Judgment Day for Labor

We've been to Australia several times this year. And wherever we've been, when we've talked to people about politics, they have been hanging out for today; the day of the Federal Election. And they've been hanging out for today because they want to bring an end to six years of appalling government.

The polls open in about three-and-a-half hours time as we type this. And it seems that the only question remaining now is over the margin of victory for the Coalition, and whether Labor will just get defeated, or whether Kevin Rudd's party will get annihilated.

The Sydney Morning Herald has details of the final round of polls:

Australians are preparing to sweep aside six years of Labor rule, installing Tony Abbott as the country's 28th prime minister in an electoral verdict leaving no room for doubt.
A swing of 4 per cent against Kevin Rudd's government threatens to strip the ALP of future stars as voters cast a harsh judgment on the party's internal divisions.
A poll shows electors will turn their backs on big-picture policies to price carbon, tax big miners, and build a first-class national broadband network, in favour of the smaller horizons of reduced debt, smaller government, and a new domestic-first focus.

The latest Age/Nielsen survey suggests 54 per cent of the nation's 14.7 million electors are embracing the Coalition.

Labor's primary vote has slumped to 33 per cent, with the Coalition on 46 per cent.
Primary support for Labor, and Mr Rudd's own popularity, are now as low or lower than they were in June 2010, suggesting the party that has twice changed prime ministers and torn itself apart in the search for votes is back where it started.
Mr Abbott has maintained his 7-point lead as the more trusted of the two leaders.

Other polls also point to a Coalition victory, but a slightly closer result. The final Morgan poll found the Coalition ahead after preferences by 53.5 per cent to 46.5 per cent, the Galaxy poll put it at 53-47, and the Essential poll found the Coalition leading 52-48.

 

Whilst the polls themselves make grim reading for Labor, that's not the worst of it; the carnage could be even worse; read on:

 

If applied uniformly across the nation, the 4 per cent swing would cost Labor 14 seats.
But strategists on both sides expect Labor's losses to be even higher, with as many as 25 seats falling into conservative hands.
That is because the national average is skewed by higher-than-average pro-Coalition swings in the big population states of Victoria (4 per cent) and NSW (5 per cent).
The poll of 1431 respondents was taken on Wednesday and Thursday evenings.

We will be staying up tonight to watch TV coverage of events as they unfold. But barring some sort of miracle, Tony Abbott will be the next Prime Minister of Australia, and the Rudd/Gillard/Rudd years will be consigned to the history books. And somehow, we doubt that history will be kind to the about-to-be-former Labor government and its leaders.

With a Wainuiomata-born wife, Tony Abbott is likely to be a far better friend to New Zealand than Kevin Rudd has been. Here's hoping that a new era of trans-Tasman co-operation is about to be born.

 

Love's Labors Lost

Things are looking grim for Kevin Rudd and for the Australian Labor Party. They are facing near-certain defeat at the polls on Saturday, and probable annihilation.

And this opinion-piece in the Sydney Morning Herald is just one piece in the puzzle as to how far Labor has fallen. Under the heading No going back when it's over, Melbourne barrister Rachel Doyle SC writes (with our emphasis added):

In 2010, I ended the longest and most significant relationship of my life. We got together when I was in my early 20s and were together for over 17 years. Ending it was the hardest thing I've ever had to do.
The worst part was - he didn't even notice when I left. Sure, we had both emotionally checked out years earlier, but I thought that when I finally walked, it would at least engender a reaction. I'd been trying to get him to pay attention to me for a long time: picking fights, flirting with others and issuing spectacular ultimatums about what he would have to do to keep me. But when I left: nothing. Not a flicker.

Of course, relationships change. I didn't expect him to stay the same forever. But in the end, he just changed so much I didn't know who he was any more.

By 2009, he had become restless and fickle. First he'd want one thing, then another. He was skittish. A screw-up. He was hanging out with people I barely knew. By 2010, he had started to let down his friends, was caught out telling lies and breaking promises. I just couldn't trust him any more. On rare occasions, there were flashes of the brilliant, principled person he used to be. But it would fade away rapidly to nothing. He contradicted me. Then he started contradicting himself. Ultimately, he became vain, petty and cruel.
He hadn't acknowledged me or my needs for years. That I could take. But it was when he stopped caring about the children that I knew I couldn't stay. He blamed them for things. He punished and belittled them. And that, I could not ignore.
In the end, I didn't even tell him I was leaving. It was cowardly. But it was obvious nothing could bring back the person I used to know. So, a couple of years ago, I just walked out without saying where I was going or why. A small part of me thought (vainly) that when I walked, it might be a wake-up call and he would come crawling back. He never did.
Recently, he got back together with an old flame. Someone he was with between 2007 and 2010. After a very public reconciliation and much flaunting of their rekindled love for one another, the relationship already seems to be on the rocks. Me ? I haven't found anyone else. I doubt I ever will. Now when I see glimpses of him in the distance, it's been so long the hurt barely registers. I don't know him any more. I certainly don't know what he stands for, and I can't believe a word he says.
His name? The Australian Labor Party.
I joined Labor in 1993. I was a committed member, although I wasn't part of a faction or a branch. I handed out how-to-vote cards, I made donations. I attended fund-raisers. I identified with the party. I promoted and publicised its tenets. I admired many of its leadership group.
By the middle of 2010, I resolved to let my membership lapse. But I thought that despite our relationship being over, we might stay friends.
As Josh Bornstein wrote on The Age's Comment pages a month ago (''No Moral Limits to What Rudd Will Do to Win''): ''Do I grimace and turn the other way? … I cannot stomach voting for a government that treats other human beings in this way. A line has been crossed.''
Josh was writing about Iranian refugee Shayan Badraie. For me, the final straw was the heartbreaking photos of the orphan, Seena Aqhlaqi Sheikhdost. His photo was published widely in February 2011, while debate raged in relation to whether he would be permitted to attend the funeral of his family members in Sydney or remain in detention on Christmas Island. When I saw those photos, I knew the Rubicon had been crossed.
Asylum seeker policy is complex. I don't pretend to have all the answers. But one truth is clear and unassailable. There is no acceptable reason for imprisoning (or ''detaining'' in the language of both major political parties) children who have done nothing more than step onto a rickety boat because their parents told them to, or because relatives literally carried them aboard. None of these children has sought or caused the situation that maroons them on our shores.
I do not need a psychologist to tell me that imprisoning a child for any period of time is very likely to cause irreparable gaps in their education, physical and psychological development and do untold harm to their emotional health.
On June 16 The Age reported that Department of Immigration statistics confirmed 1852 children were still being held in immigration detention on Manus Island, Christmas Island and elsewhere, despite the government's pledge most would be out by June 2012.
After Labor and I split up, I thought I would always vote for the party I had loved for so long. Now, not only can I no longer bear to have the ALP membership card in my wallet, but I cannot even vote for them on Saturday.
Some people stay together for the sake of the children. I've ended it for the children.

