Lenore Taylor, political editor

theguardian.com, Wednesday 28 August 2013

Undecided voters in western Sydney force Coalition leader and Kevin Rudd to defend their economic credentials

Tony Abbott listens to Kevin Rudd in the third debate in Sydney on Wednesday. Photograph: Alan Porritt/AFP/Pool/Getty Images

Tony Abbott has promised to delay a surplus rather than break his election promises even if he inherits a worse-than-expected budget, as undecided voters in western Sydney forced the leaders to defend their economic credentials in the third televised leaders' debate.

The Coalition had laid the groundwork for the debate by releasing $31.6bn in savings earlier Wednesday, which meant Abbott was better able to answer Kevin Rudd's allegation that he was hiding budget "cuts" but allowed the prime minister to highlight the Coalition's intention to abandon tax breaks for small businesses.

"One of the reasons I am making fairly modest additional commitments in this campaign, why I have been quite upfront about $31bn in reasonable savings, is because I don't want to find after the election that we can't keep commitments," Abbott said.

And when pushed to answer whether he would delay a surplus or keep his promises he said, "Yes, we'll keep them all," in an answer that completes the Coalition's transition from the immediate "budget emergency" it declared from opposition to the more cautious approach to budgeting it intends to take if, as all major polls are suggesting, it wins government on 7 September.

Pressed on the budget deficit and the national debt, Rudd repeatedly reminded the audience of the global financial crisis, saying "the reason we borrowed temporarily during the GFC was because the alternative was to see the economy going into recession … to see small businesses collapse and unemployment levels rise." And he attacked Abbott for not matching Labor's six-year promises for school funding.

Abbott was again forced to defend his paid parental leave scheme, which Labor strategists insist is an electoral liability for the Coalition.

Challenged over his paid parental leave plan by a forklift driver from Mount Druitt, who asked why he should be "be paying his taxes so the pretty little lady lawyer on the north shore can have a kid", Abbott said the premise of the question wasn't true because the "lion's share" of the scheme was funded by the 1.5% levy on big business.

But Rudd's central attack line about Abbott's "unfunded promises" and "hidden cuts" was somewhat undermined when he was challenged by a questioner over his own "thought bubbles" and uncosted policies on moving the navy north, lowering the company tax rate in the Northern Territory and building a high-speed train.

"If you are going to make commitments that are right out for the long term it is much better if you have a record of delivering on your promises," Abbott said, saying he intended to "underpromise and overdeliver rather than make promises on the never never".

Although Abbott is under internal pressure from the National party and some rural Liberals to take a more populist position on foreign ownership and competition policy, it was Rudd who appeared to indicate a change to Labor's long-held policies in both areas.

On foreign acquisition of agricultural land Rudd said he was "a bit anxious about simply an open slather approach" and would prefer to see foreign investment as part of a joint venture with Australian companies.

"I am looking very carefully about how this affects the overall balance of land acquisition in Australia … I think when it comes to rural land, land more generally, then perhaps we need to adopt a more cautious approach," he said.

And on competition policy, Rudd said he was concerned about the impact of the supermarket duopoly of Coles and Woolworths on small farmers.

"Farmers say they are getting squeezed and squeezed by Coles and Woolies," he said, promising to "have to look at how we provide better guarantees for proper competitive conduct so the man and woman on the farm are not carrying the can".

Abbott held the line on Coalition policy, saying that if the foreign purchase of land was judged to be in the national interest then he was in favour of it, and pointing out he was proposing tougher anti-dumping rules.

Neither leader snapped at the other in the manner of Abbott's "does this guy ever shut up" line from the second debate, although when Abbott said during one answer that he would try not to waffle, Rudd replied that the answer had in fact been "waffle cubed". And before the debate Abbott's wife, Margie, and Rudd's wife, Therese, and daughter, Jessica, had what appeared to be a friendly conversation.

The questions from the audience of 100 undecided voters at the Rooty Hill RSL were primarily focused on services and the economy, raising issues neither leader has talked much about, including dental care and aged care.

Asked about environmental policy, Abbott said the answer was a strong economy.

"If we have a stronger economy we are more likely to be able to have the environmental safeguards we want … poor countries tend to have worse environmental outcomes than rich ones," he said.

Abbott also promised he would not close any of Labor's Medicare Local centres, a shift from the policy restated by his health spokesman Peter Dutton on Tuesday when he said that said that they would be "reviewed" and those that did not deliver frontline services could be closed.

Tony Abbott 'would delay surplus before breaking election vows' | World news | theguardian.com

By ABC's Annabel Crabb

Photo: Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and Opposition leader Tony Abbott shake hands before a debate. (AAP: Lukas Coch)

The third leaders' debate painted a good picture of what the two party leaders have on offer. With Tony Abbott, you always get the same lines but with Kevin Rudd it's the luck of the draw, writes Annabel Crabb.

Ah, Rooty Hill. Wedged firmly into Labor's Axis of Anxiety in Sydney's western suburbs, it borders seats like Lindsay and Greenway, Labor-held by margins that would be eminently survivable blood-alcohol levels.

This is an area that has killed before; at the 2011 state election, the local electorate fielded an 18 per cent swing against Labor.

When Julia Gillard came a-calling here in March, she was hastened to a sticky end.

She debated Tony Abbott here too, three years ago, back when Labor's talk was of a cash-for-clunkers scheme and Tony Abbott's was of stopping the boats, ending the waste and stomping out carbon taxes.

Last night, his talk was of stopping boats, ending the waste and stomping out carbon taxes.

This is Campaign Tony: The same thing every day, for years on end, with only the odd campaign howler to relieve the monotony.

(Last night's was an awkward reference by the Opposition Leader to his "modest" superannuation assets, a term which - after distinct scoffing from the crowd - he was forced hastily to admit applied only to his pre-parliamentary super.)

Even the paid parental leave scheme, a Tonyism that colleagues prayed fervently would be forgotten, abandoned or quietly strangled during some lonely stretch on the Pollie Pedal, is there again this election, unchanged, with its brain-hurting algorithm of tax hikes and cuts.

It's baffling in many ways that this creation would become Tony Abbott's calling-card, this scheme which was described by one Rooty Hill questioner last night as a device by which Mt Druitt forklift drivers would be fleeced so that "pretty little lawyers on the North Shore" could have their babies underwritten by the state.

It may be baffling, but it doesn't seem to be changing, and Mr Abbott cheerfully defended it against all comers last night, as he always does.

No matter where you are on this election campaign, you always get the same Tony Abbott, and you always get the same lines.

But where the Prime Minister is concerned, it's the luck of the draw.

Last night there were flashes of 2007 Kevin, as - asked by Mr Abbott to give some positive reasons for a Labor vote - the Prime Minister listed schools, hospitals and fast broadband before cheekily offering his famously bruised handshake hand to seal the deal.

There was 2008 Kevin, reliving at length the dilemmas presented by the Global Financial Crisis.

And - towards the end of last night's encounter - there was Nationalist Kevin, who declared himself "a bit nervous… a bit anxious, frankly" about sales of Australian land to foreign investors. He declared himself to be in support of a "more cautious approach" on foreign investment.

Having also recently visited a growers' market and heard tales of the Coles/Woolworths duopoly, he declared himself "very worried about that, big-time," and promised to have a think about ways to help.

"That is a deep response and feeling I have to what's going on out there," he declared.

Foreign investment and the supermarket duopoly are pure Katter-nip, of course, and there were plenty of observers last night who swore they could see the ghostly aura of a hat hovering over the Prime Minister's saintly fringe.

Later, in response to a lady who wanted earlier access to her superannuation funds, Mr Rudd all but promised to look into it.

At every turn during this campaign, the Prime Minister has offered up the phantoms of future Kevins; the things he might offer, given 10 years, given the right circumstances. He could change to please you; That's Kevin's pitch.

Tony won't: That's his.

Annabel Crabb is the ABC's chief online political writer. View her full profile here.

Leaders' debate paints some pretty little pitches - The Drum (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

By ABC's Jonathan Green

Photo: The Government has probably given the News Corp campaign more credit than is due. (Daily Telegraph)

It is immense flattery to suggest that the biased screams of newspapers that few people trust will be a determining influence this federal election, writes Jonathan Green.

