How’s Rudd doing? What do people think of Labor’s response so far?
Tonight, I expect Rudd to play the federalism card, pointing to a cooperative approach with the states on education particularly, and outlining how Labor would spend the money allocated differently. Early childhood education and VET will both be emphasised to ram home the “budget is about the Coalition’s future, not the nation’s future” theme and to reclaim ground on one of Labor’s key issues. The inaction on climate change and water will also get a mention. I don’t think Rudd will be pulling any rabbits out of his hat - the way that Labor is going to run on economic management is to paint the government as the fiscal drunken sailors - interest rates will get a mention (and the Fin’s coverage yesterday was far more downbeat on this than the Costello fest in the Oz) and the key to Labor’s approach will be to stay within strict fiscal limits. The two most important answers Swan gave in his interview on Tuesday night were that Labor wouldn’t spend next year’s surplus (implying that Howard probably will in his campaign launch, if not before, should there be no or a negligible budget bounce) and that Rudd is a “fiscal conservative”.
I have a feeling the politics of porkbarrelling and vote-buying won’t save the government this year.
Commentary, links, analysis invited.
To kick debate off, there’s a piece from Christian Kerr in Crikey which I think captures the politics of Rudd’s reply well. Over the fold.
Update: Here’s Rudd’s speech.
Elsewhere: James Farrell at Troppo, and Tim Dunlop at Blogocracy.
1. What will Rudd’s rabbit be?
Christian Kerr writes:
The Government piled on the post-Budget backslapping in Question Time yesterday.
In contrast, the opposition seemed subdued — although the bloke many think should be shadow treasurer, Labor finance spokesman Lindsay Tanner, put on a great show in the Matter of Public Importance Debate, thundering on about “a budget built on preaching abstinence and practicing incontinence”.
But what rabbit will Rudd draw from his hat when he delivers his official response to the Budget this evening?
We’ve been told today that he will refine his education pitch and restate his economic credentials.
The general feeling up on the Hill and in the media has been that the Government has done a good job of tying up money so Labor can’t spend it.
“I expect we’ll take a pounding in the opinion polls,” Rudd warned his troops on Monday. He may be right — but there still mightn’t be a Budget boost for the government.
Tuesday night put the focus back onto responsible economic management and its dividends, the government’s strongest ground. It looks as if the Prime Minister wants to combine this with a union bashing campaign that portrays Labor as the captives of the ACTU and plays on public equivocation over the Labor state and territory administrations to attack the party’s management skills.
Still, Labor has been connecting better with the voters. The PM and his Treasurer keep talking in big figures — 10 years ago this, growth of that. Labor is trying to relate matters to individual experience.
That could well be a winning strategy. Many households aren’t experiencing the affluence the PM keeps talking about, or at least think that they aren’t.
And while the big boys of the Gallery seem to have missed it, other commentators like Mark Bahnisch have pointed to an interesting little trick Labor could play.
Tanner helped set it up in his speech yesterday:
The drunken preacher is having a wild time. He is handing out free advice on abstinence in between swigs of his flagon. He is passing the flagon around and he is having a great time because he has a lot to drink. The worry is though that it will be our kids who get the hangover, because when this nation was in a position of enormous good fortune—of great fortune with huge revenues coming in to the government from the mining boom—what did the government do: they squandered it and they are continuing to squander it. Don’t be fooled by the fact that they are trying to look as if they are doing something, because this budget fails the future test.
Rudd can don the mantle of fiscal discipline. Labor isn’t going to win because voters believe they are the better economic managers, but they can win if they reassure voters that they will be responsible.
They may care to take a leaf from the Gordon Brown book. As Bahnisch has reminded us, in opposition he promised to maintain Tory spending limits on public services for two years into the first term of the Blair Government. And guess who Swan saw when he visited London?
No wonder Labor have been out saying they won’t spend the surplus.
Saw that today - nice one Mark! Blogdom punches above its weight yet again.
I think you’re on the money; Ruddster will play the sober hand at wheel card. Who could forget those feral images of Howard last election, rattling off million dollar sums for x, y, and z - with arms waving mechanically, like Robor the feral ATM.
It was so wholly unappealing, only Latham could have redeemed it.
down the track, id expect more detail on education, and a major climate package, some infrastucture proposals beyond the broadband, some effective marginal tax rate work - and that might be it for big ticket items from Rudd.
It hardly needs to be said - Tanner is an absolute gun. I think Wayne Swan earns one’s respect but for anyone who watched both the 7.30 budget and Lateline Business, Linsay is the man.
The content of his message seems good, he preaches fiscal restraint and his intense dislike of the Howard government is palpable. Also, he has suitably intense facial features.
Great post.
I think that Labor also needs to keep the message about the ‘vision’ thing. Rudd has been able to do this well with the broadband issue and global warming.