If Rudd and his fellow Labor top-rankers aren't deeply troubled by Ms Doyle's opinion-piece, they most certainly should be. Because this story is not unique. Over the weekend a bus driver and union member told us that he was voting for the Coalition for the first time ever because it was the only way to get rid of Rudd; we won't use the adjective he did, but it was not flattering towards the Australian PM!

There are tens of thousands of Rachel Doyles right across Australia, and Labor is going to discover that when the polls close on Saturday evening. Then the ALP will, like its New Zealand counterpart in 2008 and again in 2011, have an opportunity to cut off some of the diseased tissue, and begin a period of rehabilitation and recovery. The NZLP has yet to avail itself of that opportunity; will the ALP do likewise?

A Krudd of a Caption Contest

Why the sour face Kevin?

Yeah, sure; we've had a few Caption Contests lately, but this is one photograph that just can't be passed over.

You know the rules; keep 'em short, humourous and pithy, and don't get unnecessarily personal. Beyond that, you're limited only by your own imagination.

We do have to say though; it reminded us of this guy:

The Herald-Sun on Rudd, Gillard and Labor

The Sunday edition of the Herald-Sun in Melbourne. In an editorial entitled Time voters took a new direction the leader writer notes:

AFTER six years of failed government, Australia finally has the chance to take a new direction. Labor has failed itself and our great nation.
Under both Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard, the party has been riven by incompetence, abysmal policy and bitter internal wars.
Australia cannot afford to keep the most dysfunctional and inept government in its history.
The Sunday Herald Sun supported Mr Rudd when he was elected in 2007. But his performance was so erratic on so many fronts that even his own party couldn't tolerate the damage anymore.
His successor was just as bad, but sadly Labor resorted to recycling Mr Rudd only to find him the same flawed character they dumped in the first place.
On the other hand, Tony Abbott and his team have shown they are ready to fix the mess and restore strong government. Mr Abbott has displayed courage, decency and a great capacity to listen to the people. His party is united and has presented a powerful case for change.
Mr Abbott kept calm as Labor ripped itself apart and lurched from one crisis to another, focusing his team on addressing the issues that matter most to Australians - a strong economy, job creation and a prosperous future.
This Government has fumbled and stumbled its way to a deserved defeat on Saturday, through disunity, the failure of its policies and its inability to deliver them. Its leaders have been so preoccupied with surviving attacks from enemies within that they have been distracted from governing.
Australia bears the scars of Labor's bungling: ballooning debt, asylum-seeker fiasco, carbon tax backflip, Building the Education Revolution blowout, delayed and overpriced national broadband project, deadly home insulation botch-up, mining tax debacle. The list goes on.
Labor has wasted billions of your taxes on schemes ranging from the feckless to the reckless. Near the top of a long list is the Home Insulation Scheme that cost several lives, as well as $1 billion to clean up. Then there was the $16 billion lavished on schools for works which, too often, were overdone, bungled or not needed.
The rate of illegal migration by boat - cut to a trickle under John Howard's Pacific Solution - exploded exponentially under a rudderless Labor leadership that attempted to disguise porous borders as a humanitarian principle. This Government has let in 50,000 boat people at massive cost to the taxpayer - and the loss of hundreds of lives of gullible-paying passengers lured by people smugglers swift to exploit Labor's dithering border protection policies.
Mr Rudd started out calling climate change the moral challenge of our time but he soon reneged, deferring an emissions trading scheme. This led Ms Gillard to try the on-again, off-again carbon tax that was so obviously a sop to the green vote of the inner-city elite.
Mr Rudd campaigned "to end the blame game" with states over hospital funding, but his scheme to claw back GST revenue to pay for it was dumped, as were all but nine of the hundreds of ideas aired at his 2020 Summit.
Mr Rudd inherited a $20 billion surplus from the Liberals but it evaporated in the global financial crisis, to be replaced by deficits. One reason of many for deficits is that the National Broadband Network has been bogged down in delays, its cost ballooning to $37 billion instead of $4.7 billion for the more modest plan mooted in the 2007 campaign.
Just last week, Treasury officials contradicted Mr Rudd's claims of a $10 billion black hole in Mr Abbott's election promises. If not a lie, this is at best the latest embarrassment a rejected and recycled leader has inflicted on a party unsure what it stands for and out of touch with those it calls "working families".
Individuals are often wrong, crowds rarely are. It seems Mr Rudd has been around long enough for Australians to sense the character flaws his own colleagues rebelled against three years ago.
He doesn't stand for anything except his own overweening ambition. That worked when he was riding the incoming tide of generational change in 2007 but now he is beating against the current. After six years in which the Government has declined from the inept to the disastrous, voters can now test the Coalition's alternative.
The Sunday Herald Sun believes Australia needs less waste, smaller government, reined-in deficits and stable and decisive leadership to secure the country's future.
There are no surprises in that list but it is easier to promise these sensible aims than it is to deliver them.
Mr Abbott has led his party into this election with distinction. He has known defeat before, and has emerged stronger and more determined from the experience.
This time, Mr Abbott deserves his chance, and we believe he will be an outstanding prime minister.

