Kevin Rudd kicked off his re-election campaign last week, under the cover of the health and hospitals reform debate.
Admittedly it’s an artificial distinction, since the health reform agenda is a key component of the Rudd re-election strategy, but he took it from the national and high-level down to the electorate level. He’s now spent a full week selling health in Queensland, the bulk of it in regional centres, targeting marginal electorates.
Last Tuesday, it was Rockhampton (to do the now-traditional flyover of the oilspill), then to Cairns, where there was a sort of re-announcement of a cancer centre and dentistry school that is partly Commonwealth-funded. There was also an announcement of a $100,000 grant for after-hours GP services. That’s the marginal seat of Leichhardt, where Labor’s Jim Turnour faces a strong challenge from a returning Warren Entsch.
On Wednesday it was Townsville (that’s Herbert, held by Peter Lindsay in 2007 by a razor-thin margin and now notionally Labor) where Rudd announced $67.5m for expanded cancer services at Townsville Hospital and extra funding for cancer services at Mt Isa.
Thursday it was Mackay — that’s Dawson, where Mike Brunker is the ALP candidate to replace James Bidgood — and over $1m for the local Mater Misericordiae Hospital, before heading to Rockhampton — that’s Kirsten Livermore’s Capricornia — and a trip to the local hospital to announce another $67m in funding for cancer treatment.
Friday it was Bundaberg, then Gladstone. More announcements, more dollars. Rudd took Saturday off, but there was still an announcement of more funding for medical workforce training. On Sunday he was off to QE2 Jubilee Hospital in Brisbane. That was the backdrop to his announcement of $500m for a 4 hour emergency ward waiting target.
Today he’s still in Brisbane — the Royal Brisbane and Women’s Hospital. The announcement of a $740m aged care package has been carefully prepped. Both that and the emergency waiting target are part of the massive bribe Rudd is offering Premiers to come on board his hospitals reform plan, although the restructuring of aged care funding also announced today is a key reform in a sector that has faced a growing underfunding problem in the face of accelerating demand.
Where’s all this money coming from? Good question. It’s all coming out of the Budget, with no offsetting savings announced as yet. If Tony Abbott was making such announcements, the Government and the media would be chasing him demanding to know what programs he’d be cutting to pay for it.
Abbott isn’t making any announcements — he’s pedalling through the countryside in southern NSW as part of Pollie Pedal. Pollie Pedal is a great fundraiser and Abbott’s commitment to it is fantastic. But it was a stark contrast last week between Rudd hammering these regional marginals and Abbott on his bike ride. The ride had been rebranded a “listening tour”, after all the comments about Abbott wearing too much lycra, bringing to three the number of listening tours conducted by the Opposition since the last election.
It’s a little late in the electoral cycle to be listening.
Labor going for Peter Lindsay in Herbert is no surprise. But judging by the Bundaberg and Hervey Bay announcements clearly they also fancy their chances of knocking off Paul Neville. Despite the best efforts of the ALP candidate, a 6.65% swing against Neville took Hinkler into marginal territory in 2007, and this time the avuncular Neville, who recently celebrated his 70th birthday, is up against local councillor Belinda McNeven, who joined Rudd when he visited Bundaberg.
The benefit of such pre-election campaigning is that Rudd’s announcement are made by an incumbent Prime Minister, and without the distraction of the electoral contest. Voters are becoming inured to politicians announcing big-spending proposals during election campaigns. Last week’s announcements — particularly in the context of a national health reform debate — don’t come across as so cynical, and they get more coverage than they would during the hectic media environment of the campaign itself.
Where’s the LNP marginal seat campaign in response? Apparently still on the drawing board. The conservatives have a lot of catching up to do up north.
Sound strategy from the PM. It also has another benefit — this drip feeding of announcements stops the ” … it’s too big and too complicated and you didn’t explain it properly” accusation which was one of the nails in the ETS coffin.
The way this has been done, it has made it personal to the constituents, and it gives everyone time to digest the material.
The other thing, Rudd went AWOL for a short time over Xmas and Abbott used the hiatus to hammer Rudd in every which way he could.Rudd is now returning the favour, but again he is using ‘positive’ messages — and when Abbott does speak, he is still using negative ones.
Did Abbott learn nothing from the health debate? (Note that despite the usual predictions, the debate is far from forgotten.)
The PM’s fleeting visit to Townsville to drop $67.5m into some kitty or other, papered over a yawning chasm in the local Labor faithful. Labor’s National Executive has parachuted ex-mayor Tony Mooney straight through the pre-selection process and now a core group of rank and file ALP members is campaigning against Mooney. Their 29 March letter to members (and others) makes the point that Labor does not need Herbert and that Labor voters in Townsville don’t want Mooney and his “cronies” bullying their way through the ALP pre-selection process. It might be hard to believe but they seem to be saying they will put Labor last on the ballot paper if that’s what it takes for the ALP to get the message.