Bridie Jabour in Sydney

theguardian.com, Friday 30 August 2013

NSW Independent Commission Against Corruption finds former mining minister Ian Macdonald acted corruptly when he granted lucrative coal licence

Ian Macdonald arriving to give evidence at the Independent Commission Against Corruption in Sydney on 14 February. Photograph: AAP

The corruption watchdog has referred former Labor New South Wales mining minister Ian Maconald to the director of public prosecution for possible charges after finding he was corrupt for the third time.

The Independent Commission Against Corruption also found former mining union official John Maitland was corrupt and referred him to the DPP to consider laying charges against him for giving false and misleading statements to ICAC and discussing evidence he gave in confidence to ICAC.

ICAC handed down its report into Operation Acacia on Friday morning. It examined the granting of a coalmining exploration licence in the Hunter valley in NSW by Macdonald to Doyles Creek Mining, a company owned by Maitland, without putting out a tender.

Macdonald announced the mine in a press release on Christmas Eve in 2008 and Maitland made $15m from a $160,000 investment.

Craig Ransley and Andrew Poole, businessmen involved in the deal, were also found to have acted corruptly by ICAC.

Maitland has suggested he may take legal action in response to the findings, saying he continues to “vehemently deny” he acted corruptly. "I will be having discussions with my legal team as to my legal options," he said.

“Because of the structure of ICAC, people who are being investigated are often denied a full chance to present their case, under fair rules of evidence,” Maitland said in a statement released through his solicitor.

“Yet they can suffer irreparable reputational harm as a result of this process as I have.”

The Greens have used the findings to say they will block any potential federal legislation in the Senate which hands environmental powers back to the states as the findings show the states cannot be trusted.

"Development decisions by successive state governments have shown the close relationship between state governments and developers can lead to decisions where the environment is the lowest priority," Greens lead Senate candidate for NSW Cate Faehrmann said.

"The Commonwealth must ensure our national environmental assets are protected and that areas of high biodiversity value do not come under threat from coal seam gas and coal mining."

Earlier this month ICAC made two other separate corruption findings against Macdonald for his role in the granting of a coal exploration mining licence which stood to make Labor powerbroker Eddie Obeid’s family up to $100m and for accepting favours – which included the services of a prostitute – to introduce the businessman Ron Medich to energy executives who had lucrative state contracts.

Macdonald acted against the advice of his department when he granted Doyles Creek Mining an exploration licence and the company was later sold to NuCoal and listen on the stock exchange making its directors and investors more than $80m.

In the report ICAC found Macdonald was not a credible witness and attempted to avoid answering difficult questions during the hearing by giving long and irrelevant answers, being argumentative and saying he could not remember “strikingly important” matters.

“From time to time, he gave evidence that was inconsistent with earlier evidence,” the report said.

“Some of his evidence was inherently improbable. At times, he also appeared to be making up evidence as he went along.”

Maitland was also criticised as not acting honestly and the commission found he gave false and misleading documents about the deal to the Department of Primary Industries, to union branches and to members of the local community.

Maitland’s lawyer had argued that he had long advocated for the health and safety of mining employees as secretary of the CFMEU and had been pushing for a training mine for years. He argued DCM wanted the coal exploration licence granted so they could build a training mine but ICAC rejected suggestions Maitland was not also driven by the financial gain he would get from the licence approval.

ICAC found Maitland and Macdonald were “mates” and the proposal for a training mine was used as “spin” to get the exploration licence and at a meeting between Maitland and others involved in DCM they discussed the need for Macdonald to make a “compelling argument” for approving the mine and that it should not be seen as a “goldmine for entrepreneurs”.

The report said the focus of the meeting was on making an impression rather than the substance of the proposal.

ICAC rejected Maitland’s assertions his sole motive for gaining the exploration licence was to build a training mine but accepted he had a genuine interest in building one.

ICAC instead found the argument for a training mine from DCM had been mainly used to avoid an expensive competitive tender process

“The training idea was indeed important to them, but only as the hook that was going to catch the commercial mine,” the report said.

Maitland rejected these assertions in a statement saying the findings against him were very limited.

“I have always passionately supported the concept of a training mine,” he said.

“Witness after witness stated as much in the hearing. The training of mineworkers underground improves their skills, benefiting them and the broader industry. Most importantly, it improves safety and saves lives.”

ICAC did not make any corruption prevention recommendations but noted the investigation, along with other investigations, raised issues around improper use of power by a minister and a separate report into the issues would be released soon.

Ian Macdonald: ICAC brands former NSW minister corrupt | World news | theguardian.com

By Tom Nightingale, staff Sat 31 Aug 2013

Related Story: As it happened: Opinion polls, asylum seeker legal aid dominate campaign

Related Story: Coalition says plan to buy back asylum boats 'would save lives'

The Federal Opposition is promising to stop funding immigration advice for asylum seekers if it wins next week's election.

The Coalition has unveiled the final plank of its border protection policy today.

Currently, Australian taxpayers fund refugee claims and legal appeals.

The Coalition says while it would not stop people accessing the help, it would stop funding it.

The move is expected to save about $100 million over four years.

The changes would also mean anyone who arrives by boat or plane and applies for asylum will not get help for free while doing so.

Opposition immigration spokesman Scott Morrison told the ABC's AM program refugees would have to pay for legal advice.

"People can still make the claims, obviously, and if others in the community want to provide that advice free of charge or they want to pay for that advice, they can continue," he said.

"We won't be stopping access to advice but the taxpayer will no longer be on the hook for it.

"People will be provided in multiple languages how the process works, they'll have interpreters to answer any questions about how the system works but there won't be taxpayer-funded assistance for people to prepare claims or to make appearances.

"If they can access those services privately or otherwise they'll be at liberty to do that."

Shadow attorney-general George Brandis says Australian citizens need legal aid assistance and the funding should not be diverted to asylum seekers.

"Why should there be carte blanche for people who are not Australian citizens, who have come to this country illegally, have chosen of their own volition to place themselves in the hands of people smugglers to get here rather than take advantage of the Australian government's humanitarian entry programs?" he said.

The Coalition has not specified how the saved money would be used.

Refugee advocates, Greens describe move as cruel

The Greens have vowed to block the changes in parliament, arguing without appeals asylum seekers could be sent to their deaths.

Greens Leader Christine Milne condemned the policy.

"This is an incredibly cruel attitude that Tony Abbott is taking, and without the Greens strongly standing there in the Senate and Adam Bandt in the House of Reps there won't be anyone standing up for strong advocacy for human rights, and for decency and for fairness," she said.

Refugee advocate Julian Burnside QC says asylum seekers usually do not have the money to pay for professional advice, so they either represent themselves or get help from an agency.

"The problem is that roughly 50 per cent of people who are knocked back by [Immigration] Department officers in their claim for asylum go to the Refugee Review Tribunal (RRT) and get the assessment changed. In other words, Department officers simply get it wrong," he said.

"For a person without representation to go to the RRT is likely to end up in an unfair result if they don't know what they're doing, can't speak the language, and don't have professional help.

"The result of that will be that a number of people who are genuine refugees will be returned to face persecution because they haven't had a fair go in our assessment system."

Mr Burnside added his work with refugees is pro bono, so there is no profit motive to his thoughts against the idea.

The Refugee Action Collective's Chris Breen says the proposal is unfair and unjust.

"It sounds outrageous. It sounds discriminatory. The legal services for asylum seekers, quite literally, save lives," he said.

"Tony Abbott's announcement appears to be just the latest in a horrific series of announcements. We would urge both Rudd and Abbott to step back. We can do better than this."

But Opposition Leader Tony Abbott defended the decision.

"Why should people who come to this country illegally get legal aid to run immigration applications and appeals when so many Australians who find themselves before the courts for whatever reason don't get legal aid," he said.

The ABC tried to contact Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus, but did not receive a response

Coalition vows to stop funding legal advice for asylum seekers - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

By Katie Cassidy

Photo: Kevin Rudd, Chris Bowen and Penny Wong yesterday took aim at the Coalition's latest plans for budget cuts. (ABC News)

Related Story: Election live: sucked into 'black hole'

Related Story: Labor claims $10b hole in Coalition's budget cuts

The Government has defended its use of Treasury and Finance advice to claim the Coalition has a $10 billion hole in its budget savings after the two departments weighed into the debate to clarify their positions.