Labor, Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard have done everything in their power to demonise Tony Abbott, just as Labour and Helen Clark did here in 2008 to John Key. It didn't work for Miss Clark in 2008, and it is not going to work for Mr Rudd and Labor in 2013.

Australia is on the brink of electing a coalition government to be led by the Liberals and Tony Abbott. The Lucky Country may just be about to become just that once again as Labor is sent to Coventry to lick its wounds, prune the deadwood and disease and rebuild. 

The ALP should note however that the New Zealand Labour Party has had that same opportunity since its defeat in 2008 (and again in 2011), but it is yet to take the opportunity.

Airborne

We'll shortly be airborne on the way home from a fantastic (but far too short) weekend in Melbourne. When the opportunity arose to combine some business with a little pleasure, we didn't need a second invitation.

Melbourne is our favourite city in Australia. There's always something going on, the food and entertainment choices are almost limitless, and it is, of course, Australia's sporting capital. When we were reading the Sunday paper today, we counted that the attendances at three AFL matches yesterday in the final round of the regular season pulled over 110,000 punters, including more than 60,000 at the Gee last night.

So we'll be out of circulation for the rest of today, and we may not get back online until we get home tomorrow morning. But fear not; there's some early morning content locked and loaded for Monday morning. Without giving too much away, Kevin Rudd wouldn't have found the Sunday edition of the Herald-Sun especially good reading today!

Normal transmission will resume on Monday morning. Going to work tomorrow is going to be a struggle, and Peter Dunne's flexible retirement plan seems like quite a good idea today!

Why Labor is losing; and what it means for the NZLP.

We were out and about yesterday, after our business meetings ended.We even met a Liberal Party candidate for one of the local electorates doing some good, old-fashioned street corner campaigning; good luck Kevin!

But we haven't seen hide nor hair of anyone from the Labor Party; they seem to be keeping a low profile. And this opinion-piece from Paul Strangio in the Sydney Morning Herald may help to explain why:

In the near half-century since the dawn of the ''modern'' epoch of Australian politics - a milestone conventionally associated with Gough Whitlam's ascension to the Labor leadership in the late 1960s - Australia has witnessed five changes of federal government (1972, 1975, 1983, 1996 and 2007).
Two of those transitions involved the ALP losing office: Whitlam was defeated in 1975 and Paul Keating's government was beaten in 1996. When compared with those occasions, a notable difference about the mood in 2013 is the seeming lack of passion among Labor partisans as they contemplate the likely demise of the Rudd government.
Labor has traditionally been the party capable of stirring followers to emotional pitch, and those passions have commonly been intense when the ALP is bracing itself against defeat. It has been a catalyst for party faithful to metaphorically mount the barricades.

1975, of course, had its own exceptional circumstances, with Labor partisans animated by a potent mixture of rage at Whitlam's dismissal by governor-general Sir John Kerr, and adoration of their cruelly felled prime minister. Whitlam's rallies during the campaign were even more charged and messianic than the exultant ''It's Time'' campaign meetings of 1972. Such was the fervency of the Labor crowds that the Whitlam entourage was seduced into believing that the party might defy expectations and prevail at the ballot box.
Passions were more subdued in 1996. Labor had expended much of its emotional energy three years earlier rallying behind Keating as he fended off the challenge of John Hewson and his fundamentalist free-market manifesto, ''Fightback''. There was little hope of another salvation in 1996 and the dominant mood among Labor followers was one of sombre foreboding that matched the demeanour of the elegiac Keating. Yet the ''true believers'' still drew inspiration from Keating's ''big picture'' and felt sick at heart that the public was poised to spurn his vision in favour of the provincialism of John Howard's promise of a ''comfortable and relaxed'' Australia.
By contrast, in 2013 Labor faithful appear devoid of emotion - dare I suggest there is even a smidge of indifference about what is coming. Yes, there is apprehension at the spectre of a Tony Abbott-led Coalition government and spasms of anger at the anti-Labor assault of the News Ltd press, but the fate of the Rudd government is failing to generate much anguish.
Why the dearth of passion? Part of the answer is that the leadership civil war of the past three years has left the ALP emotionally wrung out. I suspect some Labor loyalists remain numb at the pitiless internal destabilisation and ultimate cutting down of Australia's first female prime minister, Julia Gillard.
Furthermore, as the campaign has progressed, it has become evident that by not daring to speak Gillard's name, Labor's re-election pitch has been left with a significant hole. Notwithstanding the flaws of her incumbency, Gillard established a reform record that felt like it was worth fighting for - most notably, the disability insurance scheme and education funding reform. Yet, intent on erasing Gillard's prime ministership from public consciousness, Rudd has appeared reluctant to fully own those measures for Labor. In turn, the campaign has spotlighted how comparatively thin and uninspiring are his reform credentials.

We are relatively recent converts to the niceties of Australian Federal politics. It's only really been since the John Howard years that we have taken more than a passing interest.

But the machinations within the ALP since 2007 have been fascinating to watch, and even moreso at the moment because they are mirrored in the bitterly divided New Zealand Labour Party. 

Labor and Kevin Rudd are headed for a crushing defeat next Saturday if the pundits here and the bookies are to be believed. You can still get a bet on the Coalition; at $1.02 back for your dollar. Labour is paying $11 to be reelected.

