On the QT: It must be love

Here was Tony Abbott in August 2008, talking about Peter Costello: "I suppose we are all publicly saying what a terrific bloke he is, what a fantastic political talent he is, how much we miss him. We love him. We want him."

Methinks the love ain’t being felt so much today, after Peter Costello wrote in The Age of Abbott’s Paid Parental Leave scheme:

Abbott undoubtedly thought he had to say something on International Women's Day - he keeps being told he needs more appeal to women voters - and so he adopted the Crocodile Dundee approach. In the movie, a New York mugger pulls a switchblade on Mick Dundee. Our hero laughs at the blade, saying, "That's not a knife, this is a knife'', as he pulls out his 30-centimetre hunting blade. The terrified mugger disappears into the night.

And the point of Abbott's proposal is to tell the public that Rudd does not have a maternity leave scheme. "This is a maternity leave scheme," he declares.

In this kind of politics, if your opponent has a bad idea you try to outflank it. Your opponent has a mildly bad idea, so you come up with a more extreme one and have a race to the bottom.

But strangely I do suspect there is some love between the ALP and Tony Abbott – there must be, after all remember how when at Primary School when a boy likes a girl he does everything he can to annoy her? Well the ALP seem to be doing something similar to Abbott on the issue of Health. They are really annoying the hell out of him – it can only be their way of showing love!

The issue of course is again the “ripping out of $1b from the health budget”. As I said yesterday it’s not really true, but it’s not really false – and so the ALP will keep saying it again and again, and they’ll be able to provide enough proof to justify their argument. The Government today used six Dorothy Dixers to ask about Health. Rudd in response to the first used the $1b line and it had Julie Bishop on her feet asking it be withdrawn because saying it “causes disorderly responses”! Yep, Bishop wanted it withdrawn because it made the Libs get all cranky and annoyed, and it forced them to be disorderly! Little wonder that Rudd was able to scornfully say later that “You know when the Member for Curtin [Bishop] takes control of the tactics things are going real bad”.

The Opposition was again on the issue of Insulation – Abbott warning that each roof was a “ticking time bomb”, and he wanted Rudd to commit to inspecting all 1.1 million of the houses that have had insulation put in (though we presume he doesn’t think Rudd should do it personally). Rudd pointed out that the number of fires caused by insulation has dropped massively since the introduction of the scheme. He of course is absolutely correct. Will it matter? Probably not. Quite often in politics, truth is a fudgy thing (as demonstrated by the $1b figure). The media is not interested in the facts on either issue – to explain the facts takes more time than to run with the “perception”. And thus we’re reduced to both sides seeking to run with their skewed facts as hard as they can.

Next up was Asylum Seekers. The Libs were commenting on the finding by the NT Coroner that he believed three of the asylum seekers on SIEV 36 deliberately set fire to the boat. The Libs wanted to know why the three had been granted a permanent protection visas, and when would those visas would be cancelled. Each time (he was asked four times) Rudd responded that the Government would wait till the outcome of any criminal proceedings before taking action. I’m not actually sure why the Libs want the visas cancelled – they haven’t really explained their reasoning. Surely they don’t want them to be deported, because one would think they would like any criminals to face justice here? No doubt they’ll explain their case eventually…

The only other topic to get a run from the Opposition was Education Spending. Gillard played a pretty straight bat to the question.

Some of the Libs were cheering when Gillard got up – as though that would annoy Rudd. You see there is a very dumb line being run (mostly by The Australian) that because the last Newspoll showed Abbott with a slightly larger “net-satisfaction” rating, this meant Rudd is now a drag on the ALP vote! Yes it has gotten that dumb out there in media land. The problem with that line is that it assumes leader’s satisfaction ratings are zero-sum – ie you can’t be satisfied with both Rudd and Abbott – which you can (you can also of course be dis-satisfied with both). It also assumes Newspoll is the Gospel, and the other polls don’t matter at all.

It also assumes that you ignore everything else that is polled – most crucially Preferred PM which has Rudd currently leading 55% to 30%. Yep, the ALP is going to ditch a PM who is 25 point ahead. What dills.

Thankfully psephologist, Aristotle decided to shed a bit of intelligence on the issue. He looked at the respective Newspolls at the same time in each of the last 10 election years – looking at Two-Party Preferred and the Preferred PM.  He ordered them from best results for the Opposition to the worst. Here’s what he found:

Voting intentions two party preferred
2007 - ALP 61%  L-NP  39%....(Opposition led by 22%)
1995 - ALP 43%  L-NP 57%.....(Opposition led by 14%)
2001 - ALP 56%  L-NP 44% ....(Opposition led by 12%)
2004 - ALP 54%  L-NP 46%.....(Opposition led by 8%)
1992 - ALP 47%  L-NP 53%.....(Opposition led by 6%)
1998 - ALP 53%  L-NP 47%.....(Opposition led by 6%)
1987 - ALP 51%  L-NP 49%.....(Opposition trailed by 2%)
1989 - ALP 51%  L-NP 49%......(Opposition trailed by 2%)
2010 - ALP 52%  L-NP 48%......(Opposition trails by 4%)

Better Prime Minister
2007 - John Howard 36%  Kevin Rudd 49%......(Opposition leader led by 13%)
1995 - Paul Keating 35%  John Howard 47%....(Opposition leader led by 12%)
1992 - Paul Keating 36%  John Hewson 42%....(Opposition leader led by 6%)
2001 - John Howard 35%  Kim Beazley 41%.....(Opposition leader led by 6%)
1998 - John Howard 36%  Kim Beazley 36%.....(Opposition leader equal)
2004 - John Howard 43% Mark Latham 42%.....(Opposition leader trailed by 1%)
2010 - Kevin Rudd 55%  Tony Abbott 30%........(Opposition leader trails by 25%)
(Note: There's no comparable better prime minister figures from 1987 and 1989, as Newspoll only measured these during the election campaign.)

In red are the two times in those ten elections that there was a change of Government (yes, remember it doesn't happen very often). In green is where the Liberal Party and Tony Abbott are now. Yeah, Rudd’s really going to get rolled by Gillard.

Look, I don’t mean to say the ALP can’t lose the election. I’m saying the media – especially The Australian – should show some intelligence when talking about the polls and Rudd’s and Abbott’s “popularity”.

But back to QT.

The Dorothy Dixers today were pretty spritely. Wayne Swan had the most fun with Costello’s comments, lauding Abbott as “a miracle worker” for being the first person to unite Peter Costello and Paul Keating! It was a good line and made up for him referring to the Productivity Commission as “PC” so he could compare them with “the other PC – Peter Costello”. Swan is obviously buoyed by the good economic figures that keep coming out. Today the data on private dwelling constructions were released. They were excellent – a 15% increase in the last quarter of 2009. All those builders will not be thinking the Government has dropped the economic ball.

Tony Bourke got all shirty with Abbott for having appeared a few weeks back at a rally of NSW farmers protesting state vegetation laws because the event was centred around Peter Spencer who protested the laws by sitting on a pole and going on a hunger strike. Bourke pointed out that politicians on both sides had in the past always avoided having anything to do with such stunts for fear of encouraging similar self-harmful behaviour. Tony Abbott however turned up this time to the rally, demonstrating in Bourke’s opinion that Abbott was “erratic, self-obsessed and has a twisted morality”.

