Verdicts on the debate in today’s papers divide neatly along organisational lines, with News Limited observers saying it was close and Fairfax giving a clear win to Rudd. The commentator who comes closest to calling it for Howard is Sid Marris: speaking with colleague Dennis Shanahan on a video at The Australian’s website, he judges that “John Howard was stronger, but Kevin Rudd didn’t suffer a loss”. Shanahan decries the “Rudd-centric” worm, and says only that the Opposition Leader “won because he didn’t lose”. Also on the video are Paul Kelly, who says Howard was “very much on top at the start but I think Rudd finished better”, and Sky News man-of-the-hour David Speers who gives the debate to Rudd “on points”. In the newspaper itself, Matthew Franklin gives Kevin Rudd a “narrow victory” in the face of a “well above par” performance by the Prime Minister. Doug Conway of the Courier-Mail calls it a draw, offering the wearily familiar assessment that “neither Mr Howard nor Mr Rudd made a disastrous blunder, nor did they land a lethal body blow on their opponent”. Only Mark Kenny of The Advertiser breaks ranks, saying Rudd “unquestionably had the better of it”, while echoing the customary caution that “the longer term political significance is unlikely to be great”.
By contrast, the headline in The Age tells us of “Rudd’s decisive win”. Michelle Grattan declares Rudd “the clear winner”, “sounding confident and convincing against an opponent whose energy flagged and temper flared”, while Tony Wright rates it “Rudd’s night on most fronts”. Similarly, the Sydney Morning Herald’s Peter Hartcher reckons Rudd the “clear winner”, and says he has “cemented his claim as frontrunner”. The assessment of the Canberra Times is that Rudd won “because he didn’t debate. He had a plan to sell and he came, he saw and he sold”. In the other non-News Limited paper available to hand, The West Australian, a report by Chris Johnson and Shane Wright talks of Rudd “clearly getting the better of the Prime Minister”. Political editor Andrew Probyn also gives it to Rudd, saying the Prime Minister was “on the back foot … over WorkChoices, climate change, leadership and interest rates”.
Morons. If it were 52/48 it would not be leaked to the ABC. The Australian wants to do one thing….sell newspapers. The Australian owns Newspoll and what could be a better headline tomorrow than “HOWARD IS BACK IN THE GAME”.
Kina @ 659
Correct. But did Sino organise the rogering agenda, as well as the other stuff? Like Siev?
Anyone work out why Costello wouldn’t debate Swan on 7:30 Report?
You’d think he would jump at the opportunity? Instead he gives a free kick to Swan.
The more I hear about this $600 the dopier it gets. And here’s my prediction: if the worst the Libs can do is say that under the ALP you might be $600 worse off in 2013, then they can’t win.
Tax attacks only work when you say they’re not funded – the press love the “$1 billion hole story” (and the public swallows it up). Costello isn’t even trying that.
Grog @ 692…yes, exactly.
Brough flaps gums but makes no sense.
http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,22628722-5003402,00.html
The main reason Costello won’t debate Swan is because he will have to concede that Labor’s policy is more equitable in the short run and more far-reaching in the long-run.
As well, he has too high an opinion of himself to share a venue with his rival…
Actually given the newspoll won’t take into account the debate (or today’s reports on it) I would suggest this week’s AC will be more accurate (whatever accuracy and the polls mean).
But that said the polls only matter if they can look as if the Libs are coming back – they create virtual momentum. If the poll is 54,55 – 46-45 they;ll be a non-story and The Oz will give it bugger-all coverage.
Just confirmed with The Australian that there WILL be a Newspoll tomorrow.
Rudd is now stealing JWH’s cricket analogies:
“Frankly, a five day test match lasts longer than Mr Howard and Mr Costello’s tax policy.”
Man, surprised no one has picked this one up yet …… When opening his interview sequence on the 7:30 report tonight (with Wayne Swan), Kerry said {with a smile on his face mind you (for those who can read obvious body language lol)} that Costello was invited to participate in a one on one debate with Wayne Swan on the show tonight and he **declined**. Said he would be “available” tomorrow night for a one on one interview.
What does that tell you about Mr. Chicken liver himself? Rudd should ride this request to debate Howard and Costello as far as he can 🙂
Are the polls normally revealed on Lateline?
Is there a reason why that happens? Is it to built up a bit of buzz for the morning?
Re 703,
Grog, sorry, you beat me to it, that is what happens when we get posts coming up about 10 or so every minute 🙂
I reckon Cossie would debate Rudd on his own. But, with Howard in tow it would be too much like “Weekend with Bernie”.
Do any of you know what happens to someone as seriously narcisstic as Howard when they finally realise they are soon to be facing terminal relevance and attention deprivation? They behave pretty much as Howard did on teh debate, I reckon. Suggests their internal polling continues to be ghastly. Costello dodging appearing to debate Swan on the 7.30 Report looks just like dodging. I reckon he’d be thinking about how to save face about dodging a debate with Rudd. Agree Rudd takes the risk of appearing cocky by offering to debate them both, but geez, I think he does know how to mess with their minds.
