Newspoll ALP 54 – LNP 44 (or Health, Stimulus and the English Language)

Today’s Newspoll was for the first time in a while announced on last night’s Lateline. Dennis Shanahan even made an appearance to discus it. When news of this broke I was sure the results would be bad for Labor. But I must say that we can bury that conspiracy theory for now. The results came in at the rather unexciting two party preferred of ALP 54%, LNP 44%. This was a drop (as expected) from the pretty roguish poll of 56-44 last time. No one really expected the ALP to improve from that position. No one except Dennis Shanahan of course. Here he was last night on Lateline:

DENNIS SHANAHAN: …
I think the important thing out of that is that we haven't seen a continuation of the drop which the Coalition experienced three weeks ago after the debate and after the paid parental leave announcement. So, the losing of the ground from the Coalition hasn't continued. That's an important thing for Tony Abbott.

Though he did admit:

Labor's still well in front, of course.

To be honest, Shanahan was pretty reasoned and objective on Lateline. Would that translate into reasonable and objective articles in today’s Australian? Did you really need to ask?

Asylum policy scuttles Labor

Labor whacked on boatpeople in Newspoll

The horror!! Just looking at those headlines you’d think the ALP was dead. But you would be wrong, because you see, “Scuttled” in political terms now apparently means winning an election with a 47 seat majority. I do like it when The Australian enhances the English language to give it a much more rich and indeterminate meaning. Yes, apparently Labor has been “scuttled”. Given that scuttled generally means to sink something on purpose, it seems according to The Oz that Labor has intentionally sunk its own election hopes and resulted in it winning an election with increased margin. Riddle me that one folks.

Of course the reason behind these two headlines is that the Newspoll asked who was best to handle asylum seekers. The LNP was in front 44 to the ALP 26. This was a big change since it was last asked back in November, when the LNP was in front 23 to 20. But big deal. So the LNP is massively favoured to handle asylum seekers: is it an election changing issue? Nope. How do I know? Look at the Two Party Preferred – 54-46. If there was any link between the two you would think a jump in the LNP of over 20% would result in some increase in the LNP’s 2PP. But no. People might not like asylum seekers, and they might like the way the LNP says it will handle them, but not enough for them to want to change the Government over it.

This election – as every other one in history – will be about the economy, health, education and the economy.

Which brings me to the stimulus and episode 427 in Michael Stutcbhury’s campaign to say the stimulus spending should be stopped. Today his argument was that the recession is over, so the spending on education stimulus should stop:

The program may have had some credibility in February last year, less than five months after the Wall Street financial crisis hit, when the government announced a $42bn "nation building" stimulus that included free ceiling insulation for 2.7 million Australian homes and "large-scale infrastructure" in every primary school.

Note the “may” – he still ignores all evidence that the stimulus held up employment in the building sector – employment which otherwise would have gone through the floor. Here’s his reasoning, and dismissal of the Global Financial Crisis:

But 14 months later it makes no economic sense at all, given we now know that the global financial crisis was then downsizing into what the Reserve Bank of Australia calls a North Atlantic financial crisis and the Australian economy was about to get a booster shot of export demand from China.

The line about the GFC being a “North Atlantic” crisis has got a bit of a run of late from the conservative side, but they are all invariably quoting Reserve Banks Governor Glenn Stevens massively out of context.

Stevens said the line in February at the Standing Committee on Economics. He was being asked specifically about the capital adequacy of banks liquidity. Liberal MP, Bruce Billson asked him about Australia’s banks having to sign up to an international agreement that was focussed on American and European banks saying:

Mr BILLSON— That sounds like a very North Atlantic solution to a problem that does not exist here.

Billson was not suggesting the Global Financial Crisis was just a North Atlantic thing, but that North Atlantic banks are under different regulations to and were facing different liquidity pressures to Australian banks (he’s right). Here was Glenn Stevens’ response:

Mr Stevens—….It is a very good phrase: the whole crisis actually was very much a North Atlantic crisis. It was really only a global crisis for six or eight weeks, I think. The rest of it is mainly a North Atlantic story. There is a problem with liquidity and the problem was that institutions relied on the assumption that wholesale markets would always be open at a reasonable price and they just were not open, and those people came into serious problems. So there does need to be, I think, a genuine effort on the part of financial institutions to think more about liquidity risk.

So when Stevens was saying a "North Atlantic crisis” he was SPECIFICALLY referring to the liquidity risk of banks. But Stutchbury has no problems saying the Stevens actually was referring to the entire Global Financial Crisis. I don’t know about you, but to me that is pretty dishonest reporting (or is it just incompetence).