This would tend to play on Labor’s strenghts
In regards to Lindsay Tanner I agree with Leon.
Mumble has a good comment on this issue:
Why isn’t this man (Linsday Tanner) Labor Treasury spokesman? Probable answer: he’s said one too many vaguely contentious things in the past - which would make good Coalition campaign fodder - such as farmers are over-subsidised etc. He has been known to express interest in policy, which will never do.
The man in the job, Wayne Swan (signature tune here), isn’t particularly bad at it, but he always looks and sounds like a politician reciting his lines, staying
on message, terrified of deviating from the script and actually saying
something interesting. Lindsay Tanner, on the other hand, has believability.
But maybe they’re right: as you often read here, it is - in our less than
perfect electoral world - better to be boring than risky.
I expect a lot on countering the Government’s offerings of Tuesday in the wish to not get caught in a later bidding war with the rodent as the election promises fly. Rudd will go Costello on global warming and water particularly and he may have already agreed to a deal with the states to counter the rodent’s expected warnings about wall-to-wall Labor states in order to be able to announce a series of initiatives on affordable housing, accessible health-care, particularly dental, and a new initiative on childcare/early schooling - not all of it to be wheeled out tonight. This will just be the opening shot.
I think all Rudd really needs to do tonight is be vaguely credible. It’s next to impossible to outbid any government (especially with the coffers so full) in Budget week - this is traditionally the government’s week after all. As much as Swan is getting a bit of a bagging, I thought he got over the salient points of Labor’s pitch on the economic front: that they would maintain the surplus, and that Rudd is a “fiscal conservative”. There’s probably nothing to be gained by trying to match Costello’s spending spree - it will probably work better to contrast Labor’s fiscal rectitude against the Coalition’s profligacy.
Mark said - “The inaction on . . . water.” Does this mean that committing $10 Billion is inaction. I’d like to see what you call action - $100 Billion, a Trillion???
The Education Endowment isn’t building for the future? What is?
And not taking money out of my pocket to allow me to spend my money how I want isn’t short sighted, it is visionary.
It appears that Labor’s strategy is to agree with basically everything - if that is the case, then what alternative is being offered to the voter? Virtually nil, apart from the IR stuff. I think the “it’s time to give the other side a go” mentality might be the biggest factor, hopefully balanced by the recognition of the folly of having all ALP government at both State and federal levels.
As for climate change, the fact is that while the media are hyping the issue 9mainly because lefty journos like that crap), and the average punter is aware of the issue, but isn’t educated on the arguments, when it comes to voting they care more about managing the economy (otherwise the Greens would be caning it! Wouldn’t they??!!).
The Budget hype will be long gone when the election is called, but the increased pay packets will have started and the bonuses to families and pensioners will have been paid. The ALP will have had more time to re-jig their Fair (No Ticket No Start) Jobs For The Boys proposals at least fortnightly. And the media will be heartily sick of the Krudds pedantic/aggressive media management.
The betting, which is more accurately predictive of the election result than polling, has swung back to at least even if not in favour of the Coalition.
As always, this election will be won and lost on the swinging voters in the marginal seats. The ACTU is smart in having paid activists operating in targeted marginal seats. What will be the fall out if the ALP loses the election given the tens of millions spent by the ALP and ACTU on this campaign?
Have a look at on what and when it’s spent, Razor. SEQ is suffering from the worst urban drought in the country - we’re probably going to be on Level 6 water restrictions by November. What are the Feds doing? Bugger all. Pity for them - there are a stack of winnable Coalition seats in these parts.
As to “HEEF”, it quite literally is “building for the future”. It funds buildings. Universities will have new spiffy buildings. Pity about the declining course offerings and student to staff ratios.
I still don’t get the logic of this at all - it seems to me worse as an indicator this far out, as it’s driven by the same sort of sentiment that everyone who reads the rantings of the political class discerns - a sentiment proven dead wrong by the polls (which have a statistically valid sample and don’t just judge on the basis of casual gamblers and political junkers) more often than not this cycle.
On Tanner:
The one thing I’d say about Tanner v. Swan for shadow treasurer is that Rudd had to get Swan (and thus the Qld AWU) on side - otherwise his leadership would have been shaky. Swan might surprise people - he’s very good at delivering a sharp message, and his record in orchestrating Queensland campaigns shows that counts for a lot - but don’t write his economic smarts off.
I find Lindsay Tanners social conservatism about as attractive as the DLP …even if he does get in the odd angry shot. If the Alternative Liberal Party win this one it will be because the Cons lose it and so they will have a mandate to do jack-shit.
Just carry on being the government of the living dead, thats all.
People like Mark are like paramedics frantically pounding the chest of a corpse.
