Yeah true, my bad. Its not like he's been Prime Minister before or anything.

Abbott's a misogynist, sexist, religious strange person and Rudd's a egotistical, conceited, fellow religious nutjob.

Giant douche or turd sandwich

This election will rest on a handful of policies. Marriage Equality, Carbon tax, Gonski Reforms and how many people want Abbott to lead the country.

I for one will vote Labour now that Rudd is in power to ensure my vote goes completely against Abbott. If it were Hockey, Turnbull or even Bishop I'd probably vote more strategically but Abbott is not the Right conservative to lead the country. Anyone but him.

Every time I read the threat title I think "Not the Australian people".

Missed the keyword there mate ;)

Rudd is a flog of the highest order, but he'll win.

Abbott looks like a lizard.

I'm voting for Palmer.

If there were any justice in the world, the ballot box would read your voting slip and if you voted for Palmer the voting booth would vaporise you.

:lol: True. Not really voting for Palmer. Haven't actually decided yet. It really is a lesser of two evils situation.

My bad (I mean it this time) :p But cmon, when he was in office there's almost no denying he was one of the worst Prime Ministers this country has ever seen, I'm not convinced he's going to do any better this time, but I'll happily be proven wrong.

I hope the time away has reformed his agenda's and policy's.

In regards to the election, I'll take Rudd over Abbot any day.

Rudd poll bounce boosts Labor

June 28, 2013 - 11:39PM

Kevin Rudd's return to the Labor leadership has dramatically reversed a poll slide in the party's heartland seats, suggesting the severe election losses feared under Julia Gillard's leadership can be avoided.

A new poll reviving Labor hopes came as Mr Rudd stepped up his attack on Opposition Leader Tony Abbott's "stop the boats" policy, warning it risked sparking conflict with Indonesia.

Mr Rudd also warned that a Coalition government could plunge Australia into recession if it adopted the harsh spending cuts he believes the opposition is planning.

He also signalled significant policy changes, including the possible dumping of the carbon tax in favour of a lower floating carbon price and a two-week extension of the negotiation period of the education funding package, and softened his language on a big Australia in favour of a sustainable Australia.

A Fairfax ReachTEL poll conducted on Thursday found a turnaround of about 10 per cent for Labor in four key seats – Melbourne's Maribyrnong and Chisholm and Sydney's McMahon and Blaxland – since Mr Rudd regained the top job.

The poll showed that Workplace Relations Minister Bill Shorten had climbed back to an 8.6per cent two-party preferred lead in his electorate of Maribyrnong in Melbourne's west. Mr Shorten controversially shifted his support from Ms Gillard to Mr Rudd at the last minute in the leadership showdown.

In Chisholm, Speaker Anna Burke was ahead 55.2 to 44.8.

The poll suggested the leadership change has impressed enough Labor heartland voters in western Sydney to save key Rudd backer and new Treasurer Chris Bowen and rising star Jason Clare, the Home Affairs Minister who holds Paul Keating's old seat of Blaxland.

The poll of the four seats contains some wider warning signals for Tony Abbott. In each case he trailed Mr Rudd on the question of who would make the better prime minister.

In an interview later with Fairfax Media, Mr Rudd outlined his thinking on the election timing, saying he wanted time to make changes to several key policy areas, including the education package previously known as Gonski, as well as possible changes to the carbon fixed price, the mining tax, and others.

The comments indicated he may be prepared to wait longer than Ms Gillard's poll date of September 14 before going to voters.

Issuing a clear signal that he has learnt from previous errors when he was criticised as a "control freak", Mr Rudd stressed that decisions would be made through an orderly and consultative process.

"I want to the see some new policy settings in a number of areas before we face the people and that it's got to be thoroughly developed, thoroughly costed so that it's real and notjust a press release," he said.

On border protection, he accused Mr Abbott of "choosing to be ignorant of the facts, choosing to be ignorant of what the intelligence services are telling us ... and instead, simply trying to slide through on the basis of slogans and fear-mongering and a headline".

But he did acknowledge that the rate of irregular maritime arrivals was straining public patience and hurting the Labor Party.

"Our challenge has been always to keep this at manageable levels," he said.

"I'm worried that there is more disquiet in the community because of this challenge. It's important, but I'll be fighting this election first and foremost on the economy, jobs, standard of living and of course national security is another priority."