Stutchbury then went on to suggest:

But there is virtually no chance that halting the uncontracted BER billions would plunge the economy into recession.
…
The government's line that the economy would have gone backwards in three quarters last year without the overall stimulus is not backed by revised national accounts estimates. There are more unemployed now than just before the crisis hit, but that was when the economy was overheating and the Reserve Bank's cash rate was 7.25 per cent, rather than 4.25 per cent.
…
Non-dwelling construction would not collapse if non-contracted BER spending were halted.

Yes you see employment was high prior to the crisis (remember that crisis which was apparently only a North Atlantic thing) because the the economy was overheating – so I guess Stutchbury now thinks the GFC was the recession we had to have… And as for his suggestion about the strength of the building sector? Well luckily we can go to Stutchbury’s favourite economic analyst, Glenn Stevens, for a view on that, as today the Minutes of the last Reserve Bank board meeting were released. Here’s what it said about non-dwelling construction:

The business surveys suggested that business conditions and confidence were both at above-average levels. However, there was some variation across sectors, and some caution in spending plans outside the mining sector. The non-residential building sector remained subdued and, abstracting from the surge in construction of educational facilities, new approvals were at relatively low levels.

Yep booming…

Sigh.

The other news of the day of course was the Health deal brokered at the COAG. Was it “historic” as suggested by Rudd? Well yes and no. Colin Barnett from WA held out on giving away 30% of his share of the GST, meaning he wants the Commonwealth to give him the GST and he’ll give them back 30% (or something like that). It all sounds (to quote Kevin Rudd from the 7:30 Report) like an accounting measure, but Barnett couldn’t really back down as he had said all along he wasn't going to give up the GST. Western Australia is always a bit tetchy over the GST carve up – believing it gets ripped off as it is. This will play ok in WA, but I wouldn’t be surprised if a deal is done out of the glare of COAG.

Most of all the COAG deal skewers Abbott. His big complaint has been (as he said in his opening address in the Health debate):

Mr Rudd's scheme won't provide an extra bed, an extra doctor, an extra nurse or even an extra dollar before 2014 at the earliest.

Today Rudd announced:

From July 1 this year the Australian Government will start delivering $5.3 billion in additional funding over the next four years to provide:

• 1,300 new sub-acute hospital beds;
• Over 6000 new doctors;
• An additional 2500 aged care beds;
• Emergency department waiting times capped at four hours;
• Elective surgery delivered on time for 95 per cent of Australians;
• An historic agreement to reshape mental health services and help 20,000 extra young people get access to mental health services;
• More coordinated care for patients with diabetes in general practice;
• A Commonwealth takeover of primary care; and
• A Commonwealth takeover of aged care.

In other words – lots of extra beds, doctors and nurses before 2014, meaning Abbott was left to say that because WA hadn’t signed on, it wasn’t really a national deal and thus Rudd had failed, and the bureaucracy will be bigger, and where’s the money coming from etc.

Well now. Good luck with that, and good luck explaining how the extra money going in to hospitals and the creation of local networks is no good (especially when it is so close to what Abbott himself wants to do). That said Rudd and Swan will need to show where the money comes from, but I’m guessing they went into the COAG knowing how much they could afford to spend; if not, the Budget will be interesting. 

Abbott wanted to be able to go to the election saying Rudd had broken the promise on fixing the health system. With this deal and the money starting from July 1, that ain’t going to fly. But all is not lost for Tony, perhaps he can hope the Health deal will “scuttle” Rudd, though if we go by The Australian's understanding of the word, that might see the next poll Rudd in front 56-44.

Polls, Idle Polls, I know not what they mean

Today one of the irregular Nielsen Polls came out in the Fairfax papers. I generally don’t bother much with Nielsen because they only come out every 4 or 6 weeks and thus it is almost pointless trying to track any movements. A note to Fairfax: if you want your polls to have the influence that the Newspolls do, put them out every fortnight.

This one came out with Labor’s two party preferred score diving to its worst ever result since Rudd took over the leadership. It had the ALP at 51% and the LNP at 49%.

Normally this would be big news; the only problem is no one really believed it. The ALP’s primary vote had dropped by 3% and the Greens primary had increased by 3%. Nothing changed with the LNP, and on the leaders’ approval ratings, Rudd’s went up 2% and his disapproval went down 1%; whereas Abbott’s approval rating went done 4% and his disapproval went up 4%! So yeah people became more dissatisfied with Abbott, and more satisfied with Rudd, but the ALP vote fell? All in all a pretty odd poll result, and one that is pretty easily dismissed.

