Given how thin Tony Abbott’s Budget Reply was last night, it’s only fitting that he should end up in the firing line of what wasn’t there, rather than what was. His disastrous interview this morning with Neil Mitchell — when Abbott stuffs up, he really stuffs up — came a cropper on Phil Coorey’s scoop that Abbott had been rolled by shadow cabinet over his plan to throw more money at one of his favourite interest groups, stay-at-home mothers.
Abbott billed the Budget Reply as critical in the transition from opposition to alternative government, so he himself built it up and set the benchmark for how it should be assessed. Four things emerged from it.
First, Abbott still has a problem with being perceived as an economic lightweight. The sheer lack of content of the speech meant it was a huge missed opportunity to go some of the way to addressing voter concerns that, as Peter Costello said, Tony Abbott finds economics boring. That will continue to be problem for Abbott regardless of what the government does, because his shadow Treasurer is a bloke who has done a fair bit to justify the government’s nickname “Sloppy Joe”. Unfortunately, Abbott has left Hockey to do the donkey work of announcing savings cuts next week.
Second, by switching tack away from debt-n-deficits in favour of targeting the RSPT, and by committing only to return to surplus at least as fast as the government, Abbott has quietly acknowledged that the government has won the economic competence debate it was clearly aiming for with its “faster return to surplus” theme. That it has done this, despite a $40 billion deficit next year, is a remarkable failure on the part of the Opposition — a failure to ensure that that number is uppermost in voters’ minds.
Third, Abbott has correctly sensed that Kevin Rudd is Labor’s weak link at the moment, and that his performance on the RSPT so far has been abysmal. By making the mining tax a crucial part of his election strategy, Abbott is setting Rudd a test that, on his recent performance, he seems destined to fail miserably — to effectively prosecute the case for the tax and clearly explain how it fits into the government’s basic story about the economy. Kevin Rudd — Rudd, personally — could yet lose this election for Labor, unless he rediscovers his capacity to communicate with voters and offer them a compelling narrative. Abbott’s political instincts have served him well here.
Fourthly, Abbott declared he would be bringing back elements of WorkChoices. Quite why he did this is a complete mystery — certainly to Labor figures, who were astonished and delighted that he chose to do so without any apparent need. The Liberals keep insisting they have learnt their lessons from 2007. Abbott’s insistence that voters in effect got it wrong and the Liberals want to try again suggests they haven’t come close to understanding what happened back then.
What happened was that the Liberals got mugged by a brilliant union campaign. And unlike the parliamentary party, the unions won’t be hampered by having Kevin Rudd leading their communication strategy.
Inexplicable.
“Kevin Rudd is Labor’s weak link at the moment”
There is a weasel words aspect to that “at the moment”. How does Rudd go from being the government’s biggest asset to its biggest liability in a few short months?
The answer is: he hasn’t. He has displayed weaknesses in articulating the government’s direction but there are no problems that cannot be fairly readily fixed. When, in a few months, Rudd’s ascendancy is renewed (admittedly at a lower level than the previous stratospheric highs) and we look back on the current Rudd-gloom journalists like Keane will have an out – I was only talking “at (that) moment”.
Gotta love this weakest link rant. OK so some programs got dumped and the only reason many didn’t hear the message is because they were too busy screaming that Kate Ellis was a junior minister who should not be allowed to do her job by announcing that saving almost all the ABC child care centres negated the need to build more.
Then Combet was dismissed as being some junior stooge yet he has more gravitas than most.
Why on earth the media think Rudd is a total control freak on one hand then whine when he isn’t is beyond me.
The only reason Rudd has fallen in the polls lately is that they were based on stupid lies.
How can it possibly be clever for Abbott to decide to be a shill for the mining companies? And to state that this will be the centrepiece of his election campaign? This is a position that is destined to blow-up in his face. The mining company constituency is tiny, except perhaps in WA, and mining workers have come out and said that the tax is justified and will have a negligible impact on employment in their industry.
Meanwhile, the government has set a slow-fuse bomb in Abbott’s large and small business constituency. Small business owners, always easy to infuriate, will be hopping-mad that ‘their’ party wants to deny them a tax cut.
This has the makings of a monumental Liberal disaster. There is nothing clever about it.
I’m certain that small business owners are happy to lose 2% company tax than see the loon Rudd in power for another incredibly destructive 3 years.
They know he’s a cowboy.
I’ll bet they’ll also be delighted to hear about sensible changes to Gillard’s Not-So Fair Work Australia.
They will wont a stop to a capricious silly Rudd government most of all.
Great stuff Bernard! What a load of codswallop the budget reply speech was. Obviously Tony Abbott was given his instructions last week when he met the mining heavies in Canberra – to totally oppose the RSPT in all forums. That seemed to be about the first, second and third objective in the aforementioned speech. The economy came a very poor fourth.
BTW I have been listening to the ABC this morning. Firstly, ABC891 (SA) had Tony Wright from the Age on air parroting the Abbott line about the tax on tobacco reducing the number of smokers, but the RSPT increasing mineral production – how could this be so? Ha Ha. These bloody journalists are the joke. No challenge from the ABC morning presenters either. One is hard pressed to know if this is bias or just plain stupidity!
Secondly, ABC News radio have just broadcast the opening few minutes of a speech Abbott is making to a LIBERAL PARTY gathering (? in Sydney) spouting the usual propaganda, with further grabs from same speech broadcast every 15 minutes or so. The blatant manipulation of the masses continues. Don’t remember Rudd being given the same air time when addressing Labor Party functions.
Finally, just love the on-line poll from News radio today asking whether Abbott is correct in advocating the reduction of over-all numbers in the Public Service. No guesses on the result!!