Here we go. It looks like we are starting the period which will give us a feel for whether Rudd will win the next election (something that, surprisingly, everyone seems to be already so clear about, especially given the confusion over the last one).
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Wilson Tuckey thinks that Rudd's walk out of the Chamber ahead of the vote on Belinda Neal represented a lack of confidence in her. Well, duh! Read more »
Writing about the potential weaknesses of the Rudd government is by no means to join in the wailing media pack who thinks they are already fully evident (to all except the electorate). They are not. The government is only in the process of consolidating power. However, as the main points of Rudd’s agenda start to take shape, it is fairly easy to see some potential problems.
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George Megalogenis sums up the confusion in some parts of the media over what happened last week. It was not about Labor's 3.8c off petrol versus the Liberal's 5c cut. It was about the political class renegotiating its relevance with the electorate in a period when political parties have lost their meaning.
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Question Time was a mess yesterday for the government but Rudd has no choice here but to plough on. The promise to put petrol GST in the tax review should buy it some time until it is due to be handed down next year. However, this is not really about petrol excise but the PM’s assertion that there is nothing much more he can do.
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To mark the first anniversary of the NT intervention in Parliament, Rudd set out its achievements for the indigenous children of the Northern Territory;
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As the media continues to portray the Rudd government as the most popular ever to stumble from crisis to crisis, it is clear that something has happened to the media’s relationship with the government. Since the Budget, its honeymoon with the government is clearly over, even if the electorate’s isn’t.
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Given the media’s current dislocation from the political process, summed up by the bizarre panel discussion on Sunday’s Insiders, which painted the government as stumbling from crisis to crisis after a fortnight when it either held onto its massive polling lead (Newspoll) or increased it (Morgan), it seems as good a time as any to do a quick round up of Rudd’s agenda that is causing such Read more »
The Liberals' euphoria is understandable. They are so self-absorbed that they seriously believe a leaked cabinet submission and the normal sort of jostling from departmental bureaucrats is a mirror of their own divisions. Anyone comparing Ferguson's apologetic self-flagellation with Turnbull's egotistical manoeuvrings at the press club will see which is a result of a bureaucracy yet to be disciplined (and a party that already appears to be) and which is a sign of political decay.
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This has been a highly revealing couple of days. A mistake being made by the media on Rudd's “nothing more we can do” statement is to say that it was just a slip. It is not, it goes to the core of what Rudd's government is about. However, the lack of support from his Ministers and the partial climbdown by Swan to put petrol GST up for review shows that he has not yet laid the grounds for it.
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