This is made obvious by the Fairfax papers pretty much ignoring the two party preferred figure. Of the four stories in the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age only one gave any real prominence to what would normally be a major headline:

Tough line on immigration hurts Labor

And even this article didn’t give the 2PP anywhere near the usual prominence it normally would, most likely because the explanation of why the ALP’s vote dropped – the decision to suspend processing asylum seeker application for refugees from Sri Lanka and Afghanistan – didn’t hold up when examined against other questions in the poll. This can be seen in the headline of one of the other three articles:

Labor wins support for asylum seeker stance

You see the poll also asked if voters backed the suspension of processing of refugees – 58% in total did (60% of ALP voters and 58% of LNP voters). That doesn’t mean the vote didn’t go down because of the policy, but it does show that it is hardly an election losing strategy. (As an aside don’t you love how the same poll can lead to diametrically opposed headlines?)

The other two articles focussed on the health policy questions:

Backing for Rudd on health

Rebel states to defy voters

The poll asked if voters supported Rudd’s health and hospital plan. It got a resounding 62% in favour. In Victoria the numbers in favour were 58%, and in WA it was 51%. Everywhere else it was over 60% (SA and QLD topping out at 66%). Does this mean a referendum on the issue would succeed? Well yes IF the numbers were replicated. But that is a big, big IF, and lot of ground has to be covered before we get to that stage.

I’m not as down on the chances of the referendum succeeding even if the LNP is against it as other commentators are, but the more likely result would certainly be a loss, as Mumble shows quite impressively: no referendum has ever passed that was opposed by the opposition.

Another poll come out today from the good folk at Essential Media. It had the two party preferred result at 54-46 – where it has been for the last three weeks. They also asked about asylum seekers. A whopping 69% supported the decision – 70% of ALP voters and 80% of LNP voters. This result will no doubt disappoint those of us who think the refugee issue is poorly handled by the politicians and media of this country, but it does demonstrate the master tactician that is Kevin Rudd. He has come up with a policy that if the LNP is to criticise, it means they are criticising a policy 80% of their own supports agree with. That is not a good way to win elections if you are Tony Abbott.

Today’s decision to reopen the Curtin Detention Centre is another soul destroying decision for lefties. It would be tempting to say if Turnbull was still leader of the Libs that ALP voters would shift to him, but that ignores the fact that he also took a hard line on asylum seekers as leader, and given this poll, if he were to be seen to be “softer” most likely the LNP would have lost voters to the ALP.

Sigh. If you hate these facts, get used to them. They’ll never change until two leaders both take a mature view on the issue, and with poll number like these that will never happen, as the temptation for the leader behind in the polls to take a “hard line” and grab the votes will be far too tempting.

Tomorrow the first Newspoll in 3 weeks will come out. The last one was the rather roguish 56-44 to the ALP. I can’t see that holding. If it is another 51 or 52, then we can say Nielsen got it right. If not I think we can put the poll down to just one of those statistical things that happens. Stat happens I guess. Apparently Dennis Shanahan will be announcing the Newspoll on Lateline tonight – as sure sign that it will be bad for the ALP. Given Shanahan is a Liberal stooge I wouldn’t be surprised if it is 50-50.

The Newspoll will also be viewed in the context of the COAG meeting, which looks likely to run at least till Tuesday afternoon. Whatever happens there may render this week’s polls quickly out of date one way or another.

UPDATE: The Newspoll is 54-46. Well that’s one conspiracy theory smashed! More on the poll later (though it looks to be pretty mundane)

AFL Power Rankings: Round 4 (or at least my baseball team is winning)

As a Crows supporter, I have to say being an AFL fan is not fun at the moment. My side can’t kick, tackle, handpass or win the contested footy. Other than that, they’re doing well. It’s pretty dire and the only comfort I have at the moment is that the Yankees are playing great baseball.

One could be generous and say the Crows lost because they kicked 6.19 to 16.7, but in all honesty they lost because their strategy was terrible – handpassing to men standing still and surrounded instead of kicking it long into the forward line. And for encouraging that style of play, only one man is to blame – Neil Craig. The Crows now play the Bulldogs, Port, Richmond and North. Prior to the season I would have said three were gimmies, and the Bulldogs one a 50:50; now I say if we don’t win at least two, then Craig should go. He should go for building a side with Kurt Tippett, Taylor Waker, Brett Burton, Jason Porplyzia, and Chris Knights, and yet thus far this season they have only once kicked over 10 goals. Yeah blame injuries, but more at fault is their style of play – Craig’s style of play.