Surely, this is going to lead to wholesale change at the top of the ALP. But the question we have is this; what is needed for there to be wholesale change at the top of the New Zealand Labour Party? Will any of Messrs Cunliffe, Robertson or Jones be the catalyst for significant change, or will it just be more of the same?

Kev's large and menacing shadow

Kevin Rudd got a bounce in the polls for Labor after his knifing of former Australian PM Julia Gillard. But as the SMH reports, the lustre is wearing off:

It was brief, dignified and to the point, but Julia Gillard's statement that she would not attend Sunday's Labor campaign launch was startling, too. How quickly we move on; how quickly Labor wants us to move on.
Gillard has disappeared. She has posted just one thank-you tweet to well-wishers since being ousted as prime minister on June 26, barely two months ago. She reportedly has bought a house in Adelaide to be close to her family. She won't be sitting with other Labor luminaries on Sunday because she doesn't want to ''distract in any way from Kevin Rudd's powerful message''. She has ''fervent hope'' for a Labor victory.
There was so much left unsaid in Gillard's two-sentence statement. Was there irony lurking there, not wanting to ''distract'' Rudd, the man whose distractions all but derailed the 2010 campaign and played a sizeable role in destroying Gillard's prime ministership?

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What is Gillard thinking as she watches Labor's campaign, the dashing of the fantasy that ''the people'' just love Kevin Rudd, that Kevin Rudd alone can win this election because Kevin Rudd is a brilliant campaigner who can make us believe that Kevin Rudd offers a ''new way''?
Whatever Gillard is thinking, she'll hold her tongue for now. She may not be physically present in Brisbane, but her political ghost will be. Labor may have little choice but to pray that voters' memories are short, but it cannot erase its past, cannot pretend this election is all about scary Tony Abbott and his ''cuts, cuts, cuts''.
The central question is whether this election will turn out to be a judgment on Labor's six years of division that has overshadowed its policy achievements, or whether through gritted teeth we'll risk another three messy years because we're scared of what Tony Abbott might do.
I have been around too long to predict election outcomes, but it is looking as though September 7 will be a day of reckoning for a party that has come close to destroying itself. Labor seems so hollowed out that perhaps it had no choice but to grasp onto an American-style campaign centred around one man, Kevin Rudd, the man who more than any other contributed to the party's predicament.
Perhaps Rudd's elevation will mean that Labor will avoid the ''catastrophic defeat'' it faced under Gillard, and it will console itself with that. But there is so much heaviness in Labor's campaign, weighed down as it is by bad memories and bad blood.

 

Labour is in deep strife. A new poll out this morning shows Labor getting a bath in key marginals in New South Wales and Victoria. The bookies have already paid out on a coalition victory.

So will this image be Rudd's unfortunate epitaph?

Rudd and Labor lied

There's only one political story in Australia today; Kevin Rudd and the ALP have been telling lies; the Sydney Morning Herald reports:

Labor's campaign is ''in tatters'', leader of opposition business Christopher Pyne has declared, as Labor defends its release of Treasury and Finance documents to claim there is a $10 billion black hole in Coalition savings.
The war of words over Labor's black hole claims escalated on Friday, with a defiant Treasurer Chris Bowen and Deputy Prime Minister Anthony Albanese insisting the government's claims were correct – despite the secretaries of Treasury and Finance taking the highly unusual step late on Thursday of publicly denying that they had examined opposition policies.

The scenario really is quite simple. Labor claims that Treasury has found a large black hole in the Coalition's election spending promises. But two of Australia's most senior public servants, Treasury Secretary Martin Parkinson and Finance Department Secretary David Tune have emphatically denied that; read on:

On Thursday, Treasury Secretary Martin Parkinson and Finance Department Secretary David Tune issued a public statement advising that neither had examined the opposition's policies, and any modelling used for costing government policies before the election could not credibly be applied to opposition policies.
The statement said that the departments had been asked by the government to cost various ''policy options'', and: ''at no stage prior to the caretaker period has either department costed opposition policies''.
Late on Thursday the head of the Parliamentary Budget Office, Phil Bowen, also weighed in to the political stoush, issuing a statement that advised: ''Unless all of the policy specifications were identical, the financial implications of the policy could vary markedly.''

There has been a huge backlash over here, and Labor is copping it big-time. If this was Kevin Rudd's magic bullet, all he's done is taken careful aim at Tony Abbott then shot himself in the foot.

We'll have more fallout tomorrow, but for now, it's dinner time!

Rudd on temperament

Kevin Rudd reckons that Coalition leader Tony Abbott doesn't have the right temperament to lead Australia; the Sydney Morning Herald reports:

Kevin Rudd has launched an extraordinary attack on Tony Abbott, accusing him of lacking the "temperament" and experience to handle complex international situations such as the worsening crisis engulfing Syria.
Facing internal doubts over his confidence as his election campaign is perceived as bogging down, Mr Rudd sought to contrast his reputation as a foreign affairs expert with Mr Abbott's notoriety as a political hard man.

Adapting a tactic from the play-book of John Howard, who once claimed then opposition leader Kim Beazley lacked the ticker to be a prime minister, the unusually direct language appeared to be a calculated move to erode confidence in his opponent's ability to stride the world stage and represent Australia in the councils of the world.