It's as established an element of our modern campaigning as a bar stool on a stage at the Rooty Hill RSL: the ongoing discussion around the role and effect of the political media.

It's an argument of many parts, most notably this time round dealing with the impact of the tabloid screaming war waged against the Rudd campaign, a war that began with "Kick this mob out!" splashed across the front of the Daily Telegraph on day one, and one that has barely drawn a civil breath since.

And indeed, there is much that might be said about an American media mogul having such a strong voice in the Australian political landscape ... the Kraft to our Vegemite.

More than 60 per cent of newspapers sold in this country fly the News Corp flag; a dominant market position that must present certain temptations to a proprietor of strong views and a fondness for the sound of his own influence.

But much of the bluster around the Murdoch campaign in this election, a campaign not so much for Abbott as against Rudd, is based on a pretty fundamental assumption: that there is an audience tuned in to the Murdoch press that is susceptible to its influence.

Chances are that is a pretty big assumption, one that might flatter the vanity of the proprietor, and say more about the impact of mass circulation tabloids than is merited in a time in which trust in some quarters of the traditional media is in strong decline.

The simple fact is that fewer and fewer people actually believe the Daily Telegraph and its ilk, a necessary precondition, you might imagine, for vote-turning influence.

Pollsters Essential regularly survey consumer trust in various media products. On August 19 they asked, how much trust do you have in the way the following media have reported and commented on the election campaign so far?

The totals of respondents who placed some or a lot of trust in various outlets does not flatter newspapers like the Daily Telegraph. Its trust total is 25 per cent. Or to put that another way, 75 per cent of the survey's respondents either don't read the Tele, have no particular view of its trustworthiness or, at 49 per cent, have little or no trust in the biggest selling daily newspaper in New South Wales.

Now, it's entirely possible that earning the trust of its audience is not high in the editorial priorities of the Daily Telegraph. People (in declining numbers) read a newspaper for many reasons: to be entertained, to be outraged, perhaps even for news and opinion. But it would probably be fair to assume that in order to be a potent tool for political influence, trust is important.

It's equally possible that the shrill advocacy of political self interest that the Murdoch tabloids have indulged in through the course of this campaign is actually undermining the quality of the relationship they enjoy with their audiences. And sagging trust must surely show eventually in sales, a point at which, it's safe to predict, the tabloids might be tempted to soften their polemic.

It is a conventional wisdom of our times that people are increasingly disengaged from the day to day of our politics. Having a newspaper shout its advocacy down their throats might not be a winning tactic in the war for circulation.

Not that circulation is the be all and end all. Niche Murdoch publications like The Australian are proof that commercial failure can be indulged if there is a pay-off through the daily capacity to shape the news agenda. There's little doubt that The Australian - trust factor 31 per cent and with a readership that challenges the routine definitions of "mass media" - punches well above the weight of its slim circulation in agenda-tilting influence.

It may well be that through the course of this campaign both the Government and its sympathisers have given the News Corp campaign more credit than is in all likelihood due. Papers that few people trust screaming political invective at the top of their lungs might not be a determining political influence.

For one thing, it's just the sort of top-down 'father knows best' approach to publishing that is the very essence of dinosaur media ... a sense of the audience relationship that is unchanged from the comfortable one-way street of 20th century journalism and one that is quickly being overwhelmed by the new age of interactivity, diversity and quick response.

All of which is to say that while pushing a heated and emphatic political line might be an institutional habit and act of faith for the Murdoch empire, it's a leap of the imagination that flatters the waning impact of newspapers to say that it could actually determine the outcome of an election.

It may suit the "evil empire" prejudices of the anti-Murdoch left to argue that case, as much as it might flatter the vanity of Murdoch and his minions, but the assumption that the shouted demands of a tabloid newspaper can steer a voting public that is either spoilt for media choice or actively disengaged from federal politics seems fanciful.

That disengagement seems to be a more telling factor than any other. The same sense of near universal "whatever" that has enabled a campaign marked by persistent "truthiness" and misrepresentation suggests that politicians these days need to present little more than consistent insistence to convince the voting public.

In any event, 65 per cent of us take the slightly defeated position that either party will do or say anything to win our favour.

In an atmosphere so poisoned by that kind of jaded electoral ennui, what the Daily Telegraph has to say on the matter is neither here nor there, and far from our biggest political problem.

Jonathan Green is the presenter of Sunday Extra on Radio National and a former editor of The Drum. View his full profile here.

Reading isn't believing when it comes to newspapers - The Drum (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

By Mike Steketee

Photo: Circumstances change, confronting governments with the choice between keeping promises that no longer make sense or breaking them. (News Online Brisbane)

Tony Abbott says he wants to stop the "trust deficit" in federal politics. But it is hardly surprising that even the best governments end up with a trust deficit in the eyes of voters, says Mike Steketee.

Tony Abbott's boldest promise is not stopping the boats or introducing his paid parental leave scheme. It is tackling something he says is even worse than the budget deficit: the "trust deficit".

In an interview with Fairfax Media, he said a priority as prime minister would be restoring trust in government and civility in parliament. "I would hope that, should we win the election, I would be able to conduct myself and my team would be able to so conduct themselves that, by the end of the first term, people would have once more concluded that Australian government was competent and trustworthy," he said.

He struck the same theme at his campaign launch on Sunday, drawing the contrast with Labor.

In 2004, he said, Labor had told voters to put their trust in Mark Latham, in 2007 in Kevin Rudd and in 2010 in Julia Gillard and just look what happened to them.

Abbott could have gone back further because he was channelling John Howard.

In 1996, the last time a federal Liberal leader was on the cusp of an election victory, Howard expressed identical sentiments. Even more important than honouring commitments, he said in his campaign launch speech, was rebuilding "a sense of trust and confidence in words given and commitments made by our political leaders… And one of the changes I would hope to see after three years of a Coalition government is that there has been some restoration of the trust and confidence of the Australian people in the political process".

Among other things, he added, that meant having an independent Speaker in the House of Representatives. 

You may be thinking that our political leaders are either masochists or incurable optimists.

Asked in a Morgan Poll in April to rate professions for honesty and ethical standards, 14 per cent gave federal MPs a high or very high rating, compared to 90 per cent for nurses, 88 per cent for doctors and 84 per cent for pharmacists.

There were only five out of 30 professions that were ranked lower than federal politicians – in descending order, insurance brokers, state MPs, real estate agents, advertising people and car salesmen.

The good news is that they have fared worse – notably in 1997 and 1998, the first two years of the Howard government, when nine per cent and seven per cent gave them a high or very high rating in the same poll – below real estate agents.

Howard set about acting on his campaign rhetoric by introducing a new code of ministerial conduct. It had unintended consequences, with no fewer than seven ministers forced to resign over breaches such as holding shares in their areas of responsibility and making false or dubious travel allowance claims. After that, Howard called a halt, refused to demand more resignations despite at least one other clear breach and watered down the code. Restoring trust was put on hold.

Howard in his first term also invented the infamous distinction between core and non-core promises as an excuse for breaking election promises, particularly those resulting from spending cuts in the 1997 budget. And he never did appoint an independent speaker.

Despite promising "never, ever" to introduce a GST, Howard went to the 1998 election proposing one. After a landslide win in 1996, he was lucky to gain a second term when Labor under Kim Beazley outpolled the Coalition in the national vote but failed to pick up enough seats to govern.

So why would Abbott, who is well aware of the Howard record, even though many others have forgotten it, want to stick his head above the parapet on this issue? Perhaps because voters would quite like to respect and trust their political leaders, if only they would let them.

Veteran social researcher and author Hugh Mackay tells The Drum: "He has put his finger on the right issue but he doesn't seem to be the man to do it. We may all recall when it was clear [in 2010] we were going to have a hung parliament, he was the one who used that immortal phrase 'a kinder, gentler polity' and more or less from the next day put the boot in more savagely than ever. You can't separate trust and respect and when it is very clear to the voters that neither side respects the other, then the voters withdraw respect from both sides."

Abbott's appeal for trust is a euphemism for the real question voters are prepared to ask: not who do you trust but who do you distrust least. Put that way, it is a potentially potent weapon, given Labor's record of broken promises on everything from the carbon tax to the budget surplus, not to mention the party's own lack of faith in Kevin Rudd, followed by Julia Gillard.

