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| Election debate: Rudd more direct at last but Abbott never wavered | Election debate: Rudd more direct at last but Abbott never wavered |
| (21 days later) | |
| Kevin Rudd did OK in the immediate battle of last night's debate – he was less tetchy and his answers were more direct and easier to understand. But take one step back and it's easy to see why the Coalition is winning the electoral war. | Kevin Rudd did OK in the immediate battle of last night's debate – he was less tetchy and his answers were more direct and easier to understand. But take one step back and it's easy to see why the Coalition is winning the electoral war. |
| Tony Abbott's messages have been the same for the campaign – hell, they've been almost the same for the past three years. He claims to have immediate and concrete policies to make the economy better – axe the carbon and mining taxes, cut red tape, tough cop on the construction beat etc, etc, etc. And he says Labor has been a shambles. | Tony Abbott's messages have been the same for the campaign – hell, they've been almost the same for the past three years. He claims to have immediate and concrete policies to make the economy better – axe the carbon and mining taxes, cut red tape, tough cop on the construction beat etc, etc, etc. And he says Labor has been a shambles. |
| Rudd's messages, on the other hand, have been drifting all over the map. | Rudd's messages, on the other hand, have been drifting all over the map. |
| He was making some headway for a while with his negative campaign focused on the spectre of Abbott's budget cuts – with the paid parental leave scheme the emblem of the big spending stuff that will force cuts to be made elsewhere. | He was making some headway for a while with his negative campaign focused on the spectre of Abbott's budget cuts – with the paid parental leave scheme the emblem of the big spending stuff that will force cuts to be made elsewhere. |
| But then he started talking about bogglingly expensive and minimally thought-through plans of his own – to move the navy around and cut tax in the Northern Territory and build a high-speed train – which gave the Coalition an easy response: how was Labor going to pay for those? | But then he started talking about bogglingly expensive and minimally thought-through plans of his own – to move the navy around and cut tax in the Northern Territory and build a high-speed train – which gave the Coalition an easy response: how was Labor going to pay for those? |
| And the Coalition has played a clever tactical game, criticising the spending cuts Labor announced in its pre-election economic statement before pocketing all but one of them on Wednesday, and making sure its costing processes are rigorous but releasing the actual figures in such a way that it remains impossible to figure out a budget bottom line which they might be held to. | And the Coalition has played a clever tactical game, criticising the spending cuts Labor announced in its pre-election economic statement before pocketing all but one of them on Wednesday, and making sure its costing processes are rigorous but releasing the actual figures in such a way that it remains impossible to figure out a budget bottom line which they might be held to. |
| The result is Abbott appears to have succeeded in keeping his fictitious "budget emergency" alive just long enough to maintain an economic attack, but has now executed a mid-campaign volte face to say the emergency isn't so bad after all and he won't have to do anything radical to rush the budget back to surplus. | The result is Abbott appears to have succeeded in keeping his fictitious "budget emergency" alive just long enough to maintain an economic attack, but has now executed a mid-campaign volte face to say the emergency isn't so bad after all and he won't have to do anything radical to rush the budget back to surplus. |
| Meanwhile, Labor's "positive" campaign has been a meandering and apparently directionless affair, beginning with the promise of a "new way" and a cost of living theme with $450m for before- and after-school care services, before veering between relatively small announcements for small business, medical research and manufacturing and the grand, uncosted promises on the never never on railways and the navy. Peppered throughout have been forays into Rudd's favourite stomping ground of foreign affairs – entirely understandable in relation to the unfolding crisis in Syria but less so when it comes to the release of "country plans" for India, Japan and China. | Meanwhile, Labor's "positive" campaign has been a meandering and apparently directionless affair, beginning with the promise of a "new way" and a cost of living theme with $450m for before- and after-school care services, before veering between relatively small announcements for small business, medical research and manufacturing and the grand, uncosted promises on the never never on railways and the navy. Peppered throughout have been forays into Rudd's favourite stomping ground of foreign affairs – entirely understandable in relation to the unfolding crisis in Syria but less so when it comes to the release of "country plans" for India, Japan and China. |
| And then in Wednesday night's debate he took a brief and unexpected detour into apparent economic nationalism, saying he wanted to look carefully at the rules for foreign ownership of agricultural land and the laws protecting farmers from the evil duopoly of Coles and Woolies. | And then in Wednesday night's debate he took a brief and unexpected detour into apparent economic nationalism, saying he wanted to look carefully at the rules for foreign ownership of agricultural land and the laws protecting farmers from the evil duopoly of Coles and Woolies. |
| In a campaign in which voters appear underwhelmed by both leaders a clear and concrete message is critical. And Labor is struggling to find one. | In a campaign in which voters appear underwhelmed by both leaders a clear and concrete message is critical. And Labor is struggling to find one. |
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