In other comments, Mr Rudd:

•Said he would fight the election on the economy, and job security, and working conditions, challenging Mr Abbott to a National Press Club debate on debt and deficit in the next fortnight.

•Defended his role as "Kevin 747" during his first stint as prime minister but flagged doing less international travel in favour of "video-conferencing" in some instances.

•Softened his previous language on a goal of a "big Australia" in favour of "a sustainable Australia".

"I believe in a sustainable Australia," Mr Rudd said. "If you've got the sustainability settings right, on land use, on water useand on infrastructure provision, then of course the country can grow, so I believe in a sustainable Australia."



Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/national/rudd-poll-bounce-boosts-labor-20130628-2p366.html#ixzz2XWKQNCO1

ALP 3.65
LIB/NAT Coalition 1.25

Number of ALP Seats
Winner
Bets paid when MP sworn in

0-30 21.00
31-40 11.00
41-50 5.50
51-60 3.00
61-70 3.00
71+ 3.00

Libs, just to annoy the benefit hungry slobs.

ALP 4.00
LIB/NAT Coalition 1.22

Strange that the alp odds are lengthening when Abbott has been beaten pillar to post all week.

Possibly because of the vast reversal in fortunes the LNP have gone from 'bookies favourite' to 'underdog favourite' and are still getting heavy money.

Aust Federal Election 2013
Winner
Bets paid when PM sworn in

ALP 2.90
LIB/NAT Coalition 1.38

Go ruddy go ruddy go

What are the odds on a hung parliament?

The honeymoon is frenetic, but will the Rudd love last?
Date
July 13, 2013

Honeymoons aren't meant to be this frenetic. In the space of 17 days, Kevin Rudd has announced ''the biggest reform in the history of the Labor Party'', signalled new policy directions on multiple fronts, visited Indonesia, proposed an Accord-style ''pact'' with business and unions to boost productivity, framed Tony Abbott as ''Captain Negative'' and found time for a book launch, a street walk and even entertained diplomats. Next week he's off to PNG.

The reaction of voters, as recorded in the first round of opinion polls, reflects a contest transformed. The election that loomed as the biggest Labor defeat in history suddenly appears to be evenly poised. The body language of Abbott, for three years the front-runner, suggests a man struggling to regain his balance.

Rudd's key message, aside from the fact that he is Mr Positive, is that he is a very different leader this time around - determined to consult his cabinet colleagues and observe due process before deciding, for instance, to move more quickly to a floating price on carbon, or toughen the process for deciding the refugee status of those who arrive by boat.

Amid all the positive energy and activity, however, have been two decidedly jarring developments: one is unlikely to advance Rudd's ambition to ''encourage [Labor] people to re-engage in the political process and to bring back those supporters who have become disillusioned''; the other sits uncomfortably with his pledge to ''forge consensus whereever I can''.

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It was late on Tuesday that Rudd announced his plan to directly involve party members in the process of electing the Labor leader and to assure the Australian people that ''the prime minister they elect is the prime minister they get''.

''The reforms I announce today will give more power to the everyday members of the Labor Party. They will ensure that power will never again rest in the hands of a factional few,'' he said.

Some of the specifics, such as the requirement that a petition signed by at least 75 per cent of the Labor caucus will be required to force a leadership challenge, need adjustment, but there is no doubting the merit of the intention.

At his first press conference on returning to the leadership, Rudd was asked what his attitude was to preselections to fill the vacancies left by Julia Gillard and a swag of ministers who recently announced their retirements - and whether he would support candidates being ''parachuted in'' by the party machine.

''The overwhelming preference is there will be local democratic ballots. The only exception I see to that is if you have a genuine crisis of time,'' he replied, adding that ''I'm not sure that such a crisis exists''.

A few days ago, Gillard wrote to party members in her seat of Lalor expressing the hope that there would be a local ballot and inviting them to give ''serious consideration'' to supporting Joanne Ryan, 51, a local and a school principal who was ''well-placed to continue my passion for better education for Australia's children''.

It subsequently emerged that Richard Marles, the Rudd supporter who was promoted to the cabinet after Gillard's demise, had other ideas. So did two senior factional players in the Victorian Right: David Feeney, who owes his survival as a parliamentarian to Gillard yet voted for Rudd, and Stephen Conroy, whose support for Gillard led him to resign as government leader in the Senate when she was deposed.