A further heroic promise Abbott made at his campaign opening is that "we will be a no surprises, no excuses government".

It was his version of another Howard line from 1996 – that he wanted to make us feel relaxed and comfortable.

But as Howard and every prime minister before and after have discovered, surprises are the constant companion of governments. However carefully he maps out his period in office, Abbott should expect the unexpected.

As British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan is said to have responded when asked what he feared most in politics, "events, dear boy, events".

Circumstances change, confronting governments with the choice between keeping promises that no longer make sense or breaking them. Oppositions in our adversarial system see it as their role in life to tear down governments by foul means or fair.

So it hardly is surprising that even the best governments end up with a trust deficit in the eyes of voters.

Abbott will deliver on his promise to scrap the price on carbon but only if the Senate lets him or a subsequent double dissolution election gives him the numbers to do so. 

He will do his best to stop the boats with policies even more brutal than those implemented by Labor but many of the events influencing refugee flows are beyond his control. His success in moving the budget to surplus and reducing debt is to a substantial extent hostage to international economic events that are even less predictable than usual.

So good luck with all that.

Mike Steketee is a freelance journalist and former national affairs editor for The Australian. View his full profile here.

The elusive pursuit of political trust - The Drum (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

By Sean Kelly

Photo: Abbott is attempting to convince the Australian people that a vote for him is a vote for change. (Getty Images: Matt Roberts)

Tony Abbott wants to thrust us back into the heat of arguments we've already had. Only a re-elected Labor government would allow us to finally move on, writes Sean Kelly.

Of the many things that keep Labor voters awake about the prospect of an Abbott government, boredom probably isn't one of them.

The threat of a radically interventionist conservative government, the secret policy agenda we're told about by commentators from the left (in a bid to convince us Abbott is scary) and commentators from the right (in a bid to convince us Abbott has a policy agenda), embarrassing gaffes on the domestic stage, embarrassing gaffes on the international stage - at the very least, Labor voters should be enthralled by the imagined prospect of constant entertainment.

But the fact is that after the last few years of HBO-quality political drama, we are about be hit with mind-numbingly boring reruns of the most tedious bits of those years.

Abbott is attempting to convince the Australian people that a vote for him is a vote for change. "The best way to get a new way is to get a new government," he trumpets.

But the reverse is true. A re-elected Labor Government will settle the debates on carbon and mining that have plagued our nation for half a decade and allow us to move on. A newly minted Abbott government will thrust us back into the heat of arguments we've already had.

An election has the power to wipe the slate clean for a re-elected government. It acts as an unofficial stamp of approval on the actions of the past three years. It's the final say, the DRS (if DRS actually worked) of political debate.

This is what Labor missed out on after 2010. The unique combination of a removed leader and a hung parliament meant Labor's alleged failings - the three plagues of debt, waste and boats - were never consigned to the graveyard of failed political attacks. Instead, they had new life breathed into them.

If Labor wins the election, then the debate over carbon pricing will be over. It will become part of the Australian policy firmament. The same goes for the mining tax. If not, we will be forced into another prolonged debate on this "so-called market in the non-delivery of an invisible substance to no one" (Abbott's words, not mine). I'm always surprised more isn't made of this: does anyone really want to spend another few years talking about carbon? And that's before we get to the spectacle of the double dissolution election which Abbott has threatened to call.

The problem here isn't really boredom, of course. Firstly, it's that throwing reforms into reverse gear is bad for the country. That's true if you agree with the thinking behind pricing carbon.

But even if you don't, it's a fact that revisiting old debates sucks up oxygen and distracts us from getting on with doing the next big thing, something this country is usually good at.

As every commentator and his dog has noted in the past few weeks, the challenges facing Australia are productivity and prosperity - how we increase the first to keep the second. This is what we need our leaders focused on.

And this is where we come to the campaign itself.

Rudd has two chances going into the last two weeks. Both are about showing Rudd is the leader for the times, and Abbott is not.

The best attacks do two things. They amplify something voters already think. At the same time, they remind voters of the strengths of the attacker. Think of Howard's immortal line about Beazley lacking ticker. It neatly captured what voters believed about Beazley, and underlined that Howard was exactly the opposite - strong and determined.

The attack on Abbott's secret cuts is based on substance and therefore rings true. The Liberals have yet to fully explain the cost of their promises, and therefore how they will pay for them. This is the first necessary ingredient in a successful attack. Improved polling suggest it's working.

Labor now needs to build on Abbott's negative to emphasise a Rudd strength. In last week's debate, Rudd tried to do this by contrasting Abbott's plan to "cut for the future" with Labor's plan to "build the future". But these words need flagship policies to give them backbone.

In practice, Labor is acting - schools, hospitals, the NBN. But because none of these policies are both new and big it has been hard to politically ram home the contrast Rudd needs to get across.

Voters have started listening to the argument that Abbott will cut. For that negative to really land they now need to be convinced that Rudd will build. The announcement on high speed rail was in this sweet spot. It is big, it is new, and it positively reeks of the future. Labor will need more of this as the campaign races to its end.

The second chance lies in Rudd's proven ability to act under pressure. So far Labor has bloodlessly pointed out on umpteen occasions that Labor prevented recession. True. But shorn of its human element, it's a drab statistic. The important thing to communicate is that when it counted, Rudd was able to think on his feet, and act. Abbott, on the other hand, is great at soundbites, but cannot cope with surprises. He was once literally paralysed with fury when confronted by difficult questioning from Channel Seven's Mark Riley.

If the country is really heading into difficult times, if the resources boom is over, if productivity is an urgent priority, then the last thing we need is a leader intent on cuts, unable to cope with new challenges, concerned only with reprosecuting old debates.

This is Labor's opportunity. Kevin Rudd has two weeks left to show the country he is the only leader ready and able to fight the battles of the next three years, not the last three years. Or we'll all just have to get used to reruns.

Sean Kelly was an adviser to prime ministers Julia Gillard and Kevin Rudd. View his full profile here.

Want more of the same? Vote Abbott - The Drum (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

Bridie Jabour theguardian.com, Tuesday 27 August 2013

Bridie Jabour speaks to the man who – if the polls are correct – may kick Kevin Rudd out of his seat of Griffith on 7 September

Bill Glasson (left) on a morning run with Tony Abbott and Queensland premier Campbell Newman. Photograph: Alan Porritt/AAP

The man who may cost the prime minister his seat on 7 September only joined the Liberal National party last year.

Dr Bill Glasson was preselected for Kevin Rudd’s seat of Griffith last September, not long after joining the LNP. An ophthalmologist, he is the son of a minister in Queensland premier Joh Bjelke-Petersen’s government and has served as national president of the Australian Medical Association as well as sitting on the taskforce which helped implement the Northern Territory intervention.

He was acknowledged as a formidable candidate when his preselection was announced last September but a Guardian poll last week still sent shockwaves through political and media circles when it showed Griffith was well within reach for Glasson. A subsequent Newspoll found the same result.

Will competition for the seat get as tight as the polls are suggesting? “Well, the answer is no,” Glasson tells Guardian Australia.

“I obviously thought from the outset it was going to be a very tough job to even make a dent in the numbers but obviously given the way we’re going it’s quite welcome but can I suggest the polling we have at the moment doesn’t really reflect the true result? I think the reality is we’re still up against it quite significantly.”

Glasson believes preferences are working directly against him and uses the politician’s favourite phrase of faux self-deprecation when summing up his feelings on the polls – “I remain the underdog.”

He may be an underdog but the full force of the LNP is being thrown behind him with 500 volunteers working for him and Malcolm Turnbull, deputy opposition Julie Bishop, shadow treasurer Joe Hockey and opposition leader Tony Abbott all visiting Griffith to join Glasson on the hustings.

He tells Guardian Australia over the phone while campaigning in Brisbane that he joined the LNP “about 12 months ago” and had worked for both sides of government in a “very productive way”. Before his preselection Glasson was a voluntary “champion” of the National Broadband Network before resigning a few months into his campaign saying the cost had grown too high.

This week he argued for gay marriage, saying: "[Rudd] had an epiphany one morning and obviously had a change of mind ... but I've had this view for a long time.”

Despite his support for these Labor policies, Glasson’s admiration for Abbott is long-held; in a 2010 Fairfax profile he said: ''This is a man you can look in the eye, you can trust. He is probably too honest. He says what he feels. It gets him into trouble.''

