involved in healthcare delivery is enough to know the sector is hopelessly complex, a spaghetti-bowl of accountability. Everybody’s hands are tied, it’s a black hole for money, it is impossible to please the stakeholders from state governments through doctors’ and nurses’ associations to the voting public, and the line of managers required to sign off on simple things stretches almost as far as the line of patients waiting for treatment at a hospital door.

What Rudd outlined yesterday is in some ways about changing which bank account gets debited for healthcare services. But most people don’t really care about structural reform – they just want to know Aunt Ethel doesn’t have to shuffle around on the bad hip for too long. And when she does, they want someone to blame. Now Rudd is saying you can blame him.

Continue reading "Rudd asks for the 3am phone call about a hospital problem" »

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" »

“That’s not insulation, THIS is insulation,” a Canberra insider quipped in mock Paul Hogan at news of Australian involvement in the Dubai assassination plot.

Three weeks of intense scrutiny over the bungled $2.45 billion free home insulation scheme, suddenly gave way to a news of an `actual’ political assassination.

And what a story it was, instantly providing Kevin Rudd and his beleaguered Environment Minister, Peter Garrett with some welcome political insulation. As former Liberal leader, John Hewson, noted, the PM grabbed it with unusual relish, so keen was he to start talking about something else.

Continue reading "Espionage and terrorism give Rudd some insulation" »

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" »

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" »

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" »

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" »

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" »

When Kevin Rudd delivered an apology to the indigenous people in 2008, he committed himself and his government to a series of practical measures, designed to lift many aborigines from appalling conditions of poverty and abuse.

He promised a new bipartisan approach under the leadership of himself and the Leader of the Opposition. Subsequently, he promised the report on this great moral challenge on the first sitting day of each Parliamentary year.

Today these solemn promises can be seen for what they were: hyperbole from a Prime Minister who regularly makes grand statements but fails to follow-up on many of them.

Continue reading "The apology that turned out to be just words" »

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.

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" »

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" »

Yesterday, we told you about the South Australian government’s attempts at internet censorship.

Today, we can reveal that online political speech has been dealt another blow with Facebook, the popular social networking site, being accused of political censorship after it removed the group “KEVIN RUDD = EPIC FAIL”.

Before it was removed the Facebook group is understood to have had over 3000 members and focused on building a list what it described as Kevin Rudd’s broken promises.

Continue reading "More censorship? Rudd ‘epic fail’ group goes offline" »

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" »

Well it won’t have the same political impact as the Hewson birthday cake answer in 1993 but it was almost as unintelligible. 

It’s likely to go under the radar today with the Opposition releasing their own carbon reduction policy, but if anyone saw Kevin Rudd’s interview on the Today show this morning you’ll know what I’m talking about.

Asked by Karl Stefanovic how the ETS would affect the price of a loaf of bread, milk and petrol the Prime Minister managed to mangle all three answers.

Continue reading "Kevin Rudd cooks up a John Hewson birthday cake" »

US President Barack Obama will visit Australia in March.

The White House has just confirmed a rumour that has been circulating in Queensland since last November.

President Obama’ visit will commemorate the 70th anniversary of formal diplomatic relations between the US and Australia and there is mounting evidence that the visit will feature Queensland prominently being the home state of Prime Minister Rudd. 

Continue reading "Queensland to get large share of Obama sunshine" »

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" »

Dear Mr Rudd, can I just say this that while there are no silver bullets to the problem could you take some decisive action, when it comes to your use of cliché; as working families would prefer you take whatever action is necessary to end your use of the phrase “course of action”? 

Phew – the top seven Rudd clichés all in one sentence. I think I might just need a drink, in due season…

As parliament resumes today, The Punch decided it might be worthwhile to use the Parliamentary Hansard take a look at Prime Minister’s favourite parliamentary clichés of 2009.

Continue reading "Introducing the Kevin Rudd cliché drinking game" »

Spin doctors became infamous when, on September 11,  2001, during the horrific attacks on the World Trade Centre and Pentagon, British Labour staffer Jo Moore send out an email encouraging her press office colleagues to release bad news stories, in the hope that they would not get any attention.

“It is now a very good day to get out anything we want to bury” Moore wrote.

While spin doctors are not always so craven, a government’s desire to avoid bad publicity is acute.

Continue reading "The bad news stories buried during the holidays" »

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" »

If things are looking good for 2010, just think about where we will be by 2020 in Kevin Rudd’s Australia.

In 2020, I will be 31 and the Prime Minister will be exactly double that.