In other more fun news, Fremantle are legit – a great game against the Saints; Geelong were brutal – their third quarter would put a chill in the spine of any player who has to play the Cats at home this year; and Melbourne are out of the eight only on percentage!

And so this weekend will be the annual let’s make some money out of Anzac Day round. Yeah yeah, they honour the sacrifice, but the stupid comparisons between sport and war are bullshit, and why the best on ground should get an award this week is beyond me – especially as being best on ground this week is no more “brave” or “valiant” than being best on ground last week. The AFL does it only because it is a money spinner. At least Anzac Day falls on a Sunday so we don’t have to put up with Collingwood and Essendon being given the day (and the marketing advantage) all to themselves.

Play the Last Post, blow the siren, and spare me the rest.  

	Rank	LW	Team	Record	Comment
	1	1↔	St Kilda	4-0	The class came to the fore in the last quarter, but the Saints would be very happy to have got past the Dockers.
	2	4↑	Geelong	3-1	The Cats put on a clinic in the second half to finish with 23.21 (and only one of those points was rushed). Imagine if they had kicked straight.
	3	3↔	Brisbane	4-0	A big result for the Lions, who now get the easy away game of the Demons to go 5-0. Can almost lock them in for the finals now.
	4	5↑	Fremantle	3-1	Freo were a few skill errors (costly turnovers) from beating the Saints. They should slaughter Richmond this week.
	5	6↑	Collingwood	3-1	A big win for the Pies, who right the ship after a couple pretty ordinary weeks.
	6	2↓	Bulldogs	2-2	The Dogs just ran out of puff, but should not have let the Lions come back from being 28 down. At least they have the easy Crows before the big test against the Saints.
	7	8↑	Sydney	3-1	The Swans had to fight hard, and then they zoomed away like a good side does. And they’re looking like a very good side.
	8	7↓	Hawthorn	1-3	The Hawks were without Buddy, but they lacked a lot more than that, and are now looking pretty average.
	9	9↔	Carlton	2-2	The Blues won the bye game against the Crows – Judd will be all the better for the training run he was allowed to have.
	10	10↔	Essendon	1-3	The Bombers got some cheap goals in the last quarter, but they were well beaten. Now for the annual membership booster of the Anzac Day clash against the Pies.
	11	12↑	Melbourne	2-2	A percentage booster! Now they get the Lions reality check.
	12	11↓	Port Adelaide	2-2	In the second half they conceded 15.14, and only kicked 3.1. That is a thumping. And now they have to play the Saints – so much for footy being fair!
	13	13↔	West Coast	1-3	The Eagles did well to get their first win, but now they meet the Swans in Sydney – a very tough ask at the moment.
	14	14↔	North Melbourne	1-3	North kept the Swans honest for 2 1/2 quarters, which means they’re only 62% as good. Which is about right.
	15	15↔	Adelaide	0-4	Pathetic. Had a chance to snatch the game in the last quarter, and instead kicked 3 straight points, then the Blues kicked 4 goals…
	16	16↔	Richmond	0-4	Would the Tigers beat the Werribee Tigers?

The Liberal Party’s “Action Plan”: Six points in search of a policy

Today the Liberal Party has released its re-election strategy , all nicely worked over by focus groups. The key phrase is “action”; their overriding message is “real action”.

They have accompanied the strategy with a brochure that you can download and distribute to your former friends and neighbours. Straight after watching Insiders I went to the Liberal Party site and tried to download the brochure, and was greeted with the message: “the file is damaged and could not be repaired”. Don’t you just hate the way impersonal computer language can sometimes be absolutely spot on.

The brochure contains a “Six Point Action Plan”; Lenore Taylor on Insiders today rather nicely pointed out that the Libs actually have a policy for only 1 of the 6.

Let’s have a look at the six to see what the Liberals think the public cares about (because election campaign material is not actually about what the Parties want to do, but what they think they need to talk about to win an election).

Tim Dunlop on twitter noted to me that the language used was quite interesting in itself. All except Number 4 (which deals with asylum seekers) use “present participles” – ie passive verbs without a subject and ending in “ing” – “reducing”, “encouraging”, “protecting” etc.