Glasson told Guardian Australia that Abbott had become ''more disciplined in what he says'' in the lead-up to the last election, and he follows the Coalition chief’s lead, never straying far from the party line.

When asked about his personal passion and what he could do particularly for his electorate, Glasson lists the repeal of the carbon tax, getting the debt under control, reducing red tape and “making Australia’s borders secure”. He says the economy is the issue the voters of Griffith most often raise with him.

“I’m a great believer in small government that facilitates business, get out of the road of business. Governments don’t create wealth, governments don’t create jobs; they do but they put them in the public service. The true job creation comes from the business sector and so it’s a matter of letting the business sector generate wealth for the country, not governments,” he says.

He calls his army of volunteers - and it is an army by normal campaigning standards - Glasson’s Gladiators, and they are the key to his back-to-basics campaign. When asked about the strengths of his campaign Gleeson does not mention media, traditional or social, but his grassroots work.

“Many of them are out every weekend on street corners and on bridges and on roads; that is a sea of blue and my portrait is on many, many street frontages, and people hang them out in the yard so the face recognition has been good,” he says.

“I’ve been door-knocking day in, day out. We’ve been letterbox dropping, so that’s what I think has contributed to the polls. We have resources in terms of man- and woman-power but not much in terms of money.”

Since Glasson won preselection, his opponent has morphed from backbencher into prime minister and that has, counterintuitively, made Rudd more vulnerable in this seat.

Can Glasson think of one positive about Rudd? Like a good politician he seems to answer the question but actually uses his answer to reinforce the image he wants to place in voters’ minds about the PM.

“I think he had an immense passion for the electorate initially and he had lots of good ideas, don’t get me wrong, but unfortunately I can’t name too many that’s actually been implemented properly and that’s been focussed on an outcome,” he said.

“So, great ideas 10 out of 10. Implementation zero out of 10. Wasted money 10 out of 10 because the wastage across the system could make you cry.”

Kevin Rudd's opponent in Griffith: who is Bill Glasson? | World news | theguardian.com

 

Former prime minister Bob Hawke has slammed the "absolutely terrible bias of the Murdoch press" during the election campaign, saying it is "unique" in his long experience in politics.

Photo: Bob Hawke, pictured campaigning earlier in the election, says the "absolutely terrible bias of the Murdoch press" is "unique" in his experience

Related Story: Rudd questions Murdoch's motivation for criticism

Related Story: Your say: Rudd vs News Corp

At a Labor fundraiser in Sydney last night, Mr Hawke said he had a lot of respect for coverage of Indigenous affairs by the News Corp-owned The Australian.

But he condemned the "absolutely terrible bias of the Murdoch press" in its election coverage.

"I do want to register in the strongest terms my regret at the absolutely loaded prejudice with which they have approached this election," Mr Hawke said.

"It does no justice to them and it does no justice to the democratic process."

Senior Labor frontbenchers have this week blamed negative coverage in News Corp Australia papers for the Government's slide in the polls.

Education Minister Bill Shorten said on Monday that The Courier-Mail and Daily Telegraph had been editorialising against Labor on their front pages since the start of the campaign, marking a shift in political coverage in Australia.

"We're seeing the Americanisation and indeed the Englisisation (sic) of our newspapers, where you're seeing a very strong political editorial flavour taken from day one," he said.

Foreign Minister Bob Carr blamed in part what he called the "media bias" from News Corp for Labor's position in the polls.

Senator Carr said he thought Labor's polling could recover, but News Corp is not giving the Government a "fair go".

"The corrosive effect of having derisory front page treatment of the Government every second day and flattering treatment of the Opposition every other day is very real," he told Lateline on Monday.

Former PM Bob Hawke slams 'terrible bias' of News Corp election coverage - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

By Greg Jericho

Photo: The Coalition has promised a surplus despite more spending and less revenue. (AAP: Alan Porritt)

The treasurers debate at the National Press Club today might be a good place for Joe Hockey to reveal whether his economic pillars are built on more than just sand, writes Greg Jericho.

Two weeks ago when I examined the Liberal Party's five pillars, there wasn't much to be found. So what is the state of play now, given that we have only a week to go till the advertising blackout, and on Sunday Tony Abbott launched the Coalition's election campaign?

Well, sad to say, Abbott in his campaign launch didn't refer to the five pillars at all. This in itself doesn't mean much because while the actual pillars were not mentioned, many of the components were. This is because the campaign launch speech, like all such speeches, was a political speech, not a policy one.

But in the past two weeks, while we have moved closer to the election, we are not all that much closer to seeing many details to the five pillars.

Take the first of the five pillars - manufacturing. When Tony Abbott released the LNP's manufacturing policy last week, he announced four new measures, the first of which was appoint a Minister for Trade and Investment whose central responsibility will be to attract trade and increase inwards investment into Australia.

Changing the name from Minister for Trade to Minister for Trade and Investment I guess is what has been missing all these years. It is heartening to know however he does plan to appoint a Minister for Trade, but given we have had one every year since Federation, I'm not sure if this is a game changer.

The next announcement was to build our manufacturing export base by progressively restoring funding to Export Market Development Grants starting with an initial $50 million boost.

This scheme is largely bipartisan and provides funding to assist businesses developing plans for export. In the 2012 Mid-year Economic and Fiscal Outlook, released in October last year, we saw the scheme cut by $100m over four years to notionally "retarget" towards emerging and frontier markets, with a focus on Asian markets. The Government attempted to paint this as a response to a 2011 review of Austrade (which administers the grants), but that review explicitly stated that the grants scheme would "continue unchanged".

After the MYEFO cuts, the Opposition pledged to review the changes. This promise delivers on that commitment.

The third measure was for another $50m for a "Manufacturing Transition Fund to provide assistance to communities and industries as they transition to new areas of manufacturing growth". This is not so much a manufacturing policy as a policy to deal with the decline of manufacturing.

And finally there was a commitment to "implement industry specific Strategic Growth Action Agendas". This apparently will "bring industry and government together to develop strategic, coordinated and long term plans for growth and viability".

Which sounds like a fair bit of piffle.

While the LNP manufacturing plan quite rightly points out that manufacturing employment has been hit hard since 2007, the reality is the sector has been declining in importance for the past 30 years:

The one policy announcement on Sunday that can be seen as a broad measure designed to cover a number of the five pillars was the announcement of interest free loans of up to $20,000 over four years for apprentices. The loans will only need to be paid back once the person earns more than $51,309 a year.

The loans are capped and weighted according to the year of the apprenticeship - $8,000 during the first year, $6,000 for the second and $4,000 and $2,000 for the third and final years respectively.

This weighting is sensible as it reflects that according to the National Centre for Vocational Education Research, 31 per cent of all trades apprentices/trainees who began their apprenticeship in 2007 dropped out in the first year:

The idea is a good one, and goes nicely with the Gillard Government's introduction last year of HECS/HELP applying to TAFE colleges. But it stops being a good idea if it is used as a reason to cut funding elsewhere. Similarly it's good for apprentices to have access to interest free loans, but should it become the start of a slippery slope whereby the costs of doing an apprenticeship are placed ever increasingly on the apprentice, then that would be a poor outcome.

The cost of the policy came in at $85 million. And of course all the costings have been released, coupled with a detailed explanation of how the policy will be funded.

That last sentence was a joke for you late comers to the election campaign. Of course we don't have details.

The ALP quickly went on the offensive by suggesting the Liberal Party would cut the trades training centres. This forced Christopher Pyne, who thus far had been quite equivocal on the issue, to release a statement announcing they have "no plans to shut down any of the Trade Training Centres that are in operation or cancel any projects that have been approved under the latest funding round".

He is much less clear about whether the Liberal Party will continue the program, which has another has another five years to run.

The main takeaway from the Mr Abbott's campaign launch speech however is that the Liberal Party, now comfortably in front in the polls, has thus far decided to keep it vague when it comes to cuts to programs and services. But cuts there must be.

In his speech he also announced that within a decade, the budget surplus will be 1 per cent of GDP, defence spending will be 2 per cent of GDP, the private health insurance rebate will be fully restored, and each year, government will be a smaller percentage of our economy.

That's a surplus despite more spending and less revenue. Something does not add up.