Mr Rudd spoke of his telephone discussion with US President Barack Obama on Tuesday morning, regarding the security emergency in the Middle East, more or less asking voters if they could imagine putting Mr Abbott in the same role.
Describing Mr Obama as "a good man", Mr Rudd reflected on the dangers of military action and claimed Mr Abbott was unsuited because he is inclined to be impulsive and to "rush ahead" when caution was needed.
Asked about the growing likelihood of armed conflict, Mr Rudd depicted the Liberal leader as a "pugilist" who was suppressing his combative nature and could therefore not be trusted to handle diplomacy where "words are bullets".
"You've got to sit back, think and calmly reflect, and then work through what the best decision is, and temperament and judgment and experience are quite important," he told the Seven network's Mark Riley.
"He doesn't have a background in this field and sometimes I find in him a bit of an impulsive nature, that is rushing ahead to judgment.
"You know what his background is ... he's been in Parliament for 20 years, 19 of which he was the great pugilist, you know and the last 12 months he's suddenly become the statesman, so the Tony Abbott that I know, having served 15 years in the Parliament with him, is of a different nature."

Clever move Kev; not. This is very much a "pot; meet kettle" moment for Mr Rudd, whose own temperament is not exactly the most calm and reasoned, as this video shows (not suitable for work):

Just keep those comparisons coming Mr Rudd!

The tide just keeps going out...

There's more bad news for Kevin Rudd and Labor as the Australian Federal Election gets closer still. In fact by this time in two weeks, it's looking more and more likely that barring something remarkable, Australia will have a new government.

First-up, the Sydney Morning Herald takes a look at the big picture, and it's pretty ugly for Mr Rudd and Labor; check this out:

Tony Abbott is on track to become the nation's 29th prime minister as support for Labor crumbles and the Opposition Leader draws almost level with Kevin Rudd as preferred prime minister.
With only a fortnight to go in the five-week election campaign, the latest Fairfax-Nielsen poll shows the Coalition extending its lead over Labor to 53-47 on a two-party-preferred basis.
It was 52-48 in early August, shortly after the election was called.

While both leaders have lost some skin in the campaign, Mr Abbott retains the lead as the more trusted leader, with a rating of 43 per cent to Mr Rudd's career-low 36 per cent.
Labor's primary vote has dropped to 35 per cent compared to the Coalition's 47 per cent, with the Greens steady on 10 per cent.
On the question of preferred prime minister, Mr Rudd's commanding 55-41 lead in July has been reduced to a statistically marginal 3 points on 48-45.
The clear trend suggests voters are considering just the seventh switch of governing party since World War II.
An overwhelming 70 per cent now believe the Coalition will win on September 7, compared to just 20 per cent who tip a come-from-behind result for Labor. Voters have answered that question correctly in the Fairfax-Nielsen poll ahead of every election since 1998.
The statistically weighted poll of 2545 respondents taken between August 18 and 22 included 972 voters in Victoria and 980 in NSW.
In Victoria, a Labor stronghold, ALP support has fallen 4 points since 2010, although that decline is off a very high base-vote of 55.3 per cent.
It means Labor's hopes of retaining knife-edge seats such as Corangamite, Deakin and La Trobe look like being dashed and others will now be vulnerable to Coalition attack.
However, the ALP still leads narrowly in the state with 51 per cent after preferences, a marginal improvement on the poll a fortnight ago.
Mr Rudd's advantage as preferred prime minister is also strongest in Victoria with 51 per cent to Mr Abbott's 39.
In an encouragement for Adam Bandt, the Greens' sole lower house MP, support for the minor party is at 15 per cent in Victoria.
In NSW, where Labor had hoped to keep losses to one or two seats in western Sydney, offset by expected gains in Queensland, Labor's primary vote is down to 34 per cent, a
drop of some 5 points since the election was called.
On a two-party-preferred basis, Labor's share of the vote in NSW has slumped to 44 per cent to the Coalition's 56, putting a swag of Labor seats in peril, including Greenway (0.9 per cent); Robertson (1.0), Lindsay (1.1), Banks (1.5), Reid (2.7), Parramatta (4.4) and Kingsford-Smith (5.2).
The result shows Labor's prime-time election campaign advertisements warning of the threat of an Abbott government slashing essential services and cutting public spending ''to the bone'' have failed to bite.

If even Victoria, a long-time Labor stronghold is in danger of falling, Mr Rudd is going to be vacating the Prime Minister's residence after the election. And it looks as though Labor is going to get an absolute bath in New South Wales.

But wait, as they say in the infomercials; there's more. A second poll has confirmed that Kevin Rudd is in clear and present danger of being out of a job; check this out:

Kevin Rudd faces a fight to avoid becoming the third prime minister in the nation's history to lose his own seat.
A second poll in a week has shown Mr Rudd narrowly trailing his Liberal National Party opponent, Bill Glasson, in Griffith, prompting the Prime Minister to declare he was campaigning as hard as he could.
Long-serving prime minister John Howard lost his Sydney seat of Bennelong to Labor's Maxine McKew as part of the Ruddslide in 2007, the first time an Australian PM had lost his own electorate since Stanley Bruce in 1929.

A Newspoll published by The Australian on Saturday suggested Dr Glasson was leading Mr Rudd by 52 per cent to 48 per cent on a two-party-preferred basis. The poll was reportedly based on a sample of 500 voters in Griffith, in Brisbane's south.
It mirrored a Guardian Lonergan poll of 958 Griffith voters on Wednesday night that put Dr Glasson ahead of Mr Rudd 52 per cent to 48 per cent after preferences, with a stated margin of error of 4 per cent.
Mr Rudd attracted 58.5 per cent of the vote after preferences at the 2010 election.
Latest polling suggests Queensland will not provide the big boost that Labor had hoped for with Mr Rudd's return to the leadership. The party also faces losses in western Sydney.
Nationally, the latest Fairfax-Nielsen poll shows Mr Abbott's Coalition is poised to win the election in two weeks' time with a lead of 53 per cent to 47 per cent on a two-party-preferred basis.
Mr Rudd sought on Saturday to brush off the latest poll results, saying he would keep campaigning with a focus on the national broadband network, school funding and health as compared with Mr Abbott's "unaffordable and unfair" paid parental leave scheme.
"I'm in the business of fighting an election and fighting as hard as I can," he said as he flagged a return to Canberra for briefings on the Syria crisis.
"What the Australian people ultimately decide in a couple of weeks' time is a matter for them."
Opposition Leader Tony Abbott said Mr Rudd had a spring in his step as the Prime Minister believed Labor's negative attacks may begin to work.
"As for the polls, frankly I don't believe them," Mr Abbott said while campaigning in Adelaide.
"I think this is a very, very close race."