Whenever you see such language you know that you are reading focus group mush. The passive voice is great to use when you don’t actually have any thing to say or anything to support what you are saying. The media use it quite a lot – eg “It is being speculated that Julia Gillard will challenge Rudd after the next election” – So who exactly is speculating? Well the journalist and most likely no one else. If there was anything to the story, the sentence would be “Labor insiders believe that Julia Gillard will challenge Rudd…”. Passive voice allows you to say things without saying who will do what you are saying (or in the case of the Libs’ plan – how).

The other aspect of the present participle is the lack of a tense. “Reducing”, “encouraging” etc sound present tense, but on their own, they’re not. For example:

Last year the Government was reducing debt
Today the Government is reducing debt
Next year the Government will be reducing debt.

So when used like this, it doesn’t tie the opposition into anything; just some vague “we will do something about these things at some stage, but we hope you will think we’re doing something now” statement.

So let’s break them down:

1. Reducing debt: To safe guard future generations

Firstly it’s based on the false premise that Government debt is always bad. Personally I think future generations would prefer their parents had a job, rather than were unemployed because the Government said “no we can’t go into debt”.

But how will they reduce this debt? So far all we know is they will try and sell Medibank Private. Why are they privatising this – is it for increased productivity? Is it to improve the lot of those who are members of Medibank Private? No it is purely to pay of this debt – kind of like selling your car to pay for you home loan – a home loan you can afford to repay without selling your car.

2. Encouraging Small Business: To create real jobs and prosperity

I do like a good motherhood statement. But how will they do this?? I clicked on the “Small business” link on the Liberal Party website, and I was greeted with:

“Tell us how we can support small business”

Yep, they have no policy. So the only thing I can think of that the Liberals will do to “help” small business is remove the unfair dismissal provisions for small business. Oh and “WorkChoices II”. And in absence of any policy, that’s what the ALP will be telling everyone as well.

3. Protecting the Environment: And not just a great big tax

No not a great big tax, just a policy that assumes fairies live at the bottom of the environment and they will something to reduce carbon emissions. This is the one of the six for which the Libs have a policy and it is pathetic, does nothing, costs masses amounts of money and believes that big polluters will change the way they operate because, you know they just need to be given some encouragement.

It is also a policy that refutes the effectiveness of price and the market – thereby contradicting points 1, 2 and 5 – that debt needs to be reduced because it increases the price of borrowing, that small business needs government regulation reduced so they can operate more effectively, that means testing the Medicare rebate will increase the price of Private Health insurance, thereby reducing the demand for that product.

In short, don’t try and search for a coherent logic here.

4. Stop illegal immigration: To protect our Borders and keep Australia strong

The only one not to use a present participle. No mention of asylum seekers or boats (but we know that’s what they mean). No explanation of how stopping illegal immigration “keeps Australia strong” – would love someone to explain that to me. And no mention of a policy. Last week Abbott said he would deny permanent visas to any illegal immigrant, but by the end of the day his office had to backtrack, especially as it was pointed out that even under Howard illegal immigrants did end up with permanent visas.

Intriguingly this backtrack in one day got little media attention – but come the election campaign, the ALP will be betting that Abbott will have more of these “speak first, think later” moments and they will get huge attention then.

But do the Liberal Party actually have much of a policy on asylum seekers yet? I tried to find it on the Liberal Party website, but to no avail. Apparently they are “not ruling anything out", but it would be nice if they would rule something in.

5. Protecting Private Health: To ease the burden on the public system

So their big “action” on health is about the Medicare rebate being means tested. Geez. And if this statement doesn’t scream – “We don’t give a stuff about public hospitals” then I don’t know what does.

OK, the Libs think they have a winner on the Medicare means testing, I don’t think it is that big an election loser, as it does not hurt the ALP heartland, and it is also pretty logical and should have been in place for years. But the big thing is talking about private health insurance will mean a huge focus on the Liberal’s policy of selling Medibank Private. And I think that idea will go down like the proverbial bad smell in an elevator.

6. Securing Water: To protect our future and return prosperity to the bush

Well finally the National Party gets a mention. Any mention of how? Any mention of when? Nope.

[UPDATE]. “Laocoon” on Poll Bludger reminded me that the Liberal Party has a policy of holding a referendum on the Murray-Darling system; a policy that the National Party are not exactly in favour of, and one that seems more doomed to fail than any Health-takeover referendum. I’ve still yet to have explained to me why voters in WA, NT and Tasmania should have a say over a river system that does not go through their states.

***

So that’s it; kind of a fill in the blanks action plan. No mention of education. No mention of IR (unless you read between the lines). No focus on public health. No care of infrastructure.

