Oz election thread #3 - Rudd's Labour

Liberals will rue the day they lurched right
Canberra correspondent Bernard Keane writes:

At each stage over the past week of the Liberal leadership saga, the Liberals have found new ways, wholly unexpected ways, to make things ever worse for themselves.

Today, they have trumped all their previous efforts. The election of Tony Abbott is a disaster of epic proportions for a party that was already up against it in the race to remain competitive at the next election. They have now taken a major step to the Right, towards their base, and away from mainstream voters.

The sight of Abbott being clapped into and out his first press conference by grinning troglodytes such as Bronwyn Bishop, Sophie Mirabella and Dennis Jensen must fill the hearts of Liberal moderates with deep anguish about the fate of the party when it goes up against the Rudd machine next year.

Abbott is, by his own admission, a deeply divisive figure. He is disliked by female voters for his aggressive attempts to use the Howard government to impose his brand of Catholicism. He is strongly associated with the Howard years, having been the former Prime Minister's most prominent acolyte. In his first press conference, he refused to rule out a return to Workchoices, only indicating that that name was dead. And while he has a commendable reputation for straight-speaking, he has none of the rhetorical power of Malcolm Turnbull or the warm media image of Joe Hockey. Abbott has developed his thinking post-Howard, and offered some intriguing and creative policy analysis in his book Battlelines earlier this year, but he remains a figure of solidly right-wing thinking.

He also leads a party almost perfectly divided, which has been the Liberals' problem right from the outset. He immediately committed to reaching out to party moderates, promising to include all shades of opinion on his frontbench. Hockey has indicated a willingness to continue serving and Abbott indicated he wanted him to remain shadow treasurer. How other moderates, especially environment spokesman Greg Hunt who strongly supports an ETS, will be treated, remains to be seen.

And any reflexive loyalty to the leader on the part of party moderates will likely have been dissolved by the antics of the party's right wing last week, in effect overturning the will of the party room and shadow cabinet with a campaign of outright defiance, a string of resignations and two spill motions. Having ignored party rules and conventions, the conservatives will have no recourse if moderates choose the same approach.

The first test will be whether moderate senators toe the party line and vote down the CPRS package in the Senate or whether the likes of Judith Troeth and about 8-10 other moderates cross the floor to vote along the lines the party agreed last week, thereby passing the package. Malcolm Turnbull in his press conference in effect encouraged them to do so, saying they should stand up for their beliefs. The fate of the Bill will be decided this week, especially as Steve Fielding has ruled out supporting a motion to defer consideration of the Bill in favour of his own lunatic suggestion that there be a Royal Commission into climate change.

If they don't support it, they and their colleagues will hand Kevin Rudd a double-dissolution trigger that he may now be much more inclined to use than previously, given the patent disarray within coalition ranks.

Labor remains concerned about its susceptibility to an anti-tax campaign by the coalition on the CPRS and a xenophobic appeal to its blue-collar demographic from climate denialists.

Even so, it is the coalition that is likely to continue to have problems with the climate-change issue.

So get used to a more right-wing Opposition, deeply conservative, one that rejects climate change, one in which hardliners who languished under the progressive Turnbull will have their day in the sun.

But a reckoning awaits at polling day. And sadly for the moderates, they will pay the price every bit as heavily as their conservative colleagues.

But it was not enough to push the scheme through, with the Greens, Independent Senator Nick Xenophon, and Family First Senator Steve Fielding joining the Opposition in voting down the scheme.

Hopes of getting the legislation through were dashed yesterday when Mr Abbott reversed the Coalition's position as his first act after ousting Malcolm Turnbull.

Speaking today as the debate came to a close, Climate Change Minister Penny Wong said the Government would not give up on the ETS and accused the Coalition of trying to spook voters.

"When you cannot fight the argument you run a scare campaign," she said.