The Prime Minister yesterday revealed assessments from Treasury and the Parliamentary Budget Office (PBO), prepared before the election was called, that he said showed the Opposition's plans would only save the budget $21 billion.

But in an unusual move, senior public servants have sought to correct the record and as a result, also taken some of the sting out of the Government's attack.

The Treasury and Finance departments said they had not costed the Opposition's policies but policy options as provided by Labor before the September 7 ballot was called.

It pointed out that different assumptions, such as the start date of a policy, can generate different results.

A joint statement read: "At no stage prior to the caretaker period has either department costed Opposition policies.

"Different costings assumptions, such as the start date of a policy, take up assumptions, indexation and the coverage that applies, will inevitably generate different financial outcomes."

Calm before the political storm

Those among us with a morbid desire to witness political train wrecks will have been disappointed by this election campaign so far, but there isn't long to wait now, writes Barrie Cassidy.

 

The PBO went further, saying it is "inappropriate" to claim costings were done of another party's policies.

The Coalition says it is an extraordinary move and a direct attack on the credibility of the Prime Minister.

Opposition treasury spokesman Joe Hockey says voters cannot trust the Government.

"Yesterday, outraged at the behaviour of the Government, I sent the disputed PBO details to the Treasury to prove that what the Government was presenting was wrong," he told Channel 7 this morning.

But Treasurer Chris Bowen has stood by the Government's actions.

He said the submission was based on what the Opposition had said publicly and if the assumptions are wrong, the Coalition should release the full details of its policies.

"What the Treasury and Department of Finance and the Parliamentary Budget Office have said, it all depends on the assumptions that are made and we've made exactly the same point," he said.

"We say the Opposition should release their full costings, all the assumptions, all the inputs, all the working papers because there's very clearly a $10 billion black hole here."

Speaking to the ABC's AM program, Mr Hockey said the Coalition would release all its costings next week.

"When our policies are released in full, our costings will be released in full," he said.

"We've had a methodical process to dealing with this that has enormous integrity and when Kevin Rudd failed to blow a hole in our costings, he simply blew a hole in his own credibility, or whatever is left of it."

Labor stands by Coalition budget hole claims after Treasury, Finance rebuke - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

By ABC's Barrie Cassidy

Photo: In the event of an easy Coalition victory, the rubberneckers will have plenty to see. (AAP: Alan Porritt)

Those among us with a morbid desire to witness political train wrecks will have been disappointed by this disciplined election campaign, but it won't be long before the lid blows, writes Barrie Cassidy.

Political journalists, well some of them, anyway, enjoy covering politics in much the same way as rubberneckers enjoy car crashes.

They might feign interest and concern, but it's really the tragedy of it all, the sheer carnage, that attracts them.

During election campaigns, when the leaders come under extraordinary scrutiny and personal pressure, that unhealthy pre-occupation with the problems of others is usually satisfied.

But not this time.

Those who expected Tony Abbott to screw up, to commit one faux pas after another, have been disappointed. He has so far run a disciplined, accident-free campaign.

And likewise, those who thought Kevin Rudd would blow up when all seemed lost are off the mark as well. That's partly because Rudd is running two races. Even if beating Abbott eludes him, he needs to win enough seats to reasonably argue that the leadership change was worthwhile. A final tally of seats in the 50s will bring that notion into doubt.

But those with an unsatisfied morbid curiosity of all things political need to exercise just a little patience. Satisfaction is not far away.

That's because in the event of the most likely outcome, a comfortable Coalition victory, there will be plenty to slow down and stare at on either side of politics in the months ahead.

Let's start with a defeated Labor Party.

Labor's internal hatreds have been percolating ever since the negotiated victory in 2010. After September 7, the lid will blow sky high.

So many players on one side have wanted to go to town on the initial Julia Gillard coup. They want to publicly argue, free of the constraints of office, that Labor's problems started with that event, and went downhill from there.

The other side wants to settle some scores over the sabotaging of Gillard's 2010 campaign, and the undermining that went on beyond that.

And they will target, in particular, Bill Shorten, who they see as the crucial pivot in the decision of the caucus to finally abandon Gillard.

It matters not that Gillard will be gone after the election, and perhaps Rudd as well. For the next few years at least, the party will nevertheless split between those always loyal to Gillard and those who ultimately backed Rudd.

Pretty little pitches

With Abbott you always get the same lines but with Rudd it's the luck of the draw, writes Annabel Crabb.

That divide will be just as bitter and probably more difficult to manage than the traditional left versus right battles of the past.

There will be challenges in government for Abbott as well.

For years, he has operated effectively as an opposition leader, creating a sense of chaos around the government, exploiting every policy and political error, while at the same time maintaining discipline in his own ranks.

But in government, he will have to reconcile the contradictions between established Liberal principles and the indulgences of some of his policies.

He will need to fund the big ticket Labor policies that he has embraced, such as the NDIS, education reform and the NBN, while keeping faith with his own promises. All the while, he'll be working towards a budget surplus to deal with what he has always said is a budget emergency.

On top of that, a Coalition government will set out to reduce greenhouse emissions by 5 per cent below 2000 levels by 2020 with a problematic policy approach and limited spending.

And in that environment, Abbott will need to deal with a large and restless backbench, eager to prove they are more capable than the survivors of the Howard years.

In the event of an easy Coalition victory, the rubberneckers will have plenty to see on the Labor side in the first few months.

Beyond that Abbott will need to be just as effective in government as he has been in opposition. Otherwise it won't be long before the rubberneckers are gawking at him too.

Barrie Cassidy is the presenter of ABC programs Insiders and Offsiders. View his full profile here.

This is the calm before the political storm - The Drum (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

By ABC's Antony Green

Photo: Something needs to be done about the Senate voting system, but it shouldn't be left to just the politicians to resolve. (Alan Porritt: AAP)

The Senate is one of the most powerful parliamentary upper chambers in the world, yet our current voting system allows fractionalised parties with no chance of significant electoral support to enter a lottery for the last seat in each state, writes Antony Green.

On polling day, as Australians peer through their magnifying glasses at the Senate ballot paper, trying to distinguish between up to 110 candidates they've never heard of, they may wonder how Australian democracy descended to such a farce.

A nation that introduced the secret ballot to the world, that led the world extending the franchise to all adult males and then all women, has somehow managed to produce a Senate electoral system that is incomprehensible to all but the most psephologically skilled.

Electoral systems evolve over time, but in the case of the Senate's system, it has atrophied.

Instead of acting ahead of time to deal with an explosion of candidates, as had already happened with exactly the same system at state elections in both New South Wales and South Australia, the status quo of the existing Senate system has been allowed to continue.

To conduct a Senate election whose result will be determined by byzantine deals between unknown backroom operators is bad enough. But to give voters only two options in voting, to accept the deals or be forced to number up to 110 preferences, is an abuse of the power granted to Parliament by the Constitution to determine the method of Senate voting.

Above all, it is just not acceptable to have a system that requires people to use a magnifying glass to cast an informed vote on who will run the country.

Conducting an election under such circumstances is a farce that Australians, and the politicians responsible for not acting ahead of time to fix the system, should be embarrassed by.

An election is a process by which the will of the people is translated into representation in a chamber of parliament. In the case of the case of the current Senate system, the will of the people can be interfered with by the strict control of preferences granted to political parties by the group ticket or 'above the line' voting system.

The current system was bought in with laudatory intentions. Before 1984, electors had to number every square on the ballot papers, a system that produced a scandalously high rate of informal or spoiled ballots. It was standard for more than one in ten ballot papers to be excluded from the count because of errors in the preference sequence.

Above the line voting gave voters another option, a single '1' where the voter accepted the preference ticket of the party. More than 95 per cent of Australians use this option, inflated no doubt by being the only alternative to numbering every square.