Rudd will be at his peak having surpassed John Howard as the second longest serving PM only a few months beforehand. A good consolation prize, after his failed bid for the UN Secretary Generalship in 2016.

Continue reading "Looking forward to a sterile life in Rudd’s 2020 Australia" »

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" »

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" »

There is nothing new in the mid summer sermons of Prime Minister Rudd as he meanders across the Australian continent.

The fact that health expenses are rising faster than inflation is not a revelation it is simply a well known fact. Neither is it new that the population is ageing. This simply means that people are living longer and healthier lives and is a cause for celebration, not morbid prognostications.

What is new is that Mr Rudd is blaming older Australians for the cost blowout.

Continue reading "Blaming the elderly is a tired old argument, Kevin" »

Summer’s not over yet but those of us lucky enough to have secured a decent break over Christmas/New Year are mostly filing back into work this week or next.

Joy!

So too our politicians where at the national level, a snap poll theoretically can be called at any time.

Continue reading "The end of Kevin 747" »

Watching Kevin Rudd exhort the nation to work harder to deliver greater national productivity reminded me of a university attack that humanities students used to level at graduating students in the engineering faculty.

Arts students used to mock engineering graduates for what they claimed was an inability to communicate beyond formulas and equations. 

They used to assert engineers would say on graduation: “Last year I couldn’t spell enganeer, this year I are one.”

Continue reading "Hard lessons Rudd is learning about the economy" »

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" »

As Sir Humphrey Appleby would say, it is a truly ‘courageous’ strategy by Tony Abbott to chose the environment as his first major battleground to combat the Rudd Government.

Does Tony Abbott, climate change sceptic and wild river hater honestly believe he can woo the hearts and minds of green-minded voters? Is there really a nature-loving softy behind the political hard-man façade?

Abbott’s quest for the green vote began in earnest with his declaration that climate change is “crap”. A few weeks later, aided by the well known deep “practical” greenies of Nick Minchin and Barnaby Joyce, Abbott successfully overthrew Malcolm Turnbull and established climate change denialism as the preferred path of the Liberal Party. This is an interesting first play for green votes.

Continue reading "Tony you can’t pull the green wool over our eyes" »

I’m about to perform what politicians call a “policy shift” and the rest of us call a “backflip.” Here’s hoping I don’t pull a hamstring.

In a fit of festive delirium on the 30th of December I wrote a piece about how great it is that politicians can take a decent holiday and the world doesn’t stop turning. (So searing was my analysis the comment thread turned into a debate about the size of Michelle Obama’s bottom.)

But while I still think everyone deserves a bit of a break at semi-regular intervals, I’m finding the deafening silence emanating from Kirribilli House - well - deafening.

Continue reading "Where’s Kevin Rudd?" »

How much do we really care about whales? How much are the Australian people and its Government really willing to put on the line in our relationship with Japan to stop the killing of our sonar speaking cousins?

Tony Abbott has gone some way to answering this question by saying he doesn’t think it’s worth taking Japan to the International Court of Justice or International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea. In Abbott’s summation it’s just not worth pissing off the Japanese and risking a legal fall-out with our number one trade partner.

“We don’t like whaling. We would like the Japanese to stop,” he told Macquarie Radio yesterday. “On the other hand, we don’t want to needlessly antagonise our most important trading partner, a fellow democracy, an ally.”

Continue reading "How much do we actually care about whales?" »

Kevin Rudd’s book Jasper and Abby and the Great Australia Day Kerfuffle comes out next week. The Prime Minister is establishing himself as a writer with a diverse repertoire. First it was a mini-thesis on the fall of capitalism, now a children’s book involving his pets gallivanting around The Lodge.

And he speaks a second language – not just any old high school French or Spanish or even Italian, but one of the really hard ones: Mandarin. Fluently.

Rudd’s not alone in having some talents beyond politics. In Australia and around the world there are leaders who are clearly master politicians because of power they wield, but also have other special talents. And we’re not talking parlour tricks like being able to blow milk out your nose or play Wonderwall on the guitar.

Continue reading "What happened to pollies being good at just politics?" »

In their haste to get an agreement on national management of the Murray Darling Basin Kevin Rudd and Mike Rann quite literally sold the dream.

Now, as Mike Rann realises the deal he signed has left the Southern Basin high and dry despite floods flowing into the system up north, the South Australian Premier has been left so impotent that all he can do is write a letter to the Prime Minister.

It is reminiscent of the satirical movie Team America: World Police who lampooned former chief UN weapons inspector Hans Blix over his incapacity to bring North Korea to heel, with his character saying:

Continue reading "The real letter Mike Rann should write to Kevin Rudd" »

If Kevin Rudd made a New Year’s resolution he could have done worse than vow in 2010 to only say something is his number one priority if indeed he really means it.

