Kevin rudd has now had two polls in a row that have seen the popularity of his government fall dramatically.
Pundits will no doubt speculate on the reason why this is the case. While I'm here I might throw my own two cents in - the fall in rudd's popularity is entirely of his own making. In the past few months the headlines have been bad, particularly on the insulation scheme. However despite this it left no bad dent in the government's popularity. the big dents started to come when Rudd started making the wrong decisions about policy - usually to cancel a key election promise, on Emissions trading or Child Care centres. In the same time, he has put up cigarette taxes, announced a health care plan without Western Australia's agreement, and has now started chasing mining companies for their profits.
Rudd has made two big mistakes in the past couple of weeks.
Firstly, contrary to the big media headlines, most people don't care about how tax is collected as long as people can be sure about where that tax money is going. But at the same time as the government is putting taxes up, they have cancelled a whole lot of policies. This is leaving a hell of a lot of voters very confused. "What did we put them there for", people will ask, "if all they are doing is jacking up taxes and not spending the money on anything?" Or, as my girlfriend beautifully puts it, "That Kevin Rudd, he does nothing!"
Secondly, the policies he has jettisoned haven't won him any new votes. It's wrong to state that Emissions Trading is seen as a massive betrayal just by voters on the left - in fact, if you look at the 2007 election climate change was one of the top 5 issues in marginal seats. Despite the failures of international consensus since then, many marginal seat voters do still care about the issue. Many were left confused by the inability of the government to explain emissions trading - admittedly a complex policy for an average punter. Many were attracted to Tony Abbott's climate change policy because it was simple to explain. Abbott's policy was completely useless - but the government didn't hammer him for it nearly enough at the time.
The government's policy backflip itself was particularly peculiar. Most people were resigned to the fact that there wouldn't be any emissions trading scheme until after the election, for the simple reason that Tony Abbott would ensure it got blocked in the senate. But instead of just acknowledging this fact, they announced that they would delay it until 2013. It was completely unnecessary to make that announcement, even if in reality it was going to be true. It won them no voters and lost them a whole bunch of others. It made them look absolutely weak. Worse than that, Tony Abbott hasn't jettisoned his bullcrap policy - so now it looks like the only major party with a climate change policy is the liberals. How stupid is that? And this from the Prime Minister that called Climate change the "greatest moral challenge of our time". It's hard to believe that 9 months ago he gave a very strong speech that brutally called out the skeptics.
Other promises he has jettisoned have won him no voters either. Who's going to vote for a government that changed it's mind from doing something do doing nothing?
The immigration backflip is very disappointing but Rudd never once tried to strongly defend the current arrangements. When the government can't explain the merits of its own policy, who else is going to? And the Child care promise was also a silly one to jettison. One of the biggest key demographics to swing to Labor in the 2007 election was single mothers. Another stupid announcement that went down like a lead balloon in the motherland.
And finally there's the Henry Tax review - the only real things to come out of that were 12% super over TEN YEARS, and a big mining profits tax. It's difficult to enact big and controvercial tax reform when budgets are tight, but punters did notice when 96 recommendations in the report didn't get a look-in. All that work for nothing.
His government is quickly becoming a "big taxing - do nothing government". With a more popular opposition leader in charge, the government could be in some very serious trouble. With the benefit of hindsight, Labor should have gone to an election earlier this year. Rudd is reluctant to have an early election, but the fact is, every single government since Menzies has gone early for their second term, and every single one of them was returned.
Menzies went for a double dissollution in 1951 and got back. Whitlam went back in 1974 to unclog key parts of his massive agenda, including Medicare - and then held a joint sitting after the election to ram them through. Malcolm Fraser went early in 1977 and smashed Whitlam to bits for a second time. Bob Hawke went early in 1984 - he had a bad election but he got back in. He then went early again in 1987 using the Australia card as a trigger and thumped a disunited opposition.