"These are people sprinting back to the past. They are sham arguments from people driven, and now led, by people who do not believe climate change is real." ...<cont>

Abbott reveals new frontbench after reshuffle
ARI SHARP
December 8, 2009 - 1:40PM

Abbott's team

Barnaby Joyce - Finance

Julie Bishop - Foreign Affairs

Bronwyn Bishop - Seniors

Christopher Pyne - Education

Joe Hockey - Treasury

Warren Truss - Trade and Transport

Ian Macfarlane - Infrastructure

Scott Morrison - Immigration

Tony Smith - Communications

Phillip Ruddock - Secretary to Shadow Cabinet

Eric Abetz - Industrial Relations

Kevin Andrews - Families

Nick Minchin - Resources and Energy

George Brandis - shadow Attorney-General

David Johnson - Defence

Peter Dutton - Health and Ageing

Greg Hunt - Climate Action, Environment and Heritage

Nigel Scullion - Indigenous Affairs

John Cobb - Agriculture

Bruce Billson - Small Business

Sophie Mirabella - Innovation, Industry, Science and Research

Andrew Robb - Chairman of the Coalition Policy Development Committee

Key Howard government ministers Kevin Andrews, Philip Ruddock and Bronwyn Bishop are all set to make a return to the Coalition frontbench as part of Tony Abbott’s new shadow ministry, announced this morning in Canberra.

The Opposition Leader said the shadow ministry, which rewards many of his loyalists as well as making some effort to reach out to rivals, will allow the Coalition ‘‘to take the fight up to the Rudd Government and deliver a real alternative at the next election’’

Rudd rallies the troops as Abbott gains ground
Posted 3 hours 44 minutes ago
Updated 1 hour 42 minutes ago



Prime Minister Kevin Rudd says there is no doubt Labor will have to fight hard to win this year's election, as the Coalition claws back voter support in the latest opinion poll.

Today's Newspoll in the Australian newspaper has the Coalition leading Labor in the primary vote by one point at 41 per cent.

The Coalition has also cut the Government's two-party preferred lead by two points and is now sitting at 48 per cent behind Labor's 52 per cent.

Today's improved performance for the Coalition comes as Tony Abbott prepares to face off against Mr Rudd in his first Question Time as Opposition Leader today.

Mr Abbott is expected to take the fight to Mr Rudd over climate change, with the Coalition releasing its alternative policy later today after dumping support for an emissions trading scheme last year. ...<cont>

Rudd's fury over Mossad passport link
By online political correspondent Emma Rodgers
Posted 1 hour 1 minute ago


Three Australian passport holders linked to the assassination of a Hamas military commander

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has summoned the Israeli ambassador to "get to the bottom" of how suspected Mossad assassins used Australian passports to travel to Dubai to kill a top Hamas commander.

Overnight, Dubai police named 15 new suspects in the assassination of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, who was found dead in his hotel room last month in what police have said they are almost certain was an Israeli hit.

Police say three of the suspects travelled to the emirate on Australian passports in the names of Adam Korman, Bruce Joshua Daniel and Nicole Sandra McCabe.

This morning Mr Rudd told AM that the Israeli ambassador was being summoned to meet Foreign Minister Stephen Smith to explain the latest development.

Mr Rudd said officials had been working on the case through the night and pledged the Government would "not let the matter rest" and that Australia "will not be silent on the matter".

"If Australian passports are being used or forged by any state, let alone for the purpose of assassination, this is of the deepest concern and we are getting to the bottom of this now," he said.

"We will not leave a single stone unturned."

Asked what action the Government may take against Israel, Mr Rudd replied: "Let us establish the facts first."

The three Australians named will be contacted by the Department of Foreign Affairs.

"This is not just a deep concern for the Australian Government, it must be therefore the deepest concern to any individual associated with this as well," Mr Rudd said.

Mr Smith will make a further statement today following his meeting with the Israeli ambassador.

Mr Korman, 34, is Australian-born but lives in Tel Aviv where he sells musical instruments.

In an interview with Israeli media he has denied any involvement and says he is the victim of identity theft.

AM tried to contact him, along with a Bruce Daniel who lives near Haifa in Israel's north, but neither was answering the phone.

But Mr Korman has told Israel's biggest newspaper Yediot Aharonot that he is shocked over what has happened.

"It's identity theft. Simply unbelievable," he is quoted as saying.

"It's a violation of human rights to do such a thing. I have travelled all over the world but never visited Dubai or the United Arab Emirates."...<cont>