And Bourke is bloody well right – and he should have added that the rally consisted of a group of nutters more at home in one of the far-right wing Tea-Party rallies in America. It was so loopy that the National Farmer Federation didn’t want a bar of it.

But it was the last Dorothy Dixer to Rudd that really brought out the love. It was an extremely unsubtle question asking Rudd how was the Government making amends for the “ripping out of $1b from the Health Budget”.

So how did it go down? Let’s check the Hansard minutes:

Mr Melham, 3:18:29 PM, to Mr Rudd (Prime Minister), Point of order, Mr Pyne, 3:19:06 PM, Mr Rudd, 3:20:36 PM,

Mr Pyne, 3:21:12 PM, moved that the Prime Minister be no longer heard.

[Div No. 310], 3:21:30 PM to 3:27:34 PM, Ayes 60, Noes 83

Mr Rudd, 3:28:50 PM, Point of order, Ms J. Bishop, 3:29:13 PM, Mr Rudd, 3:29:50 PM, Point of order, Mr Pyne, 3:31:37 PM, Mr Rudd, 3:32:57 PM, Point of order, Mr Dutton, 3:33:32 PM, Mr Rudd, 3:33:56 PM

Member ordered to withdraw

Speaker ordered Mr Haase to withdraw for 1 hour for interjecting after a warning had been given by the Chair, 3:34:08 PM,

Point of order, Ms J. Bishop, 3:34:49 PM, Mr Rudd, 3:35:02 PM, Point of order, Mrs B. K. Bishop, 3:36:23 PM, Mr Rudd, 3:36:53 PM

No, I think we can safely say they didn’t appreciate Rudd’s way of saying that he likes Abbott!

Rudd kept repeating after each point of order, how sensitive was the Liberal Party on this issue. He put the $1b in terms of hospital beds – 1,025; he put it in terms of GP training places – 760. It had them extremely riled up – so riled up they even produced some Excel graphs on A3 paper showing the increase in the Health Budget over the 5 years of Abbott’s term as Minister (you always know when you’ve annoyed Julie Bishop and Peter Dutton – because they go straight for a big prop).

It didn’t stop Rudd at all; and it won’t stop him in the future; and it won’t stop the ALP running lots of adverts during the election campaign on the $1b ripped out of Health.

And Abbott knows he can’t do a damn thing about it. If he did he would move a censure motion on the issue, or at least a Matter of Public Importance. But he can’t because there’s enough “truth” in the $1b figure for it to be valid. Just as there’s enough “truth” in the insulation scheme for the Libs (and media) to keep saying it is bungled.

So both sides will keep pushing their version of truth, all the way till election day.

So enjoy – it if annoys you, just think of it as their way of saying they love your vote (but know that they won’t respect you the morning after election day).

On the QT: Does Comrade Tony’s jam jar have a billion dollars in it?

In the past 24 hours the previous two Prime Ministers, John Howard and Paul Keating, have made appearances in the media. Howard was on 4 Corners talking about Tony Abbott; Keating was interviewed on Fran Kelly this morning. Their respective appearances would have only served to convince supporters of both that we are well rid of the other, and Oh! That the one we like were still in power. There’s no guessing which one I miss!

Seeing Howard last night merely reinforced that the 24 November 2007 was a great, great day in this nation's history. I still remember with supreme joy seeing the image on the right appear during the ABC telecast on election night (and recall the wild cheers from those at the National Tally Room when it came on the screen). Howard last night was his usual nothing self. Here’s a standard line:

Tony's an authentic person and I think a lot of people see Tony as somebody who actually believes in something.

Yeah authentic… really? Like when he was authentically against climate change policy, then authentically for it, then against it… etc etc etc

Howard yesterday was also in the newspapers attacking Rudd for not having done anything since being elected:

"Economic credentials depend on more than spending a lot of money to stimulate the economy when there's an overseas recession. One of the reasons why we had a good reputation in this area was that we had undertaken economic reforms. Now there are no economic reforms the Rudd government has undertaken."

Which is I guess Howard’s way of saying he left the country in a shocking state and Rudd should be doing all he can to bring in the economic reforms that he couldn’t be bothered doing in 11 years? I would have thought Howard would like the fact that he thinks Rudd hasn’t changed much. But look, let us leave Howard criticising Rudd for something illogical and untrue, and go to more enjoyable things – Paul Keating letting rip against the Opposition.

Keating was notionally being interviewed to talk about his hope for compulsory superannuation to be increased to 12% (something I agree with, though others like Peter Martin don’t) but at the 14 minute mark, Fran Kelly turned to current politics – making mention of today’s Newspoll (which was unchanged from last fortnight’s 52-48 to the ALP, and Pref PM also unchanged at 55-30 to Rudd). Kelly has never seen a Newspoll that she has not believed shows the end of times for Rudd, and so she wanted to know Keating’s thoughts.

He talked of Abbott taking over the Liberal Party – saying he had consolidated the right wing “all the nutters are behind him” but didn’t think that Abbott would get the middle ground. On Barnaby Joyce he referred to him as “Bjelke-Petersen junior” saying he “was running around making economic pronouncements which are foolish and extreme” (I guess a nice bit of irony from the guy who said Australia could end up as a Banana Republic!). And of the Opposition in Government he said “you wouldn’t trust this mob with a jam jar full of 5 cent bits”.

Kelly then wanted to know why the electorate is going off the Rudd Government (Kelly apparently thinks an election winning lead is a sign of unpopularity – she even put in the slogan “all talk no action” – well done Fran, keep going with those Liberal talking points!). Keating pointed out:

“The Government did a miraculous job in saving the national economy from the deepest recession that has come along since the Depression. You know, the one country out of the 26 member states of the OECD that had no negative growth” (I think there was one other actually).

He continued, “I mean the Rudd Government should be re-elected on that basis alone! I mean getting that right… if they did not one other thing in this Parliament but saving us from the massive crunch which is happening in Britain and the United States now, and in Germany, France and places like Greece, to save us from that kind of... that kind of holocaust, economic holocaust, they deserve re-election”.

He then acknowledged: “But I think the emergency is over now, and the Prime Minister understands that [ie during such an emergency a Government will often be “popular” but not during “normal times”] and this is why he’s on things like Health; he’s trying to deal with these long term structural issues”.

His commentary was quite timely given this morning I was unfortunately watching the ABC2’s Breakfast show (an eminently missable program). Chris Bowen was being interviewed by Joe O’Brien. O’Brien asked Bowen in a rather flippant voice: “Other than steer the nation through the Global Financial Crisis, what has the Government done?” When Bowen pointed out that the GFC was a pretty big deal, O’Brien said “and I acknowledged it”. Well yes he did but with such a manner that made it quite clear he thought it was a doddle. I can just see O’Brien interview Federer and asking, “Besides winning three of the last four Grand Slam titles, what have you done in the last 12 months?”