I share a similar concern to former Prime Minister Paul Keating. He
recently told ABC Radio’s Eleanor Hall that Kevin Rudd is not
adequately selling his policy to “react” to conservative claims of an
Industrial Relations “rollback”:
Says Mr. Keating:
“The key point, the key point, is that the old pre-1993 system had
compulsory arbitration and leap frogging, that’s what gave us the
contagion, that’s what gave us always the high inflation rate.
That’s gone and Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard are not bringing it back”
However, even if Mr Rudd successfully counteracts, that’s really only
dealing with one-third of the election-winning equation. Let’s call
this one-third “the reactive challenge” - to deal with the straw man
being raised against Labor - that Rudd is too pressured by “Union
bosses” and the Peter Hendy type warnings that the pre-WorkChoices IR
model was one designed for the 1890s.
The second third of the election winning equation is “the proactive
challenge” - which means, as Christian Kerr from Crikey.com writes -
to “relate matters to individual experience”.
The irony of the Liberal Party “representing liberalism” is that the
alternative to “big government socialism” has actually turned out to
be “big government conservatism”.
We’re getting all the good news in big numbers, without the all the
important detail about how Mr. Howard’s “human dividend” is
distributed. In other words, the Liberals are asking us to put faith
in the economics of “aggregate development” rather than relating
economic development to our own individual “personal development”
experience.
Labor needs to “reposition” the politics to reflect policy, rather
than the other way around.
This differs from what’s happening now, which is that economic policy
is rather “detached” from politics, except for the Government
promotion of “big, aggregate numbers”.
Consequently, instead of a debate about “achieving greater
productivity growth, relating to individual experience”, we’re getting
a “microscoping of individual experience” - as evidenced by the silly
headline on the front cover of The Australian this morning - “Tribal
Warfare: McMansion Dwellers versus Latte Sippers” - a modern day
“microscoping of a minority group, represented as a threat to the
majority interest” - just like Stalin “microscoped attention” towards
the Kulaks in Soviet Russia.
Finally, there’s the last-third of the equation - “the planning
challenge” - an especially big struggle over resources and stability
within modern day oppositions.
As Michelle Grattan says this morning in The Age about a Post-Budget
Rudd:
“(Rudd) finds himself like the cook whose cupboard has been raided
just before he has to serve up a very important meal”.
…From Justin
Just commentary and anti-Coalition activism, prof. I might well end up voting for The Greens. Been known to happen in the past.
Sounds reply. Kept it sharp - easily digestible narrative (productivity beyong mining, climate action, fair go) and some sharp work at the school end. Mix in a grab bad of treats for businesses, a “practical” water fund, and Id say we have a contest on the economic front.
And thats all Rudd needs - since he’s flaying them everyone else.
Who knows how it will go - but one things for sure. Rudd aint gonna lose the thread, tire at the turn, or blow over in a storm.
Its game on!
I reckon he’s left childcare up his sleeve too.
Having said that, I might need one of Cossie’s literacy vouchers. My kingdom for a spellchecker!
That’s the thing, Lefty E. That’s a lot more important than cheques in the mail and $20 a week for apprentices. The Libs don’t have a message that they can communicate - not like “we’ll protect you” in 01 and “trust us on interest rates” in 04. It’s all negative crap targeted at Labor and bribes.
Jeez, Razor, you’re plucking imaginary sums out of the air like a Crodent.
The difference between Rudd, who will work with the states and believes in universal public provision of services not dodgy incentives for individuals is illustrated well by the contrast between a few technical colleges spread around the country (with teachers on AWAs!) and $20 a week and a toolkit for apprentices and the trade centres in schools plan. The latter is probably less expensive than all the nonsense the government’s doing because the spending is much better targeted. And people can see it will make a serious difference - not like all the headline seeking symbolism from the government.
So Labor doesn’t have to throw round billions - just reallocate priorities.
As I said in my New Matilda piece, the focus group research we’ve done shows voters discount the “five billion for this” type announcements anyway. They’re much more impressed with tangible stuff.
The punditariat don’t get this.
If there’s bugger all budget bounce, I’m looking forward to how The Australian spins it.
..one more Friedman Unit Mark. Just one more Friedman Unit.
Heh.
F*ck me, yes. Are those Howard-felching Gombeens at the Government Gazette even gonna pretend they’re “balanced”, like, sometime this year?
Update: Here’s Rudd’s speech.
Lefty, that’s just brilliant! I bow to your superior powers of expression.
Can we abbreviate it to HFGs?
HFG #1, Mr Shanahan, just can’t get no satisfaction:
http://blogs.theaustralian.news.com.au/dennisshanahan/index.php/theaustralian/comments/rudds_cautious_response/
a good speech for the troops, coalition faces didnt look happy
liked the targeted spending on high schools for trade equipement
liked the spending on water pipes, it might seeem piddley but i get pissed off when i see water spewing out of busted pipes
Christine, You’ve been doing it for two days now. Would you kindly enlighten us as to what paticular aetiological swamp the Crodent crawled out of?