Their preference was to parachute in Lisa Clutterham, a 29-year-old diplomat who was not a member of the party until three weeks ago and has never had any connection with Melbourne or the electorate. Clutterham is the sort of person Rudd wants to join the Labor Party - impressive, idealistic and brave - but she unwittingly became the face of Victorian factionalism.

Here were the backroom boys, making deals and deciding what was best for the party - and trampling over the will of local members - at the precise moment Rudd is trying to re-engage those locals.

The justification of the factional leaders is familiar enough: that the end justifies the means. In the case of Conroy, at least, the move reflected the judgment that Clutterham had frontbench potential, whereas Ryan's appeal would be as an effective local member.

The simple truth, however, is that their action addresses a symptom of Labor's problem - the failure to reach out to people of diverse backgrounds - but not the core problem. Indeed, if the reaction of listeners to Clutterham's interview with Jon Faine is any indication, the effect, once again, will be to discourage local engagement and compound the problem. Attempts to manipulate the outcome in preselections for other seats, such as Greg Combet's NSW electorate of Charlton, may well invite the same conclusion.

There was another troubling aspect, too. By bringing on the leadership showdown and stipulating that the loser departed politics, Gillard has done more than anyone to remove the biggest obstacle to Rudd winning the election. Is this the way to treat her? The answer, apparently, is that there is no such thing as an ''ex-captain's pick''.

There is but one way out. If the party is to give substance to Rudd's intentions, he will insist on local ballots for all of the vacated seats, even if the process has to be truncated to maximise his options for calling an election as early as August 24. Otherwise, the only conclusion is that, for all the talk of new politics, this is old Labor at work.

The other issue concerns the proposed referendum to recognise indigenous Australians in the constitution, something that has had bipartisan support almost from the start.

The night he toppled Gillard, Rudd rightly identified the erosion of trust and the ascendancy of negative, destructive personal politics as one of the biggest forces holding back the nation's progress. ''All this must stop,'' he declared. ''With all my heart, that is the purpose I intend to pursue as Prime Minister.''

But when he went to Yirrkala in Arnhem Land this week to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Bark Petitions, Rudd laid out his own timetable for the referendum and portrayed Abbott as a potential problem. ''No more delays, no more excuses, no more buck-passing,'' he said, in remarks that sat oddly with both the prevailing consensus that the referendum be put at the time it has the maximum chance of success - and Abbott's steadfast commitment to a positive result.

For all of this, however, Rudd's return has recast Labor's election strategy from one predicated on defeat, and ''saving the furniture'', to one where victory is seen as a distinct possibility. Resources that weren't available a month ago to defend the government's most marginal seats are suddenly being found to target Coalition territory.

The surprise, so far, is that there has not been a corresponding shift on the part of Abbott. He is declining invitations to debate Rudd and sticking to the same routine of small business visits and the same script about stopping the boats, repealing the mining and carbon taxes and getting the budget back in the black.

It was enough against Gillard, when she was also fighting Rudd. It isn't enough now. He needs Plan B.

Michael Gordon is political editor of The Age.



Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/federal-politics/political-opinion/the-honeymoon-is-frenetic-but-will-the-rudd-love-last-20130712-2pvip.html#ixzz2Yt2akNB3

Aust Federal Election 2013
Winner

ALP 2.90
LIB/NAT Coalition 1.38

Rudd's pulling power puts poll on knife edge
Date
July 15, 2013

Kevin Rudd has turbocharged Labor's vote, propelling it to equal favourite status for the election by eliminating virtually every advantage Tony Abbott had enjoyed over Julia Gillard.

The recycled Prime Minister has single-handedly wiped out the Coalition's two-party preferred lead to be dead-level at 50-50, the monthly Fairfax-Nielsen poll has found.

The result of an election held now would depend on individual seats and variation in swings by state.

Mr Rudd has also left Mr Abbott in his wake as preferred prime minister with 55 per cent of voters giving him the nod to just 41 per cent for the Opposition Leader. And the Prime Minister has become the first leader from either side in 2½ years to have more voters approving than disapproving of their performance.

