Gillards two geat big new dud policies
Sunday, 25 July 2010 19:40
Whatever you think about any other announcements, Julia Gillard has pulled out two biggest dud policies this election. The first was the nonsense of the Timor Solution processing centre the second is the so-called people's Assembly on climate change.
You might question Abbott on a number of fronts, but nothing he has said so far has really surprised people. Gillard has confounded the public on a couple of occassions and on these two key issues, what she said simply doesn't fly.
On the offshore processing centre in Timor, then PNG and then somewhere, maybe, sometime in the future; nobody believes her. Especially not the Timorese and PNG. And she was less than convincing in the leaders debate on this issue.
The second dud was the announcement of a Peoples Assembly to decde the future of climate change. See Graham Young's analysis here. 64% of a 1600 person sample disapproved. That's ten time more people than Gillard will have in her assembly.
And see the video excerpts of Penny Wong on Meet the Press who was caught out on the most basic question. "If the Assembly decides against a great big new tax will Labor listen and drop it". The answer is obvious. It is an emphatic - no. If the Assembly doesn't agree with Labor they will spend more time trying to convince Australians to agree.
So what's the purpose? And that's why very few people support the announcement. Not the Greens, not sceptics, not the Left and not the Right.
Both these dud policy announcements have one thing in common. They are stop gap policy fixes to avoid answering what Labor will really do.That is exactly why they have no substance.
We should never forget that it was Julia Gillard along with Rudd who said they would turn back the boats. Now she doesn't believe that. It was Julia Gillard who convinced Rudd to drop the ETS until after the election and when that backfired she knifed him. Now she has put off the climate cange debate with a promise of a 150 person focus group - that they will ignore unless it cones up with the answer Gillard wants.
If that's the case. why not put your policy and your leadership on the line. That's something focus groups can't give you. It's called conviction and leadership.