But to do so would throw a spanner in the works of the Labor spin machine, which remains obsessed with the 24-hour news cycle and opinion polls. A quick search reveals that Mr Rudd has nominated more than half a dozen issues as his supposed number one priority over the past two years and there are probably more. This tally does not include climate change which he of course described as “the great moral challenge of our generation”.

It would seem Mr Rudd’s top priority changes according to the issue of the day that is running in the media, or the audience he is addressing. It is an extremely cynical practice and the most absurd thing is he must think nobody notices.

Continue reading "How many “number one priorities” does one PM need?" »

Are you a fan of The Wreckers? Do you reckon we’re out of the woods? Have you got your Julia Gillard Memorial Hall yet? And crucially, it is “fair suck” or “fair shake” of the sauce bottle?

The Macquarie Dictionary has opened its word of the year competition and there are six nominations in the political category. But we reckon there should be a few more than that. Some suggestions of phrases from 2009 that can be permanently added to the Australian political lexicon are below - add yours in the comments.

Detailed programmatic specificity: Appears to mean, er, a plan. But when you’re Kevin Rudd, why say it clearly in one syllable when you can say it confusingly in 11?

Continue reading "Call for entries: additions to the Punch political dictionary" »

On the one hand, you could hand it to Kevin Rudd for doing something a little fun.

Jasper And Abby and the Great Australia Day Kerfuffle looks a friendly enough story. And with the backdrop of Kirribilli House it might also lend a colourful and informal context to Aussie kids understanding of politics. Or at the very least it shows off his gorgeous dog Abby’s shiny, silky coat.

But as one of his first acts as prime minister for a new and important year is ‘light’ and ‘fun’ the best move he can make? What can he really gain from it?

Continue reading "PM’s pets are cute, but where’s the real bite?" »

As an open minded ‘ Evangelical Christian’, I have a lot of sympathy with the complaint by Ross Fitzgerald in The Australian that religion is making too much inroad into Australian politics and society.

Let me try and explain my understanding of the phrase ‘ Evangelical Christian’.

I believe in Jesus Christ, not only as the Son of God , but, note, The Word of God ( not the Bible – we judge the Bible by Jesus, not Jesus by the Bible). However, The Bible does contain the Word of God, as does life’s experiences.

Continue reading "The Right shouldn’t take the Christian vote for granted" »

While you are dining out or at the shops over the summer holidays, spare a few minutes to think about the young person serving you and how their rights at work have changed over the past two years.

Two years ago, that person was working under WorkChoices. Chances are they had no protection from unfair dismissal and little or no job security. It was possible they were employed on an Australian Workplace Agreement, which had stripped their minimum conditions to the bare basics.

Their employer could simply ignore them if they and their workmates wanted to join together to collectively bargain for better pay and conditions. And if they chose to join a union or even ask a union into their workplace, they ran the risk of harassment and discrimination from their boss.

Continue reading "Libs still hope the WorkChoices zombie can rise" »

Global economics rarely moves as fast as it has over the last twelve months. Inflation genie, global financial crisis and now, just eight months later, the interest rate rises are back. So was Australia’s providential passage through the economic storm the product of great economic management, a fortuitous escape or just an expensive hoax?

Up until now mainstream media have almost exclusively subscribed to the first theory.  Slowly some commentators are arriving at the second. Ultimately it is likely to be proven to be the third.

The “never waste a crisis” mentality of politicians means that overreaction is always rewarded.

Continue reading "Doomsayers are doomed to be proven wrong" »

Is it too early to differentiate classic Abbott as Liberal leader from classic Abbott the wrecking ball? Perhaps, but if he does announce soon that a Coalition government would push for a hospital takeover it will be one hell of a great play.

With Abbott and opposition health spokesman Peter Dutton flagging moves to make Coalition policy a referendum to take over state hospitals they have beaten Kevin Rudd and Labor to the punch on what, thus far, has been a dithering display on the issue by Kevin Rudd and Nicola Roxon.

The Government has already broken an election promise on hospitals. It said it would force the states to improve public hospitals or announce a takeover of hospitals, via a referendum at the next election, by mid-2009. It has done neither.

Continue reading "Abbott has beaten Rudd to the punch on health" »

The last month’s political twists and turns, culminating with the Liberal Party’s extraordinary lurch to the right and populist fear-mongering on the ETS “tax on everything”, make it look increasingly like Australia may never reach a political consensus on climate change.