The Rudd resurgence

At plus-8 per cent, Mr Rudd convincingly leads Mr Abbott, whose net rating has drifted south to be minus-15 per cent.

The monthly survey of voting intentions shows a tidal shift of support back to Labor, its share of the two-party-preferred vote jumping 7 percentage points, and the Coalition's share dropping by the same amount.

It comes as Labor signals plans to scrap the carbon tax by going to a floating price a year early, and as it may reverse other unpopular Gillard-era decisions.


Reason to be cheerful: Kevin Rudd has clearly outstripped Tony Abbott as preferred PM. Photo: Paul Harris
The poll is likely to fuel a renewed focus on Mr Abbott’s low popularity and coincides with an admission by Malcolm Turnbull, the man Mr Abbott replaced as leader, that he is more popular.

‘‘There are a lot of people out there who would rather I was leading the Liberal Party; it is ridiculous to deny that that’s not happening,’’ he told the Nine Network.

Much of the Labor recovery has come in NSW and Queensland, where the ALP brand has suffered most in recent years but where the potential exists to make the seat gains needed to secure a third term.

Labor’s primary vote was a statistically significant 40 per cent in NSW and 42 per cent in Queensland. Its bounce-back comes despite the Coalition being more trusted to manage the asylum seeker issue with 20 per cent more voters favouring Mr Abbott’s uncompromising ‘‘stop the boats’’ approach.

While the Coalition’s primary vote has fallen three points since June to 44 per cent, Labor’s has leapt by a staggering 10 points to 39 per cent, according to the survey of 1400 voters taken from July 11 to 13.

On a two-party-preferred basis, the main parties are locked at 50-50 – a situation pollster John Stirton described as ‘‘too close to call’’.

‘‘The result of an election held now would depend on individual seats and variation in swings by state,’’ he said.

The Greens also lost ground to Labor, the minor party’s 12 per cent primary vote at the 2010 election slumping to 9 per cent – a two point deterioration since June.

As the Rudd cabinet wrestles with asylum seekers, and a search and rescue mission was abandoned after another vessel sank, taking the life of an infant, voters continued to back the Coalition’s stance with 54 per cent favouring its policy to Labor’s, which secured the support of one in three voters, or 34 per cent.

Women voters do not appear to have marked Mr Rudd down for toppling Ms Gillard and are in fact returning to Labor.

Forty-four per cent of women voters indicated support for Labor compared with 39 per cent support among men.


Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/federal-politics/federal-election-2013/rudds-pulling-power-puts-poll-on-knife-edge-20130714-2pyea.html#ixzz2Z3QNOPO5

With the right swing, Labor a 50-50 chance

July 18, 2013

As Kevin Rudd wins back votes in the states that matter, a majority is possible.

Whether you call it ''unity by exhaustion'', as one backbencher described it this week, or simply the return of hope, Labor is back in the electoral market and shopping for an unlikely election win.

Rudd's clear message to voters bewildered by Labor's revolving door of leadership in recent years is that this time if you elect Kevin Rudd, you get Kevin Rudd

A special caucus meeting next Monday will wave through Kevin Rudd's rule changes designed to make it impossible to dump a sitting prime minister.

For a leader championing the democratisation of his party, his plan to require upfront the signatures of at least 75 per cent of MPs before granting a spill looks undemocratic. But that is his point.

Rudd's clear message to voters bewildered by Labor's revolving door of leadership in recent years is that this time if you elect Kevin Rudd, you get Kevin Rudd - no ifs, buts or maybes.

He also hopes to fully dispatch Tony Abbott's faceless men critique, which is why his first move was a federal raid on his party's sclerotic NSW branch. Part defensive move, part pre-emptive strike, Rudd needed distance from the reek of Labor in the premier state but was also taking out insurance against the Independent Commission Against Corruption inquiry, which may report during the election campaign.

Labor's ugly factional history is just one of the jagged nail heads Rudd must grind down to clear the election decks.

Two other nasty sock-tearers are also under his emery wheel: Julia Gillard's carbon tax and the debacle of asylum seeker policy. Progress is variable.

Dumping the carbon tax was the big one and will, of itself, have the most impact on the election.

If you buy Rudd's view, he has ''terminated'' it. If you buy Abbott's, he has merely changed its name. Neither is strictly correct.

The fixed price (carbon tax) period at $25 a tonne will remain in place until June 30 next year.