Between now and Saturday week, there might be some more nice policy announcements, but without explaining how it all will be paid, the pillars are built on sand. Today Joe Hockey is appearing at the treasurers debate at the National Press Club. It would be a good time to start shoring up those foundations.

Greg Jericho writes weekly for The Drum. His blog can be found here. View his full profile here.

We're no closer to seeing the Coalition's sums - The Drum (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

 

Peter Hartcher August 27, 2013

Sydney Morning Herald political and international editor

Illustration: John Shakespeare

At his campaign launch, Tony Abbott promised the world a ''no surprises'' government. Unfortunately, the world can't make the same promise to Tony Abbott.

While we've been immersed in a domestic election campaign, one event has emerged to threaten an incoming government with a pretty nasty surprise.

A major new wave of global financial turmoil has struck. It's hit the so-called emerging markets hardest. ''Emerging markets'' is the fashionable term for the most successful among what used to be called ''developing countries''.

Last week, India and Indonesia were the most obvious victims as their markets crunched and their governments hastily announced stabilisation packages.

But it's also damaged the markets of Brazil, Turkey and South Africa, and many smaller countries. ''There has been a great sucking of funds from emerging markets,'' as The Economist put it.

The value of listed shares in the emerging countries has fallen by $US1 trillion ($1.1 trillion) overall since May, according to Bloomberg. That's wealth investors thought they owned, but has now vanished.

In trying to manage the turmoil, their central banks have lost $US81 billion in reserves, calculates Morgan Stanley.

A Harvard expert on financial crises, Carmen Reinhart, says that ''it could get very ugly'' in these countries because they face rising risks of full-blown currency crises and banking crises.

One problem here is that these are the very countries that have been booming recently and are supposed to be supplying much of the world's economic growth for the years ahead.

Have you heard the trendy acronym for the big emerging countries that were supposed to buoy the globe - the BRICs? It stands for Brazil, Russia, India and China and it has been a byword for investor optimism and global growth for the past few years. It's been the theme of a thousand conferences.

It made famous the man who dreamt it up, a former Goldman Sachs executive named Jim O'Neill. Today, he says he's disappointed with all the BRICs, with an exception: ''If I were to change it, I would just leave the 'C.' But then, I don't think it would be much of an acronym,'' he told Dow Jones.

It's true that China remains reasonably robust. And with its capital controls and its vast foreign exchange reserves of $US3.5 trillion, it's largely impregnable to a crisis of capital flight.

But even mighty China is not immune to world events. ''If the current upheaval in key emerging markets were to threaten [the] global recovery, we would need to revise down our growth outlook for China,'' says an economist at the RBS, Louis Kuijs.

And the woman who runs the International Monetary Fund, Christine Lagarde, said at the weekend the evolving crisis could indeed harm the entire globe:

''Even with the best of efforts,'' she told a major gathering of global economic officials in the US, ''the dam might leak. So we need further lines of defence.''

Surely one of the clearest lessons of recent years is that no country is immune from financial crisis in another.

What's caused this sudden turmoil? Lagarde's dam metaphor is useful because it's all about liquidity. ''The emerging markets have been driven up in recent years by a huge tidal wave of liquidity flowing in,'' says the prominent international economist Ken Courtis.

''Now it's starting to move the other way, and you can't do that without breaking a lot of China.''

That money tsunami has come mainly from the printing presses of the US, but also from those of the EU and Japan. Together, their central banks have issued a staggering $US7 trillion of new money since the global crisis of 2008. They pumped this cash out as an emergency measure to try to aid recovery in their depressed economies.

It goes by the fancy name of quantitative easing, but it's just plain old money printing, creating dollars, euros and yen out of thin air, unconstrained, in unprecedented quantities. Investors put much of this new money, available at zero interest rates, into the emerging markets in hope of big returns.

Such monetary recklessness always has unintended consequences. One is the emerging crisis in the emerging countries. The Wall Street Journal on the weekend called it an example of ''the topsy-turvy world the Federal Reserve has created''.

One of the troubling aspects of this story so far is that the Fed and the other central banks have not even started to slow their frenetic money-printing. The movement so far is mere anticipation.

''I think everyone - Australia and everyone else - should understand that the crisis that started in 2008 with the bursting of George Bush's bubble is still continuing,'' says Courtis.

''The only prudent course is to be cautious, responsible, alert and prepared to respond quickly. Complacency in this environment is a recipe for creating lots of trouble for yourself.''

In Australia, Labor is guilty of complacency. Boasting of Australia's AAA credit rating, it has continuously been putting its planned return to surplus on the never-never. When it first made the promise, net federal debt was set to peak at 7 per cent of GDP. Now it's expected to peak at 13.

And the Coalition has made great play out of exaggerating Labor's debt and deficits, but is looking suspiciously like it will give us similar complacency. It made a hash of its budget plans at the 2010 election and has yet to show us its plans for this election.

All this is bad enough. But both parties have been carefully preserving a studied ignorance of the warning by the former Treasury Secretary Ken Henry that the national revenue base is permanently impaired and an incoming government will be stuck in a ''permanent process'' of cutting spending.

Put an international crisis on top of this and you can see the potential for some very unpleasant surprises.

Peter Hartcher is the international editor.

The truth is yet to bite them, and us

By Paula Matthewson Mon 26 Aug 2013

Photo: Trust me: Opposition Leader Tony Abbott speaks during the Coalition's election campaign launch. (AAP: Dan Peled)

From John Howards low-key entrance, to the heartfelt endorsement by Tony Abbott's daughters, the theme of the Coalition's campaign launch was clear: trust Tony, writes Paula Matthewson.

Trust me. That was the basis of Opposition Leader Tony Abbott's pitch to Australian voters at the Coalition's election campaign launch on Sunday.

The man who has run the longest and most negative campaign in modern Australian politics flicked the switch to positive with a polished and assured rendition of his claim to the top job in comparison with Kevin Rudd's tarnished record.

With the strongest signal yet that most Australians vote on gut instinct at least as much as policy, the entire campaign launch focused on pushing the buttons of visceral voters, urging them to give Abbott the benefit of the doubt and put their trust in him on polling day.

The button-pushing started early with the relatively low-key entrance of Liberal eminence grise, former prime minister John Howard. Howard was seated prominently before the stage, providing the best camera angles for the mentor to be seen smiling approvingly upon his protégé, thereby conveying the not-so-subtle sub-text that Abbott's election would bring a return of the Howard 'golden' years.

Howard's presence said: "You can trust Abbott because he was part of my successful government and I believe in him."

The opening address by Queensland Liberal Premier Campbell Newman, was to dispel any bad juju left hanging over the federal campaign from his austerity drive after being elected in that state. At least one media commentator noted (a fact no doubt supplied by the Coalition's campaign team) that Newman still commanded a healthy lead in the polls, and by implication was a positive and not a negative for Abbott's election prospects.

Newman's speech said: "I am not a reason for you to distrust Abbott."

Deputy Liberal Leader Julie Bishop not only provided the light relief but also shouldered the responsibility for taking the personal attack to Kevin Rudd. In an amusing display which might have made the Chaser Boys regret helping Bishop find her inner comic during the 2010 election, the Liberals' most senior woman chanted the word 'remember' while reciting the recycled Prime Minister's flaws.

She also delivered two pivotal lines that must be playing well in the Liberals' focus groups; so well in fact that Abbott repeated them in his own address. "If [Rudd's] own party don't believe in Kevin Rudd and they've sacked him once why should the Australian people ever trust him in the top job again?" queried Bishop, leading up to the clincher: "Kevin Rudd assumes that this election is all about him. Tony Abbott and our team know, believe, that it is all about you the Australian people and we stand ready to serve."

Bishop's speech said: "You can't trust Rudd but you can trust Abbott."

Nationals Leader Warren Truss took to the podium next, partly to ensure that rural and regional Australia did not feel left out, but also to transition the mood of the event from negativity about Rudd to positivity about Abbott. Truss had the privilege of announcing the first policy commitment of the launch, one that heralded a number of other infrastructure promises. This suggests the Coalition is taking a punt that more votes can be won from new and improved roads and bridges than will be lost from their budget version of the NBN.

Truss built on the presence of Howard in the room, noting he and 15 former colleagues from the Howard era stood ready to serve in an Abbott ministry. "Proven competence versus proven incompetence" was how he described the choice facing voters between the Coalition and Labor.