Pipes post:
http://larvatusprodeo.net/2007/05/10/leaky-pipes-no-more/
I Love this comment from one of the readers on Shemoham’s Column
4leaf of Adelaide (10 May at 07:53 PM)
“Rudd has gone for the areas the Government didn’t play up—early childhood intervention and vocational training.â€?
Dennis, as a political columnist, it really would help your credibility if you paid attention to what all sides of politics are saying, rather than jumping around in your cheerleader’s outfit, complete with pom-poms and a giant H on the front of your shirt.
Rudd’s education mantra has revolved around early childhood initiatives since he was elected leader. Your attempt to present Rudd as following the Government on education is absurd. As your far more balanced colleague Matt Price observed on Wednesday, this year’s budget was more Labor than Liberal. You and this newspaper continue to champion the Howard cause with glaring bias. Take Thursday’s editorial, where Rudd and Swan were criticised for daring to seek to plan for life after the mining boom. Apparently when Howard or Costello plan for the long term they should be lauded as heroes, but if Rudd does it—he’s a fool. But the conversations I’ve heard around the office this week haven’t altered the overall mood for change—no matter how hard Dennis Shanahan cheers otherwise.
HFGs it is, CK! User-friendly, and tres 21C.
Seriously, the Gubba Gazette is really making me puke lately.
What a conga line on budgie nite.
Well Peter Hartcher says forget the reply and concentrate on the Kevin Rudd ads that Labor are running tonight. Labor is losing the “economic credibility” debate and this proves it and it has sent a “cold shiver down Labor spines”.
Of course Peter announced that Howard would win the election last year on the issue of “economic credibility” and now all the evidence he garners points to this coclusion. I remember hearing a saying about when the only tool in your tool box is a hammer then everything starts looking like a nail. I think it may apply here.
Of course it is a common theme in the media that all roads lead to “economic credibility”, which happens to be about the only measure the government lead on in polling these days. Who defines how “economic credibility” is percieved out there though? Its not going to mean the same thing to different people. Is somebody who may lose penalty rates under “workchoices” going to reference the AFR to determine which way he or she will vote?
Crodent is a compound word EC. Like Brangelina, or Filliam H. Muffman
The derivation can be found at this post at Road To Surfdom http://www.roadtosurfdom.com/2007/04/24/coalitions-new-slogan/#comments I think you’ll find the last sentence in the response by ‘codger’ (about six down) should explain everything.
Or else I could just cast caution to the wind and just tell you…
What I don’t understand is why the conga line still hasn’t woken up to the fact that they’re backing a loser.
No one could blame Rudd for some very serious payback if he gets elected, so outrageous has most of the coverage been.
As I said at the time, I think Hartcher’s Quarterly Essay thing was a real disappointment:
http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=5684
He’s up there in the Michael Brissenden and Steve Lewis class of totally predictable political pundits with no insight whatever.
Well Mark, I think we’ve got a clear idea of the script from the HFGs tomorrow’s
Wendy Deng Dailychip wrappings. ‘Mr Rudd simply refuses to give us enough lollies and, gee, isn’t John Howard just beaut?’“Or else I could just cast caution to the wind and just tell you…”
Your legendary discretion is much appreciated, CK. Suspected as much but wasn’t sure. Having deep empathy with the Surgeon from Crowthorne, there are just some things that a bloke has to know. Ta.
Mark I obviously agree on Hartcher.
Just to quote someone from another forum who gives an alternative view on why the ads were run and puts it much better than I could.
“But most importantly, Rudd left alot of wriggle room vis-a-vis Howard. Spending alot less, thus painting the government as economically dangerours. This is why Labor ran the ad campaign, an expensive yet worthwhile investment for those not tuned in to the reply, knowing the media would not cover it as extensively as it did the budget.”
Which feeds into the theme you have been running, and of course is a completely different motive to what Pete had in mind. He draws a long bow in my view.
Yes, agreed, Kapunda.
I’ve now had a chance to read Hartcher’s column.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/the-real-cash-labor-is-spending/2007/05/10/1178390462558.html
The alternative view is to be preferred! Plus Labor in Queensland in election years often runs mini-campaigns on tv - it’s a very good idea, because it embeds that particular aspect of the message at the time it’s prominent in voters’ minds - Budget time. To say Labor is running scared is nonsense. Labor will have thought through a disciplined and long term approach to the election, and these ads would have been pencilled in ages ago. It’s the government who are making it up as they go along this year.
He’s up there in the Michael Brissenden class of totally predictable political pundits with no insight whatever.
Speaking of which, on tonight’s News, MB was heard to state that “economic management will be the vote decider at the next election” (or words to that effect).