The power of the new system was shown at its first use in 1984 when Labor and the Coalition acted in concert to keep Peter Garrett of the Nuclear Disarmament Party out of the Senate despite him polling 9.6 per cent of the vote. Three years later, the Labor Party reversed its position and elected the NDP's Robert Wood despite him receiving only 1.5 per cent.

The major parties, along with the Greens and Australian Democrats, also used the system in 1998 to prevent up to four One Nation senators from being elected.

But what's good for the goose is good for the gander, and the same power that ticket voting gave major parties was also available to minor parties. Major parties already had some power to influence preferences with how-to-vote material. Ticket voting delivered power to control preferences to minor parties, and as it turned out, even to micro-parties.

The first signs that there were problems with the system emerged in the NSW Legislative Council election in 1995 when so-called preference 'harvesting' elected Alan Corbett representing a party called A Better Future For Our Children. He polled 1.3 per cent and skated to a quota on the back of preferences from all the other micro parties on the ballot.

At the 1997 South Australian election, the then little known Nick Xenophon used the same harvesting method to get the preferences of every other minor party on the ballot paper to turn 2.9 per cent into a seat in the SA Legislative Council. So far Xenophon is the only member elected by preference harvesting to subsequently turn their election into vote power at the ballot box.

The first mega-ballot paper came at the 1999 NSW Legislative Council election when 80 groups and 264 candidates created a ballot paper the size of tablecloth. Malcolm Jones of the Outdoor Recreation Party was easily elected despite polling only 0.2 per cent of the vote, harvesting the preferences of 21 suspiciously related parties.

In 2004, Family First's Steve Fielding (1.9 per cent) used these methods to harvest enough preferences to get ahead of the third Labor candidate and then win election thanks to a preference deal that its proponents in the Labor Party had never expected to be required to deliver on.

And in 2010, DLP Senator John Madigan (2.3 per cent) also won election by preference harvesting, in his case by leap frogging the third Coalition candidate.

When I raise this issue, I usually get accused of just being down on minor parties. I'm accused of wanting a system where only the big players get elected.

That is not true. The Senate's electoral system is a form of proportional representation, and I believe that any party that can achieve a significant level of support is entitled to be elected.

What I don't agree with is fractionalised parties incapable of campaigning or receiving significant electoral support engaging in entirely strategic preferences based on the principles of twister rather than the principles of politics, simply to enter a lottery for the last Senate spot in each state.

The Senate is one of the most powerful parliamentary upper chambers in the world. It should be for the public to determine its balance of power, not for unknown deal makers to engineer an outcome.

My concern is that the farce of the 2013 Senate election may produce the wrong sort of change, where the existing players get together and simply make it impossible for the little parties to grow or get elected by introducing threshold quotas.

The better alternative is to do what NSW did after the 1999 debacle, to abolish between-ticket preferences, but allow voters to express their own preferences for parties above the line on the ballot paper. Preferences are moved back into the hands of voters where they belong, and parties that campaign for votes with how-to-vote material can try to influence preferences, but parties that don't campaign for votes lose control of their preferences.

As a minimum, the Victorian Legislative Council system should be copied. Voters are only required to give as many preferences below the line as there are vacancies, five in the Victorian case. This is much fairer than the endless lists of preferences required in the Senate.

The current system gives no encouragement to like-minded parties to coalesce and grow by attracting votes. Ending party control of preferences would discourage micro-parties from competing against each other and encourage them to coalesce and learn to build real support in the electorate.

A change similar to NSW was proposed by Liberal Senator Eric Abetz after the 2004 Senate election. Unfortunately, his proposal insisted on compulsory preferential being used above the line, again raising the prospect of a surge in informal vote.

It would have also been impossible for the Electoral Commission to deal with. Currently less than 5 per cent of votes need to be data entered to conduct the complex Senate count. Requiring that 100 per cent be entered would have been a logistical nightmare.

Something needs to be done about the Senate voting system, but it shouldn't be left to just the politicians to resolve. They got it to the current predicament in the first place.

The current Senate system will be a joke on September 7 and change is required. The clearest solution is a simpler system that allows voters to understand what is happening with their vote, and frees up the result from the control of back room operators.

Put preferences back in to the hands of voters where they belong, and if this requires the acceptance of some degree of optional preferential voting, better that than magnifying glasses.

Antony Green is the ABC's election analyst. View his full profile here.

Senate voting threatens more than our eyesight - The Drum (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

Oliver Laughland in Rooty Hill

theguardian.com, Wednesday 28 August 2013

'The Labor heartland I grew up with is still with me, but neither of these politicians has a heart,' says one audience member

Nada Makdessi, a member of the public, poses for a selfie with Kevin Rudd and Tony Abbott after the forum at Rooty Hill RSL. Photograph: Lukas Coch/AAP

At the start of Wednesday's debate both leaders played up their connection to western Sydney. Kevin Rudd paid homage to the fact that 10% of Australia's population lives in the area, while Tony Abbott reminded voters of his year living in Emu Plains.

But most of those in the audience who Guardian Australia spoke to after the debate didn't buy it.

"It was the standard 'we love you all' line," said John from Croydon. "Tony Abbott opened strongly but then was unable to answer questions properly, that's when Rudd started carrying the debate – Rudd pipped it at the end."

But despite what he saw, John said he remained undecided.

Kath Morris, who lives in the inner west and grew up a devoted Labor follower, was also finding it difficult to vote for either party after the night's performance.

"The Labor heartland I grew up with is still with me, but neither of these politicians has a heart," she said.

Brian Ford, from the Sutherland shire in Sydney's south, said: "The leaders were a bit disconnected as to where the people had actually come from. They were a bit misinformed, many people here were not from western Sydney."

Brian had been expecting at least one question on asylum policy – given that it's supposed to be a hot topic in western Sydney – but none came. So he approached Abbott after the debate to ask how he planned to turn asylum seeker boats back to Indonesia. He wasn't convinced by the response.

"I'd hate people to vote for a party because they had a good one line, 'Stop the boats.' " he said.

Shelly Toll is from Penrith and describes herself as a "local girl". She asked the question during the debate that got the most laughs: "What would the leaders like to ask each other?"

She said their responses had been a "bit comical" and resorted to "mudslinging".

So who won, in Shelly's mind? For her it was all about Abbott's closing remarks, which she said were compelling.

"He directed it more towards us. It was less about the mudslinging and that's been a huge issue with campaigns previously; it's been a little much too much pointing the finger at each other, and less about saying what they'll do differently."

Rooty Hill people's forum: they came, they saw, they're still undecided | World news | theguardian.com

Mark Latham

Tony Abbott’s PPL scheme is the most generous parental policy since the reading of Kerry Packer’s will. Photo: Alex Ellinghausen

The verdict on the election campaign is in. Tony Abbott is an opportunist on a scale rarely seen in federal politics.

It started with his four-year insurgency against carbon pricing, a policy Abbott had previously supported. Predictions of economic ruin from Labor’s carbon tax, with whole regions and industries wiped out, were made to look absurd by ongoing income and employment growth.

Then he turned to debt and deficit, in May proclaiming a “budget emergency”. The shallowness of this strategy has now become clear, with Abbott crab-walking away from his commitment to improve the budget bottom line compared to Treasury’s forward estimates.

In his policy speech on Sunday, all the Opposition Leader could promise was a surplus of 1 per cent of GDP in 10 years’ time – four elections away. Perhaps he plans to hold a 2023 summit to work out the details.

This is a new low in democratic transparency. By the normal standards of public life, a leader who declares a national budget emergency, trying to create panic in the economy, has a moral and political obligation to set out a solution. Yet to avoid scrutiny, Abbott has refused to release a full list of savings and funding sources.

If there is an emergency, the net impact of the Coalition’s policy announcements has been to make it worse. A consensus has emerged among private-sector economists that an Abbott government will add substantially to debt and deficit. The exact figures have been obscured by the Coalition’s fiscal secrecy and the type of rubbery numbers released on Wednesday by shadow treasurer Joe Hockey. On average, economists are predicting a deterioration in the budget position of $25 billion over four years.

