Day 40: John Howard is right. “I don't think people want a change in fundamental direction,” he told the National Press Club in Canberra yesterday. “This is not an angry election campaign,” he added. And he’s right about this too – or at least right about the Australia that exists outside the latte curtain. People, however, have become wearied by the PM and his government. Kevin Rudd has represented himself a safe pair of hands and said he stands for minimal change. We’ll know tomorrow if that is worth changing governments for. Day 39: Ah well. There goes the PM’s Press Club Speech. Shit sheets may feature prominently in Labor preselection, but they are actually more mythical in campaigns proper. Kevin Rudd looked like he had the top job already in his Q&A after his speech at the Press Club yesterday. The journos were certainly treating him that way. The PM cut Jackie Kelly loose talking to News Radio this morning, but he will still face a barrage of questioning on the Lindsay pamphlet. Will any Gallery member be bright enough to concentrate on the causes not the symptoms and ask the PM why he has acquiesced to the Taliban takeover of his own division of the Liberal Party? Mind you, Labor needs to keep its message very tight. Senior spokespeople – we’re talking about you, Anthony Albanese – have gone over the top on radio this morning. What goes round comes around. Julia Gillard got bitten back for her ridiculous overkill over Tony Abbott’s tardiness when she herself was late for a debate yesterday. What goes round comes around – even when there’s less than 48 hours to go in the campaign. Remember, Australians don’t like Muslim radicals. If you want to win, bruvvers, don’t play into the pamphlet. Day 38: Can the Coalition get it right for the final three days of the campaign? Yesterday was lost to them. The Prime Minister was forced to spend his time refuting claims of a secret industrial relations agenda. The same issue distracted the Treasurer. The succession remained an issue. The Liberals’ claim that 13 Labor candidates are ineligible to run smacked of desperation. Now it appears that their charges were based on Googling. It’s not quite the Ralph Willis letters, but it’s close. Day 37: The timing was good for the PM and Treasurer’s public show of affection last night, what with claims of internal fighting and disquiet with the Coalition’s campaign - let alone Peter Debnam’s contribution. That was about it for positives yesterday. Kevin Rudd sounded more like a leader than ever, particularly with his line that the election is a referendum on the future. Focus was thrown back onto the Coalition's IR agenda with the AAT ruling on Channel 7’s Freedom of Information applications, leaving Labor free to speculate and speculate on just what was planned when – and what still might be on the drawing board. The PM’s pitch to business in the West didn’t seem to measure up. Day 36: Five days to go, and it’s becoming clearer and clearer where the election will be won. John Howard has headed off to the West, with hopes of taking Cowan and maybe even Swan from the ALP on Saturday. If that happened, Labor would need to take 18 electorates from the Coalition in other states to win. Labor already has a good number of seats in Victoria. It would take a swing of five per cent to capture the most marginal Liberal seat there. It looks as if Labor has snared five seats in Tasmania and SA. The great mass of electorates that could deliver it government are in NSW and Queensland. WA, NSW and Queensland. They look like this week’s battlegrounds. Day 33: The timing couldn’t be worse for the Liberals. The Prime Minister has found it hard to get on message all week. Rather than being out there selling his policies, he has been forced to defend them against claims they will only boost inflation. At the Labor launch on Wednesday, Kevin Rudd successfully made fiscal restraint an election issue. Then along comes the National Audit Office report into the Regional Partnership Program. It finds “ministers were more likely to approve funding for ‘not recommended” projects that had been submitted by applicants in electorates held by the Liberal and National parties”. Sue Dunleavy’s report in The Daily Telegraph says it all: The day after Labor made fiscal restraint an election issue an audit report has exposed a $400 million Howard Government regional grant program as a pork-barrelling exercise... Three years after a company was given $1 million in taxpayers money to construct a 120 megalitre ethanol bio-refinery in Gunnedah - the site was yesterday still vacant. A heritage park in Western Australia received $760,800 of taxpayers money - three years later construction had not begun. Those projects are just two examples of the massive problems found within the Regional Partnerships grant program...