It would be the ultimate indignity if Kevin Rudd was not only booted out of the Prime Ministership in two weeks time, but booted to touch completely. But that is looking increasingly likely.

And the Coalition expects Rudd to go down fighting:

Mr Abbott, who is due to launch the Liberal campaign in Brisbane on Sunday, said there were still two weeks to go and Labor would unleash "the mother of all negative campaigns" in the remaining time.

As good fortune would have it, we are going to be in Australia at the end of the week. As campaigning intensifies, it is going to be fascinating to be there amongst it all, and hopefully if technology and time permits, we'll be able to bring some insights.

In the meantime, we wonder how low Kevin Rudd is prepared to go; almost subterranean, we should think.

Quote of the Day - 23 August 2013

David Cunliffe won't be especially pleased with this. 

Duncan Garner has written an opinion-piece on the Labour Party's leadership woes, and identifies Cunliffe and Grant Robertson as the only realistic candidates, especially now that Jacinda Ardern has announced that she will not stand . But in looking at Cunliffe's attributes, Garner notes (with our emphasis added):

The other contender is Cunliffe.
A smart bloke, a bright man, an intellectual man – an odd man - who is seriously disliked by some. Is he the Kevin Rudd of NZ politics? Sometimes I think he is.
I cannot repeat the words in this column that some Labour MPs use to describe him. But this is his time. It’s now or never for Cunliffe.

By "some Labour MP's", we believe that Garner is referring to former Waimakariri MP Clayton Cosgrove, founder president of ABC; Anyone But Cunliffe.

But comparing David Cunliffe to Kevin Rudd? That's - ummmm - "interesting"...

Another Labo(u)r leader in strife

David Shearer has gone the same way as Australian Labor Party leader Julia Gillard; knifed in the back from within their own caucus.

Kevin Rudd got something of a dead-cat bounce in the polls after he broke his promise not to challenge Ms Gillard. But Rudd's honeymoon is over, as people begin to remember just what he was like the first time he was Prime Minister.

And in fact it's so bad that Kevin Rudd may not even hold his own seat in Queensland; theguardian.com reports:

Kevin Rudd is trailing Liberal rival Bill Glasson in his apparently safe Brisbane seat of Griffith, in alarming news for Labor from the latest Guardian Lonergan poll.
Glasson, who is running an intensive local grassroots campaign, leads Rudd on a two-party preferred basis by 52% to 48%. The poll's margin of error is 4%, but its findings raise the possibility that without a big effort on his home turf, Rudd could become the third prime minister in Australian history to lose his seat, behind John Howard in 2007 and Stanley Bruce in 1929.
It raises a dilemma for Labor strategists who need to salvage Labor's national campaign but also give Rudd time to campaign in his seat. Rudd was criticised for pulling out of a local candidates' debate in Brisbane on Thursday night because he was campaigning interstate.
"This shows Mr Rudd needs to be very conscious of what is happening in his own electorate. He needs to focus on the battle as well as the war," Lonergan research managing director Chris Lonergan said.
The poll of 958 Griffith voters, taken on Wednesday night as Rudd and Coalition leader Tony Abbott debated at the Broncos leagues club in Brisbane, found Rudd had 38% of the primary vote, down from the 44% he achieved in 2010, with Glasson on 47%. The Greens candidate was on 11%.

Losing his Griffith seat would be a mortal blow for Kevin Rudd and Labor, but it might also be just what the ALP needs; to be rid of Rudd for good.

And stories like this won't do Rudd's chances any good at all; news.com.au reports:

A MAKE-up artist who says she smoothed the complexions of Kevin Rudd and Tony Abbott ahead of last night's people's forum has hinted that the Prime Minister was rude to her.
Lily Fontana, a Brisbane make up artist, took to Facebook after her encounter with the leaders, praising Mr Abbott but saying one of the men had treated her terribly.

Here's the Facebook post in question:

It's not the first time that Mr Rudd has behaved obnoxiously; check out the video at the foot of the news.com.au story, but not at work! But he also gave Tony Abbott the chance to make a memorable comment (the emphasis is ours):

 

Mr Abbott said he did not witness Mr Rudd's interaction with Ms Fontana because she applied his make up "in one room and I imagine the Prime Minister was looked after in another room."
"As for other conversations or lack of conversations (she had), I'll just leave that to Mr Rudd."
Mr Abbott has agreed to another people's forum with Mr Rudd, who he described today as misleading and a liar.
When asked about his outburst last night about whether Mr Rudd would "ever shut up", Mr Abbott said his opponent was "all talk and no action".
"One contest that I can never win against Mr Rudd is a talkathon," Mr Abbott said.
"I'm not against talk - my problem with Mr Rudd is he's all talk and no action and when he does take action it's invariably action that damages people."

With just two weeks until Australia goes to the polls, the tide is going out on Kevin Rudd and Labor. In two weeks time we'll know how badly the tide has gone out.