Adding fuel to the fire, after much of hype and high hopes Copenhagen fizzled, failing to deliver the binding international agreement which would have delivered a resounding mandate for Kevin Rudd’s proposed course of action.

Back at home, Tony Abbott’s fiery rhetoric has been starkly reminiscent of another political turning point in 2001, which involved a hapless group of refugees in a sinking boat. Just as the 2001 Tampa election hysteria was fuelled by political opportunism and the politics of fear, so too the response to climate change appears to be heading down the same path.

Continue reading "Are older Australians more sceptical of climate change?" »

There’s a high-risk derivative of the time-honoured “Secret Santa” that has become quite popular in recent years.  All the carefully (and not so carefully) selected gifts are pooled and one by one participants get to select and open a present.  They then face a choice: keep the present they’ve just opened or forfeit it and go for another, the contents of which are unknown but with which they will be stuck.

Ornately wrapped, carefully presented gift boxes adorned with bows and baubles are, unsurprisingly, first picks.  But they don’t often yield the best results.

However, it’s human to be tempted by the promise of something better, to be lured by the illusion of a grander prize.

Continue reading "Beware the electoral Santa bearing gifts" »

If anyone is looking forward to the Christmas break it must be Kevin Rudd. The Prime Minister who created a narrative about his administration that it’s the can-do team on climate change has had the two biggest ticket items, the ETS and Copenhagen, all but fall over in less than a month.

While neither were strictly his doing (he was in the US when Tony Abbott nabbed the Liberal leadership and killed off a deal on the ETS), the Prime Minister had placed himself at the centre of both, no doubt confident a victory on either would be a huge political win.

He calls the outcome of the closing days in Copenhagen “frustrating”. I imagine that’s just the tip of the melting iceberg for how he really feels. And now Mr Rudd needs to work out how to take an issue that until six weeks ago was a political bonus for him and stop it turning into a political nightmare. And he’d better do it quickly.

Tony Abbott wasted no time yesterday framing the debate from here on. He told Sunday Agenda: “Look, I suppose good intentions are better than nothing, but Mr Rudd has failed his own test. He said a couple of years ago that what we needed to get were real targets against real timelines.  He said, real progress means real targets against real timelines, and certainly by that standard it’s been a comprehensive failure.”

It was the words “his own test” that rammed home the point. At Copenhagen Kevin Rudd went from “friend of the chair” to the guy waiting outside the room when the three-page non-binding “meaningful” agreement was struck.

Continue reading "Nopenhagen" »

The collapse in Copenhagen shows the power of the polluters over the politicians.

The oil coal and big resource companies put off the day of action and edged the world further into super-heating.  That means worse drought, bushfires, snow- melt, tropical storm damage and accelerating sea level rises.

Penny Wong has blamed the failure to reach consensus in Copenhagen on a few “radical nations” like Venezuela and Uganda. But tiny Tuvalu has also championed real action on climate change by calling the promise of money, in return for agreement on inaction, “thirty silver coins” from the rich countries.

Continue reading "The PM needs to drop his refusal to budge on a target" »

Can you ever believe this man Rudd – the Labor man, elected to be Prime Minister of Australia.

First he promised us action to deal with rising grocery prices and petrol prices.  We were told that a grocery watch and a petrol watch would be the solution for working families - both policies now abandoned – prices still rising.

Come to think of it when was the last time we heard of the needs of working families?

Continue reading "What has Kevin Rudd done this year?" »

I have a dark confession to make. I love Tony Abbott.

Now don’t get me wrong. I wouldn’t vote for the loon while my bum pointed down but at least he’s interesting. Half Jesuit, half crazed Millwall supporter, with a religious philosophy of “share in the love of Jesus or I’ll smash your f***en face in”. He’s the hoot we had to have.

Politics in the grey cloud Rudd blathership is boring. A Rudd press conference is like an hour on the gym bike.

Continue reading "Half Jesuit, half hooligan, and a cure for Rudd’s tedium" »

LOVERS of test cricket know the best thing about the five day game is its potential to ebb and flow. One team can look to be winning but then the character of the match changes - sometimes dramatically and other times in a cumulative, almost imperceptible way.

The importance of small things - a dropped catch for example - becomes obvious only in hindsight. Politics can be strikingly similar in this regard. In this longest of games, there is a general assumption that Kevin Rudd is a shoe-in at the next election.

Polls confirm this on a fortnightly basis and it would be a brave correspondent who predicted otherwise. But equally, the result cannot simply be assumed.