A lot of holes, and a lot of ammunition for Gillard and Tanner come Question Time in May.

Some Health and Travel Advice

This morning in The Australian, Peter van Onselen wrote a column about Kevin Rudd not attending the Nuclear Security Summit held in Washington DC this week:

PM's missed trip a win for parochialism 

KEVIN Rudd has sometimes been (unfairly) criticised for choosing to attend international dialogues instead of staying at home to work through domestic policy difficulties. It is one of the reasons Julia Gillard has clocked up more time as acting PM than any previous deputy.

But this week, the Prime Minister made the opposite mistake by failing to attend a crucial nuclear security summit in Washington organised by US President Barack Obama.

van Onselen’s argument was that Rudd should have been at the meeting, and by staying home he missed an opportunity to put Australia's interests first.

Now I was pretty dismissive of his article, suggesting that no one would think Rudd should have gone to Washington the week before the biggest Council of Australian Government meeting in living memory. I felt van Onselen was pretty blasé about what Rudd was doing, and he was also massively underplaying the media’s reaction should Rudd have gone.

Andrew Carr, a blogger and PhD student in foreign affairs, took the opposite view and believed Rudd should have been there because it was the biggest gathering of world leaders in decades. Respecting Andrew’s opinions as I do, I thought it best to have a closer look at the summit, because to be honest I hadn’t really taken in the size of the event.

Wikipedia already has a page devoted to it which lists the attendees. And I have to say it is pretty impressive. There are 40 heads of state by my reckoning, and according to the NY Times, it is the largest gathering of world leaders at an event hosted by a US President since 1945! Forty seven nations were invited, and only Australia (Defence Minister), Egypt (Foreign Affairs Minister), Indonesia (Vice-President), Israel (Deputy PM), Poland (Foreign Affairs Minister), Thailand (Deputy PM), and the UK (Foreign Affairs Minister) are not represented by the Head of State/Government.

Australia is a huge supplier of uranium, and Rudd has also been active in the nuclear disarmament stakes, so he certainly should have been there, and given Rudd’s love of all things foreign affairs, you know he would have loved to have been there. And yet he wasn’t.

Why?

The reason of course is that while he should have been there, had he gone the media and opposition would have a merry old time saying that he had left the country in the crucial week before the COAG meeting, and that he was more interested in international affairs than the health and hospitals of the country. Anyone who doesn't think this would happen hasn’t read a newspaper or listened to AM radio since 24 November 2007. Barrie Cassidy in his article in The Drum today writes of WA Premier Colin Barnett:

He [Brumby] sees the objection of the West Australian Premier, Colin Barnett, to the GST changes as fundamental and non-negotiable. The fact that Barnett is overseas until the eve of the talks partly supports that view.

So you can plainly see the line taken if Rudd was OS – “no room for negotiations”, “no chance of a deal”, “He’s leaving Nicola Roxon to do the dirty work”, “Rudd’s already running away from the health package” etc etc.

The fact is the health and hospital deal is on a knife edge. John Brumby is acting like the worst whinger this side of Eddie McGuire, and has massively over-played his hand in the hope that his standing up to Canberra will help him in the Victorian elections later this year. That would be a good game plan if a) Kevin Rudd wasn’t more popular than he, and b) a majority of Victorians weren’t in favour of the scheme.

But because of Brumby (mainly), Rudd has had to take the politically expedient route and stay at home. Brumby today addressed the National Press Club – image how that would have looked were Rudd overseas – it would be as though he had vacated the field. The news reports would have been all about how his press conferences in Washington were all about domestic events. As it was Brumby’s performance at the press club was great, until he was asked questions and he looked rather flummoxed.

President Obama was in exactly the same position as Rudd when he cancelled his trip to Indonesia and Australia earlier this year because his Health Care Bill was going through the final stages in the House of Representatives. Admittedly Obama’s visit here was not as big an occasion as the Nuclear Security Summit, but in domestic political terms his Health Care Bill was as important as is Rudd’s health care scheme.

I don’t know how the COAG meeting next week will play out (apart from the fact that I’m pretty sure it will last longer than one day), but I do know the stakes are massive for Rudd – anything less than looking like he is fully committed to his reforms and they would be dead.