Budgetary indulgences for the well off

What is certain is Abbott’s determination to create new middle-class welfare entitlements. His PPL scheme is the most generous parental policy since the reading of Kerry Packer’s will. The Coalition’s compo-for-nothing carbon tax payments and plan to abolish means-testing of the private health insurance rebate are no less extravagant. On Sunday, Abbott added a fourth budgetary indulgence: cheaper medicines for self-funded retirees.

Last year, Hockey said he wanted to “end the age of entitlement”, objecting to “the pain associated with grand announcements for extending the welfare state”. Yet his leader’s middle-class welfare agenda, if implemented in government, will cost the Commonwealth $11.5 billion per annum. The Liberals are inventing new entitlements on a scale not seen in this country since Jack Lang during the Great Depression.

Abbott’s campaign for fiscal discipline is as fraudulent as his carbon tax scare. It’s a low-grade pitch to the worst instincts of Australian politics: inventing crises, exaggerating difficulties, encouraging a culture of non-stop whingeing but then dodging the leadership task of presenting answers. In effect, the Coalition hopes to win by stealth, by cheating democracy. Any government it forms will be illegitimate.

His real sin is profligacy

Politically, Labor has misread Abbott. It has tried to portray him as a cost-cutting fiend when, in truth, his greatest sin is profligacy. As a disciple of BA Santamaria, the Opposition Leader is an old-fashioned state paternalist, positioning government as a counterpoint to the excesses of free-market economics at one extreme and the growth of non-Western, non-Christian values at the other.

Thus Abbott’s first instincts are populist, highly susceptible to electoral and interest group pressure for more spending. As with much of Australia’s right-wing cadre, he is fanatical about political life.

He has immersed himself in the collective institutions of party politics and parliament. Abbott’s objective is not to diminish state power but to use the authority of government as a way of bringing society closer to his own beliefs.

This is a frustrating time for Australia’s right-wing ideologues.

They want the Coalition to wind back the welfare state but through his addiction to opportunism, Abbott has emerged as a gold-plated welfarist. Labor will most likely lose seats on September 7, but in one vital respect this doesn’t matter. It has already won the debate about the size and role of government.

Mark Latham is a former leader of the ALP

The Australian Financial Review

Abbott’s fiscal discipline a fraud

Lenore Taylor, political editor

theguardian.com, Wednesday 28 August 2013

Undecided voters in western Sydney force Coalition leader and Kevin Rudd to defend their economic credentials

Tony Abbott listens to Kevin Rudd in the third debate in Sydney on Wednesday. Photograph: Alan Porritt/AFP/Pool/Getty Images

Tony Abbott has promised to delay a surplus rather than break his election promises even if he inherits a worse-than-expected budget, as undecided voters in western Sydney forced the leaders to defend their economic credentials in the third televised leaders' debate.

The Coalition had laid the groundwork for the debate by releasing $31.6bn in savings earlier Wednesday, which meant Abbott was better able to answer Kevin Rudd's allegation that he was hiding budget "cuts" but allowed the prime minister to highlight the Coalition's intention to abandon tax breaks for small businesses.

"One of the reasons I am making fairly modest additional commitments in this campaign, why I have been quite upfront about $31bn in reasonable savings, is because I don't want to find after the election that we can't keep commitments," Abbott said.

And when pushed to answer whether he would delay a surplus or keep his promises he said, "Yes, we'll keep them all," in an answer that completes the Coalition's transition from the immediate "budget emergency" it declared from opposition to the more cautious approach to budgeting it intends to take if, as all major polls are suggesting, it wins government on 7 September.

Pressed on the budget deficit and the national debt, Rudd repeatedly reminded the audience of the global financial crisis, saying "the reason we borrowed temporarily during the GFC was because the alternative was to see the economy going into recession … to see small businesses collapse and unemployment levels rise." And he attacked Abbott for not matching Labor's six-year promises for school funding.

Abbott was again forced to defend his paid parental leave scheme, which Labor strategists insist is an electoral liability for the Coalition.

Challenged over his paid parental leave plan by a forklift driver from Mount Druitt, who asked why he should be "be paying his taxes so the pretty little lady lawyer on the north shore can have a kid", Abbott said the premise of the question wasn't true because the "lion's share" of the scheme was funded by the 1.5% levy on big business.

But Rudd's central attack line about Abbott's "unfunded promises" and "hidden cuts" was somewhat undermined when he was challenged by a questioner over his own "thought bubbles" and uncosted policies on moving the navy north, lowering the company tax rate in the Northern Territory and building a high-speed train.

"If you are going to make commitments that are right out for the long term it is much better if you have a record of delivering on your promises," Abbott said, saying he intended to "underpromise and overdeliver rather than make promises on the never never".

Although Abbott is under internal pressure from the National party and some rural Liberals to take a more populist position on foreign ownership and competition policy, it was Rudd who appeared to indicate a change to Labor's long-held policies in both areas.

On foreign acquisition of agricultural land Rudd said he was "a bit anxious about simply an open slather approach" and would prefer to see foreign investment as part of a joint venture with Australian companies.

"I am looking very carefully about how this affects the overall balance of land acquisition in Australia … I think when it comes to rural land, land more generally, then perhaps we need to adopt a more cautious approach," he said.

And on competition policy, Rudd said he was concerned about the impact of the supermarket duopoly of Coles and Woolworths on small farmers.

"Farmers say they are getting squeezed and squeezed by Coles and Woolies," he said, promising to "have to look at how we provide better guarantees for proper competitive conduct so the man and woman on the farm are not carrying the can".

Abbott held the line on Coalition policy, saying that if the foreign purchase of land was judged to be in the national interest then he was in favour of it, and pointing out he was proposing tougher anti-dumping rules.

Neither leader snapped at the other in the manner of Abbott's "does this guy ever shut up" line from the second debate, although when Abbott said during one answer that he would try not to waffle, Rudd replied that the answer had in fact been "waffle cubed". And before the debate Abbott's wife, Margie, and Rudd's wife, Therese, and daughter, Jessica, had what appeared to be a friendly conversation.

The questions from the audience of 100 undecided voters at the Rooty Hill RSL were primarily focused on services and the economy, raising issues neither leader has talked much about, including dental care and aged care.

Asked about environmental policy, Abbott said the answer was a strong economy.

"If we have a stronger economy we are more likely to be able to have the environmental safeguards we want … poor countries tend to have worse environmental outcomes than rich ones," he said.

Abbott also promised he would not close any of Labor's Medicare Local centres, a shift from the policy restated by his health spokesman Peter Dutton on Tuesday when he said that said that they would be "reviewed" and those that did not deliver frontline services could be closed.

Tony Abbott 'would delay surplus before breaking election vows' | World news | theguardian.com

By ABC's Annabel Crabb

Photo: Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and Opposition leader Tony Abbott shake hands before a debate. (AAP: Lukas Coch)

The third leaders' debate painted a good picture of what the two party leaders have on offer. With Tony Abbott, you always get the same lines but with Kevin Rudd it's the luck of the draw, writes Annabel Crabb.

Ah, Rooty Hill. Wedged firmly into Labor's Axis of Anxiety in Sydney's western suburbs, it borders seats like Lindsay and Greenway, Labor-held by margins that would be eminently survivable blood-alcohol levels.

This is an area that has killed before; at the 2011 state election, the local electorate fielded an 18 per cent swing against Labor.

When Julia Gillard came a-calling here in March, she was hastened to a sticky end.

She debated Tony Abbott here too, three years ago, back when Labor's talk was of a cash-for-clunkers scheme and Tony Abbott's was of stopping the boats, ending the waste and stomping out carbon taxes.

Last night, his talk was of stopping boats, ending the waste and stomping out carbon taxes.

This is Campaign Tony: The same thing every day, for years on end, with only the odd campaign howler to relieve the monotony.

(Last night's was an awkward reference by the Opposition Leader to his "modest" superannuation assets, a term which - after distinct scoffing from the crowd - he was forced hastily to admit applied only to his pre-parliamentary super.)

Even the paid parental leave scheme, a Tonyism that colleagues prayed fervently would be forgotten, abandoned or quietly strangled during some lonely stretch on the Pollie Pedal, is there again this election, unchanged, with its brain-hurting algorithm of tax hikes and cuts.