Continue reading "Abbott’s leg spin to Rudd’s middle of the road" »

While Kevin Rudd desperately reschedules his attendance at the Copenhagen Summit in a craven attempt to ensure he’s in the presence of US President Barack Obama, there are very interesting parallels in the political scenarios on either side of the Pacific.

These are two political leaders elected in almost Messiah-style euphoria.

Their elevation was supposed to ring in “change” after long periods of conservative Government that the elites and media had openly grown to loathe.  There was little public scrutiny of the substantive skills each man would bring to the job – their popularity was a triumph of style over substance.

Continue reading "The mirror ‘Messiahs’ dogged by bad policy" »

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd does not have Parliament’s support for a climate-change deal to take to Copenhagen but he does have his valet as support.

The Australian media are reporting that Australia’s contingent at the Copenhagen climate-change conference will be the nation’s biggest ever diplomatic delegation.

The Prime Minister’s staff alone will total twenty-four including advisers, media staff, translators, security and most importantly the valet. Why would the Prime Minister need a valet?  Well there will be 15,000 delegates and 70 world leaders in attendance and Mr Rudd hopes to make visible impression on this world stage.

Continue reading "Is Kevin Rudd delivering real valet for money?" »

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 least functional and least popular division of the Australian Labor Party is about to tell Kevin Rudd to get stuffed, Julia Gillard to butt out, and embark on a wild spree to install some of the most disliked people in Australia back in a position of power.

Less than one month after Premier Nathan Rees blindsided the factions by declaring that he alone would determine the composition of Cabinet - and using his new presidential-style powers to dump the spectacularly unpopular Joe Tripodi and the disloyal Ian Macdonald from Cabinet - the factions have now regrouped and are moving to roll Rees.

This is a big story in NSW but it’s a bigger story nationally as it involves a very pointed snub to the Prime Minister. When Nathan Rees moved against the factions last month, he did so with the backing of Kevin Rudd. And Julia Gillard even went so far as to attend the NSW Labor conference and deliver a speech in support of Nathan Rees.

Continue reading "Labor’s NSW degenerates ready to embarrass Rudd" »

There were lots of memorable lines in Tony Abbott’s first press conference as Liberal leader yesterday but there was one you can expect to hear repeatedly ahead of the next election, whenever that might be.

``Each and every interest rate rise over the next 12 months is due to the irresponsible spending spree of the Rudd government,’’ he said.

There you have it. Kevin Rudd is going to be made to own each and every 25 basis point rise in interest rates between now and the next election - including the latest one yesterday.

Continue reading "Here comes Tony" »

The emergence of Tony Abbott as Opposition leader is a major surprise. Many will assume it means a lurch to the right of the political spectrum.

This may be true. Only time will tell.

Clearly, the first impact, the likely defeat of the Government’s emissions trading scheme, looks to be a clear sign of that move.

Continue reading "Abbott vs Rudd, now this is what I call a choice" »

Most of the action took places after Question Time yesterday, but the tension between the Government and Opposition continues to grow. You can see our Question Time coverage after the jump.

Continue reading "Question Time Live: 18/11/09" »

With another boat load of asylum seekers intercepted and reports there are at least 10 Coalition MPs vowing to cross the floor on the ETS there’s plenty happening in Federal Parliament. You can see our Question Time coverage after the jump.

Continue reading "Question Time Live: 17/11/09" »

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" »

The former Democrats Senator Andrew Murray, one of the driving forces behind today’s apology to the “Forgotten” Australians recently told Kevin Rudd that while many apologies had been made by state governments, churches and charities to the children abused and neglected in care in this country “some were better apologies than others.”

There was a pretty strong sense in the Great Hall of Parliament House this morning that this apology was one of the “better” ones, how ever you might define it.

For a start you could hear it. “Sconey”, 40, from South Australia, told The Punch when the SA Government apologised the speakers didn’t work.

Continue reading "What makes a good apology?" »

The evidence that the Rudd Government is more concerned with presentation than substance is building daily.

This week, it had a chance to rebut that argument via a reform entirely consistent with its lofty claim to the genes of the Hawke/Keating governments.

The Productivity Commission had recommended the removal of parallel import restrictions on foreign published books.While this was a relatively minor matter in the larger scheme of things, it was nonetheless, a key test of those reform credentials. It would mean creating losers and taking on a vocal constituency - namely, the cultural/literary elites normally well disposed towards Labor.

Continue reading "The mounting evidence of Rudd’s style over substance" »

Evidence is now mounting that last week’s Newspoll poll showing a seven point drop in Labor support was a rogue result, with Essential Research’s weekly tracking showing no movement in the two-party preferred vote.