This is the problem with politics – so much of it comes down to pathetic symbolism. Obama didn’t need to stay in the US – he could have worked the phones just as well from Airforce One, but he had to be seen to be on deck. Such things happen all the time – Kevin Rudd flies over the cargo ship run aground on the Barrier Reef. Why? He didn’t need to, he has no knowledge of salvage operations, but he had to be seen to be there. He wasn't the only one who did it – Anna Bligh and Bob Brown also went for a look see (I’m not sure if Greg Hunt did, but given he was demanding Rudd be there I wouldn’t be surprised if he did). 

People and the media to a great extent have not shifted from mid-20th Century views of how things are done – leaders are expected to be physically at events and to conduct things face to face – being available on the phone is not enough – you’re suddenly classed as “absent”. Rudd could have just as easily watched video footage of the coal ship crash from his office in Canberra – but no, that wouldn’t satisfy the media. And make no mistake the only reason he was there was because of the media. You could say this is evidence that he is all spin, but no, it is evidence in my opinion that Rudd is a realist who knows if he hadn’t gone there himself, Abbott or Hunt would have been criticising him for not doing so, and the media would have reported that criticism without comment.

Take Peter Garrett – earlier this year he was criticised for not being present at a meeting that was of such a low level that it would have been absolutely incongruous for him to have been there – in fact he would have not added any value to the meeting at all. Did the media report that? No, it was suddenly the most important meeting ever held.

So back to Rudd and his absence from Washington. Yes he should have been there, and it would be nice to argue that he should have not cared about what the media or opposition would have said. On any other week I would agree with you – heck even if it were the week before the budget I’d agree with you. But with Brumby and other Premiers looking for any reason to block or amend or delay the health and hospital deal, all it would take is some media speculation that Rudd’s absence suggested he didn’t believe a deal would be made at COAG for that to become a self fulfilling prophecy.

And that would be a disaster for Rudd that would be painted as one of his own making – not a good look in an election year.

Rudd has been overseas a fair bit in his first two years, and I defy anyone to find a trip that was frivolous, and yet he has been criticised pretty ferociously by the media – if you have heard the phrase Kevin 747 you know what I’m talking about. I bet his missing this event absolutely killed him inside; and that in itself I think also displays just how important to him is getting this health scheme through. What leaders do is often symbolic, and yes missing this trip in the long term, big-world picture view of things was “wrong”, but what it symbolises is not parochialism, but rather that Health is the highest priority for Rudd – higher even than a once in a lifetime dream-for-a-foreign-affairs-nerd International Conference. And if that doesn’t indicate just how tough he will be negotiating at COAG, then nothing does.

Abbott: Oh Br’er Rudd please don’t throw me into the briar election (or out damn spot)

Tony Abbott on AM this morning:

if the Prime Minister wants an early election with his government in this kind of disarray - fair enough. Let's have it.

Yep, you heard it here first: the Government is in disarray. Hmmm… ok then, here’s how many polls since Kevin Rudd became leader of the ALP in 2006 that have had the Liberal-National Party beating the ALP in Two Party Preferred terms:

ZERO.

Here’s the result of the last Newspoll (which was two weeks ago, and for some unknown reason there wasn’t one today, despite everyone including Tony Abbott expecting one):

ALP 56% – LNP 44%

Here’s how many seats that would see the ALP and LNP win if replicated at the next election:

ALP 101; LNP 46 (with the ALP winning 18 more seats than in 2007)

But assuming that was a bit of a rogue poll, here’s how many seats the ALP and LNP would win according to Possum Pollytics’ current average of all recent phone polls:

ALP 98; LNP 49 (with the ALP winning just a mere 15 more seats than it did in 2007)

But let’s be really pessimistic and say the vote at the next election is the same as in 2007; here’s how many seats the ALP and LNP would win:

ALP 88; LNP 59 (due to redistributions the ALP wins 5 more seats than it did in 2007)

Here’s Tony Abbott's response this morning when asked about the Liberal Party's Health policy – the biggest issue in Australian politics by the length of the street:

Well, we will announce our health and hospital policy in good time before the election.

The same can be said about their IR policy, their education policy, their child care policy (oh wait, that’s right they came up with one for that and it got laughed at by all and sundry).

Hands up all those who think the Liberal Party are ready to fight an election right now?

Zero?

The only way Abbott’s calling for an early election makes any sense is that he is hoping to bluff Rudd into not going early, rather like Br’er Rabbit telling the Br’er Fox not to throw him into the briar patch. But let’s be honest even that doesn’t make any sense, because Rudd (and everyone else in the country) knows Abbott does not want an early election, and equally Abbott (and everyone else in the country) knows Rudd does not want an election before July 1 (because if he had a double dissolution before then the Senate would be back date to July 1 2009, meaning another election in only 2 years time).