Keating is right – the emergency is over – because the Government saved the day! But the media for sure has moved on. Kept Australia out of a global recession? Snore, that’s so 2009, what have you done for me lately?

Kelly then asked Keating what he thought about the coming election and Abbott’s chances. Here PJK let rip:

"If Tony Abbott ends up the Prime Minister of Australia, you've got to say, ‘God help us. Gold help us’. [He is] truly an intellectual nobody and [has] no policy ambition. I mean ‘is that all there is?’… I mean is that where we’d be really?

I mean, look he turned up in the last couple years when I was Prime Minister, those regarded him as a resident nutter on their side.. you know, where is the thought out position?  A conservative party can have a thought out position. I saw this program last night with Malcolm Turnbull [4 Corners], well I mean the differences! Turnbull had an articulated, intellectual, moderate, thought-out conservative position. The fact is that Abbott does not have this”.

Kelly then asked about the story Abbott floated yesterday, that we overdo the “welcome to country” things – that it is just tokenism – a position quickly supported by Wilson Tuckey, which says a fair bit I would think. Keating responded:

“We have a chance in this part of the world as a society to turn over a new leaf.
Of Abbott’s position he said: “Here we are an immigrant country, but by the way we are not big enough to acknowledge that we did the dispossessing?”

He continued: “As I said in my Redfern Speech [ a great speech, by the way] we did the murders, we brought the alcohol and the diseases, we did these things… and goodness of heart and honesty is something that is a core requirement on a good country. You know, truth is a necessary ingredient in a society with its head in the air.

If you want to go round telling lies all your life, historical lies like Tony Abbott does – fine! But haven’t we moved past that? Do we really want little John Howard? It was bad enough having the real John Howard, you know with all of the pre-Copernican obscurantism he had. But we want just another little John Howard?  You know at least Howard was a militant, aggressive conservative driving in reverse through the rear-vision mirror. Do we want the poor-man’s Howard?

Ah yes. I know he doesn’t change any votes, and some will say he hurts the ALP with swinging voters. I don’t give a damn! It was good to have him back, especially when you compare his performance with today’s Question Time.

Today’s topics of questioning from the Libs were Asylum Seekers, Insulation and then at the end, the Education Stimulus.

The asylum seeker issue is easily the one guaranteed to bring out the worst in both sides. There was chance when Turnbull was leader of the Libs for there to be once again a rational and bipartisan approach to the issue. Instead both he and then Rudd took the low road. Turnbull blew the dog whistle, and Rudd responded by going all over the top about people smugglers etc. Today Rudd was more reserved and methodical – but it’s too late. The issue is with us until at least the election. Though I really don’t think it has too much punch – especially as those who side with Abbott on this issue would already be with him. But still the Libs think it’s a winner and so they asked five questions on it.

Rudd’s response to each was to point out the numbers of asylum seekers that came under Howard, and he also rather subtly started clearing the way to allow asylum seekers to be processed in Australia (he pointed out that it happened under Howard in 2007 even when the so-called Pacific Solution was in operation). When it happens will the fact it happened under Howard matter to the Libs? What??! Will facts and logic matter? Of course not! But, sigh, the yellow hordes are coming, so let’s blow that whistle…

The Government once again was focussed on Health. Rudd was outlining the Government’s next attack on Abbott – the number of “warnings” he received over the shortage of Doctors. This will be a lot like the ALP’s attack on Costello about the number of “warnings” the Reserve Bank gave the Howard Government over interest rates. The good thing about this is that a warning can be anything you want, so long as you reads it that way! Rudd was saying Abbott was warned 7 times about the shortage of doctors, 9 times about the shortage of nurses, 3 times about the shortage of specialists, 4 times about hospital funding, 2 times about shortage of surgeons, and 3 times about funding of the health system. Expect to hear that again and again this year.

Abbott won’t like it – especially given his reaction to the claim he ripped $1b out of the Health system. Lindsay Tanner today took up that line, and Abbott and Pyne did not like it one bit. Tanner referred to the Budget Papers (page 179):

Australian Health Care Agreements Expense ($m)

                                                                              2003-04         2004-05           2005-06        2006-07

Department of Health and Ageing       -108.9               -172.0                -264.6            -372.9

Abbott and Pyne both called Tanner a liar. The Speaker got very shirty with Abbott, and by all right should have warned him. But Abbott just better suck it up, because the ALP will keep saying it every day till election day – especially as they know it really annoys him. Rudd in fact used the topic as the basis for the last answer of Question Time, and he really went in hard on the issue – drawing a response from Abbott that the Prime Minister was being very “un-Prime Ministerial” (whatever that means).

The questions on insulation were more about either dodgy companies or bills for fires. Rudd studiously non-answered them all and pretty much dumped it all on Combet’s lap. I think we can say for sure that if Combet is able to keep this issue “insulated”, he will be given a very senior position after the election. (The fact is he should already have one.)

The Education Spending questions were carbon copies of those from last year, except this time they were based on a story from the Sydney Morning Herald, and not The Australian.  The story was based on complaints by the NSW Teachers Union. Would Julia miss an opportunity to get stuck into the Teacher’s Union? Hell no! She took great delight in calling the link between the Opposition, the NSW Teacher Union, the Australian Education Union and the Shooters Party of NSW as a great “cabal” – given they were the groups against the MySchools website. She laughed at Abbott basing questions on the positions of a union – describing Abbott as “Comrade Tony” – especially as “one by one they [the opposition] invoke unions [which] they spent the entire time in office trying to abolish”.

The politics of this Education Spending will be this – come election time, will the ALP be able to sell all the buildings around the country in virtually every school as a good thing, or will the Liberals be able to persuade the electorate the buildings were bad and not needed. I think the ALP has an easier task.

After Question Time Abbott did seek to claim he had been misrepresented over the Health Funding, but he didn’t seek to correct any record regarding his views on women. During Question Time, Jenny Macklin took a shot at him for not repudiating in the 4 Corners episode things he wrote while back at uni. He wrote then:

I think it would be folly to expect that women will ever dominate or even approach equal representation in a large number of areas simply because their aptitudes, abilities and interests are different for physiological reasons.

His response last night on 4 Corners?

TONY ABBOTT: Well, I just don't want to go over old ground too much Liz. Ah, I don't want to repudiate what was said, but I don't want people to think that what I thought as a 21 year old is necessarily what I think as a 52 year old.

He doesn’t want to repudiate the view that women will not be able to approach equal representation in certain areas purely because of their physiological aptitude, ability or interests???!

As Keating said, if this guy ever becomes PM, God help us.

On the QT: There Won’t Be Blood

Last year when Turnbull was making a charge at Rudd over the Grech Affair, there was a distinct feeling that Question Time could get bloody. When Turnbull asked Rudd a question on something seemingly innocuous, there was the feeling that there would be a follow up question that would pack a decided sting. You half expected Turnbull to lean over the Dispatch Box and say to Rudd “I drink your milkshake”.   Similarly when the opposition was targeting Joel Fitzgibbon they would ask what appeared to be innocent questions that would then be followed up that day or the next with a question that would reveal the Minister to have totally stuffed up – or more than that, quite possibly lied to Parliament.