Invoking Howard's "Who do you trust?" mantra from 2004, Truss's speech said: "You can trust Abbott and we won't let you down."

Then Frances and Bridget, two of Abbott's three daughters injected some homespun glamour into the launch, eschewing the autocue to read from notes about the man who had "helped us become the women we are today". Conferring this role on Abbott's daughters instead of his equally telegenic and articulate wife Margie suggests the younger women have been assessed by the campaign team to have broader appeal and may have a better chance of convincing younger men and women to vote for Abbott than Margie would have with women of her own age.

Frances and Bridget's speeches said: "You can trust Tony Abbott as we have done all our lives."

Finally, the Tony Abbott who took to the stage was the best we've seen of him yet: Abbott gave his supporters and potential supporters a glimpse of the prime minister he could be. Undoubtedly rehearsed to within an inch of his life, this Tony Abbott was a long way from the staccato Mr Negative we've seen since 2009.

In the tradition of opposition leaders before him, Abbott's speech remained light on costing details despite demands from the media and his opponents to provide them. He gave purpose and momentum to his 'positive plan' by detailing what would be done on the first day, within the first 100 days and by the end of his first term.

Abbott made a few strategic commitments including more support for seniors, encouraging more young people into trades, and recognising Indigenous Australians in the Australian Constitution.

But most significantly, Abbott committed to restoring trust in government. This is audacious considering Abbott's relentless negative campaigning is responsible for at least some of the community's loss of confidence in the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd Government. Equally, Abbott's pitch to restore 'trust in people' and vow never to seek to divide one person from another sits uncomfortably with some of the Coalition's most divisive policies such as that on asylum seekers.

Trust may well be a risky characteristic upon which to build the remainder of the Coalition campaign. As Labor Opposition Leader Mark Latham learned in 2004, this ephemeral quality has many interpretations and can swiftly be transformed from a positive to a negative depending upon who is more skilled at framing the debate.

On recent past performances, the Coalition is more adept at such campaign tactics, although Labor is more than competitive when not distracted by internal ructions.

But in the end it will likely come down to the two main contenders. It will be he who wins the 'trust wars' who will prevail on polling day.

Paula Matthewson is a freelance communications adviser and corporate writer. She has worked in communications, political and advocacy roles for the past 25 years. View her full profile here.

Coalition launch steps up attack in the trust wars - The Drum (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

By Mungo MacCallum Mon 26 Aug 2013

Photo: These days the campaign launch is just another painfully staged event on the way to the polls. (AAP: Alan Porritt)

There was little of substance to be found in Tony Abbott feel-good election campaign launch, but in this era of risk aversion, that was rather the point, writes Mungo MacCallum.

Campaign launches aren't what they used to be.

In the old days, the leaders launched their campaigns, as the word suggests, at the beginning, and they held big public meetings open to one and all in which interjections were welcomed, even encouraged. If there wasn't a lot of movement, colour and noise and even the occasional punch-up, the occasion was adjudged a failure.

And the launches were about something: the politicians were expected - nay, compelled - to reveal a detailed policy covering all the important points they would take to the election. Such policies were often hard to cost accurately, and in any case, in the times before deficits became anathema and surpluses sacrosanct, precise numbers were not considered vital: in all his years as prime minister Sir Robert Menzies never delivered a surplus and you don't hear Tony Abbott excoriating the founder of his party for this appalling dereliction.

Nowadays, of course, all the important policies were declared long ago, and, in Abbott's case at least, the costings have been fudged or concealed and are likely to stay that way.

The major launches used to take place within a day or so of each other, giving the voters and the commentators a chance to dissect and compare them before the real argy-bargy of the campaign got underway. And they were big news: all the radio and later the television stations covered them as a matter of course. But how the times have changed.

These days the campaign launch is just another painfully staged event on the way to the polls - something of an inconvenience, actually, as it keeps the leaders away from more telegenic venues and they are not allowed wear funny hats or molest babies for the hour or two that it takes.

Any form of spontaneity is of course a no-no - the whole thing takes place in a hermetically sealed bubble, under the kind of security you would expect at a high-tech weapons laboratory. The exact time and place of Tony Abbott's launch last Sunday was a closely guarded secret until the end: I could find no reference to it on television, or even Google, until Saturday night, and even then all we were told was that it would be somewhere in Brisbane.

Presumably the stringently vetted invited guests, the ones to be patted down by a goon squad after passing through the metal detectors, were given a little more notice, but alas, my own invitation must have got lost in the mail; so I sat down in front of the TV to make what I could out of this pseudo-happening. Frankly, I would have rather been at the beach, or even at the dentist; but political journalism can be a cruel game.

And it turned out to be all a bit déjà vu - much like Abbott's launch in 2010. First we had Campbell Newman to tell us how wonderful he is and how Tony Abbott isn't bad either; then Julie Bishop, who was actually quite funny about Rudd (she even told a mildly blue joke) before waxing lyrical about Abbott; then Warren Truss, proving once again why Barnaby Joyce reckons he will have no trouble taking over the leadership of the National Party.

And then a surprise, albeit one stolen from a previous campaign: just as Mark Latham's wholesome wife Janine was trotted out in 2004 to assure us that her man was really nice and kind after all, Abbott's wholesome daughters Bridget and Frances wafted on stage to go all mawkish about their dad. Well, it was a relief after Warren Truss.

And then, finally, the main event: the royal couple, Tony and Margie, smooched their way through the cheering crowds to deposit the dear leader on stage, where he spent just over half an hour telling us very little about anything.

There is a story that the veteran radio commentator Eric Baume once concluded one of his diatribes by asking his producer what he thought. Well, replied the candid functionary, it was all bullshit. "Ah, yes," replied Baume, no whit abashed, "but it was good bullshit." And the same could be said for Abbott's feel-good harangue, up to a point.

That point was reached when, after the usual condemnation of debt, deficit, budget crisis and reckless spending, he still did not have a word to say about his own gaping accounting hole, despite having added a lazy half billion or so to it in the course of his speech. At the time this did not matter much; he was among friends. The Channel Seven worm also showed general adulation, as did the station's vox pops, which gave him seven out of ten. But on reflection, they would want to: surely no one except supporters and masochists would have been watching.

Even at this late stage, Abbott was still asking the voters to take him purely on trust - to give him a go, to try something different, to change for the sake of change. The only real reason he was giving for the election of a Coalition government was that it couldn't be worse than the last lot.

And the polls show that while this will almost certainly be enough, there are still lingering doubts; the next day's Newspoll showed a slight but perceptible swing back to Labor. An aberration, probably. But on the anniversary of Martin Luther King's great "I have a dream" speech, surely we were entitled to more than just another wafflethon.

Kevin Rudd, we are told (well, actually, I happened to overhear it), is not planning his own launch until next weekend - with just a week to polling and, if history is anything to go by, the election well and truly won and lost. It is likely to be more like a wake than a call to battle.

But perhaps that's how politics is in 2013: lamentations for what might have been are to be preferred to the risks involved in vision and spontaneity. One of Abbott's own themes was not to expect miracles. We don't and we won't. Like I say, it's not like the old days.

Mungo Wentworth MacCallum will be writing weekly for The Drum throughout the campaign. He is a political journalist and commentator. View his full profile here.

Safety first: the mantra for the modern campaigner - The Drum (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

By ABC's Michael Rowland Fri 23 Aug 2013

Photo: Stallholders and visitors at the markets in Batemans Bay are more than happy to talk politics. (Michael Rowland)

In an electorate which is essentially a microcosm of Australia, voters tell Michael Rowland why they think Labor should get more credit on the economy and why they think Tony Abbott is misunderstood.

Batemans Bay retiree Peter Bashford has been proudly making intricate wooden clocks for 10 years. They are quite amazing works of art, and he sells them at a stall at the local high school markets on Sundays.

"This keeps me out of the kitchen," he says with a smile as he deals with customers. "I would be lost without it."

With time counting down to election day, Peter has yet to make up his mind whom to vote for in the bellwether seat of Eden-Monaro, but he reckons the Labor government has got a bad rap on its management of the economy.

"I think they have been very unlucky with the world circumstances they have had to deal with. You have just got to do the best you can," he says.