The Essential Report, that has Labor comfortably ahead 59-41, follows on the heels of Monday’s Herald/Nielson poll that was also steady.

Beneath the headline figures there are some intriguing sub-plots, with the public going close to welcoming the increase in interest rates, while continuing to rate the Prime Minister down on his handling of the asylum seeker issue.

Continue reading "It’s a blip – Rudd maintains lead with interest" »

John Howard’s dramatic re-entry in the political debate is notable for two reasons - the former PM has steadfastly refused requests for anniversary-type interviews, and he has also said repeatedly he would not “do a Keating” by commenting on domestic affairs, save to defend his record.

His interview with The Herald-Sun’s senior writer John Hamilton went well beyond defending his own record - rather, it was an exocet missile aimed squarely at Kevin Rudd’s record, most provocatively on border protection. The word in Liberal ranks is that the interview went ahead with the knowledge and support of Malcolm Turnbull, who has been buoyed by a Newspoll turnaround widely attributed to the border question. EMC director and Punch contributor Peter Lewis detected the same sentiment.

Lefties will regard the re-emergence of the man they despise as like something from a horror film. But the many millions of Australians who still voted for Howard in 2007 - and more disturbingly for Labor, some swinging voters who gently saw him off with no major sense of animosity - will have been interested to hear the input from the man from the toughness side of the ledger on unauthorised arrivals.

Continue reading "Heeeeeeeeere’s Johnny" »

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" »

In the dying days of the1996 election campaign Paul Keating famously said “when you change the government, you change the country” in an attempt to scare people away from taking the baseball bat to his Prime Ministership.  He did it on the basis that the Australian people recognised John Howard and what he had stood for over the years.  The line didn’t work, the government changed and so to did the country.

In 2007 when the doom of the campaign set in, John Howard used the same line to try and get people to focus on what Kevin Rudd really stood for.  This was ultimately a difficult task because at that time what Rudd offered the public was one great contradiction. 

For instance he had described the day of the introduction of the GST as “fundamental injustice day” but campaigned as an “economic conservative”. 

Continue reading "The column on Kevin Rudd you wouldn’t get in the post" »

Let’s accept the Federal Opposition’s interpretation of this week’s polling figures at face value; as a consequence of his “softness” on the issue of the alleged armada of boats laden with asylum-seekers arriving on our watery doorstep day by day, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and his government are falling rapidly out of favour with the Australian public.

And for the sake of the argument, let’s also accept the statistical and methodological reliability – which we can do with considerable confidence – of The Australian newspaper’s latest set of Newspoll numbers.

So, accepting all of that, what does it all add up to? And what does it say about our collective set of national values?

Continue reading "What polls and asylum seekers say about our values" »

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" »

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd today said that the Government was moving with “the utmost urgent speed” to fix what might be “perceived as an unfortunate conceptual misalignment” regarding the issue of asylum seekers.

“Up until now we have described our policy as ‘tough but humane’, however from now on the correct designation will be ‘harsh but kind’,” Mr Rudd said.

The Prime Minister looked annoyed when a reporter suggested that perhaps a better alternative might be “sweet and sour”. “Let me say this, do I apologise for saying what I mean and meaning what I say? Not withstanding the various qualifications existent for meeting the dynamic fluidity of changing contingencies,  no, I do not apologise, not in the slightest,” Mr Rudd said.

Continue reading "Unapologetically tough and unapologetically fair" »

The Ruddster had a win - and he’s going off. Watch it here.

UPDATE: As of 5pm all four banks have already passed on the interest rate increase.

For the second time in as many years, the Reserve Bank has helped cement the banking community’s reputation as a cuddly bunch of warm-hearted funsters by using Melbourne Cup Day to stick it to home-owners.

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While you were munching on some prawns the RBA increased rates from 3.25 per cent to 3.5 per cent, resisting the temptation to go for a much more dramatic and painful 0.5 per cent rise, but still sticking by its warning that there would be more more pain to come.

Many people with mortgages will shrug this one off – we’re still about $700 a month better off in terms of repayments than we were when the GFC hit.

Continue reading "Kevin Rudd does not want to own these rate increases" »

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?

The debate around the Sri Lanka asylum seekers is beginning to spiral into Tampa territory with the Australian public ready to support tough action over compassion and prepared to believe the boats are harbouring terrorists.

For the PM it is a diabolical political dilemma, with this week’s Essential Report showing his attempts to play tough cop are failing to translate into public approval for his handling of the issue.

