November 2, 2011
Opinion
Confident ... Prime Minister Julia Gillard alleged the Coalition had a "traditional bias against working people". Photo: Alex Ellinghausen
UNTIL yesterday the Gillard government had been utterly unsuccessful in pinning on Tony Abbott what they believe is a potential weakness - the claim that the Coalition is too close to big business.
The politically dominant Coalition leader has in fact been turning the tables on Labor, couching his opposition to the carbon and mining taxes as a defence of jobs and stretched household budgets rather than a defence of the businesses that don't want to pay the taxes.
Abbott has painted himself as the defender of the ''Aussie job'' in danger of being sent offshore by the carbon price or problems besetting the manufacturing industry.
But then Labor was forced at the weekend to intervene to short-circuit protracted industrial action in a dispute primarily about job outsourcing and offshoring.
The Gillard government attacked Qantas's actions as ''extreme'', but the Coalition sprang to the airline's defence, saying the company had to remain competitive.
That was all the opening the Prime Minister needed. Looking more confident than she has for a long time, Julia Gillard used question time to allege the Coalition had a ''traditional bias against working people'' and had ''not uttered a word of criticism against Qantas''.
She also returned fire in the ''who had prior knowledge'' dispute. She had no evidence Abbott did have early warning of the Qantas lockout, but neither did the Coalition have any real evidence to back its contention that Labor had been warned, or that Gillard had demonstrated a failure of leadership in how she chose to deal with it.
And when that debate is fought out to a confusing nil-all draw, Abbott will be left with internal dissent over the Coalition's lack of a coherent industrial relations policy and Gillard will be left with the line of attack Labor has been looking for.
The whole country can recite Labor's failings largely because Abbott keeps reminding them - think mismanagement of school halls and pink batts.
Labor is now trying to elevate what it believes are Abbott's political weaknesses - the idea that he is cosy with business and the impact of the spending cuts needed to meet his budgetary promises.
It is a long way from anything like a political revival, but Labor believes it's a start.