Totally vacuous.
EC, C-Rodent I might as well tell you is Count Rodent. That’s on account of Australia already having a queen.
Michael Brissenden on the other hand is from somwehere back of Rigil Kuntaurus. Only recently, and with great difficulty, have the ABC boffins been able to teach him to blink. Except sometimes he still forgets and this gives him away. I think he is doing pretty well and asking him for bloody “insight” is a bit unhospitable seeing that he’s come such a long way.
And any day now, The Daily Dengograph is going to viciously turn on Count Rodent due to impending carbon policy switcheroo. Baron Rupert last night addressed the troops in Morlock HQ explaining the carbon facts. Some fun times ahead for the little Count.
They’re coming onto the closing straight now and dollar sweetie is a yard ahead with his pitch into the heartland of education but the faithful know their steed won’t balk at reclaiming and cementing education as Labor core business and after all dollar sweetie’s endowment isn’t really all that, er, big and they hold their breaths and Rudd speaks and….
…
…they get a few workshops and a renewed asian languages program.
(sound of large truck being slapped with wet sock)
I hope there’s more. By God I hope there’s more.
Oh I forgot to mention the pipe fixing program.
Dont’ forget the %*%& pipe fixing program.
That’ll knock em dead at the polls.
WHO SAID THERE’S NO VISION IN POLITICS?
Hartcher is awful. My sister can’t watch the 7.30 Report because Brissenden’s eyes freak out her children too much.
Anyhoo I was at German class so I missed the speech and only just read the summary in the Herald. No time for analysis except this: I have a hobby horse about LOTE education in Australia, and the widespread lack therof. We get a productivity $$ figure attached to everything these days — imagine what we could add to that if we didn’t sit back so much and wait for the world accommodate itself to us. And of course all the other reasons. So the mere fact that Labor is for once specifically singling the issue out makes me do the happy dance. About fracking time.
‘The difference between Rudd, who will work with the states and believes in universal public provision of services not dodgy incentives for individuals…’
Hmm Mark, when Rudd believes in universal public provision of service - does that not mean socialism? I thought he was doing his best to publicly bury the idea that he has anything like any socialist tendencies. Of course conservative governments have been trying to discredit socialism for decades, despite the way that socialist derived initiatives such as universal health care and public education seem over the years to have provided historically the biggest paradigm shifts towards a more equitable society than anything else.
And the trouble for Howard is that his Liberal doctrine of providing dodgy incentives for individuals is not really working. Take childcare for example. Early in his reign he ripped off those evil socialist government subsidies for childcare centres and started giving the money to individual parents as middle-class welfare. But all the childcare centres do is raise their fees and now childcare is even more expensive than ever. Mothers are not returning to work because of the costs, the quality of childcare has not improved and nor has its accessibility. Then inflation rises as people spend more money on things like childcare…
So with Rudd’s proposals such as public investment in the fast broadband network and the 2 1/2 billion dollar funding for trades centres in schools is this really a secret return to the socialist thing?
Well, I think it’s social democracy rather than socialism, Megan. Socialism would normally involve (or at least would have involved in the past) a desire to collectivise and nationalise the private sector. I don’t think we’ll see that! It’s really a matter of providing genuine equality of opportunity (which is also, in its way, a liberal goal) through ensuring that the availability of public goods is not constrained by wealth and income.
Tony Jones was a bit annoying on Lateline, badgering Swan about HECS (hello, its about vocational training tonight, and the minutes are ticking) but Swan fared alright. Swan’s a bit boring, yes, but he’s solid, and does quite a strong line in older labour values - which sees him him very safe in greypower Northern Brisbane every time. Local experience says the oldies dont mind him at all, and that will hardly hurt nationally.
Id say the ALP need to spread the detail on the schools policy a bit to get the public rolling, but the idea’s good. Why not have schools do some solid prep, as mainstrreeam curriculum, just like they do for higher ed?
As for the Felchers-at-large at the Gombeen Gazette - is it really going to be “about” economic management? or does Rudd just need to look vaguely competitive, sober and serious on that front to win?
What else has Howard got to fall back on? A bunch of retard dinosaurs like Heff on social values; a crap foreign policy agenda not even the Liberal party is game to remind the public about; and Bolt-level zero of enviro-cred.
Yeah, Tony was very grumpy.
After reading Rudd’s speach I feel that for once someone with some brains is running the Labor party.
They are finally coming up with some quality messages on economic management
* moving credit for the economy away from the Co-alition by putting it down to the mining boom and pointing out non-mining exports are not doing so well
* making productivity the issue
* simply spending less than the government and emphasing Rudd is a “fiscal conservative”
Rudd laid out a clear and credible plan on how he is going to rebuild productivity growth and hence maintain the strength of the economy. If he can get enough voters to understand it by the time the election comes alot of people are going to feel that the government is passively riding the economy rather than actively trying to build it.