And both Rudd and Abbott (and everyone else in the county) also knows Rudd wants to wait because he is betting Abbott will shoot himself in the foot the more time he has prior to an election.

So everyone knows Abbott is just being his usual self – full of bluster and without substance, and it is not Joel Chandler Harris, but Shakespeare to whom we turn for an answer to Abbott’s strategy:

Abbott is but a walking shadow, a poor player who struts and frets his hour upon the stage, and then will be heard no more. He tells a tale (told by an idiot) full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

But if Rudd were one to quote poetry, he wouldn’t use Shakespeare to respond to the question of why he isn’t calling an early election. No, he would quote the Poet Laureate of the ALP: Paul Keating:

“The answer is mate, because I want to do you slowly”

AFL Power Rankings: Round 3 (or I give up caring)

There is nothing worse than seeing your side play terrible footy, especially when you have a nagging thought in your head that they are not going to play any better: so it is for Crows’ fans this week – who are also thinking why did we pick this year to be useless and injury prone, a year when Gold Coast will get most of the draft picks.

But that’s the negative, on the positive side was a truly great game of footy between Fremantle and Geelong – a game that showed two of the greats of the game, Pavlich and Ablett, play a few rounds of “anything you can do I can do better”. Pavlich came out the winner, as did the Dockers, whose fans must be feeling like this is some amazing dream.

I’ve still got the Cats above the Dockers, because I believe in a neutral venue the Cats would be ahead; similarly I rate Carlton just above the Bombers because I’m not all that sold on Essendon and they just seem to have the wood on the Blues – also Carlton are playing without Judd, so you know they’re going to get better.

The big question is the Saints: they’ll be without Riewoldt till maybe Round 13, a huge gap to fill (and let’s be honest, they can’t fill it). It makes Jonathon Brown a short odds chance for the Coleman Medal – and you’d have to figure his odds of winning the MVP would also be pretty short (forget the Brownlow – it’s a midfielders only award). 

	Rank	LW	Team	Record	Comment
	1	1↔	St Kilda	3-0	A massive win for the Saints, but the loss of Reiwoldt will be equally big, especially as they now face a charged up Dockers
	2	3↑	Bulldogs	2-1	A big win, that has the Bulldogs loss in Round One looking like just a blip.
	3	6↑	Brisbane	3-0	Did it well over Port – though they really dropped the ball in the last 1/4 and thus blew a chance for a good percentage boost.
	4	2↓	Geelong	2-1	The Cats looked like always doing enough to get over the line, but the Dockers were not to be denied. They’ll be angry when they play this week at Kadinia Park for the first time this year (poor Port).
	5	9↑	Fremantle	3-0	This just in – the Dockers are the real deal. Now they meet the Saints in the match of the round – bet you wouldn’t have said that 3 weeks ago.
	6	4↓	Collingwood	2-1	4.17 won’t win many matches, let alone against the best. They were goalless in the second half, and to be honest have played poorly for the last two games.
	7	5↓	Hawthorn	1-2	The Hawks look a top 8 side, but not top 4.
	8	7↑	Sydney	2-1	Let’s be honest, beating Richmond tells us nothing. And with North and the Eagles up next they should be 4-1 when they meet the Lions in the rivalry round.
	9	8↓	Carlton	1-2	A bad loss, that makes it two in a row for the Blues, who are looking like they need a gun forward, and midfielder. Judd will be back in 2 weeks, but the forward is still to be found.
	10	11↑	Essendon	1-2	Essendon just seems to match up well against Carlton. They need to beat the Eagles to be even on wins and losses before the annual Anzac Day money spinner.
	11	10↓	Port Adelaide	2-1	Port were outclassed until the game was effectively over. Now they have Geelong followed by the Saints…
	12	13↑	Melbourne	1-2	Good to get the win, but beating the Crows is not that big a deal.
	13	12↓	West Coast	0-3	The Eagles could never really get close enough to trouble North. Now they go back to the safety of Perth in search of a first win.
	14	15↑	North Melbourne	1-2	North get their first win, but to say they were impressive would be a big overstatement.
	15	14↓	Adelaide	0-3	They kicked just 1 point in the last quarter against Melbourne. Completely pathetic. All teams have to do to beat the Crows is kick more than 50 points. Neil Craig’s coaching should be under serious scrutiny.
	16	16↔	Richmond	0-3	It seems the Tigers’ strategy is to hope teams stop trying once they get out to a 10 goal lead.