It's baffling in many ways that this creation would become Tony Abbott's calling-card, this scheme which was described by one Rooty Hill questioner last night as a device by which Mt Druitt forklift drivers would be fleeced so that "pretty little lawyers on the North Shore" could have their babies underwritten by the state.

It may be baffling, but it doesn't seem to be changing, and Mr Abbott cheerfully defended it against all comers last night, as he always does.

No matter where you are on this election campaign, you always get the same Tony Abbott, and you always get the same lines.

But where the Prime Minister is concerned, it's the luck of the draw.

Last night there were flashes of 2007 Kevin, as - asked by Mr Abbott to give some positive reasons for a Labor vote - the Prime Minister listed schools, hospitals and fast broadband before cheekily offering his famously bruised handshake hand to seal the deal.

There was 2008 Kevin, reliving at length the dilemmas presented by the Global Financial Crisis.

And - towards the end of last night's encounter - there was Nationalist Kevin, who declared himself "a bit nervous… a bit anxious, frankly" about sales of Australian land to foreign investors. He declared himself to be in support of a "more cautious approach" on foreign investment.

Having also recently visited a growers' market and heard tales of the Coles/Woolworths duopoly, he declared himself "very worried about that, big-time," and promised to have a think about ways to help.

"That is a deep response and feeling I have to what's going on out there," he declared.

Foreign investment and the supermarket duopoly are pure Katter-nip, of course, and there were plenty of observers last night who swore they could see the ghostly aura of a hat hovering over the Prime Minister's saintly fringe.

Later, in response to a lady who wanted earlier access to her superannuation funds, Mr Rudd all but promised to look into it.

At every turn during this campaign, the Prime Minister has offered up the phantoms of future Kevins; the things he might offer, given 10 years, given the right circumstances. He could change to please you; That's Kevin's pitch.

Tony won't: That's his.

Annabel Crabb is the ABC's chief online political writer. View her full profile here.

Leaders' debate paints some pretty little pitches - The Drum (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

By ABC's Jonathan Green

Photo: The Government has probably given the News Corp campaign more credit than is due. (Daily Telegraph)

It is immense flattery to suggest that the biased screams of newspapers that few people trust will be a determining influence this federal election, writes Jonathan Green.

It's as established an element of our modern campaigning as a bar stool on a stage at the Rooty Hill RSL: the ongoing discussion around the role and effect of the political media.

It's an argument of many parts, most notably this time round dealing with the impact of the tabloid screaming war waged against the Rudd campaign, a war that began with "Kick this mob out!" splashed across the front of the Daily Telegraph on day one, and one that has barely drawn a civil breath since.

And indeed, there is much that might be said about an American media mogul having such a strong voice in the Australian political landscape ... the Kraft to our Vegemite.

More than 60 per cent of newspapers sold in this country fly the News Corp flag; a dominant market position that must present certain temptations to a proprietor of strong views and a fondness for the sound of his own influence.

But much of the bluster around the Murdoch campaign in this election, a campaign not so much for Abbott as against Rudd, is based on a pretty fundamental assumption: that there is an audience tuned in to the Murdoch press that is susceptible to its influence.

Chances are that is a pretty big assumption, one that might flatter the vanity of the proprietor, and say more about the impact of mass circulation tabloids than is merited in a time in which trust in some quarters of the traditional media is in strong decline.

The simple fact is that fewer and fewer people actually believe the Daily Telegraph and its ilk, a necessary precondition, you might imagine, for vote-turning influence.

Pollsters Essential regularly survey consumer trust in various media products. On August 19 they asked, how much trust do you have in the way the following media have reported and commented on the election campaign so far?

The totals of respondents who placed some or a lot of trust in various outlets does not flatter newspapers like the Daily Telegraph. Its trust total is 25 per cent. Or to put that another way, 75 per cent of the survey's respondents either don't read the Tele, have no particular view of its trustworthiness or, at 49 per cent, have little or no trust in the biggest selling daily newspaper in New South Wales.

Now, it's entirely possible that earning the trust of its audience is not high in the editorial priorities of the Daily Telegraph. People (in declining numbers) read a newspaper for many reasons: to be entertained, to be outraged, perhaps even for news and opinion. But it would probably be fair to assume that in order to be a potent tool for political influence, trust is important.

It's equally possible that the shrill advocacy of political self interest that the Murdoch tabloids have indulged in through the course of this campaign is actually undermining the quality of the relationship they enjoy with their audiences. And sagging trust must surely show eventually in sales, a point at which, it's safe to predict, the tabloids might be tempted to soften their polemic.

It is a conventional wisdom of our times that people are increasingly disengaged from the day to day of our politics. Having a newspaper shout its advocacy down their throats might not be a winning tactic in the war for circulation.

Not that circulation is the be all and end all. Niche Murdoch publications like The Australian are proof that commercial failure can be indulged if there is a pay-off through the daily capacity to shape the news agenda. There's little doubt that The Australian - trust factor 31 per cent and with a readership that challenges the routine definitions of "mass media" - punches well above the weight of its slim circulation in agenda-tilting influence.

It may well be that through the course of this campaign both the Government and its sympathisers have given the News Corp campaign more credit than is in all likelihood due. Papers that few people trust screaming political invective at the top of their lungs might not be a determining political influence.

For one thing, it's just the sort of top-down 'father knows best' approach to publishing that is the very essence of dinosaur media ... a sense of the audience relationship that is unchanged from the comfortable one-way street of 20th century journalism and one that is quickly being overwhelmed by the new age of interactivity, diversity and quick response.

All of which is to say that while pushing a heated and emphatic political line might be an institutional habit and act of faith for the Murdoch empire, it's a leap of the imagination that flatters the waning impact of newspapers to say that it could actually determine the outcome of an election.

It may suit the "evil empire" prejudices of the anti-Murdoch left to argue that case, as much as it might flatter the vanity of Murdoch and his minions, but the assumption that the shouted demands of a tabloid newspaper can steer a voting public that is either spoilt for media choice or actively disengaged from federal politics seems fanciful.

That disengagement seems to be a more telling factor than any other. The same sense of near universal "whatever" that has enabled a campaign marked by persistent "truthiness" and misrepresentation suggests that politicians these days need to present little more than consistent insistence to convince the voting public.

In any event, 65 per cent of us take the slightly defeated position that either party will do or say anything to win our favour.

In an atmosphere so poisoned by that kind of jaded electoral ennui, what the Daily Telegraph has to say on the matter is neither here nor there, and far from our biggest political problem.

Jonathan Green is the presenter of Sunday Extra on Radio National and a former editor of The Drum. View his full profile here.

Reading isn't believing when it comes to newspapers - The Drum (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

By Mike Steketee

Photo: Circumstances change, confronting governments with the choice between keeping promises that no longer make sense or breaking them. (News Online Brisbane)

Tony Abbott says he wants to stop the "trust deficit" in federal politics. But it is hardly surprising that even the best governments end up with a trust deficit in the eyes of voters, says Mike Steketee.

Tony Abbott's boldest promise is not stopping the boats or introducing his paid parental leave scheme. It is tackling something he says is even worse than the budget deficit: the "trust deficit".

In an interview with Fairfax Media, he said a priority as prime minister would be restoring trust in government and civility in parliament. "I would hope that, should we win the election, I would be able to conduct myself and my team would be able to so conduct themselves that, by the end of the first term, people would have once more concluded that Australian government was competent and trustworthy," he said.

He struck the same theme at his campaign launch on Sunday, drawing the contrast with Labor.

In 2004, he said, Labor had told voters to put their trust in Mark Latham, in 2007 in Kevin Rudd and in 2010 in Julia Gillard and just look what happened to them.

Abbott could have gone back further because he was channelling John Howard.

In 1996, the last time a federal Liberal leader was on the cusp of an election victory, Howard expressed identical sentiments. Even more important than honouring commitments, he said in his campaign launch speech, was rebuilding "a sense of trust and confidence in words given and commitments made by our political leaders… And one of the changes I would hope to see after three years of a Coalition government is that there has been some restoration of the trust and confidence of the Australian people in the political process".