When you look at the government’s attempt to inject some vision thing into the budget the only headway they made was with the higher eduction fund. I think that will eventually look a bit weak when compared with Rudd’s vastly broader approach to education. The surprising number of education initiatives Rudd announced seemed timed to highlight that contrast.
On global warming there is a lot of talk but not much action. A bit surprising but perhaps the government is so far behind on this issue that Labor does not really have to do anything to win that fight.
I liked Rudd’s line about how older people would know that mining booms don’t last forever. It would have resonated with anyone who remembered the recession that followed Malcolm Fraser’s early 80s mining boom “prosperity”! Which exposed underlying structural weaknesses in the economy that Hawke and Keating then addressed.
I think they’re waiting to see what the government comes up with in response to their emissions report at the end of the month.
That struck me as well. It was perhaps the best line in the speech. I hope it gets a bit of air play
‘Well, I think it’s social democracy rather than socialism…’ Aha, so no nationalising of banks or anything nasty like that. God yes, if Rudd suggested that he’d be history, Howard would be on his knees crying Hallelujah, and you’d hear the collective roar from all the Australian banks at the North Pole! Right, thanks for clearing that up for me Mark, I’m on a learning curve.
No probs, Megan!
‘Is it really going to be “aboutâ€? economic management? or does Rudd just need to look vaguely competitive, sober and serious on that front to win?’
Yes LeftyE I can’t understand why Laurie Oakes can observe that he’s never seen such a generally favourable response to a government budget from the media. The handouts for one thing were all so scatterbrained and as for the university endowment fund idea, Costello is going to look like a total hypocrite attacking Labor over using some of the Future Fund to invest in a national broadband network.
But judging from the responses to the media blogs a lot of people seem totally convinced that all the money washing in from the current mining boom is all due to the wonderful, excellent Howard government’s economic management. I am sure that mindset is going to take a lot more from Rudd to dislodge than just a bit of strategic posturing. And I read that economists tip that China and India’s rapid development will be keeping Australia lucky for decades yet. So Rudd may be pushing shit uphill convincing people to throw a government out in the middle of great economic times. The pundits keep saying that historically, that event has never happened.
In fact LefyE, show me a case anywhere around the world where the economy has been great and the government has been tossed out and I might begin to think that Labor has a chance.
Howard said it best, Megan: Oz governments fall when they’re seen as incompetent, or when just people stop listening to them.
Lets see what the next couple of polls say - are they tuning in? I think boredom may yet prove a significant factor here. I think the punters are bored shitless with looking at our Prime Coconut.
Now, that wont be enough in itself, but if the mining boom last decades, well, it’ll do so under Rudd as well.
But if it doesnt last? well…. Thats why the ALP “howard rides the boom” pitch is a contender.
And as others have said - Workchoices is a big economic issue for plenty of voters. Whether its enough, again, we’ll see. But there was a great line that came out of South America in the 80s, I think, “yes, the economy is going fine; it’s just the people that aren’t”.
Hardly true of todays Oz, I concede - but it highlights the disjunction between macro data and voters own economic experiences. IR is a big part of the lived experience. How much insecurity is out there? And can the ALP capitalise.
I dunno. But I tell you what - I can’t wait for every days new coverage. Ive totally reengaged with the national politcal debate. COS ITS GAME ON!
Peter Martin has a post up about productivity growth, that links to this piece by Craig Emerson. Its a must read. Its reads like practically the long detailed version of the productivity section Rudd’s speach.
James Farrell’s take at Troppo:
http://clubtroppo.com.au/2007/05/10/rudds-reply/
Oh yeah, as for examples: GW Bush in 2000 almost won against the incumbent party in economic good times. Hell, he came so close the state Supreme Court stacked by his brother could get him over the line.
And try Blair/ Brown and British Labour this year. Tanking everywhere in regional elections. 40 straight quarters of growth.
Liberals in Canada lost last year and their economy’s been going great guns.
Well OK LeftyE, but be careful that your predictions are not entirely based upon an urgent personal desire for change. Even Michelle Grattan in the Age has just written that Kevin is between a rock and a hard place and now Costello is calling the political shots. Every newspaper article I’m coming across has got Rudd hastily leaving the honeymoon suite only partially dressed. Meanwhile it is a long, long wait to the next Newspoll results on Monday night Lateline at 10:30 pm. Everything else is just spec until then. Hate to say it but think Rudd may be heading for a crash.
Megan, every newspaper article is either (a) objectively pro-Coalition or (b) a believer in a heap of press gallery myths about Ratty’s “legendary political skills” etc. Most are very poor political analysis, as shown by the total dissonance between their predictions and the polls over a very long period of time, among many other things. Don’t believe everything you read in the papers!