Does Tony Abbott actually believe that people vote PURELY based on what politicians SAY, and not based on other factors such as whether or not the voter thinks the candidate is a decent person or not?
Abbott seems to have a very simplistic view of why people vote for particular candidates.
GG 713 stop it! I just sprayed my coffee over the screen.
Newspoll and the Australian.. bet the Australian would want the poll to be close… The Murdoch papers don’t want Labor to win as all their workers are on AWA’s… Personally don’t read or buy the papers why encourage such biasness and a group of people who think they run the country…
And what is it about the debate being close also for these people… should not comment on debate did not watch it.. thought i would learn much, much more doing something else…
On the 7.30 Report Costello was invited on the program to debate Swan. But Costello was even too chicken to debate the man who he has zero respect for economically.
I still can’t get over when they showed Costello with that PERFECT SMIRK early on in the debate last night. Pure gold. Glen even taped it LOL.
Labor must use it in an ad.
The Nationals candidate for Richmond disowns Howard.
“The prime minister is not the leader of my party,” she said
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,22627784-5014046,00.html
Just saw the Oakes Story – complete with feeds cutting out AND the SMS complete with phone number of the sender 🙂
Whoever recorded it should do something with it 🙂
No.. Labor should not go down the road of personal politics again… did not work last election and will not work again… let the libs play the arrogant and petty stuff… People get turned off by personal stuff…
ABC radio Brisbane had a regular spot on monday “Federal First Timers” interviewing one Laboe and one Liberal candidate.
Did not happen this morning because the Liberal party has gagged its candidates in Qld.
Because Swan has studied economics at uni and understands it. Costello is petrified of Swan and you can tell by the absolute contempt he has for him. Everyone has been suckered in by Costello’s 11 years of aping Treasury’s words. If they asked him a genuine economics question on the economy he would be stumped.
AS for the Newspoll, whatever it is 52-57, the battle will be hot and in the end close.
Derek:
I do recall reading an article in ‘The Australian Rationalist’ this year by Andrew Wilkie stating that the security services and navy are totally policiticised to the extent that the Tampa was an orchestrated event by and for the LNP. He didn’t pull any punches over Tampa or Children Overboard. No wonder he got harassed afterwards and they try character assassinate him in the media.
There is actually a web-site dedicated to that incident.
http://sievx.com/chronology/
Darn
So, the brew is being concocted as we speak. Bit of that, some more of that, lashings of that – taste. Nah. Crook. More of that and some more of that stuff … nah … hang on whack in some of that green stuff … sheesh … nah … this is awful. Bury on page 89. Talk among yourselves.
So does Lateline come on an hour earlier in Tasmania? ie 9:30 for EST?
Have enjoyed all contributors viewpoints, guesses, opinions and in some case, deep and meaningfuls on this site.
I have a couple of questions that are burning my brain so much that I am finally making an entry.
Questions are…
does anyone know the name of Glenn Milne’s wife and
is she employed by a company currently engaged by the Liberal Party to assist in re-electing the Howard Liberals ??
I thought I read it on this site yesterday and since then it has been reported that Milne (as deputy Chair of the national Press Club) was prominently involved in the decision to cut the worm.
If it’s not true about his wife’s role, then thank you for clearing it up.
If it is true, it’s a disgrace and should be publicly exposed as a sham and another example of “government at any cost” mentality.
Thanks for your time.
Lateline often releases the figures for Newspoll. If there has been a reversal of a couple of percentage points. You could argue that last weeks big tax bribe did nothing and the narrowing was just noise in the sample and nothing has changed. To borrow a phrase ” a stinking carcass swing in the wind”
ShowsOn, Abbott has amply demonstrated what a very, very second rate politician he is, over and over. Julia Guillard can slice and dice him with minimum of effort. I think it would actually be most entertaining to see if Kerry O’B could get Julia to debate probably any of them, on a weekly basis.
[ShowsOn, Abbott has amply demonstrated what a very, very second rate politician he is, over and over. Julia Guillard can slice and dice him with minimum of effort. ]
Yes, he has serious trouble debating women. 😛
Labor really needs to point more to the brain trust they have in regards to economics: Swan, Gillard, Bowen and Emmerson. This is why Costello won’t do a joint interview on the ABC, as he knows he would get shot down in flames.
I would have thought that Costello didn’t debate Swan because he wanted the luxury of knowing what he said first. O’Brien went hard at him tonight, and the mention of Peter Garrett seemed to throw Swan. The story on the Victorian nurses was interesting too…could this be Howard’s tampa this election? Bit concerned about that, but you’d have to think Rudd will nip this in the bud, no?
Marky don’t you think an ad with “Rudd appearing as the statesman and Cossie interjecting with that priceless smirk” would go down well???
blindoptimist@706
I’m the smartest person in any room I enter. Why I’m the smartest person in the world. My “free-kick” parliamentary performances and my “smirk” confirm this – they don’t call me Captain Smirky for nothing – though I prefer “Tip”. It’s much more rugged.