Given the bind, I reckon his only option is to follow the lead of his predecessor John Howard – not in sending in the troops, but by shifting debate through invoking the nation’s obsession with sport.

Continue reading "Most Australians want a tougher stand on boatpeople" »

Is Labor aiming for a one party state?

One party states always make a big deal about their constitutional guarantees for citizens rights and their ability to vote, but just for one party.

Well, federal Labor seems to lust for such an outcome.

Continue reading "Words you won’t see in the mail on Kevin Rudd" »

It’s a strange time of year in Canberra.

Millions of bogong moths descend upon Parliament House’s Capital Hill during their annual migration. Accompanying them are hundreds of big black birds against a grey sky: crows, magpies and currawongs flooding Parliament’s many courtyards to feast on the clueless prey lying in around the building.

Walking through this bleak scene I was thankful for the fact that I at least wasn’t a Coalition MP looking out my window at huge crows devouring dying and confused helpless moths – it would’ve all been a bit too close to home.

Continue reading "The Liberal Party is digging up enough dirt for everybody" »

Anyone wondering why Kevin Rudd continues to defy political gravity could do well to consider the latest Essential Report that drills down into the issues of importance to Australian voters.

Like a human pogo stick, Rudd just keeps bouncing back: it doesn’t seem to matter what he’s hit with – global financial meltdown, environmental destruction, even an influx of asylum seekers.

No matter the political issue – and we have tested 13 of them – Rudd has the Opposition covered – even the traditional Liberal strong points of economic management and interest rates can not deliver Turnbull a win.

Continue reading "Our beloved Kevin Rudd is a human pogo stick" »

This started with Punch music writer Dennis Atkins writing in the Courier Mail that Jimi Hendrix once came up in a conversation with a young Kevin Rudd. The PM-to-be said: “Who’s that?”

Punch readers suggested some songs that would suit the PM. This is the result. The full list is over the jump - add your suggestions in the comments. We might even send him the real tape.

1. Hip to be Square - Huey Lewis and The News

Kevin Rudd’s theme song and a shoo-in for the opening track.

Continue reading "Mix tape for Kevin Rudd" »

OFFICIAL: Rolling Stone will not be putting Kevin Rudd on the cover.

His interview will only run on the inside of the magazine, meaning the Ruddster will miss the same honour as the Rayban-clad Paul Keating in 1995 and Barack Obama in the US last year. “The way it was reported out of Canberra this morning you’d think he’s running on the front,” sources at the magazine told The Punch just now. “But there’s no way that will happen, for the simple reason that politicians don’t sell. The Keating edition tanked.”

The Rolling Stone story - broken by our own Leo Shanahan yesterday - was used by Tony Abbott on Punch TV this morning as evidence that Kevin Rudd won’t do “hard interviews” with serious political programs and newspapers. There might be something in that, but we thought this one was just a bit of fun.

Acting funny, I don’t know why / ‘Scuse me, while I ask why the hell Kevin Rudd doesn’t know who Jimi Hendrix is.

Is this one of those momentary memory lapses, a mis-statement, a quote taken out of context? In his Courier Mail political column today, Punch music writer Dennis Atkins recalls a conversation from some time ago with the then Prime Minister-to-be:

During some music banter, the cultural icon and guitar-playing [Jimi] Hendrix was mentioned, which drew a complete blank from a 33-year-old Rudd: “Who’s he?”

Continue reading "Let’s start a record collection for the Prime Minister" »

“We take all kinda pills to give us all kinda thrills, but the thrill we’ve never known, is the thrill that’ll getcha, when you getcha picture, on the cover of the Rolling Stone” – Dr Hook, Cover of the Rolling Stone

If there were such a thing as a periodic table of cool and uncool things in the universe Rolling Stone magazine and Kevin Rudd would no doubt be at opposing ends.

But now The Punch can reveal that Kevin Rudd will throw that order of things into chaos by becoming the feature story in the upcoming issue of Rolling Stone.

The rock bible has interviewed and photographed Prime Minister Rudd as part of a major piece, and possible cover story, for the magazine’s December issue.

Continue reading "Rudd does a Keating with Rolling Stone" »

Many a battle has been lost because generals were caught fighting the last war in the new one.

Perhaps this goes some way to explaining Labor’s rhetorical bluster on border protection.

In just one interview in Adelaide this week, Kevin Rudd used the terms “tough’’ and “hard-line’’ over and over again and repeatedly declared the Government made ``no apology’’ for its hairy chested approach to boat people.