God I hope you’re right, Mark! But stay, Rocco Fazzari commented that his picture of Rudd hastily leaving the honeymoon suite is meant to be ambiguous. Could he be only going out to the snack machine down the hallway?
By the way, who would give great political analysis?
You could always try the blogosphere, Megan!
What makes great political analysis. The ability to be able to seperate what matters to on the ground to voters from the normal everyday political hustle and bustle. Most of these journos are far too close to the action and exposed to spin doctors from both sides to give an even handed and untainted version of how various issues may play out.
A prime example would be a Shannahan telling us how Rudd shuffling some papers around in question time was a bad moment for him or that the governemnt performed well during the week in the house. I’m afraid the people who matter the most to elections gernerally take no interest in the day to day bustle in parliament and are only interested in what effects their day to day lives.
Precisely.
Like this crap in Shanahan’s column today, about a mistake Rudd supposedly made in question time yesterday:
As if anyone would.
Megan, what you say is generally the rule, but there are exceptions as posters have pointed out with UK and Canada.
Here in Oz we had a pretty sound economy in 69 and 72, but Labor made great gains in both elections culminating in the It’s Time win. Then a lot was put down to Gough’s charisma, to modernising Labor and revitalising it. Some was due to the declining Government, which had looked pretty ordinary since Menzies retired and perhaps earlier. The Vietnam War, like Iraq today, was turning ugly.
But despite a few minor hiccups, trading and economic prosperity were motoring along. Defeat can occur in good times.
Let’s see.
All the pundits were ranting about how Labour couldn’t possibly have anything to say to Costello’s largesse and would be wedged because of Costello’s clever fencing them in on spending.
Let’s test that prediction against the prediction made yesterday afternoon by this post:
The rubbery budget figures are already obsolete.
Of course they are. Im an urger, as well as a commentator….(Much like Shanahan et al in that respect). Difference is, Im not even pretending to provide objective commentary, like our HFGs.
Welcome to Ozblogistan! (as someone once quipp’d memorably)
Home to provocateurs, clowns, seers, users, two-time losers, girls by a whirlpool, new fools…. invective, perspective…. occasionally objective….
Having said that - I do think those commentators are just plain wrong. Theyve convinced themselves of Howard’s infallibility, like he’s the Pope of Ozpolitics or something. Howard’s coming resurrection is practically an article of faith down at the Govt Gazette.
I am always wary about coming here because I always want to write something intelligent.
Instead I am furious. Furious at the ABC. The ABC (or at least some sections) have become pro-Howard by stealth.
We have the example of the Insiders where we have two ‘neutral’ (well depends how Price feels on the day) journalists with one rabid pro-Howard/anti Labor one switching every week (Bolt and Ackerman).
The this morning on Breakfast on Radio National again at 8 o’clock you had Fran Kelly hosting a panel after 8 am about the ‘tectonic shift’ that has happend in Federal Politics last week. Fair enough. But then we have all this ‘The Howard is on top and Rudd has fluffed it’ stuff. And at the end I knew why. We had two journalists from ‘The Australian’ which now doubles as the Liberal Party newsletter. With ex-ABC Jennifer Hewitt having learned her master’s songbook well repeating the mantra that Kevin Rudd would struggle to counter Howard’s economic credibility because of the IR policy.
Where are Labor’s Bolts and Ackermans? Where is Labor’s “Australian”?
‘Here in Oz we had a pretty sound economy in 69 and 72…’
Don Wigan - Billy McMahon was hopeless and has been described as Australia’s worst prime minister and it could be argued there were cracks widening in the economy back then which the Liberals did not have the ability to fix. And the people knew it because one puff of air from Whitlam’s ‘It’s Time’ campaign and McMahon was gone. As for the sound economy, the boom was coming to an end and when we crashed over the next decade it was clear that 23 years of Liberal government had done nothing but coast along on Australia’s good luck (as Donald Horne pointed out in his excellent book) and had done nothing to help Australia land on it’s feet.
Maybe Rudd is on the money when people perceive that the Howard government is not going anywhere on education, skills and the environment. But s Ratty’s more than usually intense attempt at last minute window-dressing and his frantic appropriation of all Rudd’s best ideas is going to convince people to stick with the devil they know. Is an argument on who has the best ideas as to how to further develop and fire-proof an already robust economy really going to win it for Labor, or are most switched-off people just going to be happy with the way things are?
Guido, Australian journalists are not for the most part biased* #, but they are lazy. They are always on the look out for the easy life, and there is nothing easier than repeating the connventional wisdom of the day - this week’s being that Rudd is now on the back foot because of IR and the budget. The worst offender in this regard is Michele Grattan, who has not had an original thought in 20 years.
