Post Election 07

The Coverage

I wanted to watch the Channel 7 coverage because they said they will bring all the results without the boring bits. Unfortunately I was at a camp where they had only tuned Channel 9 and ABC into their TV. Boy was it boring, and I have found election coverage very interesting in the past but couldn’t take much this time even though it was one of the more interesting elections in my voting history. Channel 9 promoted their coverage as “Ray and Laurie’s Election Extravaganza” (Ray Martin & Laurie Oakes). It was anything but. ABC is always boring with ‘Death Warmed Up’ Kerry O’Brien. Although they have, in my opinion, the best stats man in the business.

Time To Prove

The Liberal Party doesn’t rate him and his team as competent economic managers. Well, he got the emphatic vote from the public so it really doesn’t matter what The Liberal’s think, for now. But it is time for Kevin Rudd to prove his credentials, otherwise his fresh leadership rhetoric will back to haunt him. If he fails then we could get the Liberals back in 3 years time. If he does well, then we live well and our nation continues to prosper. Win/Win

Scare Campaigns From All Sides

Liberal

• Economic L Plates
• Wall to Wall Labor
• The Unions are coming back

Labor

• A vote for Howard is a vote for Costello
• Don’t let him take workchoices futher

Unions

• Disappearing nurses
• Your rights at work

Hard to find the truth amongst all the scare tactics. The facts of past labor govt’s incompetancies just didn’t hit the mark the same way the exaggerations from the unions did.

This Makes Things Interesting

Peter Costello has chosen not to take the leadership of the opposition. Sky News reported that the Liberals are now in a shambles and that this is the perfect start for Kevin Rudd. They say this as they rated Costello as the best performer in parliament the opposition will have. On the contrary I say, as it is not Peter Costello who has to perform in parliament for the next 3 years, it is the aforementioned Mr Rudd. There is still plenty of enthusiastic MP’s ripe and ready to take it up to the new PM.

Where To Now For The Liberals

In footy parlance this will be a rebuilding phase. How quickly they can do it will determine how well they fare in future elections. I think they will be able to find their feet very quickly as they have been given a clean break from the Howard/Costello led Coalition courtesy of Mr Rudd. But who is next in line? Hopefully someone who has a bit of charisma, so that leaves out Alexander Downer. Abbott? Hockey? Nelson? Or even Turnbull? My smokey for a shadow portfolio is MP for Mitchell, Alex Hawke.

Need For a Change

This is one of the poorest reasonings for changing leadership I have ever heard. It is impossible to gauge how many people voted purely and simply on the premise that we need a change but people who know more than me about this are rating it as a big reason. Rudd wasn’t hugely different from Howard after suffering (or revelling) from a huge dose of MeTooitis. But the Australian public think that 11 years is too long despite the nation being as prosperous as it ever has. I think as a nation we shoot ourselves in the foot like this. By getting rid of leaders that are good but are carrying the public perception of being there too long.

A PM For All Australians

Kevin Rudd proclaimed he will be a “PM for all Australians.”

Put simply, that is impossible and reeks of idealism and fantasy.

Eg:

• Keep unions happy = Small business unhappy
• Keep environmentalists happy = primary industries unhappy