Among other things, he added, that meant having an independent Speaker in the House of Representatives. 

You may be thinking that our political leaders are either masochists or incurable optimists.

Asked in a Morgan Poll in April to rate professions for honesty and ethical standards, 14 per cent gave federal MPs a high or very high rating, compared to 90 per cent for nurses, 88 per cent for doctors and 84 per cent for pharmacists.

There were only five out of 30 professions that were ranked lower than federal politicians – in descending order, insurance brokers, state MPs, real estate agents, advertising people and car salesmen.

The good news is that they have fared worse – notably in 1997 and 1998, the first two years of the Howard government, when nine per cent and seven per cent gave them a high or very high rating in the same poll – below real estate agents.

Howard set about acting on his campaign rhetoric by introducing a new code of ministerial conduct. It had unintended consequences, with no fewer than seven ministers forced to resign over breaches such as holding shares in their areas of responsibility and making false or dubious travel allowance claims. After that, Howard called a halt, refused to demand more resignations despite at least one other clear breach and watered down the code. Restoring trust was put on hold.

Howard in his first term also invented the infamous distinction between core and non-core promises as an excuse for breaking election promises, particularly those resulting from spending cuts in the 1997 budget. And he never did appoint an independent speaker.

Despite promising "never, ever" to introduce a GST, Howard went to the 1998 election proposing one. After a landslide win in 1996, he was lucky to gain a second term when Labor under Kim Beazley outpolled the Coalition in the national vote but failed to pick up enough seats to govern.

So why would Abbott, who is well aware of the Howard record, even though many others have forgotten it, want to stick his head above the parapet on this issue? Perhaps because voters would quite like to respect and trust their political leaders, if only they would let them.

Veteran social researcher and author Hugh Mackay tells The Drum: "He has put his finger on the right issue but he doesn't seem to be the man to do it. We may all recall when it was clear [in 2010] we were going to have a hung parliament, he was the one who used that immortal phrase 'a kinder, gentler polity' and more or less from the next day put the boot in more savagely than ever. You can't separate trust and respect and when it is very clear to the voters that neither side respects the other, then the voters withdraw respect from both sides."

Abbott's appeal for trust is a euphemism for the real question voters are prepared to ask: not who do you trust but who do you distrust least. Put that way, it is a potentially potent weapon, given Labor's record of broken promises on everything from the carbon tax to the budget surplus, not to mention the party's own lack of faith in Kevin Rudd, followed by Julia Gillard.

A further heroic promise Abbott made at his campaign opening is that "we will be a no surprises, no excuses government".

It was his version of another Howard line from 1996 – that he wanted to make us feel relaxed and comfortable.

But as Howard and every prime minister before and after have discovered, surprises are the constant companion of governments. However carefully he maps out his period in office, Abbott should expect the unexpected.

As British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan is said to have responded when asked what he feared most in politics, "events, dear boy, events".

Circumstances change, confronting governments with the choice between keeping promises that no longer make sense or breaking them. Oppositions in our adversarial system see it as their role in life to tear down governments by foul means or fair.

So it hardly is surprising that even the best governments end up with a trust deficit in the eyes of voters.

Abbott will deliver on his promise to scrap the price on carbon but only if the Senate lets him or a subsequent double dissolution election gives him the numbers to do so. 

He will do his best to stop the boats with policies even more brutal than those implemented by Labor but many of the events influencing refugee flows are beyond his control. His success in moving the budget to surplus and reducing debt is to a substantial extent hostage to international economic events that are even less predictable than usual.

So good luck with all that.

Mike Steketee is a freelance journalist and former national affairs editor for The Australian. View his full profile here.

The elusive pursuit of political trust - The Drum (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

By Sean Kelly

Photo: Abbott is attempting to convince the Australian people that a vote for him is a vote for change. (Getty Images: Matt Roberts)

Tony Abbott wants to thrust us back into the heat of arguments we've already had. Only a re-elected Labor government would allow us to finally move on, writes Sean Kelly.

Of the many things that keep Labor voters awake about the prospect of an Abbott government, boredom probably isn't one of them.

The threat of a radically interventionist conservative government, the secret policy agenda we're told about by commentators from the left (in a bid to convince us Abbott is scary) and commentators from the right (in a bid to convince us Abbott has a policy agenda), embarrassing gaffes on the domestic stage, embarrassing gaffes on the international stage - at the very least, Labor voters should be enthralled by the imagined prospect of constant entertainment.

But the fact is that after the last few years of HBO-quality political drama, we are about be hit with mind-numbingly boring reruns of the most tedious bits of those years.

Abbott is attempting to convince the Australian people that a vote for him is a vote for change. "The best way to get a new way is to get a new government," he trumpets.

But the reverse is true. A re-elected Labor Government will settle the debates on carbon and mining that have plagued our nation for half a decade and allow us to move on. A newly minted Abbott government will thrust us back into the heat of arguments we've already had.

An election has the power to wipe the slate clean for a re-elected government. It acts as an unofficial stamp of approval on the actions of the past three years. It's the final say, the DRS (if DRS actually worked) of political debate.

This is what Labor missed out on after 2010. The unique combination of a removed leader and a hung parliament meant Labor's alleged failings - the three plagues of debt, waste and boats - were never consigned to the graveyard of failed political attacks. Instead, they had new life breathed into them.

If Labor wins the election, then the debate over carbon pricing will be over. It will become part of the Australian policy firmament. The same goes for the mining tax. If not, we will be forced into another prolonged debate on this "so-called market in the non-delivery of an invisible substance to no one" (Abbott's words, not mine). I'm always surprised more isn't made of this: does anyone really want to spend another few years talking about carbon? And that's before we get to the spectacle of the double dissolution election which Abbott has threatened to call.

The problem here isn't really boredom, of course. Firstly, it's that throwing reforms into reverse gear is bad for the country. That's true if you agree with the thinking behind pricing carbon.

But even if you don't, it's a fact that revisiting old debates sucks up oxygen and distracts us from getting on with doing the next big thing, something this country is usually good at.

As every commentator and his dog has noted in the past few weeks, the challenges facing Australia are productivity and prosperity - how we increase the first to keep the second. This is what we need our leaders focused on.

And this is where we come to the campaign itself.

Rudd has two chances going into the last two weeks. Both are about showing Rudd is the leader for the times, and Abbott is not.

The best attacks do two things. They amplify something voters already think. At the same time, they remind voters of the strengths of the attacker. Think of Howard's immortal line about Beazley lacking ticker. It neatly captured what voters believed about Beazley, and underlined that Howard was exactly the opposite - strong and determined.

The attack on Abbott's secret cuts is based on substance and therefore rings true. The Liberals have yet to fully explain the cost of their promises, and therefore how they will pay for them. This is the first necessary ingredient in a successful attack. Improved polling suggest it's working.

Labor now needs to build on Abbott's negative to emphasise a Rudd strength. In last week's debate, Rudd tried to do this by contrasting Abbott's plan to "cut for the future" with Labor's plan to "build the future". But these words need flagship policies to give them backbone.

In practice, Labor is acting - schools, hospitals, the NBN. But because none of these policies are both new and big it has been hard to politically ram home the contrast Rudd needs to get across.

Voters have started listening to the argument that Abbott will cut. For that negative to really land they now need to be convinced that Rudd will build. The announcement on high speed rail was in this sweet spot. It is big, it is new, and it positively reeks of the future. Labor will need more of this as the campaign races to its end.

The second chance lies in Rudd's proven ability to act under pressure. So far Labor has bloodlessly pointed out on umpteen occasions that Labor prevented recession. True. But shorn of its human element, it's a drab statistic. The important thing to communicate is that when it counted, Rudd was able to think on his feet, and act. Abbott, on the other hand, is great at soundbites, but cannot cope with surprises. He was once literally paralysed with fury when confronted by difficult questioning from Channel Seven's Mark Riley.

If the country is really heading into difficult times, if the resources boom is over, if productivity is an urgent priority, then the last thing we need is a leader intent on cuts, unable to cope with new challenges, concerned only with reprosecuting old debates.