Today’s Question Time (and indeed all this year) there was none of that feeling. Throughout the entire time the Opposition “attacked” Garrett, never did he seem to be taking body blows, let alone any hits to the head. Garrett was demoted not because the Opposition revealed anything, but because it was a story that the media was not going to leave alone – regardless of fact – and thus politically Rudd had to be seen to do something. If Abbott had really had Garrett on the rope in Question Time, he would have been sacked – not even Rudd is going to keep a Minister who is seen in Parliament to be floundering. 

Today Abbott and Greg Hunt, as they did last Thursday, tried to go after Rudd regarding certain letters written by Garrett to Rudd last year regarding the insulation scheme. Abbott started by wanting to know why Rudd didn’t mention four briefings he was given on the scheme by his Department when Rudd was answering questions on the issue last week. Rudd played a straight bat: said the Government was getting on with fixing the scheme and that was that. Hunt asked when would Rudd release the letters. Rudd said bugger off (well words to that effect) and said if you want them so bad do a Freedom of Information request – otherwise wait 30 years for it and all the other Cabinet documents to be released.

Hunt tried the line again, Rudd told him to bugger off. Abbott tried it again and Rudd replied that nothing in the briefings he had received contradicted anything he had said in Parliament on the issue.

Now here’s the thing – were this last year, and were Turnbull asking the questions, there would be the distinct feeling that Turnbull would be about to reveal the letters and show that Rudd had indeed misled the Parliament. But with Abbott and Hunt today (and last week), there’s no feeling that that is about to happen – rather they seem to be on a fishing exercise (or perhaps hunting trip is the operative phrase). Turnbull seemed to be asking questions to which he already knew the answers (like a lawyer always does); Abbott and Hunt seem to be just hoping Rudd might let slip something.

Now you might say, “look what happened to Turnbull” – but that was because he was given bum intelligence from Godwin Grech (and he was dopey enough to believe it), not because his Questions were poor. Indeed on Friday June 19 last year, many politics watchers thought there was a very real possibility that Rudd might have to resign (within 24 hours it seemed like Turnbull was the one in trouble…). The only issue you could have with Turnbull is that he should have got someone else to target Rudd – but I suspect Turnbull didn’t think anyone else could do it as well as he.

Now the question has to be asked – why is Abbott asking Rudd these questions? Does he seriously think he will get Rudd’s head over this? Question Time gives the opposition, ten or eleven opportunities to target the Government – in effect 10 or eleven chances to let everyone know what it wants the issues to be. There’s no reason to waste questions to Rudd on issues dealing with letters received or not, unless those letters contains some real political dynamite. And the indications thus far are that even if the letters were revealed they wouldn’t actually lead to Rudd resigning or being other than somewhat annoyed that the issue is still running. And no one in the media is really suggesting the letters could contain anything lethal either.

So let’s look at what the Opposition asked about today:

to Rudd – Paid Parental Leave (saying the Government should introduce its Bill this week – a dopey question really)
to Rudd – The Insulation Scheme briefing
to Rudd – The Insulation Scheme letter
to Rudd – The Insulation Scheme briefing
to Rudd – The Insulation Scheme letter
to Rudd – The Insulation Scheme – carcinogenic fibres from evil imported batts (the type of question only The Australian would report)
to Gillard – Building the Education Revolution “waste”
to Gillard – Building the Education Revolution “waste”
to Rudd – Building the Education Revolution “waste”

A few things to note: the question about the PPL was not about the Liberal's plan, but the Government’s – Abbott saying the Govt should introduce it now. It was another indicator that the Libs are running away very quickly from their own dog of a scheme. Six days ago it was all about how poor Jenny the hairdresser would be thousands of dollars worse off compared to the Government's “Mickey Mouse” scheme. Now the Libs want the Government to bring in that scheme as soon as possible!

Another thing to note – the issue of Health got more attention from Tony Abbott after Question Time than it did during. Straight after Question Time Abbott claimed to have been misrepresented by the Government when it says he “ripped $1b out of the Health system”. The line is obviously hurting Abbott, and he wants to kill it off – the problem is he can’t, because it is a political line – not an issue of truth or lying. The ALP says Abbott reduced the Health Budget by $1b in the forward estimates of the Budget; Abbott says the Health Budget went up not down while he was Health Minister and thus he could not have “ripped money out of the system”. Who is “correct” is up to whoever you believe, so Abbott can claim to have been misrepresented all he likes, it won’t stop Roxon or Rudd or Gillard or Swan or Tanner from repeating the line over and over again.

There was an interesting line of questioning about the insulation scheme that the Liberals did not surprisingly pursue – surprisingly, because this morning it was getting wide coverage: Namely that insurers would not insure a house that had been insulated under the insulation scheme unless there was a certificate showing the insulation had been checked. In effect saying all 1.1 million homes would need to be checked. Here was the issue being reported on AM:

Insurance may be denied over insulation bungle

TONY EASTLEY: The Federal Opposition is calling on the Government to pay for a safety inspection for every one of the more than one million homes that have been insulated under the bungled Commonwealth scheme. The Opposition says if not, many Australians could be left without home insurance.
The Government has pledged to inspect 200,000 houses, but the Opposition says that is not good enough.
From Canberra, Alexandra Kirk reports.

ALEXANDRA KIRK: The Government will pay for safety checks for all 50,000 homes with new foil insulation to ensure roofs aren't electrified and it's paying for 150,000 inspections of homes with insulation batts, targeting the work of "dodgy" installers. But the Opposition says many, many more inspections will have to be done.

GREG HUNT: We know that there are 240,000 dangerous or dodgy roofs out there. We don't know which of the million roofs are these dangerous and dodgy roofs. The Government has no excuse and no choice to do other than inspect all of those roofs.

ALEXANDRA KIRK: The Coalition's environment spokesman Greg Hunt, who says there's another reason for a 100 per cent inspection rate.

GREG HUNT: Some householders have been told by insurance companies that if they have had insulation installed under the Rudd program then they must have an inspection.

ALEXANDRA KIRK: Even from installers who have been in the business for a very long time?

GREG HUNT: It is impossible to say what the final demands of insurance companies will be but it is absolutely clear there are new pressures on householders and the Government has a duty to give householders peace of mind and to make sure that each house is safe.

Now I listen to AM every morning on the way to work, and it does great work with interviews, but often it does a poor job of actual questioning of statements. Because it is out first thing each morning, often it reports things without completely checking their veracity – purely in the interests of driving the news narrative of the day. If the Opposition claims something AM often reports the claim, and leave it up to the Government to refute it. And so we have the case we have here – a claim by the Opposition, that is reported without question.

Thankfully the ABC has The World Today to do some quality journalism. This program actually decided to ask insurers whether for not Hunt was talking out of his backside. Guess what?

Insurers deny Opposition insulation claims

ELEANOR HALL: Australian insurance companies say there is no substance to the claims by Federal Opposition politicians that they won't sell policies to homeowners who have had insulation installed under the Commonwealth program.