But at that point, however, under Labor, it drops by 75 per cent to the floating price set by the European market - currently about $6 a tonne - within an emissions trading scheme.

To say this is politically inconvenient for Abbott hardly conveys the significance.

With Coalition control of both houses no longer possible, Abbott's oft-stated promise to dump the carbon tax can only be delivered by a joint sitting subsequent to a double-dissolution election.

Thus, his blunt pledge to scrap a tax that by then will have ended anyway has lost its potency.

We're yet to see Rudd's revised approach to asylum seekers, beyond inconclusive diplomatic forays to Indonesia and PNG, but a neat tie-up (or stitch-up) here is less likely.

So, given that the Fairfax-Nielsen poll taken last weekend showed the two sides are dead-even on 50-50 for the first time since August 2010, can Rudd win?

Labor strategists and commentators continue to describe it as a long shot - both pointing out that even with 50 per cent in 2010, Labor fell short of a majority. To get to the magic 76 seats in the 150-member House of Reps, Labor needs 51 or perhaps 52 per cent - especially because the independent seats held by Rob Oakeshott and Tony Windsor will return to the Coalition column.

Yet this conclusion assumes an unlikely repeat of what were some pretty idiosyncratic voting differences state by state in 2010.

Keeping in mind the important caveat that dis-aggregating national polls always increases the margin of error, a comparison of this poll against the 2010 result shows Labor's vote bouncing back big time in Queensland, Western Australia and NSW - and this is where the election will be determined.

In the Sunshine State, Labor's primary vote in 2010 was just 33.6 per cent. This poll had it at 42 per cent.

In NSW, those numbers were 37.3 per cent (election) to 40 per cent (poll). A statewide swing to Labor of less than 5 per cent in Queensland, which is less than this poll identified, would see nine seats return to Labor.

Indeed, apply the same tests in NSW, Victoria and Western Australia and Labor gets to 76 easily - even allowing for one or two losses in Victoria.

In other words, Labor can win even at 50-50, if its primary vote recovers in the places the latest poll shows it has.

Mark Kenny is The Age's chief political correspondent.

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Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/federal-politics/political-opinion/with-the-right-swing-labor-a-5050-chance-20130717-2q4bl.html#ixzz2ZOU1i49b

ALP 3.00
LIB/NAT Coalition 1.36

TAB Sportsbet
ALP 3.50
LIB/NAT Coalition 1.28

PM decides: Election set for Sept 7

August 3, 2013
Mark Kenny, Peter Hartcher

Crunching the numbers

As the election looms, on what economic footing will Labor and the Coalition go head to head? Mark Kenny & Peter Martin analyse the Treasurer's economic statement.

Kevin Rudd plans to visit the Governor-General on Sunday or Monday to seek approval for an election on September 7.

Sources have told Fairfax Media that Mr Rudd has now settled on the date and will fire the starter's gun on what promises to be one of the most intense political contests in memory.

The election campaign comes within days of an extraordinary mini-budget designed to position the government to address changing economic circumstances.

Softening conditions could force an extra 70,000 Australians out of work, as growth slows and Commonwealth revenues collapse by a staggering $33.3 billion over the next four years.

The worsening picture has shredded Labor's budget forecasts which were set just 10 weeks ago, creating a big political headache for the government.

Mr Rudd enjoys a solid personal lead over Opposition Leader Tony Abbott as preferred prime minister, but the respective parties are more evenly poised on 50 per cent each in a series of recent opinion polls.

Australia's jobless rate is officially expected to climb to 6.25 per cent in 2013-14 and 2014-15. The last time the jobless rate was above 6.25 per cent was in September 2002 (6.3 per cent that month in trend terms).

Falling terms of trade and declining tax revenues have sent this year's projected deficit $12 billion higher to $30.1 billion, despite the combined $17.4 billion in spending cuts. A promised balanced budget in 2015-16 has gone by the wayside, despite Treasurer Chris Bowen and Finance Minister Penny Wong sticking with a promised surplus in 2016-17.

But to get there, they plan to send the national balance sheet deeper into the red, first with projected deficits of $24 billion in 2014-15, coming back to $5 billion in the red in 2015-16.