Although he says he's not impressed with the way things have played out in Canberra over the past few years, he's not sold on Tony Abbott.

"I would not trust the other people to guarantee what they talk about. He's negative. Far too negative. He's been like that all the time and he doesn't come up with any real solutions," he says.

Discussing politics on the idyllic Batemans Bay foreshore on a gloriously sunny day seems almost wrong, but stallholders and visitors are more than happy to weigh in. This is, after all, the electorate that has accurately reflected the national result for 40 years.

Former army officer Mike Kelly won the seat in the 2007 Ruddslide and managed to increase his margin, to 4.2 per cent, in 2010. Ex-Liberal staffer and business lobbyist Peter Hendy hopes the pendulum swings the other way on September 7.

Just across the way from Peter's tables of clocks is leather goods retailer Heidi Pohlsen. She has lived in Batemans Bay for 51 years and believes it's time for a change.

"I find a lot of the local businesses are struggling and a bit insecure about what the future is going to be. We need the Libs here in Batemans Bay," she says.

Chris Ruszala takes a break from the sausage sizzle to express his concerns about the local economy.

"There seems to be a lot of small businesses missing out here. We have seen a lot of businesses come and go. Restaurants change hands every year," he says.

He's leaning towards the Liberal Party and talks about a past connection with its leader.

"I know Tony Abbott from years ago when I first came to Australia and played Rugby at Manly (in Sydney). He played a bit of Union with Manly too," he says.

Photo: Discussing politics on the idyllic Batemans Bay foreshore on a gloriously sunny day seems almost wrong. (Michael Rowland)

Unprompted, Chris offers a free character assessment.

"I think he can be seen to be a bit tough around the edges and maybe not as diplomatic as he ought to be," he says.

"I think sometimes he can be a bit abrasive and that can give people the wrong impression, sometimes with the females as you know. But I think underneath all of that he is an honourable and decent family man."

There are other candidates of course in this critical contest and that is heartening news for Sunshine Bay plumber Geoff Frazer. He's voting for the Palmer United Party.

"I think we are going nowhere. It is more a protest vote I guess. Nothing ever changes," he says.

Geoff says he's sick of the broken promises and of politicians giving themselves big pay rises. Geoff believes Clive Palmer's policies resemble those of Pauline Hanson's in the 1990s.

"I was always a supporter of hers. It is unfair to call her a racist," he says.

The diversity of views is no surprise in an electorate that's essentially a microcosm of Australia. Stretching from the majestic south coast to the snowfields near Cooma with farmland in between, it is a lot of country for the candidates to canvass.

And that is why the result in Eden-Monaro will be one of the most eagerly anticipated on election night.

You can set your watch to it.

Michael Rowland has presented ABC News Breakfast since the launch of ABC News 24 in July 2010. View his full profile here.

The market for votes in Batemans Bay - The Drum (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

By Clementine Ford Fri 23 Aug 2013

Photo: To suggest that everybody and nobody might be helpful measurements merely asserts your own dominant ideology. (Getty Creative Images)

Everybody and nobody are one and the same. Both are useless forms of social measurement and yet this collective view seems to be directing political dialogue in this country, writes Clementine Ford.

"Is it only me," Lyle Cook of Shearwater, Tasmania asks the Herald Sun, "or is everyone sick of hearing the PM, the Finance Minister and the Treasurer constantly saying what Mr Abbott will do when he is PM?"

Leaving aside for a moment the fact that it must be left to someone to discuss what it is Mr Abbott plans to do when he's PM given that he refuses to do so himself, no Lyle Cook of Shearwater, Tasmania, 'everyone' is not sick of this. There may be others, but an army you do not make.

As (mostly) thinking creatures, it's natural for us to seek support for our own views by assuming they are confirmed by other rational creatures - rational of course because we believe our own philosophies to be naturally based on reason, and consider those who disagree to be tinkering with a less than full toolbox. This is how we come to hear ludicrously offered truisms asserting things like 'everyone' knows asylum seekers who come by boat are illegal bloody queue jumpers and as such 'nobody' wants them here.

Everybody and nobody are one and the same, and both are useless forms of social measurement.

Photo: Daily Telegraph front page from August 5, 2013 (Agency: Photographer)

Regardless, it's a philosophy that's been cynically employed by Rupert Murdoch's Limited News in the lead up to the election. It's no secret that Old Rupe wants to deliver Abbott into the prime ministership, whether or not for the much touted (although probably incorrect) theory that he wants to protect his Foxtel foothold from Labor's NBN or the much more likely explanation that he's just a deeply conservative old man who strongly supports similar (despite occasionally contradicting himself on even that).

Whatever the reason, the News Ltd press has been relying heavily on the idea that 'everybody' in Australia is sick of the Labor Government and their apparent mishandling of the economy, and 'nobody' will be voting for them this September.

The result is that, in a supposedly democratic country, we have an election campaign being conducted not by a political party but by the tabloid news company invested in their instalment. Worse, that tabloid news arrogantly disregards the proportion of the population who hold contrary views, deciding that such citizens are invisible and therefore undeserving of representation in a supposedly unbiased news force. Regardless of your political leanings, this is a monstrous abuse of journalistic power that should be recognised as such.

I understand passion. As an op-ed writer, it's my job to express opinions that are inflammatory to a proportion of people. I can't say there haven't been times where I've relished knowing how a particular turn of phrase might inspire fury in those with whom I disagree.

But there's a difference between assuming a binary of moral codes that one can argue for and against, and simply erasing opposition altogether. To suggest that everybody and nobody might be helpful measurements merely asserts your own dominant ideology without actually prosecuting your argument. As a silencing tool, it's both enormously effective and damaging.

To give a non political example for context, this practice of ascribing absolutes is still frustratingly employed to reinforce gender roles. Outside of satire, there's really no place for seriously argued theories that begin with the words, 'Everybody knows women/men are [insert whatever stereotype or prejudice the speaker holds]'.

The worrying compulsion to refer to this 'Every Australia' is driving a political dialogue in this country that's increasingly concerned with appealing to the lowest common denominator.

Similarly, it is intellectually baseless and often insulting to assume that desires stereotypically ascribed to one group are the only desires that count - as if those who sit outside this sample are so meaningless and irrelevant to the moral question at stake that they cease to even exist.

When Melbourne nightspot Red Bennies found themselves in a copyright tussle over a 'schnitz and tits' night, organiser Jeff Yates justified his support for the antique concept by saying, "Everyone loves a pub meal and a schnitzel and everyone obviously loves the second part of the product." In this case, 'everyone' was clearly meant to refer to not only a rigid ideal of masculinity but to reinforce the idea that these are the only opinions that count.

So back to the election and the general political atmosphere in Australia right now. The worrying compulsion to refer to this 'Every Australia' while ignoring voices of dissent is driving a political dialogue in this country that's increasingly concerned with appealing to the lowest common denominator. Technology has enabled a news cycle that recycles itself so often most people are informed by soundbites rather than reports, and it seems fewer and fewer people are prepared to look beyond the slogans being conveniently fed to them from all sides of politics.

Everybody knows the ALP can't be trusted to handle the economy. Nobody wants a Liberal government. Everybody cares about securing our borders. Nobody supports the carbon tax. Despite none of these things being explicitly true, they are repeated ad nauseam and accepted if not quite as facts, then at least as opinions that deserve to be respected despite their baselessness.

What we are left with are political opponents catering to such facile absolutes, delivering populism over policy to members of an electorate comforted by the reassurance that they are the norm, but who largely don't even care enough to investigate these issues beyond having a barely informed feeling about them.

And while it might be true that not everybody in Australia is guilty of such intellectually bereft political engagement, it's also true that this sample size is not nobody. If there are to be any exceptions to the rule, it is perhaps this - when absolutes, slogans and assumptions are repeated as facts (particularly where politics are concerned) everybody should be very worried because nobody wins.

Clementine Ford is a freelance writer, broadcaster and public speaker based in Melbourne. View her full profile here.

When nobody agrees with what everyone's thinking - The Drum (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

By Peter Chen

Photo: There are various explanations for Rudd's failure to thrive. (AAP: Lukas Coch)

While the Liberal campaign hasn't been without its problems, it's been the Labor strategists that are finding they can't get any traction. The wisdom of a last-minute leadership change is looking less smart by the day, writes Peter Chen.