The Opposition says the Federal Government should pay for a safety inspection for every home that has been insulated, saying that unless that happens, many Australians may be left without home insurance.

But an insurance broker says insurers won't force homeowners to prove that they've had their houses inspected.
…
TIMOTHY MCDONALD: The World Today contacted several large insurers. None would go on tape, but all said they don't ask if a house has had insulation installed when considering whether to insure a home. What's more, insurance brokers say they haven't been contacted by underwriters, as is often the case when there's a looming problem that might stop insurance companies from allowing customers to take on a policy.
Andrew Faber is an account director with MGA Insurance Brokers.

ANDREW FABER: Quite often you'll get an email coming out with an embargo on placing new business in certain areas for a 48-hour period so that, you know, if there is obviously a bush fire on the door step that someone is not going to call up with and take out a policy when the fire is literally a couple of kilometres from their home. So the underwriters are generally concerned about something in a large scale, they'll send out some sort of notification or embargo but no, we haven't had anything at this stage about the insulation batts.

TIMOTHY MCDONALD: Andrew Faber says it's probably not worth it for insurance companies to insist on a safety certificate, when the chance of a fire is still relatively small.

Hang on? “The chance of fire is still relatively small”??? And here I thought every grandmother in the country should be losing sleep because her roof might catch on fire tonight.

Excellent work by The World Today – that is called journalism.

And thus not one question about insurance and insulation…

Here was the list of topics the Government asked Dorothy Dixers on:

to Rudd – Health (the Government’s plan to spend an addition $600m on GPs and Doctors)
to Roxon – Health
to Bowen – Medicare and changes to it being blocked by the Libs
to Swan – Health
to Roxon – Dental Health
to Gillard – Building the Education Revolution
to Macklin – PPL (actually about costs of living prices)
to Tanner – PPL (taxation distortions)
to Combet – Climate Change
to McClelland – Disability laws

Now the Government's answers were not exactly Oscar winning stuff (unless you’re talking Sandra Bullock level, Oscar wining stuff). Roxon had a good line about the choice between the Government and the Opposition was the Government was for 6000 doctors, the Opposition was for 6000 g0lf balls. But it was pretty much a by-the-numbers response, especially on the day of such a big announcement. 

Bowen had a few good quips about the negotiations between the ALP and the Libs, and saying “A funny thing happened on the way to the Senate”. And when revealing that proposed amendments to the legislation to the Medicare refunding Bill were actually unconstitutional, he sneered that “The Leader of the Opposition isn’t the sort of bloke to let a little thing like the Australian Constitution get in the way” . He then compared Abbott with Geoff Boycott –“the great blocker”. I give his effort a “B”.

Gillard revealed that while Abbott, Hockey and Joyce have all been saying they would review the Building the Education Revolution funding if they were to win office, Chris Pyne had apparently written a letter to Principals saying the funding would not be cut. It was good, but hardly up to her effort of last Thursday.

Tanner was ok, but he set up a joke about a mile out on Abbott not exercising his brain. The problem was he started saying “how the Leader of the Opposition enjoys exercising…” and everyone in the room knew he was going to make a pun about exercise.

So what was the wash up of the day? Not much really. All we learned was that Abbott hates talking about Health or his own PPL scheme, and he thinks he can trouble Rudd by bowling him slow medium pacers (though we knew that already).

Tomorrow morning Newspoll will be out. It will be interesting to see how the various PPL schemes fare. In today’s Essential Media Report the Abbott scheme did not go all that well – and by “not all that well” I mean is died a horrible death – only 24% supported it. 40% supported the Government's scheme (a scheme I should add which has had hardly been marketed by the Government up till last week, and even then they talked mostly about the Abbott scheme).

Unless Newspoll reveals something massively different, expect no more questions from Abbott on his own PPL scheme. Will he find a topic that can actually land some blows, let alone draw some blood? Unlikely – and this is the last week before Budget season, so time is a wasting., especially in an election year…

Film trailer – Robin Hood

While it is not an Australian film, I am looking forward to Robin Hood, which is due out in May, mostly because it looks like Gladiator 2: Maximus goes Medieval.

I’m a bit of a fan of Russell Crowe – he may be a bit of a lout when he’s on the drink, but you can’t fault his acting ability. This film also pairs him with Cate Blanchett (she plays Maid Marian). Now I have to say, having the crush that I do have for all things Cate, I must admit while watching the trailer I do feel like yelling out, “No Cate! Don’t do it! You can do better!!!”. But I must admit this trailer is certainly whetting my appetite nicely.

There have been quite a few trailers for this film – at least 2 “teaser trailers’ and then 1 or 2 versions of the first look trailer. This is the final trailer – ie the one that really lets you know what the film is going to be about. It reinforces even more the Gladiator 2 vibe. Of course there is no way it will be as good as Gladiator, because that film came along just at the right time. So it is doubtful that there will be Oscars going its way, but I hope it makes a lot of cash, if only because I like seeing Aussie stars being able bring in an audience in big budget films. The market is predicting it will make $150m+ at the US Box Office. It gets released the week after Iron Man 2 and the week before Shrek 4 – which shows just how jam packed is the US film market.

The interesting thing with this film is that I love the recent Robin Hood TV series, so I will have to forget that version when I see this (it won’t be hard to forget the Kevin Costner abomination – notwithstanding the “cut his heart out with a spoon” line). But it’s obvious that the TV series and this film are of completely different tones, so I don’t think there’s too great a concern about the two versions being made so close together.

So here’s the trailer, enjoy:

And while we’re talking Aussie stars in big budget movies, Sam Worthington is in his third huge action film in 12 months (coming after Terminator 4 and of course Avatar). He is in the sandal and gods epic, Clash of the Titans. Though it would be a stretch to say he is the “star” of the film, given it also includes Liam Neeson and Ralph Fiennes. This perhaps as much as any of the three films he has been in will determine whether or not he has what it takes to carry a movie, and whether he is to become a Russell Crowe, or an Eric Bana (no disrespect to Bana, but Crowe is on a much higher level in the film world). Clash of the Titans comes out in the US in April – it’s expected to make around $200m+, and like all action film must now be, it’ll be in 3D.

On the QT: I’ll have a Whopper, a Big Mac, and can you cut the mustard?

You can tell a lot about how things are travelling for both political parties by looking at the questions they ask in Question Time, and the number of points of order made in relation to various answers.

Last week the Government announced its policy to take over 60% of hospital funding and to appoint local boards to run them; it also announced a national curriculum for Years K to 10. On Monday, Tony Abbott announced a policy (of sorts) for paid parental leave (PPL) to be funded by adding a 1.7% levy over the company tax rate of certain businesses. So today, on the last Question Time before the weekend – a weekend which will have the Newspoll out in the field and which will no doubt be also seeking the views of the public on the PPL and the hospital funding scheme – what did the Opposition want to ask about? Yes, you guessed it – insulation.

The first seven questions from the opposition were on the insulation program and were all directed at Rudd, trying to somehow make him responsible for it all. It betrayed a complete desire on their part to avoid anything to do with the PPL scheme, which had dominated their questions on Tuesday. On Tuesday every question was about how come the Government would be paying less to some poor hairdresser for maternity leave than would the opposition? Each questions was echoed with a cry of “shame!” by Christopher Pyne. Today? They wanted none of it. Not a bar; not a whisper.

