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.

 

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.

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.

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.

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.

Quote of the Day - 27 July 2013

This one comes from Andrew Bolt, in the Herald Sun:

Same deal on boats. Abbott's promise to "stop the boats" in his first three years always seemed dodgy.
Too many are now coming and stopping them would take more toughness than the Senate, the courts and the media were likely to allow. But then came Rudd.
Desperate to fix a problem he caused by scrapping our tough border laws in 2008, Rudd promised something tougher than any politician before him.
All boat people as of last Friday would be sent to Papua New Guinea, he declared. None would ever settle in Australia.
With that, Rudd didn't just give Abbott the basis of a deal he himself could use in government. He also destroyed Labor's moral grandstanding.
As Opposition leader in 2006, Rudd preached that "the parable of the good Samaritan is but one of many which deal with the matter of how we should respond to a vulnerable stranger in our midst. That is why the Government's proposal to . . . rely almost exclusively on the so-called Pacific Solution should be the cause of great ethical concern to all the Christian churches".
This same man now has Labor backing a Pacific Solution on steroids. Labor promises to send all boat people - mainly Muslim - to a poor, corrupt and violent country that bans homosexuality and unanimously passed a motion in Parliament to consider banning non-Christian faiths, too.
Could any Labor MP backing Rudd's plan today berate Abbott for being mean tomorrow to the "stranger in our midst"?
That Rudd's plan is already in tatters, less than a week later, will make Labor's objections to Abbott's plans seem even emptier.
Already more boat people - 355 - have arrived since Friday than there are beds left at the Manus detention centre, the one PNG facility ready to receive anyone.
Already another boat has sunk, with dozens feared dead.
Already PNG is suggesting there may be a cap to the boat people it accepts.
In other ways, too, Rudd has smoothed the way of a Prime Minister Abbott.

Kevin Rudd's back-flip on boat people is as insincere as it is unsurprising. Can anything that Kevin Rudd now says be taken seriously?

And let's not get started on the back-flip on Julia Gillard's much-reviled carbon tax...