Not that the country cousins care. As Crikey revealed yesterday, their advertising warns of “Labor’s razor gang” threat to regional rorts. The Nationals know all about drought, but in Canberra the well is never dry. There’s probably an ad still in the can with Mark Vaile saying “I am a river to my people”. Come to think of it, that’s the PM’s message too. Slightly subtler than “Go for growth”. Day 32: “If Mr. Rudd wants to have a debate about surpluses between now and election day, make my day,” the Prime Minister said on AM yesterday. “I'm very happy to spend the next 12 days of this election campaign or whatever debating Mr Rudd about who is better to keep the economy in good order, who is better to keep the budget in surplus,” he added later. A debate? A real debate A debate debate? Really? It could be fascinating after yesterday’s Labor launch. The wider debate hasn’t got off to a good start today. John Howard’s Finance Minister Nick Minchin was on AM just minutes ago, taking shots at Labor’s spending – but seemed to stumble. It sounded like he said “when” Labor forms a government, not “if”. So Barnaby was right, was he, when he said “We're not going to lose, we're going to get annihilated”? Labor’s policy platform is now out. We’ll know how voters are responding soon. Day 31: Back in July, Crikey reminded the world of the Howard Trifecta – the great achievement of unemployment, interest rates and inflation all over 10 per cent he delivered as treasurer. Today, John Howard’s main pitch as PM is economic management, and yet he’s dodging flak left, right and centre on economic grounds. The Reserve Bank warns about inflationary promises. Economic correspondents say he is blowing the surplus, breaking a pledge to deliver annual budget surpluses of at least 1 per cent of GDP. The free market Centre for Independent Studies think tank is asking yet again why Howard has to take money from our pocket in tax and then hand it back – minus administration costs, of course – in electoral bribes. Why can’t we hang onto it? Argument over how his campaign speech pledges could and should be delivered – and their impact on the economy – is distracting from the detail of the handouts he hopes will win back support. All the focus today is on Kevin Rudd and the Labor launch. Will his handouts completely overshadow the Government’s goodies? Day 30: Forget the substance of yesterday’s Liberal launch announcements and look at the spin. Most of them are pitched at parents and grandparents. They don’t really fix anything. They represent more middle class welfare. But they also tackle perceptions. Throughout the year, polls have suggested that older voters have been drifting away from the Coalition. Older voters, particularly financially secure older voters, can become quite idealistic. Particularly when they believe that their children and grandchildren won’t enjoy the benefits they’ve had. Home ownership and education are becoming more and more expensive. Yesterday’s commitments will do little to tackle the causes of this. Still, they represent a gesture. They also represent a sentiment, too: “Young people nowadays just don’t know how to save”. Rather than tackling some of the cost issues that are making younger Australians give up on saving, the Coalition has pitched to their parents and grandparents. The youngsters won’t vote for them. Their grandparents might still be won back. And the purpose of the $500 million for local halls, sporting grounds and libraries to be spent in partnership with the states and councils in new residential developments to make them more liveable is pretty clear. It’s pork for outer suburban marginals. Day 29: Labor needs to get a 4.8% swing to win this election. We’re into the final fortnight. The vital final fortnight. According to the ANU’s Australian Electoral Survey, in 2004 9.6% of voters decided how they would cast their ballots in the first few weeks of the campaign. Some 14.2% decided “a few days before election day” and 8.6% on election day itself – almost a quarter of the entire electorate. Last week’s Reserve Bank Board meeting was in everyone’s diary. It’s been and gone. Now it’s the race to the wire. So, if a week is a long time in politics, get ready for 12 days that will look like an eternity. Day 26: Is it the Seinfeld election? That’s what Mark Latham says. He claims it’s “a show about nothing”. “If people vote for a change in government on November 24 they will be replacing one conservative administration with another,” he writes in the Financial Review today. Well, it’s certainly heavily scripted, with just a small ensemble cast; John Howard and Peter Costello (with occasional barks and growls from attack spaniel Alexander Downer) for the Coalition, and Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard from the ALP. Occasional comic characters appear; ratbag candidates in hard luck seats, ministers off message, but that’s about it. And the plot is going to be even more highly scripted for the vital last two weeks of the campaign as both sides try to lock in undecided voters. Seinfeld? Maybe. The strategists would say there’s nothing wrong with that. Seinfeld was polished and successful. Mark Latham’s leadership, in contrast, was more like Mr Jolly Lives Next Door. Day 25: We are now entering into devilishly difficult times for the Prime Minister. Can he successfully spin the interest rates rise? What we’re seeing is the flipside of his slogan, Go for Growth. Inflation is largely a problem because of the terms of trade boost. The rising Australian dollar has not offset these inflationary pressure. The Reserve Bank has tried to dampen inflation with a series of rates rises, but is being frustrated by a government which keeps giving tax cuts. “Fiscal policy and monetary policy look set to continue working in opposite directions,” Rory Robertson from Macquarie said yesterday. The government has not allowed automatic stabilisers to kick in properly. All this, of course, is pretty complicated economics, even for Crikey crew with their first pot of coffee for the day under their belts. How you sell it to undecided voters in the marginals at the moment must be anyone’s guess. Day 24: A special mention today for the Sydney Morning Herald sub who wrote that headline “The rate that stops a nation in its tracks” . The Reserve Bank Board meeting and the Cup have left virtually no room for any other story.