Methinks they know it is a dog of a scheme. Perhaps that when they saw even Andrew Bolt was flaying it, they knew it was dead.

And so they went for Rudd on insulation – doing the usual “what did the PM know and when did he know it?”shtick. The problem is they will never get Rudd on this. The know it, and Rudd sure as hell knows it, so all they are doing is using up time and displaying to anyone with some insight that they are running away from their maternity leave scheme, and are scared about the issue of health. Rudd for his part played the straightest of bats – displaying every bit of his best Boycott-like batting, and merely read out his copious briefs in bureaucratic detail and bored the parliament to death (which was his point)

So how do we know the opposition is scared about health? Well take a look at the Hansard Minutes for the first Dorothy Dixer to Rudd on Health:

Mr Neumann, 2:02:23 PM, to Mr Rudd (Prime Minister), Point of order, Mr Abbott, 2:07:36 PM, Point of order, Mr Pyne, 2:08:56 PM, Point of order, Mr Albanese, 2:10:36 PM, Point of order, Mr Pyne, 2:11:32 PM, Point of order, Mr Albanese, 2:13:03 PM, Mr Rudd, 2:14:33 PM

Yep five points of order – and they took a long time to get through. They all revolved around Rudd saying Abbott had stripped $1b from the Health Budget when he was Health Minister. No doubt the Libs had read Sinclair Davidson’s article on The Drum (and on Bolt’s blog) about the line being a “myth” (my opinion is that Davidson is very good at disproving a proposition that is not actually being put forward) and also no doubt they also feel worried that the ripped $1 billion out of health line is playing well in electorate land. And so first Pyne called Rudd a liar – and then took forever to withdraw. This was followed by Abbott making a big show and dance about saying it was a lie as well.

It was very obvious they are very, very touchy about it.

This touchiness was reinforced when before Roxon was even able to begin her first answer to a Dorothy Dixer on health, Peter Dutton was at the Dispatch Box trying to move a point of order. Harry Jenkins repeatedly told him to sit down – which he didn’t. And when he finally did, he got straight back up. This time Jenkins refused to even acknowledge him, which meant Dutton was just standing at the Dispatch Box looking a fool while Roxon sharpened her attack. (But in his defence, Dutton does the looking like a fool act very well)

Roxon has really found her range this year, and she will enjoy Question Time for the rest of the year. And Abbott and Pyne and Dutton had best get used to hearing the “ripped $1 billion out of the health budget” again and again and again.

The first two Dorothy Dixers were on health – but they made sure to refer to Abbott’s PPL scheme as well.

The first non-health Dixer was interestingly to Gillard on the employment figures released today (which showed unemployment had increased 0.1% to 5.3% – it has only increased because the ABS revised down last months figure from 5.3% to 5.2%). She used her answer to talk more about the PPL scheme – noting it seemed to be something the Libs no longer wanted to talk about.

The next Dixer was to Swan on the PPL scheme: a scheme which he said would be funded by a tax – a big tax, in fact “a Whopper – the Big Mac of taxes”, which shows at least that Wayne Swan is bipartisan on Hungry Jacks and McDonalds (KFC must feel aggrieved that he didn’t call it “a Works Burger of a tax”). He had lots of fun with Abbott’s suggestion that all anyone needed to do was read his book to find out about his policy; Swan suggested the Liberals don’t do a lot of reading, because if they did they would have read the OECD report which suggested corporate taxes are the most harmful for growth. So caught up with talking about growth was Swan that I almost expected him to reel out the Liberal’s 2007 slogan of “Go for Growth”. Alas he didn’t. 

Lindsay Tanner was next up to have a bash (it really was a long line of Ministers wanting to get up for a bash). He made a joke about always being open to new ideas – and he eagerly awaited the first savings idea from the opposition, but he only wanted quality ideas. The Libs tried to put him off by yelling out about whether insulation scheme was a quality scheme, but Tanner was not to be put off – after all he had a lot of material to work with. He focussed on whether the tax was going to be determined by a company’s revenue, or profits – because Abbott and Hockey (who was absent for some reason) were all a tad unclear. He ended by saying the Libs parental leave scheme “didn’t cut the mustard”.

Next up was Jenny Macklin who despite never being the greatest Parliamentary performer was at least able to quote Barnaby Joyce saying to Fran Kelly on ABC Radio this morning of Abbott’s scheme “I don’t like talking about things I haven’t read.” Gotta love that consultation, Tony.

To the joy of all, Craig Emerson was next up to have his usual fun. He too was talking Abbott’s PPL scheme, and he adopted the Biff Tannen line: asking Abbott “Hello?! Hello?! The Leader of the Opposition? What planet are you on, if you expect that Coles and Woolies etc will out of the goodness of their hearts not pass on the costs of the 1.7% tax onto their customers?” He then quoted Wilson Tuckey who on the doors this morning said that the levy was a good thing because “If Coles & Woolies up prices because of parental leave tax, they'll make more profit and pay more tax”. Ah thank you Wilson.

Yes there’s a lot of material to work with – and Emmo used it all. When he finished Tuckey wanted Emerson to table the document he was reading from; when asked by the Speaker if he was reading from a document, Emerson replied, no “I pretty much winged it Mister Speaker!”

After a question from Rob Oakeshott and a Dorothy Dixer to good ole Marn Ferson, Abbott finally got round to asking Rudd a question on health. He shouldn’t have because Rudd danced down the pitch and smacked it over the fence for some easy runs. Rudd is reading deliveries from Abbott on health out of his hand and is sensing that Abbott is not getting much spin on the ball either.

The real run scoring however was done by Gillard in the next question from Christopher Pyne on education spending, specifically a library built under the stimulus program at Tyalgum High School which had the wrong sized foundations and thus was currently unusable.

In her answer Julia did everything to Pyne but walk around to the other side of the chamber and dack him. She started out by ridiculing his response last week to the National Curriculum, then she pointed out how many jobs had been created by the education stimulus program –  giving her another chance to mention the employment figures – then she pointed out with withering scorn that she actually didn’t go around and lay the foundations for every school building and that the fault was that of the contractors and that they (as they would on any building, whether it be a Government one or a private dwelling) would be responsible for repairing the fault, and that they would be the ones paying to fix the problem not the Government.

She ridiculed Pyne for bringing up an example which would not cost the Government one extra dollar. And really you have to wonder if that was the best Pyne could do, given that the story came out on February 25, and Gillard had said back then that the constructor was responsible for paying and fixing the problem.

Once the Hansard comes out I might do a post on her response because it was a things of Parliamentary beauty, and my summary doesn’t do it anywhere near the justice it deserves. 

The day and week ended with Albanese having fun about the number of Bills the Senate has blocked – calling Abbott the Dr No of Australian politics (a label I’m sure they applied to Dr Nelson), and that he was “petty, untrustworthy and bloody minded”.

And on that edifying note everyone was left dashing for the exits.

