Oz election thread #3 - Rudd's Labour

Ragnel will soon be a ravelled rag.

... & on another matter altogether .. I don't believe for a minute that Labor would even be contemplating internet censorship in this country if Rudd wasn't at the helm.

If I sound bitter about Labor, it's because I once held such a strong commitment to all it stood for.

Think of it as the (not quite there yet) end of a long, passionate, committed relationship. You think you're over it, but you still become absolutely furious when you see yet more evidence of betrayal!

I would dearly love to be a Labor voter again, but I simply can't do it now. And it's rather painful.

Feeling much better today, BTW.

I'm cranky about the money wasted in the schools update scheme. I know that much needed improvements have been made in many cases but there seem to have been so many rorts and unnecessary work done. We are told of the number of staff that will be kept on, doing nothing, until something is finally decided upon with the emmissions trading scheme in a few years time. Why could these people have not been put to good use in helping to oversee the school improvements scheme?

Rudd in freefall: voters lose faith
PHILLIP COOREY CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT
May 10, 2010Sydney Morning Herald



SUPPORT for Kevin Rudd has plunged to record lows and his proposed mining tax has failed to win popular backing, putting more pressure on the federal budget tomorrow to lift the government out of an entrenched election-year slump.

The findings are contained in a Herald/Nielsen poll which indicates that if an election were held now, Labor would lose.

Since the previous poll a month ago, Mr Rudd's approval rating has nosedived 14 percentage points to 45 per cent, while his disapproval rating has skyrocketed 13 points to 49 per cent.

The loss of personal support is the most dramatic for a prime minister in a decade. It marks the first time Mr Rudd, as either opposition leader or prime minister, has had a disapproval rating higher than his approval rating.

The proposed 40 per cent tax on the mining sector's so-called super profits, revealed as the key response to the Henry tax review, failed to prove a vote winner, with 47 per cent opposing the impost, 44 per cent supporting it and 9 per cent undecided.

The only comfort for Labor is that none of the unpopularity has translated into a direct increase in support for the Coalition.

Mr Rudd is regarded as only slightly more trustworthy than his opponent but he also rates higher for untrustworthiness. He is still the preferred prime minister, although that gap has closed by 10 points in a month.

The poll of 1400 voters was taken from Thursday night to Saturday night and follows a horror month for the government in which it scrapped the home insulation scheme, binned plans to build 260 childcare centres and endured another interest rate rise. Most damaging of all, it shelved until at least 2013 any attempt to implement an emissions trading scheme.

On a two-party-preferred basis, Labor and the Coalition are even at 50 per cent, compared with 51-49 a month ago. ...<cont>

Have you noticed that recently, more than ever before, speakers from both sides of the house will suddenly change the subject when hit with an unpalatable question?

Headline: Mining boom to pay for super revolution

...* Miners to be hit with a 40 per cent tax on above normal profits

Policies overboard
May 9, 2010

By appealing to the middle ground, Rudd risks being outflanked from the left.

REMEMBER the 2020 Summit? Sir Kevin flung open the doors of Parliament and in you all thundered to victoriously reclaim a seat at the table after years of political exile.

Happy days, butcher's paper all round, flow charts aplenty. Australia, you all agreed, would become a compassionate country: inclusive, decent, progressive, reformist, equitable and just. There would be tax reform, a bill of rights, and we'd all sit down and have a serious chinwag about becoming a republic.


Well, it's back out into the cold the lot of you, you baby-boomer, Whitlam-loving pinkos. Sir Kevin no longer requires your services. And leave the magic markers at the door on your way out.

Understandably, the left today might be feeling a tad disillusioned and disenfranchised. The response has been large enough that some Labor MPs, particularly in inner-city electorates, are worried that key elements of their support base have been deserting to the Greens and other minor players.

One prominent Labor backbencher said there was a growing perception that Rudd had sacrificed the aspirations of traditional rank-and-file supporters in a Howard-esque pitch to swinging voters. ...<cont>

Last night's budget reply speech saw the Opposition Leader vow to block the mining tax, freeze public service jobs for two years, and cut spending on government advertising.