In 1998, Howard used an earlyish election to ram through the GST. He lost the 2pp vote but was returned - and more importantly it gave him something to refocus his government's attention on after a shocker of a first term. Plenty of people disagreed with the GST but nobody doubted that Howard looked like a man with an agenda.
Which brings us to Rudd. With the election of Tony Abbott to the liberal leadership, Rudd's entire agenda from the past 5 months is stuck in the senate, and the rest will be as well for the next few months. Rudd has reponded to this not by going to an early double dissollution election, but by throwing away policies.
His view is that he is "clearing the decks" so that he can fight an election on health, but in reality he ends up looking completely weak for chucking stuff away. Whoever is telling him this - and my guess is the NSW right - is completely, utterly wrong. You can't blame Tony Abbott for being an obstructionist opposition - he's simply doing his job as party leader. But you can blame Rudd for refusing to fight back when he clearly could.
An early election in March on the issues Labor was trying to fight for late last year would have demonstrated some balls to the electorate - that Rudd believed in the merits of his policies strongly enough that he would be willing to take them back to the people instead of taking punch after punch and then throwing things in the bin. Throwing policies away isn't going to make them any more popular - in fact it will simply embolden Tony Abbott to keep on punching.
If an election happens in september, Rudd will have basically wasted 9 months with the pipes clogged - that's 9 months of air time given to crazy people to put up alternatives, and 9 months for talkback radio to run the "big taxing, do nothing" government meme, and 9 months of the government procratinating. When stuff gets blocked in the senate, nobody ever blames the opposition, everyone always blames the government. Now they are going to have to rely on the budget to get them out of trouble, and if there's nothing big there, voters are just going to get even more confused than before. Once the budget is out of the way, the government needs to do some quick evaluation. Does it really want to keep plodding along until september or october with nothing to show? Polls will just keep going down if that's the case.
What they really need to do is unclog the pipes. If I was to tell him anything, here's what
I'd say:
1. Return to the agenda that the Australian people put you there for - fix the health system, means test the private health insurance rebate, put an emissions trading scheme back on the table, reform federal-state relations, and pump more money into education. Stop throwing policies overboard. This agenda (plus workchoices) got you elected only three years ago - and now that the financial crisis is basically over now for Australia, you can go back there.
2. If your budget doesn't contain any big ticket items, you're going to have to try something else. After the budget is done, hold a big press conference and reannounce that you're going to put your entire stalled agenda back through the senate, and dare Tony Abbott to oppose any of them.
3. Put the entire stalled agenda, plus your big health care package and your mining tax changes through the senate one more time in June. If any of them get blocked, run straight down to government house and get a double dissolution. It will make you look strong. Ask the people for a mandate and run hard.
4. Remind people that all of these things would have already been done if it wasn't for the obstructionism of the liberals - and point out their complete lack of policies and the dangerous personality of Tony Abbott as Prime minister. You can quite easily make the case by now that you have tried everything you can to be reasonable with these people but they are just too nuts to deal with. Ask the people for a mandate to finish your initial agenda and give specific time frames for when you want each policy done.
5. Remind people that your government helped save the Australian economy from the financial crisis - and that many of the necessary actions were opposed by the liberals.
Despite the last 6 months, Rudd has actually had a good first term overall - much better than Howard's scandal-prone first term. Rudd dived straight into foreign policy, and the government's quick action saved Australia from the financial crisis. He has had a steady hand on the tiller from day one, but people are starting to get impatient and question his ability to get big policy reform done. This is his next text.
Rudd has long maintained that people expect him to serve a full term. Well, there's no use in doing that if the last 9 months aren't spent doing anything. Australians don't want a do-nothing government. I honestly believe that most people will be far less pissed off at being asked to vote a few months early, than they will be pissed off with a government that sat around for 9 months doing nothing to unclog the pipes. I think most of them would be ready to vote now if you asked them - and the result wouldn't be too good. Unclog the pipes - change the game. then you run, then you win.
Consider it a lesson in political courage. Pass this test, and you'll really know how to govern. Fail, and you're the Cowardly Lion.
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