Next week’s tactics will be dependent I think on the result of the Newspoll and specifically any questions on health and parental leave schemes; but (as was suggested by Crikey’s Possum on twitter) from the tactics displayed today by both sides, you get the feeling they already know what the results will be.

Aussie film trailer – Legend of the Guardians.

Over the weekend the trailer for the animated Aussie film Legend of the Guardians was released. The film is based on the young adult-fantasy book series: Guardians of Ga’Hoole. The film is produced by Australian outfit Animal Logic who did the animation work for Happy Feet (and also co-produced that film with Kennedy Miller). They were primarily a visual effects and animation outfit (they worked on The Matrix among others), and this is their first foray into developing and producing a feature film on their own. They certainly aren’t doing things by halves, because this is a big budget animated feature designed to go up against anything DreamWorks and Pixar can come up with.

To be honest I know very little about the series, but I have to say I’m damn glad they changed the name from Guardians of Ga’Hoole because somehow I think a film title that would have most people thinking “What the?” is not the way to make money.

The voice work is being done by a pretty good cast – Helen Mirren, Geoffrey Rush, Hugo Weaving, Sam Neil, Abbie Cornish, David Wenham.

On first blush a film about owls would not seem to be a hit, but I was a guy who when he heard about a film centred around a penguin that dances thought “Well that’ll bomb”. So I’m going to say I have no real idea how well this will do – but only that my 6 year old daughter and fantasy-loving wife think it looks great (and indeed it does – you can’t fault the quality of the animation – it will also be in 3D) . The trailer also has a very Lord of the Ringsy feel (helped by the Hugo Weaving voice over).

So enjoy – it comes out in September in the US, but for some reason is only slated for release here in December (most likely to get the school holiday market)

In other Aussie film news, I was recently talking to a friend who had seen some cuts of the adaptation of the John Marsden novel Tomorrow When the War Began (another film produced by an Aussie outfit that used to do only do PDV work – Omnilab). The word was that it “looked fantastic”. I have big hopes for the film, as I would dearly love to see more Australian books being adapted into film by Australians. It comes out in September – hopefully a trailer will be on the way very soon.

On the QT: All mothers are sacred – especially rich ones

Today’s Question Time was dominated by Tony Abbott’s announcement yesterday introducing a policy (of sorts) to introduce a maternity leave scheme to be funded by a 1.7% tax on businesses earning over $5 million a year.

It’s one of those policies which that part of me which used to be a callow unthinking young lefty who thought all big business was evil would have rather liked. Unfortunately the part of me that grew up, went to uni, did an economics degree, learned that the government doesn’t grow a big money tree out the back of Parliament House, and who likes well thought out public policy thinks the Abbott maternity leave scheme is complete bollocks.

Before getting to it, let’s a have quick squiz at the media reception. Had Mark Latham brought out such a policy the chorus from the press would have been unanimous that this was an extravagant, dumb and, in parts, economically-dangerous policy. And to the media’s great credit, they’re pretty much saying that now. Take The Australian – easily the most Liberal Party friendly media organisation:

Making big business fund all parental leave is risky …

The Howard government's penchant for buying off various interest groups left the nation with an unfortunate legacy of middle class welfare and inefficient tax churn that Labor, so far, has done little to remedy. Such inefficiency needs to be dismantled, not further entrenched.

That’s about as close as you get to an anti-Liberal Party editorial in The Oz, but its online editor, Samantha Maiden, didn’t split hairs:

Abbott was in agony in yesterday's speech, explaining his multiple policy positions as due to his having "changed his mind rather than his values". But what's happened in the interim? For starters, Abbott has watched friends and colleagues struggle with work and family. His intelligent wife and daughters may have boxed some sense into him. Whatever. But let's not saddle the women of the nation with a policy that's just too dumb to fly.

Ouch.

Over at Fairfax things were no better:

BIG business has universally condemned a plan by Tony Abbott to hit the top 3200 companies with a $2.7 billion tax rise to fund a national system of six months' paid parental leave.

and

Australian Industry Group chief executive Heather Ridout said the plan would hurt investment and jobs, distort the tax system and harm Australia's competitiveness.

The Business Council said any scheme should share the burden between government and employers. ''Big business is already doing the heavy lifting,'' spokesman Scott Thompson said. Most large employers already had paid parental leave.

Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry chief executive Peter Anderson rejected the idea of taxing business to pay for this social policy. ''Major social policy like this ought to be funded by the government on behalf of the whole community,'' he said.

and

Tony Abbott, who desperately needs to build up ''cred'' with business, has done himself harm with his left-field proposal for an extra tax on bigger companies to pay for his parental leave plan. Abbott is driven by wanting to trump Labor in an area that is a hot button for those electorally important ''working families'' and younger women.

But in attempting to do so he is acting counter-intuitively for a Liberal leader - arguing the case for more tax.

and

Let's start with the good points about Tony Abbott's policy on maternity leave, because there are only two and it won't take long to cover them.

First, Australia now has a bipartisan consensus that all women should be entitled to paid maternity leave. Hallelujah. Second, Abbott has stopped announcing multibillion-dollar unfunded promises. Hooray.

But look beneath these two important principles, and you find that they're sitting on top of a pile of policy rubbish. Abbott proposes to pay for this plan by putting a new tax on company profits of more than $5 million a year. This surtax would be levied at 1.7 per cent a year to raise a total $2.7 billion. What's wrong with that? Let us count the ways.

Wow!

Tony Abbott hasn’t been helping himself either in defending the scheme. It is obvious he pretty well came up with the plan himself and didn’t develop it with either of his economic spokespersons, Joe Hockey or Barnaby Joyce. Here he is on AM this morning:

LYNDAL CURTIS: Did you consult your economic spokesman, Joe Hockey and Barnaby Joyce before you announced this?

TONY ABBOTT: I am not going to go into exactly who was consulted and exactly when they were consulted but I have been talking about this for a long time, Lyndal. It was in my book, for God's sake …

LYNDAL CURTIS: But those two are an important part of your economic team though, aren't they?

TONY ABBOTT: Indeed they did and I think both of them read the book with great enthusiasm and I discussed this widely inside the Coalition. I discussed it with, I think, some quite significant and influential people prior to putting the proposal forward yesterday.

Yep – it was in my book, they’ve read the book, so therefore I discussed it with them. Geez. Here he was last night on Lateline:

TONY ABBOTT: On some important issues regarding paid parental leave. You might also remember, Leigh, that this was something that I put in my book, which was published last year.

I wonder when Abbott will end his book tour and start learning something about economics, because his policy, and his explanation of it have displayed no grasp of how to manage a nation's budget. For example, in the Matter of Public Importance on the issue after Question Time today, he said the reason the “levy” (remember tax is a bad, bad word) had to be put on business and not taken out of consolidated revenue was because the ALP had blown the surplus and they need to pay off the debt first. But the problem is this is an ongoing cost - $2.7b each year, every year (plus inflation). It has no bearing on whether a Government  goes back into surplus or not except if you don’t offset the payment somewhere else – you know cut spending. Also the budget went into deficit because of cuts to revenue and one off expenditures (the stimulus). The Government did not go into deficit by cutting taxes, so either the ongoing money is there or it is not. And if the way to fund anything is this way, then why not raise taxes to pay for health costs? Why not raise taxes to pay for environmental costs?