 

 

 

Rudd's honeymoon is over

Watching the New Zealand TV coverage of the Australian election campaign is interesting. The MSM seems determined to portray Liberal leader Tony Abbott in the worst possible light, whilst indiscretions from Kevin Rudd (and there have been plenty) go without comment. But the Herald this morning suggests that nothing is going to save Kevin Rudd; check this out:

The campaign for Australia's September 7 election continues to fall Opposition Leader Tony Abbott's way as Prime Minister Kevin Rudd struggles to sell both himself and his policies.
Opinion polls are locked into a trend pointing to a Coalition victory, hardened by a series of surveys in key marginal seats predicting Labor wipeouts. Unless Rudd can dramatically reverse these trends in the next three weeks, the Government will struggle to retain the seats it already holds, let alone pick up the extras needed to deliver victory.
Both Rudd and Abbott are set on a do-or-die battle, rejecting alliances with the Greens to form minority Governments, although Labor does now stand a good chance of winning back the Melbourne seat held by sole Greens Lower House MP Adam Bandt.
Rudd's election-opening promise of a "New Way"is falling flat. The message is not resonating with voters under daily siege from Opposition attack advertisements reminding them of six chaotic years of Labor rule.
Labor is returning fire with a scare campaign warning of a slash-and-burn Government under Abbott, who has yet to announce the details of his economic policy and its costings.

They will not be revealed until the final week of the campaign.
Voters will have another chance to assess both leaders in the next face-to-face confrontation at a nationally televised "people's forum" at Brisbane's Broncos League Club on Wednesday.
In the meantime, they have the daily run of headlines and policy statements pouring out through newspapers, social media, television and radio.
So far, Abbott has dominated these.
Appearing confident and assured, he has narrowed his campaign to a small set of key points, hammering them home through slogans and short grabs that present a constant, consistent and potent message.
He has also successfully dismantled the wall Rudd had built to protect the Government on its most vulnerable fronts - the economy, carbon tax and asylum-seekers.
Abbott has sliced through Labor's economic arguments with a blunt axe, reinforcing perceptions that the nation is in deep and worsening strife.
He has ignored Rudd's move to end the carbon tax a year early and move to an emissions trading scheme, lumping them together in a promise to dump it as soon as he wins office.
And while Labor's harsh stand on asylum-seekers has narrowed the gap significantly on the issue, Abbott has kept it alive and to the front of voters' minds by reminding them of the numbers that have arrived since Rudd won power in 2007 and announcing further draconian measures of his own.
Rudd, in contrast, is lacking fire and energy.
His appearances are lacklustre. He has no simple, clear message to define his campaign.

The television coverage here is somewhat reminiscent of the 2005 New Zealand General Election, where the media had a clear and obvious bias against Don Brash. By way of example, there has been barely a mention on TV of Rudd having cheated in a televised debate last week, using notes when that had been prohibited.

But the numbers are not stacking up well for Rudd; read on:

After rallying his troops, Rudd conceded he was struggling and told reporters: "I've been in a few tight spots before and I've managed to fight a way forward. I intend to fight my way forward."
More promises came over the weekend. Rudd pledged hundreds of millions of dollars more for the car industry and big hospital spending in western Sydney; Abbott more money for indigenous employment and a parental leave scheme that would provide six months' leave on full pay plus superannuation for new mothers.
The polls continue to swing his way. A Galaxy poll in News Ltd papers yesterday gave a 52-48 per cent lead to the Coalition, with a series of other polls pointing to Labor losses in key marginal seats.
These include the Brisbane seat of Forde, being contested by former Queensland Premier Peter Beattie, parachuted in to bolster Labor's hopes.

The Beattie move was controversial, and looks to have back-fired on Labor in spectacular fashion. Labor is facing a rout in Queensland. And today there's more bad news for Mr Rudd, this time from South Australia.

As luck would have it, we have a brief trip to Australia planned at the end of the month. It will be most interesting to be on the ground over there for a couple of days just a week out from the election on 7th September. 

Kevin Rudd's honeymoon was brief; now it would seem that the Australian voters can't wait to sign the divorce papers.

KRudd Caption Contest

In showbiz, they say that you should never work with kids or animals. But should the same advice apply in politics? Check this out:

You know the rules; You know the rules; keep 'em short, humourous and pithy, and don't get unnecessarily personal (although this IS Kevin Rudd!). Beyond that, you're limited only by your own imagination.


Go on; you know you want to...

More brilliance from The Civilian

There's a very good reason why The Civilian is on our must-read-daily list; good satire is a rare commodity, but The Civilian normally delivers in spades.

And Ben's latest effort is simply brilliant as he channels Kevin Rudd; check this out:

Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd informs the people of Australia that they have already gone to the polls.

After weeks of speculation, Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has finally announced the date of the upcoming federal election, saying it was yesterday.
In a televised speech, Mr. Rudd told the nation that an election would be – and was in fact – held on Sunday, August 4th, 2013.
“This afternoon I visited the Governor General,” announced Rudd, “and her Excellency has accepted, on my advice, that an election be held yesterday.
“The time has come and gone for the Australian people to decide on our nation’s future. This election will have been about who Australia trusted to lead it through the new economic challenges which now lie before us.
“The Australian people will be and have been asked to choose between a positive, forward-looking government and an Abbott-led government led by Tony Abbott.”
“Tony Abbott is the leader of the Liberal Party and the Coalition,” he added.
Rudd said that he would’ve liked to announce the date sooner, but it was a weekend and he’s been quite busy adjusting to a new job.

Now we all know that Mr Rudd is a pretty slippery customer who makes our politicians look like choirpeople (note the use of inclusive language!), but to cast him as Mugabe-like is stretching it a bit. Then again, both Rudd and Mugabe are cricket tragics, so maybe there's something in that!

Meanwhile, Tony Abbott's ego will be pleased:

Leader of the Opposition Tony Abbott – whose name was mentioned in the Prime Minister’s speech a total of 47 times – did not respond directly to Mr. Rudd, but did release a statement following the speech.
“While this was not the election date we might have anticipated, the Liberal Party and the Coalition remain committed to contesting yesterday’s election,” read the statement. “We will be campaigning hard in the coming days to ensure that we secure all the votes that have already been cast for us.”