In the job for little over a month, Mr Bowen laid much of the blame at the feet of a slowing Chinese economy. But the opposition attacked the revised economic statement, with its treasury spokesman, Joe Hockey, describing Labor's economic management as ''chaotic'' and its budget ''in free fall''.

Mr Hockey said nearly 800,000 Australians were now likely to be jobless in coming months.

As reported by Fairfax Media, a big rise in tobacco excise is the main revenue measure, reaping almost $6 billion over the next four years. But other savings were outlined, including a near doubling of the public sector efficiency dividend from 1.25 per cent to 2.25 per cent - requiring public servants again to do more with less.

Other boosts to the bottom line include a lower take-up of disability support pensions, and of drugs listed on the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme, with that alone securing about $2 billion over the forward estimates period. Another $582 million has been garnered from gaining access to small inactive superannuation funds.

Revealed for the first time are the expected costs of Mr Rudd's recently announced Papua New Guinea ''solution'', which the budget papers show will take up $1.1 billion over four years with operating costs of $175 million in 2013-14.

That is to be ''partially funded from a $423 million reduction in the operating costs of the onshore detention network (a net impact of $632 million) over the four years to 2016-17''. Another $194 million has been earmarked to expand the rudimentary Manus Island facilities.

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/federal-election-2013/pm-decides-election-set-for-sept-7-20130802-2r4x4.html#ixzz2arh31FOv

ALP 3.00
LIB/NAT Coalition 1.40

Murdoch's vicious attacks on Rudd: it's business
Date
August 4, 2013
Category
Opinion

Paul Sheehan
Sydney Morning Herald columnist

Rupert Murdoch: "Australian public now totally disgusted with Labor Party wrecking country with it's sordid intrigues. Now for a quick election."
The arrival of Col Allan in Australia is making a lot of people uneasy.

Allan is a man widely known inside News Corporation as Col Pot, a play on the name of a Cambodian genocidal dictator.

He is News Corp's most feared flamethrower in a company of flamethrowers and he has been sent to Australia by Rupert Murdoch himself. The purpose of his mission has become clear in recent days. One person who should rightly be disconcerted by Allan's sudden secondment to Australia is the head of News Corporation Australia, Kim Williams. Several other executives should also be leery, but they are not Allan's primary target.

His primary target is Kevin Rudd.

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Why Murdoch wants Rudd to lose the coming federal election is not primarily political, it is commercial. News Corp hates the government's National Broadband Network (NBN). The company has formed a view that it poses a threat to the business model of by far its most important asset in Australia, the Foxtel cable TV monopoly it jointly owns with Telstra.

Murdoch has declared war on Rudd by dispatching his most trusted field general, Allan, whose reputation is built on his closeness to Murdoch and his long history of producing pungent front-page splashes and pugnacious campaigns as editor-in-chief of The Daily Telegraph and, for the past 12 years, The New York Post.

Allan's mission is to help consign Rudd to the dustbin of history reserved for failed leaders.

The ramp-up of the war effort has been rapid and intense.

Friday, July 26: the chief executive of News Corp, Robert Thomson, announced in New York that Allan would be returning to Australia to provide ''extra editorial leadership for our papers …''.

Monday, July 29: Allan is at work in Australia within 72 hours of the announcement.

Tuesday, July 30: he begins several days of meeting with editors. The message is simple and brutal: you have been going hard on Labor but now, with Rudd's revival in the opinion polls, you have to go harder.

Wednesday, July 31: he is spotted lunching with Lachlan Murdoch and other executives.

Friday, August 2: The Daily Telegraph depicts Rudd in a hoodie escaping from a bank he has just robbed, with the headline: ''Rudd's $733m hoist on people's savings''.

Yesterday, August 3, The Australian runs four negative headlines about the Rudd government on its front page alone, including ''Revealed: How Rudd blew $250bn''. The Daily Telegraph splashes with a front-page banner headline: ''Price of Labor - another huge budget shambles … and now we're $30bn in the red''. In Melbourne, the Herald-Sun took out page one with ''It's a ruddy mess''.

Rudd is a broad target. His own parliamentary colleagues could not stomach him and removed him from office after less than three years. After he rose like Lazarus to return as Prime Minister on June 26, one third of the cabinet departed rather than serve with him. His election-eve policy reversal on asylum-seekers was spectacular. His Papua New Guinea detention strategy was exposed as a bluff.