Abbott would have you believe that if the Budget were in surplus you could fund $2.7b each year, every year, and there would be no need to offset the costs at all – because you see when you’re in a surplus apparently you can spend what you like!

I also have severe worries about how Abbott intends to keep the budget in surplus. Here he was on AM:

TONY ABBOTT: … Now, if the Government hadn't run up these massive deficits we might be able to do this differently and certainly over time, once we have repaid Labor's debt, once we have been able to give people personal tax cuts then I would like to hope that we could start reducing other taxes. That would mean that this increase, thanks to the levy, is a temporary increase.

So we get back into surplus, then Abbott cuts income tax, cuts company tax, cuts every other tax, cuts this “levy” and yet still remains in surplus?? OK Tony, let me lay this out for you: a government gets “revenue” through taxes and levies, it then gives back money – that’s called “expenditure”. If the “revenue” is more than the “expenditure” the Budget is in surplus. If you reduce the “revenue” that means you have to reduce the “expenditure” if you want to stay in surplus. Given this policy I see absolutely no evidence that Abbott would cut any expenditure – especially the middle class welfare.

Which brings me to my main hatred of this policy. I am all for maternity leave – in fact I think the Government's plan is a good start, but only a start (it should definitely be longer). The Government's scheme would give women 18 weeks pay at the minimum wage; Abbott’s scheme would give women 6 months pay at their current salary – up to $150k. So you get more because you earn more.

I’m sorry but I have no truck with any Government policy that gives more money to someone purely because they are richer.

Abbott’s policy basically gives wealthier women more money for no other reason than they will most likely have a bigger mortgage, and they are used to living with a certain level of income.

But the costs of raising a child are not more because you earn more – unless you want to outfit your kids in Baby Esprit.

Ask yourself this – who is more able to save for the costs of raising a child – a woman on $40k a year, or a woman on $15ok? Who do you think is more likely to be able to use that maternity leave pay to afford a baby sitter, or a nanny, or a house cleaner? Let me tell you it ain’t the woman on $40k. And yet Abbott thinks tax payers should provide for that person on $150k  to ensure they keep living in the comfort they are so used to.

This policy makes me want to vomit.

Here’s what the Productivity Commission said about the level of maternity leave when it did its report last year:

While the Commission considered several, more complex, variants, a flat-rate
payment:
• is easier to implement
• ensures that low-income female employees are better off under a paid parental leave scheme than they would be on welfare payments, providing stronger incentives for labour supply by mothers with weaker attachment to the labour force.

Our approach also takes into account the balance between the needs of parents and the burdens on taxpayers — especially those who would not receive any direct benefits, such as those without children. Some European countries offer full replacement wages (and for longer periods than contemplated in our model). The budgetary effects of a long-duration, full replacement wage scheme would be large (section 2.9). It would also entail support for high-earning women, who already have strong attachment to the labour force, often receive privately negotiated paid maternity leave, and usually have better access to resources to self-finance leave.

Absolutely right – a woman who took a job at $100k plus with no maternity leave sure as heck should not be looking to the Government to help her out (at least not to cover her entire income).

Imagine the uproar if the Baby Bonus was given out like this – for those who earn under $50k you get $2,000; for those who earn $50-$100k you get $3,000; for those who earn $100k+ you get $4,000. There would be blood on the streets! And that’s what this maternity leave is – it is a Baby Bonus spread over 6 months, with Abbott giving more to those who earn more.

It’s a dog of a policy that looks to have been worked out all in Abbott’s head. For example the $5 million threshold. Why $5m? And is it $5m turnover, or $5m tax paid? – Because the Liberals have been a bit confused on the details. And do you think companies will be doing all they legally can to avoid paying that levy – like for example splitting a $9m company into two? Hockey said he would introduce regulations to stop companies trying to avoid paying the levy – so is he suggesting it would be legal to reduce your company's taxable income so long as you didn’t reduce it below $5 million?? Madness.

And do you think that businesses will not bother to pass on the costs of that extra “levy”? Of course they will. So in effect all consumers will pay extra so that women employed in the private sector, who most likely already have maternity leave, can now get their $150k a year salary paid by taxpayers. Madness and stupidity.

Which brings us to Question Time.

Question Time was all a bit dopey today – we had the Liberal Party attacking the ALP for being pro-big business, and even had Julie Bishop quoting Unions NSW! The Liberal Party’s first 6 or 7 odd questions were all about how people wouldn’t get paid as much under the Government's maternity scheme as they would under the Liberal’s. I actually think Rudd was rather poor in his attack on the policy. His basic argument was that the ALP proposed something before you did and we are paying more than you did in your time in Government, so there!

It took a while for Rudd to get stuck into Abbott over the obvious lack of consultation in developing the policy – especially over the Liberal's indecision over whether or not the levy was actually a tax. It really took Lindsay Tanner and Wayne Swan to start ripping the policy to shreds. Tanner did well – except for a slip of the tongue when he said “max to the tax” instead of “tax to the max”.

Rudd really only got going when Bishop asked him about the issue and he cited Joe Hockey saying the tax was a “windfall gain for companies” Rudd marvelled at the Lib’s suggesting that a tax on big-business would be welcomed by them, and so welcomed did they expect it to be that they decided not to tell anyone in big-business about it!

Joe Hockey got very shouty and agro when asking Swan about the Henry Tax Review – no doubt because he knows his attack of “great big tax” has now been destroyed by the Libs proposing an even bigger tax. He was no bout shouty as well because part of the reason Turnbull got dumped was because he apparently didn’t consult with the party, and now Abbott is doing the same thing (but coming out with a much dumber policy).

Peter Dutton stepped up to ask about the Government's health policy – citing a quote by some bloke suggesting the GST would have to be increased, and then asking Swan if any taxes would be increased to pay for it. Seriously, does the Liberal Party understand you can’t criticise the Government for increasing taxes to pay for Health costs, if your own big policy is to create a new tax to pay for maternity leave.

Oh for some logic!!!

The Government's Dorothy Dixers were split between bashing the maternity leave scheme and questions on the new health policy. Nicola Roxon must feel like her Christmases have come at once, because she is having great fun hitting Abbott over the head and talking up her shiny new policy. Today she firstly quoted Independent Member Robert Oakeshott praising the policy, and then quoted at length someone saying the method of funding proposed was the right way to do it. She then revealed that the author of those words was Tony Abbott in 2007. It was nicely done and reveals I think a major plan of the Government this year – to use Abbott’s words against him.

The last question for Rudd was from Abbott on the Health scheme, and it was probably the best response by Rudd – most likely because he had been preparing a week for it. I don’t think Rudd was quite ready to frame his attack on Abbott’s maternity scheme just yet. My prediction is more Dorothy Dixers on it tomorrow and – if they are smart – more focus on it being what it really is – a big dumb, ill thought-out tax to provide welfare to those who don’t need it.