They are also very risk averse. It is a lot safer in the middle of the pack, saying what everyone else is saying.
Next week, the conventional wisdom might be that Rudd has successfully fended off the government counter attack, the budget has not gained traction with the electorate, this was the government’s big chance and it didn’t work, etc etc. If so, the pack will morph seamlessly to this story, without a hint of embarrassment.
Razor, Labor is at $1.94 and the Coalition is at $2.04, which translates to Labor having a 51.5% chance of winning the election.
* There are exceptions, like Dennis Shanahan and Glenn Milne, but your average hack likes to think of themselves as above the fray.
# Opinion columnists are a different matter, but they are paid to be be opinionated.
Conservatives are notoriously hopeless at picking trends too. In the Futures markets where supposedly their exertise is best and it is a matter of prices going up or down in a two horse race, they manage to lose thier money 85% of the time. The bookies must be loving having these suckers heading their way this week
I listened to the same program that Guido did and I agree it was cheer squad stuff. The most telling thing for me was not the fact that they reckon the government was on top, but they actually pinpointed when it all turned around for them, the IR debate last week was apparently the clincher. The fact that there was a change in the electorate became accepted fact without a scrap of evidence, and all from a mob who have got it consistently wrong for the last year.
I agree with Spiros that not all of them are biased and some are lazy but some clearly lack the intelligence or the ability to be able to sort through the information that is being provided to them, and come up with something that half resembles analysis. The advisers and spin merchants have a field day with some of these peolple it is quite obvious. I have noticed their analysis seems to go off the rails more whenever they are spending time on that big hill in Canberra.
That being said I don’t believe they will effect the outcome of the election. This point has been made clear for the last year or so as evidenced by the opinion polls really not following their various narratives. Counter intuitive as Michelle Grattan likes to put it. Imho there is a disconnect betwen the electorate and the media. This has probably been created by issues like “workchoices” where the media have been a cheer squad for what is clearly a very unpopular policy. When people start hearing things they don’t like or agree with they start to switch off and in my opinion that is exactly what is happening at the moment.
It will be interesting to see if/when they collectively begin to realise that they have backed the wrong horse and decide that the narrative needs drastic revision, if not a total re-write.
I hope that you are correct about people turning off, Kapunda. Certainly the experience in the recent NSW election suggests that once people disconnect from the message, there is nothing that these cheerleaders can do. And I think that part of their antagonism (and for some, like Chris Ullhman the antagonism is palpable) towards Rudd is the fact that he has refused to buy into the narrative that they have created for him, and therefore rendered them irrelevant. At least I hope so.
I think that’s a good point.
Tim Dunlop’s take:
http://blogs.news.com.au/news/blogocracy/index.php/news/comments/rudds_right_of_reply#13535
Further to the panel on the radio national this morning, a poll taken last weekend by Roy Morgan of 1024 people, show no movement in voting intentions. This poll takes into account last weeks IR kerfuffle with business. According to the esteemed panel this was the turning point of the government fortunes. The poll can be found here.
http://www.roymorgan.com/news/polls/2007/4162/
Megan, I don’t dispute what you say about Billy McMahon. In fact, even before then, the Libs had their problems with Gorton and Holt.
And it’s also a fact that by today’s measures, we’d probably class the economic performance as pretty ordinary, if that. But those were the days of McEwanism, now shunned by just about all economists. If we look at the priority indicators through the prism of their time they were doing well. Unemployment about 2.5% (and measured properly in those days - none if this one hour per week = employed), balance of trade in consistent surplus from the minerals boom and wool/beef/wheat. You could walk into a job at will, and usually be very well-paid.
I mention this only to indicate that a change of government can occur during economic prosperity. If the point you are making is that Howard is much more competent than McMahon, I agree. But it is a most unusual competence, not so much in overall governance for the nation as in electioneering competence.
As someone who was an adult through both eras I can see the differences and see the parallels. That’s why I think the signs are ominous for Howard. You only had to hear the constant repetition of the word ‘future’ to realise how desperate Howard and Costello are growing. Almost as if by repeating it often enough, people will think they are actually doing something about it. It’s very similar to Billy McMahon’s reiteration of how ‘decisive’ he’d been, when research suggested the opposite.
Yes, the “future” rhetoric means that Rudd has effectively defined what the election is “about”. Again, not decisive - but its an edge when the government probably wanted to play up ALP inexperience.]
So, Morgan has it steady at 60-40 after IR outrage week at the Gazette. Arent the punters reading the Oz, the ungrateful swine!!??
Although I’m fairly biased against the govt to start, I was surprised that I actually found myself interested in Rudd’s speech - it even stayed on my tv for a solid ten minutes, rather than the two minutes of “aggggggggh smirk” that Costello’s speech got. It was weird - a politican I could listen to for more than a minute without an overwhelming urge to throw something at