Lastly, The Civilian shows the rat-cunning of Mr Rudd:

While official election results are not set to be released until later this week, the Australian Electoral Commission said that a total of one votes were cast. It is widely believed that vote belonged to Mr. Rudd.
Due to Australian electoral law requiring every eligible citizen to vote, it is expected that the rest of the population will face a hefty fine for neglecting their civic duties, and Rudd hopes this will provide the revenue necessary for a large series of new policy initiatives.
Mr. Rudd said now that an election had been held, the bitter division of the past few years could be left to heal, and Australia could “get on with the important business of losing the Ashes.”

This is great stuff from The Civilian, especially Rudd's cunning plan to increase revenue through fines; that's dastardly brilliant! There's just one hiccup; had he held the election the previous Saturday, he wouldn't have had to consider fallout from the Independent Commission Against Corruption before he cast his vote, and his conscience would be less troubled.

Australia looks forward to 7th September

Kevin Rudd seems to have settled on an election date; Stuff reports:

Kevin Rudd plans to visit the Governor-General on Sunday or Monday to seek approval for an election on September 7.
Sources have told Fairfax Media that Mr Rudd has now settled on the date and will fire the starter's gun on what promises to be one of the most intense political contests in memory.
The election campaign comes within days of an extraordinary mini-budget designed to position the government to address changing economic circumstances.
Softening conditions could force an extra 70,000 Australians out of work, as growth slows and Commonwealth revenues collapse by a staggering $33.3 billion over the next four years.
The worsening picture has shredded Labor's budget forecasts which were set just 10 weeks ago, creating a big political headache for the government. 

The Australian economy is not terribly healthy, and new Treasurer Chris Bowen faces some huge challenges; read on:

Australia's jobless rate is officially expected to climb to 6.25 per cent in 2013-14 and 2014-15. The last time the jobless rate was above 6.25 per cent was in September 2002 (6.3 per cent that month in trend terms).
Falling terms of trade and declining tax revenues have sent this year's projected deficit $12 billion higher to $30.1 billion, despite the combined $17.4 billion in spending cuts. A promised balanced budget in 2015-16 has gone by the wayside, despite Treasurer Chris Bowen and Finance Minister Penny Wong sticking with a promised surplus in 2016-17.
But to get there, they plan to send the national balance sheet deeper into the red, first with projected deficits of $24 billion in 2014-15, coming back to $5 billion in the red in 2015-16.
In the job for little over a month, Mr Bowen laid much of the blame at the feet of a slowing Chinese economy. But the opposition attacked the revised economic statement, with its treasury spokesman, Joe Hockey, describing Labor's economic management as ''chaotic'' and its budget ''in free fall''.
Mr Hockey said nearly 800,000 Australians were now likely to be jobless in coming months. 

Labor got a small bounce in the polls when Rudd took over from Julia Gillard after having repeated promised not to challenge for the Labor leadership. But this week's dire economic news, following on from the ICAC fallout where key Labor figures have been accused of corruption, and Rudd's popularity is likely to be at Julia Gillard levels within weeks. Labor is already facing a clean-out in New South Wales, and although Rudd has clawed back some ground in Queensland, it is not going to be enough to save Labor's bacon.

As fate would have it, we have a trip to Australia planned the weekend before the Federal Election. It will be a most interesting time to visit, with the campaign reaching a crescendo. In the meantime, we're sure that Australians can't wait to consign the Rudd/Gillard/Rudd government to the dustbin of history.

Crunch day for the ALP

Whilst the New Zealand Labour Party takes in the bad news delivered by last night's Roy Morgan poll its Australian counterpart faces a nervous day as well. Australia's Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) will release a report today with "adverse findings" against two senior Labor figures in NSW politics.

Kevin Rudd is understandably nervous; News.com.au reports:

IF you throw enough mud some of it will stick.

There's plenty of dirt on the Australian Labor Party contained in a major NSW Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) report released on Wednesday.
The two key Labor figures facing adverse findings - former NSW ministers Eddie Obeid and Ian Macdonald - have been expelled from the party and face criminal charges over the alleged corrupt granting of mining licences.
The federal coalition is keen to ensure the taint spreads all the way to Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's office.
"Today is a black day in the history of the Labor party," Opposition Leader Tony Abbott said.
"The NSW disease has well and truly come to Canberra."
While there's no mention of Rudd in the 174-page ICAC document, it does spend three pages explaining how factions influence the NSW ALP.
These are the same factions that threw their significant weight behind Rudd's return to the federal leadership in June, and helped overthrow him three years earlier in favour of Julia Gillard.

One right-wing sub-faction "in effect ... had control over the ALP", ICAC said.

This really is a nightmare for Kevin Rudd; his "zero tolerance" policy towards corruption is hollow given that these men are among those who backed Rudd's destabilisation of Julia Gillard, and his subsequent leadership coup. He cannot simply wipe away history.

And there's more to come; read on:

Rudd and Labor will also be concerned about another ICAC report expected in August, probably during the federal election campaign.
It will examine a coal exploration licence granted by Macdonald to a company run by ex-union boss John Maitland and entrepreneurs.
The inquiry called two senior federal MPs to the witness stand - NSW Senator Doug Cameron and former minister Greg Combet.
Two others, Stephen Conroy and Tony Burke, were also mentioned as having been offered free accommodation at Obeid's Perisher Valley ski lodge.
The ICAC hearings have been keenly followed by voters in NSW's 48 federal seats.

The timing of these reports from the ICAC couldn't be worse for Rudd and Labor. The reports do nothing to diminish perceptions that Labor has a rotten streak running through it.

And unsurprisingly, the Liberals have been quick to respond, with this image doing the rounds:

Kevin Rudd's honeymoon is well and truly over.