This is Labor's opportunity. Kevin Rudd has two weeks left to show the country he is the only leader ready and able to fight the battles of the next three years, not the last three years. Or we'll all just have to get used to reruns.

Sean Kelly was an adviser to prime ministers Julia Gillard and Kevin Rudd. View his full profile here.

Want more of the same? Vote Abbott - The Drum (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

Bridie Jabour theguardian.com, Tuesday 27 August 2013

Bridie Jabour speaks to the man who – if the polls are correct – may kick Kevin Rudd out of his seat of Griffith on 7 September

Bill Glasson (left) on a morning run with Tony Abbott and Queensland premier Campbell Newman. Photograph: Alan Porritt/AAP

The man who may cost the prime minister his seat on 7 September only joined the Liberal National party last year.

Dr Bill Glasson was preselected for Kevin Rudd’s seat of Griffith last September, not long after joining the LNP. An ophthalmologist, he is the son of a minister in Queensland premier Joh Bjelke-Petersen’s government and has served as national president of the Australian Medical Association as well as sitting on the taskforce which helped implement the Northern Territory intervention.

He was acknowledged as a formidable candidate when his preselection was announced last September but a Guardian poll last week still sent shockwaves through political and media circles when it showed Griffith was well within reach for Glasson. A subsequent Newspoll found the same result.

Will competition for the seat get as tight as the polls are suggesting? “Well, the answer is no,” Glasson tells Guardian Australia.

“I obviously thought from the outset it was going to be a very tough job to even make a dent in the numbers but obviously given the way we’re going it’s quite welcome but can I suggest the polling we have at the moment doesn’t really reflect the true result? I think the reality is we’re still up against it quite significantly.”

Glasson believes preferences are working directly against him and uses the politician’s favourite phrase of faux self-deprecation when summing up his feelings on the polls – “I remain the underdog.”

He may be an underdog but the full force of the LNP is being thrown behind him with 500 volunteers working for him and Malcolm Turnbull, deputy opposition Julie Bishop, shadow treasurer Joe Hockey and opposition leader Tony Abbott all visiting Griffith to join Glasson on the hustings.

He tells Guardian Australia over the phone while campaigning in Brisbane that he joined the LNP “about 12 months ago” and had worked for both sides of government in a “very productive way”. Before his preselection Glasson was a voluntary “champion” of the National Broadband Network before resigning a few months into his campaign saying the cost had grown too high.

This week he argued for gay marriage, saying: "[Rudd] had an epiphany one morning and obviously had a change of mind ... but I've had this view for a long time.”

Despite his support for these Labor policies, Glasson’s admiration for Abbott is long-held; in a 2010 Fairfax profile he said: ''This is a man you can look in the eye, you can trust. He is probably too honest. He says what he feels. It gets him into trouble.''

Glasson told Guardian Australia that Abbott had become ''more disciplined in what he says'' in the lead-up to the last election, and he follows the Coalition chief’s lead, never straying far from the party line.

When asked about his personal passion and what he could do particularly for his electorate, Glasson lists the repeal of the carbon tax, getting the debt under control, reducing red tape and “making Australia’s borders secure”. He says the economy is the issue the voters of Griffith most often raise with him.

“I’m a great believer in small government that facilitates business, get out of the road of business. Governments don’t create wealth, governments don’t create jobs; they do but they put them in the public service. The true job creation comes from the business sector and so it’s a matter of letting the business sector generate wealth for the country, not governments,” he says.

He calls his army of volunteers - and it is an army by normal campaigning standards - Glasson’s Gladiators, and they are the key to his back-to-basics campaign. When asked about the strengths of his campaign Gleeson does not mention media, traditional or social, but his grassroots work.

“Many of them are out every weekend on street corners and on bridges and on roads; that is a sea of blue and my portrait is on many, many street frontages, and people hang them out in the yard so the face recognition has been good,” he says.

“I’ve been door-knocking day in, day out. We’ve been letterbox dropping, so that’s what I think has contributed to the polls. We have resources in terms of man- and woman-power but not much in terms of money.”

Since Glasson won preselection, his opponent has morphed from backbencher into prime minister and that has, counterintuitively, made Rudd more vulnerable in this seat.

Can Glasson think of one positive about Rudd? Like a good politician he seems to answer the question but actually uses his answer to reinforce the image he wants to place in voters’ minds about the PM.

“I think he had an immense passion for the electorate initially and he had lots of good ideas, don’t get me wrong, but unfortunately I can’t name too many that’s actually been implemented properly and that’s been focussed on an outcome,” he said.

“So, great ideas 10 out of 10. Implementation zero out of 10. Wasted money 10 out of 10 because the wastage across the system could make you cry.”

Kevin Rudd's opponent in Griffith: who is Bill Glasson? | World news | theguardian.com

Former prime minister Bob Hawke has slammed the "absolutely terrible bias of the Murdoch press" during the election campaign, saying it is "unique" in his long experience in politics.

Photo: Bob Hawke, pictured campaigning earlier in the election, says the "absolutely terrible bias of the Murdoch press" is "unique" in his experience

Related Story: Rudd questions Murdoch's motivation for criticism

Related Story: Your say: Rudd vs News Corp

At a Labor fundraiser in Sydney last night, Mr Hawke said he had a lot of respect for coverage of Indigenous affairs by the News Corp-owned The Australian.

But he condemned the "absolutely terrible bias of the Murdoch press" in its election coverage.

"I do want to register in the strongest terms my regret at the absolutely loaded prejudice with which they have approached this election," Mr Hawke said.

"It does no justice to them and it does no justice to the democratic process."

Senior Labor frontbenchers have this week blamed negative coverage in News Corp Australia papers for the Government's slide in the polls.

Education Minister Bill Shorten said on Monday that The Courier-Mail and Daily Telegraph had been editorialising against Labor on their front pages since the start of the campaign, marking a shift in political coverage in Australia.

"We're seeing the Americanisation and indeed the Englisisation (sic) of our newspapers, where you're seeing a very strong political editorial flavour taken from day one," he said.

Foreign Minister Bob Carr blamed in part what he called the "media bias" from News Corp for Labor's position in the polls.

Senator Carr said he thought Labor's polling could recover, but News Corp is not giving the Government a "fair go".

"The corrosive effect of having derisory front page treatment of the Government every second day and flattering treatment of the Opposition every other day is very real," he told Lateline on Monday.

Former PM Bob Hawke slams 'terrible bias' of News Corp election coverage - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

By Greg Jericho

Photo: The Coalition has promised a surplus despite more spending and less revenue. (AAP: Alan Porritt)

The treasurers debate at the National Press Club today might be a good place for Joe Hockey to reveal whether his economic pillars are built on more than just sand, writes Greg Jericho.

Two weeks ago when I examined the Liberal Party's five pillars, there wasn't much to be found. So what is the state of play now, given that we have only a week to go till the advertising blackout, and on Sunday Tony Abbott launched the Coalition's election campaign?

Well, sad to say, Abbott in his campaign launch didn't refer to the five pillars at all. This in itself doesn't mean much because while the actual pillars were not mentioned, many of the components were. This is because the campaign launch speech, like all such speeches, was a political speech, not a policy one.

But in the past two weeks, while we have moved closer to the election, we are not all that much closer to seeing many details to the five pillars.

Take the first of the five pillars - manufacturing. When Tony Abbott released the LNP's manufacturing policy last week, he announced four new measures, the first of which was appoint a Minister for Trade and Investment whose central responsibility will be to attract trade and increase inwards investment into Australia.

Changing the name from Minister for Trade to Minister for Trade and Investment I guess is what has been missing all these years. It is heartening to know however he does plan to appoint a Minister for Trade, but given we have had one every year since Federation, I'm not sure if this is a game changer.

The next announcement was to build our manufacturing export base by progressively restoring funding to Export Market Development Grants starting with an initial $50 million boost.