On June 26, Rupert Murdoch used Twitter to write: ''Australian public now totally disgusted with Labor Party wrecking country with it's sordid intrigues. Now for a quick election.'' Rudd's greatest failing, in the eyes of News Corp management, and the greatest threat he poses, is his $45+ billion NBN, a massive project announced without any serious costing. News Corp views this as a threat to the business model of its most important Australian asset, Foxtel, jointly owned with Telstra.

The company much prefers the Coalition's less costly but also less ambitious national broadband strategy. News Corp newspapers have reported the numerous failings and cost-over-runs of the NBN in hundreds of stories.

Although the Coalition's alternative is less costly, it offers an inferior capacity for downloading content at a time when consumer demand is shifting dramatically towards content-on-demand and content via computers.

This shift is reflected in the enormous run-up in the shares of the market leader in content-on-demand, Netflix. Shares in Netflix closed at $US246 (A$276) in New York on Friday, a prodigious run-up from its $52 price a year ago. Netflix now has a market valuation of $US14.5billion compared with $3 billion a year ago.

Foxtel has responded to this threat by launching its own content-on-demand product, FoxtelGo, and is launching an online-only version, FoxtelPlay.

Foxtel's co-parent, News Corp, is engaging in a more structural response.

It wants to kill the NBN threat at its ultimate source - Kevin Rudd.

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/federal-election-2013/murdochs-vicious-attacks-on-rudd-its-business-20130803-2r65x.html#ixzz2auzE41zk

Labor picks $70b hole in Abbott policies

August 4, 2013

Chris Johnson
National Political Correspondent

Tony Abbott is under an election eve attack over an apparent $70 billion black hole in his campaign policies, with the government insisting the opposition would have to ''cut to the bone'' in health and education to keep his promises.

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd is poised to ask Governor-General Quentin Bryce to clear the way for a September 7 election, with VIP jets in Canberra lined up ready to fly the two party leaders around the nation for a frenzied election campaign.

But on Saturday Mr Rudd said he had been getting on with governing, still had negotiations to conclude with some state governments over education reform and intended to attend the G20 in Russia next month.

Not yet: Prime Minister Kevin Rudd claimed on Saturday to have made no determination on the date of the election. Photo: Michelle Smith
"I've made no determination whatsoever in terms of the date of an election," he said. But Mr Rudd filmed a campaign advertisement on Friday and on Saturday appeared in Brisbane alongside Nauru's President Baron Waqa to sign an agreement to bolster Labor's hardline asylum seeker policy, which it hopes will win votes in western Sydney.

And just a day after releasing its own economic statement that revealed a $33.3 billion revenue write-down over the next four years, the government has lashed out at the Coalition, demanding to know what drastic cuts Mr Abbott will make if he is to keep his election promises.

Finance Minister Penny Wong has released the government's own analysis of the opposition's unfunded spending commitments and said the promises would blow out the budget bottom line over the forward estimates by $70 billion.

"The opposition would have to make $70 billion in cuts to match our path to budget surplus, which they have repeatedly insisted they would do if elected," Senator Wong said.

"The only way Tony Abbott can make his budget numbers add up is to cut deeply into key services such as health and education, transport and infrastructure investment."

Senator Wong said the opposition could no longer hide behind excuses and a promise to release its own costings at a later date.

According to the government, contributing to the blowout would be Mr Abbott's commitment to scrap the carbon tax, implement a direct action plan, introduce a generous paid parent scheme and repeal the new mining tax.

Shadow treasurer Joe Hockey described Senator Wong's analysis as fanciful, insisting it was nowhere near a true representation of Coalition policies or costings that will be fully costed and revealed before the election. "This is typical of what is wrong with the Labor Party - more lies and more deception," he said. "Having consistently got their facts so wrong on their own budget all they can do now is talk about the Coalition, and they get that wrong too.

"Labor's budget has lost $3 billion a week since May, the deficit has doubled and debt is now way beyond $300 billion.

''The Coalition is doing a meticulous job of costing its policies using the independent Parliamentary Budget Office and other sources. We will reveal our fully costed and fully funded set of policies before the election."



Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/federal-election-2013/labor-picks-70b-hole-in-abbott-policies-20130803-2r66a.html#ixzz2av22XkAo