I don’t debate unworthies like Kevie and Waynie. It wouldn’t be fair on the poor soles. My intellect would overwhelm them 🙂
Well a Rudd v Costello debate would certainly be interesting, let’s hope it happens.
A 2 vs 1 format as proposed by Rudd today is inherently ridiculous and as others have noted, is no doubt just intended as a taunt.
But still, a big part of Rudd’s success to date has been in keeping the perception of arrogance to a minimum. Why change that now?
Dyno at 7:35 pm
I’d dispute the “leading” part, he was in fact a junior barrister, ie not a QC (silk: SC in today’s parlance)
Granted he had skills in legal argument, hardly honed in the last 11 years by being allowed to ignore the “rules of evidence” as it were and wallow in “irrelevant” arguments. 🙂
I don’t think there will not be another debate. Rudd comes over too well regardless of what he says.
S – (711) The Newspoll result, or at least the 2pp, is usually previewed on Lateline – presumably for the promo effect – and then appears in full in the Australian the following day. (It can also be seen on line on The Australian site from about 12.30am).
The debates mean nothing, if they did than the Libs would not be government as Howard has lost every debate since 1996. The debate should be in the last week and include leaders of all parties inc.. Greens..
That would democractic but we have this silly oligarchy of a couple of people with much the same policies but with some fine tuning… and the worm well at the end of day it and debate will be forgotten….
PK @734,
Your comment about him not being a QC/SC is a little beside the point, isn’t it?
Even his worst enemy would have to admit he did pretty well at the Bar. Which doesn’t make him a good Treasurer (or potential PM), but it does indicate he’d be a possible threat in a debate.
Kina 723 – I disagree that the Defence Force is totally politicised but have some doubts about ASIO and other spooks. As a retired military officer myself and who currently works in the defence community, I can say that senior military officers do tend to toe the government line but that is their lot. At lower levels there is a range of political views. Some senior staff are more focussed on promotion prospects than others, but they are not politicised in the usual sense. As to the spooks, I have to very careful what I say because of certain undertakings I have given in past employment, but I am prepared to say that the Howard government has at least bent if not broken the rules in relation to use of our intelligence services. ASIO should have my IP address by now!!
Greed Dyno – in fact he was so good at it I wish he would go back to it.
#656, #666… maybe Rudd’s debate challenge to Costello isn’t so much about the actual prospective content of such a debate, but is in fact aimed at drawing Costello out into an unrehearsed public forum more likely to induce ‘The Smirk’ – thereby further reinforcing the existing negative public perception of Costello and damaging the Lib’s succession plan policy.
Whoops, that was meant to be “Agreed Dyno”!
Kina, It’s no coincidence that there are ex-military types standing for Labor, IMO. Recall the stuff about Collins and his take on what happened in Timor? There’s only so far you can take blatant abuse of the components of a society, before the disaffected start to take action to correct the imbalance. If anything, this election is about whether or not there is still sufficiently functioning human beings in Australia to be able to discern the need for a correction politically.
Enjoyed Swan’s interview with big red tonight. Normally find him uninspiring, but thought he was quite good this time. Very perky.
Opposition moves to highlight climate change differentials
Posted 7 minutes ago
Labor has released a new campaign advertisement, with Kevin Rudd pointing to differences between his party’s approach to climate change compared to the Coalition’s.
The advertisement features Mr Rudd talking in front of a backdrop of drought-ravaged land, bushfires and melting glaciers.
In it Mr Rudd promises a Federal Labor government would immediately ratify the Kyoto protocol, introduce greenhouse gas targets and increase renewable energy.
The Coalition has accused Labor of having no policy of his own, but Mr Rudd says on the issue of climate change, his party is leading the way.
“For our long-term future there is no more important difference between Mr Howard and myself than on climate change,” he said.
“Your vote at this election is crucial. In a very real sense, you’re voting for the future.”
611 Lose the election re Newspoll
‘In the past any significant move back to the Coalition has been leaked. Any move to Labor is kept silent’.
Not so, actually.
That ALP climate change ad is a good one.
Their ad campaign is so much better than 2004.
How long, do you think, before the ALP advertising goes negative?
On the proposed 2nd debate – regardless of how silly it might look, Rudd should insist on a 50/50 debate with JH & PC. Why? (to answer my own question, which appears to be all the rage lately):
Because it emphasises the inherent silliness of the Libs situation with 2 leaders. If Tip wants a debate for himself only, Rudd should say “Well, if he wanted that, he should have stepped up to the plate and had a crack at the leadership. I won’t hand the spot to him like the Libs plan to – he has to earn it. After Mr Howard goes, who says he’ll be leader? It might be Abbott, it might be Downer etc. etc.”
If they agree, every minor contradiction will be borne out. They would be hamstrung to each other, the second speaker unable to express their own thoughts, because of the risk of contradiction.