For the ALP, the election is clearly not going as planned. With polling delivering bad news and Kevin Rudd at risk of losing his seat, his return to office looks to have delivered only the most transient of bounces.

Should their polling continue to decline at the current rate, the party will be close to the level that generated the final spill by election day.

While the Liberal campaign hasn't been without its problems, it's been the Labor strategists that are finding they can't get any traction. The wisdom of a last-minute leadership change - with this enduring damage to Labor's national brand as being infected by the "NSW disease" - is looking less smart by the day. "Better to have ploughed ahead and shown commitment to a team that had led a difficult minority government and delivered some hard policy decisions than look panicked and corralled by the Opposition" will probably be the refrain from us armchair generals on September 8.

There are various explanations for Rudd's failure to thrive. These include the tactical problem of recycling a leader with serious negatives that three years of only semi-abeyance has suppressed in the public mind, but not eradicated. It has only taken a short time and some reminders of Rudd's private temperament and policy leadership style to refresh memories of why Labor started dipping into the thirties in 2010.

But history shows that comebacks are achievable. Even though they both have heads you can draw with a compass, Rudd is very different to his first predecessor. Howard's two terms away from the Liberal leadership gave him a chance to disown his negatives very effectively. Remember his stance opposing Asian migration and the ironic moniker of "honest John": The treasurer who failed to deliver his promised fistful of dollars? Me neither. Howard used the time to reposition himself as an older, wiser leadership figure for 1997 election. Given the way Abbott has been channelling the Howard government as an exemplar of a golden age, it looks like six years of distance is all that is needed to fire-break the past.

One of the most significant factors plaguing Rudd, however, is the inability of Labor to spike two issues that have dogged it constantly: refugee arrivals and budgetary management. These were policies that Abbott had been running rings around Gillard for most of her term and have clearly been common "spontaneous recall" top-of-mind concerns among Labor's focus group members.

Recognising this, Rudd attempted to shut these issues down from day one of his return. Following the strategy of "neutralising negatives" used in both politics and advertising (a tendency to highlight, rather than hide the weak parts of your product) he blind-sided the left by adopting the new Pacific solution. This allowed him to play to the concerns of once heartland seats, while also foregrounding his mastery of international relations. The latter remains an Abbott question mark that's yet to get much of an airing in the campaign, in stark contrast to Kevin Rudd who is set to deliver a foreign policy speech tomorrow at the Lowy Institute. This also gave Rudd a good position to demonstrate a willingness to listen to the backbench as the new collaborative boss and, most importantly, to spurn the Greens.

The shift on carbon pricing was an even bigger crap sandwich for Christine Milne, a relationship that appears to be all free-kicks for the ALP. Rudd knows that, unlike the Democrats who could cut their preferences either way, there's nowhere else for the Greens to go. This is evidenced most recently at the Green's official campaign launch where Christine Milne has continued the line that a vote for the Greens is "double value" because it elects Greens Senators while reducing the likelihood of a Senate dominated by the Liberal-National Coalition.

In this area the Greens haven't been wedged as much as pile-driven into a crack on the pavement, with all the resultant visibility of surface filler. Milne might have been better served by publicly cornering the Governor-General and arguing Labor had lost confidence of the House to grab some airtime before the election kicked off.

But for all Rudd had managed to dominate the media cycle between his return to office and announcement of the election, these issues haven't stayed down the way he must have wanted. Irrespective of Labor's proud history of the instigator of the mandatory detention regime, Howard's decade in power has allowed the Liberals to "own" punitive asylum seeker policy. Rather than let the new PM swoop in to claim the issue, Abbott pushed back aggressively and hard - even if that has meant occasionally dipping into his own nut jar to pull out stinkers like the "rupiah's for rowboats" buyback scheme.

The budget's been an area where the ALP could have better traction, but for some reason they're unwilling to argue the case. The Bowen-Hockey Q&A debate last week would have been a good place for the Government to turn around the "school halls" sledge by appealing to parents across the nation who've never seen a new building at their school during the time their kids have been there. While carbon pricing and global instability has a slightly ethereal quality to it, some of the bricks-and-mortar initiates could be defended with people looking for practical policy ideas rather than talking about new economic models in an age of fluctuating global capital markets. The former is campaigning to middle Australia, the latter is something best left for your next Monthly article. If Rudd's going to cop the negatives of his term, he should at least attempt to turn around some of the positives: but instead the title of "infrastructure Prime Minister" has been taken by Abbott.

Overall, the Government hasn't got the supercharger of campaigns: momentum. A new leader might have been able to pull it off with a clean slate and some clear air. Gillard might, as with the second half of the 2010 campaign, have built it up. But Rudd's policy negatives just haven't gone away and the momentum is all on the other side. Maybe the man who must be PM will heed Howard's ghost: two terms. Wait two terms.

Peter John Chen is a politics lecturer in at the Department of Government at the University of Sydney. view his full profile here.

Zombie issues: Labor's baggage that just won't die - The Drum (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

 

Paula Matthewson theguardian.com, Thursday 22 August 2013

Far from being the pivotal point at which the election swings Rudd's way, it's more likely Abbott's comment was a tactical move that will benefit him

'Does this man ever shut up?' asked Abbott during the debate.

Earlier this week, Guardian Australia’s Lenore Taylor speculated whether opposition leader Tony Abbott’s blokey and non-PC language is a deliberate strategy to appeal to certain voters. She may well be right. I’ve thought the same about some of Abbott’s so-called gaffes.

If there’s one thing the Coalition campaign team knows how to do better than Labor, it’s to tap into how voters think and feel, and to make connections with them in a way that delivers the coveted number one on ballot papers come polling day. This is predominantly due to the work of Coalition pollster Mark Textor, who has perfected values-based communication over the past 250 campaigns on which he’s worked.

That’s why it’s important not to misinterpret last night’s "Kevin’s a windbag" moment – during which Abbott asked "does this man ever shut up?" during his debate with Rudd. Far from being the pivotal point at which the election swings Rudd’s way, it’s more likely to be a tactical move on the part of the opposition that will benefit Abbott.

How? Didn’t Abbott’s exasperated plea demonstrate that Rudd had penetrated Abbott’s steely veneer?

Well, no. It’s more likely Abbott was deliberately reflecting what focus groups are saying about Rudd – that he’s the same old "talk under wet cement" technocrat they remember from his time as prime minister. The spontaneous applause that followed Abbott’s remark reinforces this interpretation.

This is the key to Abbott’s campaign – to ensure voters remember what they don’t like about Rudd. The Coalition campaign is focussed on "helping" voters realise they’d rather take a chance on a guy they feel vaguely uneasy about than the one they know for sure is a nasty, aloof, prolix bureaucrat with a tendency to make ill-considered and politically expedient decisions that can have serious implications. You could call it the reverse “devil you know” effect.

Meanwhile, Rudd is doing the opposite, trying to turn voters’ gazes away from the shambles that was his government and his culpability in the ugly destabilisation of his successor. Initially Rudd tried to do so by delegitimising Abbott’s negative approach, promising to end the "wall to wall negativity", but this vow has begun to ring hollow since Labor’s campaign advertising has taken an increasingly negative tone.

Rudd has also hamstrung own positive pitch for the future by downplaying Labor’s traditional strengths in health and education, because drawing attention to the Labor government’s accomplishments in these areas would likely rekindle voters’ memories of Julia Gillard (and not in a good way for Rudd).

All that is left for Rudd is to shatter voters’ perceptions that an Abbott government would be more economically responsible than a Rudd government.

But even more than that, Rudd’s success on polling day depends on voters buying his story about the future. Abbott’s depends on them repudiating Rudd’s vision on the basis of his tarnished track record. Former Rudd media adviser Lachlan Harris suggested as much on the night of the first leaders’ debate.

The problem for Rudd is that voters may have already stopped listening to him. This is suggested by Abbott’s improving approval rating and his closing the gap on Rudd as preferred prime minister.

Rudd needs a breakthrough moment, undoubtedly, to catch voters’ attention again. But it will take a lot more than a mis-speak from Abbott (particularly when it is really a calculated jibe) to make that happen.

Tony Abbott's 'shut up' remark: strategy or impulse? | Paula Matthewson | Comment is free | theguardian.com