This scheme is largely bipartisan and provides funding to assist businesses developing plans for export. In the 2012 Mid-year Economic and Fiscal Outlook, released in October last year, we saw the scheme cut by $100m over four years to notionally "retarget" towards emerging and frontier markets, with a focus on Asian markets. The Government attempted to paint this as a response to a 2011 review of Austrade (which administers the grants), but that review explicitly stated that the grants scheme would "continue unchanged".

After the MYEFO cuts, the Opposition pledged to review the changes. This promise delivers on that commitment.

The third measure was for another $50m for a "Manufacturing Transition Fund to provide assistance to communities and industries as they transition to new areas of manufacturing growth". This is not so much a manufacturing policy as a policy to deal with the decline of manufacturing.

And finally there was a commitment to "implement industry specific Strategic Growth Action Agendas". This apparently will "bring industry and government together to develop strategic, coordinated and long term plans for growth and viability".

Which sounds like a fair bit of piffle.

While the LNP manufacturing plan quite rightly points out that manufacturing employment has been hit hard since 2007, the reality is the sector has been declining in importance for the past 30 years:

The one policy announcement on Sunday that can be seen as a broad measure designed to cover a number of the five pillars was the announcement of interest free loans of up to $20,000 over four years for apprentices. The loans will only need to be paid back once the person earns more than $51,309 a year.

The loans are capped and weighted according to the year of the apprenticeship - $8,000 during the first year, $6,000 for the second and $4,000 and $2,000 for the third and final years respectively.

This weighting is sensible as it reflects that according to the National Centre for Vocational Education Research, 31 per cent of all trades apprentices/trainees who began their apprenticeship in 2007 dropped out in the first year:

The idea is a good one, and goes nicely with the Gillard Government's introduction last year of HECS/HELP applying to TAFE colleges. But it stops being a good idea if it is used as a reason to cut funding elsewhere. Similarly it's good for apprentices to have access to interest free loans, but should it become the start of a slippery slope whereby the costs of doing an apprenticeship are placed ever increasingly on the apprentice, then that would be a poor outcome.

The cost of the policy came in at $85 million. And of course all the costings have been released, coupled with a detailed explanation of how the policy will be funded.

That last sentence was a joke for you late comers to the election campaign. Of course we don't have details.

The ALP quickly went on the offensive by suggesting the Liberal Party would cut the trades training centres. This forced Christopher Pyne, who thus far had been quite equivocal on the issue, to release a statement announcing they have "no plans to shut down any of the Trade Training Centres that are in operation or cancel any projects that have been approved under the latest funding round".

He is much less clear about whether the Liberal Party will continue the program, which has another has another five years to run.

The main takeaway from the Mr Abbott's campaign launch speech however is that the Liberal Party, now comfortably in front in the polls, has thus far decided to keep it vague when it comes to cuts to programs and services. But cuts there must be.

In his speech he also announced that within a decade, the budget surplus will be 1 per cent of GDP, defence spending will be 2 per cent of GDP, the private health insurance rebate will be fully restored, and each year, government will be a smaller percentage of our economy.

That's a surplus despite more spending and less revenue. Something does not add up.

Between now and Saturday week, there might be some more nice policy announcements, but without explaining how it all will be paid, the pillars are built on sand. Today Joe Hockey is appearing at the treasurers debate at the National Press Club. It would be a good time to start shoring up those foundations.

Greg Jericho writes weekly for The Drum. His blog can be found here. View his full profile here.

We're no closer to seeing the Coalition's sums - The Drum (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

Peter Hartcher August 27, 2013

Sydney Morning Herald political and international editor

Illustration: John Shakespeare

At his campaign launch, Tony Abbott promised the world a ''no surprises'' government. Unfortunately, the world can't make the same promise to Tony Abbott.

While we've been immersed in a domestic election campaign, one event has emerged to threaten an incoming government with a pretty nasty surprise.

A major new wave of global financial turmoil has struck. It's hit the so-called emerging markets hardest. ''Emerging markets'' is the fashionable term for the most successful among what used to be called ''developing countries''.

Last week, India and Indonesia were the most obvious victims as their markets crunched and their governments hastily announced stabilisation packages.

But it's also damaged the markets of Brazil, Turkey and South Africa, and many smaller countries. ''There has been a great sucking of funds from emerging markets,'' as The Economist put it.

The value of listed shares in the emerging countries has fallen by $US1 trillion ($1.1 trillion) overall since May, according to Bloomberg. That's wealth investors thought they owned, but has now vanished.

In trying to manage the turmoil, their central banks have lost $US81 billion in reserves, calculates Morgan Stanley.

A Harvard expert on financial crises, Carmen Reinhart, says that ''it could get very ugly'' in these countries because they face rising risks of full-blown currency crises and banking crises.

One problem here is that these are the very countries that have been booming recently and are supposed to be supplying much of the world's economic growth for the years ahead.

Have you heard the trendy acronym for the big emerging countries that were supposed to buoy the globe - the BRICs? It stands for Brazil, Russia, India and China and it has been a byword for investor optimism and global growth for the past few years. It's been the theme of a thousand conferences.

It made famous the man who dreamt it up, a former Goldman Sachs executive named Jim O'Neill. Today, he says he's disappointed with all the BRICs, with an exception: ''If I were to change it, I would just leave the 'C.' But then, I don't think it would be much of an acronym,'' he told Dow Jones.

It's true that China remains reasonably robust. And with its capital controls and its vast foreign exchange reserves of $US3.5 trillion, it's largely impregnable to a crisis of capital flight.

But even mighty China is not immune to world events. ''If the current upheaval in key emerging markets were to threaten [the] global recovery, we would need to revise down our growth outlook for China,'' says an economist at the RBS, Louis Kuijs.

And the woman who runs the International Monetary Fund, Christine Lagarde, said at the weekend the evolving crisis could indeed harm the entire globe:

''Even with the best of efforts,'' she told a major gathering of global economic officials in the US, ''the dam might leak. So we need further lines of defence.''

Surely one of the clearest lessons of recent years is that no country is immune from financial crisis in another.

What's caused this sudden turmoil? Lagarde's dam metaphor is useful because it's all about liquidity. ''The emerging markets have been driven up in recent years by a huge tidal wave of liquidity flowing in,'' says the prominent international economist Ken Courtis.

''Now it's starting to move the other way, and you can't do that without breaking a lot of China.''

That money tsunami has come mainly from the printing presses of the US, but also from those of the EU and Japan. Together, their central banks have issued a staggering $US7 trillion of new money since the global crisis of 2008. They pumped this cash out as an emergency measure to try to aid recovery in their depressed economies.

It goes by the fancy name of quantitative easing, but it's just plain old money printing, creating dollars, euros and yen out of thin air, unconstrained, in unprecedented quantities. Investors put much of this new money, available at zero interest rates, into the emerging markets in hope of big returns.

Such monetary recklessness always has unintended consequences. One is the emerging crisis in the emerging countries. The Wall Street Journal on the weekend called it an example of ''the topsy-turvy world the Federal Reserve has created''.

One of the troubling aspects of this story so far is that the Fed and the other central banks have not even started to slow their frenetic money-printing. The movement so far is mere anticipation.

''I think everyone - Australia and everyone else - should understand that the crisis that started in 2008 with the bursting of George Bush's bubble is still continuing,'' says Courtis.

''The only prudent course is to be cautious, responsible, alert and prepared to respond quickly. Complacency in this environment is a recipe for creating lots of trouble for yourself.''

In Australia, Labor is guilty of complacency. Boasting of Australia's AAA credit rating, it has continuously been putting its planned return to surplus on the never-never. When it first made the promise, net federal debt was set to peak at 7 per cent of GDP. Now it's expected to peak at 13.

And the Coalition has made great play out of exaggerating Labor's debt and deficits, but is looking suspiciously like it will give us similar complacency. It made a hash of its budget plans at the 2010 election and has yet to show us its plans for this election.

All this is bad enough. But both parties have been carefully preserving a studied ignorance of the warning by the former Treasury Secretary Ken Henry that the national revenue base is permanently impaired and an incoming government will be stuck in a ''permanent process'' of cutting spending.

Put an international crisis on top of this and you can see the potential for some very unpleasant surprises.

Peter Hartcher is the international editor.

The truth is yet to bite them, and us