Continue reading "My name is Kevin Rudd, and I’m just like John Howard" »

Of the 9.1 million people who the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) describes as refugees, there are 827, 323 with outstanding applications for asylum around the world. This compares to 9.6 million refugees five years ago and 912,291 people still seeking asylum. Five years prior to that, there were 11.5 million refugees worldwide and 1.3 million seeking asylum.

Looking at even more recent data, between January and August 2009, there were 226,069 asylum applications worldwide. During the same period in 2008 there were 226,857 applications.

So much for the Rudd Government’s claim that international push forces are the cause of 41 boat arrivals since last August with almost 2,000 people on board, putting their lives at risk.

Continue reading "Kevin Rudd has no idea what he’s doing on boat arrivals" »

Can anyone help me out? I’m looking for the fat bloke in braces who was meant to be running the country after Labor got elected.

Surely you’ve seen him, the Union Boss who was meant to be terrorising the nation’s taffeta dress shops. Maybe he is hiding in an ante-room off the PM’s office.

There’s nothing like a healthy dose of reality to blunt most political scare campaigns, but even by the Punch’s Scary Creatures Benchmark (PSCB*), the Liberals effort at the least election was up the with the best of them.

Continue reading "Still waiting for the invasion of the scary union overlords" »

It’s a political mystery worthy of Dan Brown. Why is it so difficult to find anyone who actually likes our most popular Prime Minister since Bob Hawke?

The PM is rightly grinning from ear to ear at the moment, on the back of his triumphant turn at the UN and the stream of figures showing the national economy has somehow managed to avoid falling into recession during the global downturn.

His job approval ratings are stratospheric. Nielsen polls regularly find his approval ratings at 70 per cent or higher, and this morning’s Newspoll finds around two-thirds of Australians say he’s their preferred Prime Minister.

Continue reading "Why is this man so popular?" »

The Punch’s unscientific Punters Poll is broadly in line with most of the “scientific” research – the PM is broadly popular and people think he’s the smartest kid in the class.

That’s probably what happens when you beat the GFC, reorganise global diplomatic structures and can explain all it in Mandarin.

While no politician admits to reading polls, Kevin Rudd would be quietly satisfied with these findings – 58 per cent saying he has delivered on expectations, with strong support for his economic management.

Continue reading "Rudd needs to remind us why we elected him" »

A cynic might query the timing of the announcement - as a devastating tsunami hits the Pacific, news sneaks out that Prime Minister Kevin Rudd is spending $35 million on a White House-style “situation room” or war room.

It will certainly come in handy when New Zealand finally declares war on us. And if you’re going to devote yourself to a life of sacrifice in public office, it seems only fair that you get your own room with big maps and lots of pins in it, so you can chart the performance of the ADF along the eastern front running from Dubbo to Orbost as our boys repel the Kiwi invaders.

But maybe it’s just a huge waste of money. It’s certainly a lot of money. Seventy times more than the $500k John Howard wanted to spend on expanding meeting space in the PMO, which he was hounded over in estimates by John Faulkner and Robert Ray. 

Continue reading "Oh what a lovely war room, Prime Minister" »

I’ve never been one for obsessing about The Australian. They have an editorial slant to the right, but they also have some very high quality journos who I like to read. As a result I buy and read their paper every day and filter out their leanings. I’m sure plenty of others do the same.

Yesterday, their front page (“Rudd loses ground in his homeland state and the bush”) blew up the filter.  It’s one thing to take a news angle on one part of a poll at the expense of a more complex message.  It’s another to ignore what should be, for one side of politics, an enormous, wailing emergency siren with big flashing red lights on top in order to substantiate a headline like that.

In their article, Matthew Franklin and Samantha Maiden claim “public support for Labor has plunged in regional Australia and fallen in Kevin Rudd’s home state of Queensland” as well as “a big jump in support for the Coalition among voters living outside the capital cities.” While no questions on the ETS were in the poll, the ETS was inserted as a possible cause.

Continue reading "The one conclusion from Newspoll: Turnbull is cactus" »

Well he did secure press coverage saying things like “centre of world gravity just moved closer to Australia” and headlines such as Triumphant Rudd leaves as Obama battles on, so it’s no surprise the Prime Minister is looking like he’s just been told Christmas is coming twice this year.

This set of photos were taken by News Ltd’s Kym Smith at the “family photo” gathering after the Pittsburgh G20 summit, which you can read more about here, here and here.

But have a look at the rest of the pics after the jump - in every one, Kevin Rudd has a grin that looks like it was painted on with a roller brush. Enter your captions and explanations in the comments.

Continue reading "The G20 leaders walk into a bar. Who smiles the most?" »