Forget climate change, asylum seekers, the debt, industrial relations and company tax. None of these issues will decide the election. It’s not just because there is no real difference between the major parties on any of these issues. In fact the reason why there is no real difference between the two parties is because the real deciding issue of this election is stability – or, to put it more bluntly, which party can show it’s the least dysfunctional to run the government.

For most of the last three years it has been the Liberals who have clearly looked the most dysfunctional. But over the last six months it has been shifting back to Labor, and now has come out to such an extent that Labor is in danger of losing power.

Comparisons are being made between this Cabinet leak and the leak in the last election that Turnbull argued in Cabinet to sign up to Kyoto. But that at least was about Turnbull saving his seat, even if doing no good to the government at the time. Read more »

It’s easy to get the feeling from the Liberal campaign so far that there is a whole stack of ads and ideas they had prepared to use against Rudd that they are now desperately having to recycle for Gillard. This ad pretty well sums it up; a few morph tricks but otherwise running all the same old stuff that they were going to use for Rudd – debt, home insulation, waste in education etc.

However, by saying it’s simply more of the same, the ad glides over the implications of the change of leadership. As a result, it misses the central point; the dumping was very much part of the loss of control in the government that allowed the positives of the stimulus to become portrayed as negatives. In short, this is a fairly ordinary ad to respond to an extraordinary situation. Read more »

They are two great Australians, passionate about their politics, having a passionate discussion and I’d have to say as someone with an intense interest in politics I’m enjoying it.

J Gillard on Bob v Paul 15 July 2010

It’s nice that Julia is enjoying it, because as far as this blogger is concerned, it is boring. But more on Bob v Paul in a minute, first on Julia v Kevin.

If what was implied by Laurie Oakes’s question is correct, then Gillard’s vow to keep silent about what happened between her, Rudd and Faulkner that night is pretty irrelevant – since they both went off to their separate camps to report on what had or not been agreed. Gillard’s takeover of course was not about Gillard acting alone, but with the backing of major party brokers, so no doubt they would have been kept in the loop as to what was on offer, just as Rudd’s (smaller) camp was. Read more »

If all the hints being given are correct, it seems that Gillard is wasting no time rushing towards an election.

Why? The media have been discussing the rapid approach of an election as though it is perfectly natural, indeed some have demanded it. Yet the idea of a newly installed leader rushing quickly to an election is quite unusual. You only have to cast the mind back to the speculation over Costello taking over from Howard before the last election. All the smart punditry was talking about the need for Costello, if he was going to challenge Howard, to do it quickly so that he had enough time to establish himself before going to the polls. There was a similar discussion going on when Keating actually did take over from Hawke.

It would seem especially necessary given the way Gillard’s accession to the leadership was presented. If Rudd had fallen under a bus, then it would simply be more of the same and so now is as good as a time as any. Read more »

Anyone old enough to remember this?

Those in the Labor party who are joining the media’s politically convenient Rudd-bashing are forgetting one politically inconvenient fact – there has been no government since Federation like the one they are now in, that came to power so reliant on the one they are now trashing. Read more »

Andrew Dyson SMH

Twelve months ago, the government had two excellent weapons against the Liberal party; Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard. In the last few weeks the ALP has helped destroy one and damage the other. The Liberals must be laughing.

Rudd’s ability to get under the Liberals skin did not come from any left wing critique – rather the opposite. What had been the left’s favourite attack on Howard, for example, his Workchoices policy, was actually toned down by Rudd as soon as he got in. Instead, it was Rudd’s ability to detach himself from and criticise the old political framework that made him ruthless against a party that was still very much caught up in it. Rudd’s ‘anti-politics’ focussed on the emptiness and redundancies of the political agendas of parties that had yet to find a replacement. Read more »

Key Labor MPs are prepared to move against Kevin Rudd’s leadership to make way for Julia Gillard as early as next week.

Dennis Shanahan 19 June 2010

Hang on a second. What happened between Saturday and three days before, when Shanahan was writing this about Rudd?

Kevin Rudd’s leadership is under threat, but it is not subject to a challenge. … For all of this anxiety, there is no leadership challenge under way, in any form.

Nothing much, but that another Newspoll was approaching and it was time to crank up the excitement because, as The Australian constantly reminds us, it is the most important on the political landscape. Peter van Onselen building up the tension in the same newspaper tells us:

Newspoll continues to dominate people’s minds in terms of how both the parties and the party leaders are faring. Read more »

Australian politics would seem to be in a strange place at the moment. Rudd is being criticised for backing away from the ETS by those who a few months ago were criticising him for hanging on to it. Rudd apparently made the mistake of over-promising by the same media that claimed he won by not promising anything and being a mini-Howard. On boat people, it’s hard to tell whether he’s losing more voters by being too tough on them, or not tough enough. Rudd seems to be constantly avoiding a fight with anyone but is deemed mad for picking a fight with a major interest group in the run up to an election.

The confusion is summed up by the media’s reaction to the polling rise of the Greens where a program like Insiders can give serious thought to Chris Pyne’s bizarre suggestion that the move by voters to the Greens represents a stepping point on their way to the Coalition (Really? On which policy?). Read more »