Kevin Rudd wasn’t going to egg the journos on. “This is a horse race, I've punted $10, end of analogy,” he said after backing the Cup winner. Instead, he focused on economical responsibility and good government, promising that under Labor less money would be spent on administration and more on the delivery of frontline services.
The opposition leader wanted the journos to avoid analogies after he backed a winner. The Prime Minister should consider himself lucky his tip didn’t become the subject of a slab of them.
He went for Mahler – even though in Australian politics Mahler is normally associated with the wackier moods and moments of Captain Wacky.
Liberal backbencher Cameron Thompson demonstrated that spinning rate rises should be left to the masters, generating a backlash in his home state of Queensland with his comment that an increase would be “a positive for the Government”.
The PM had to come out and say “I have spoken to Cameron Thompson and he has told me what he said… He simply said the Australian public believe when it comes to controlling interest rates, when it comes to managing the economy the Coalition would be a better bet than Labor, and I agree with him.”
That other Mahler fan boasted about how he had his hands on the levers, too.
It didn’t do him much good. Day 23: “Me-tooism is getting out of hand,” The SMH reports today, with John Howard and Kevin Rudd not only campaigning in the same shops in the same seat, but cuddling the same kiddy. The Reserve Bank seems set to interrupt these activities. A rate rise seems all but certain – bad news for the Coalition, just as it appears to be narrowing the gap in the polls. The Prime Minister is trying some audacious spin on rates, pointing to the Coalition’s economic record. Yet he is the man who made the issue central to his re-election last time round. In 2007, interest rates are about more than economics. They’re about credibility. And in this election, that’s a problem for John Howard. Day 22: It’s the Reserve Bank board meeting that stops the nation. We won’t actually know if interest rates will rise until Wednesday morning, but we won’t hear about much more until, oh, Friday. Unless, of course, Major General Stanley decides to mark the thirtieth anniversary of THAT spectacular vice-regal appearance at the Melbourne Cup with a reprise of his own. Day 19: You say potato and I say starch laden root vegetable, you say tomato and I say solanum lycopersicum ... tomato, tomato, potato, potato, let's call the whole thing a contest. But then why do anything different when you're 55 to 45 up according to today's polls, just like you have been all year? Indeed.
They don't seems to get it out on the hustings, but the Australian people seem to be of a mind in the whole who-should-be-the-next-government thing and from all those months of idenitcal figures it seems pretty clear that it's up to the Coalition to make the running in the different stakes. Three weeks in, three weeks to go, next week lost to horses, interest rates and cricket.
Where do we go from here? Good question, but elsewhere it appears that Ben Cousins is not missing -- one of several people currently not missing in the western states of the US. These events may or may not be related but compared to the sluggishly meandering and entirely predictable course of Australian politics they are very exciting. If Ben Cousins continues to be not missing then we may have the makings of something quite remarkable. Stay tuned. Day 18: Six months ago you might have been forgiven for thinking that the only way Nicola Roxon could win a head to head debate with Tony Abbott was if Tony didn't turn up. Which only goes to show something or other about the changing nature of fortune ... certainly that Roxon continues to emerge as a coherent front bench voice for Labor, and probably that Abbott continues to embellish a hard-earned reputation for juxtaposing certain archaic religious enthusiasms with a general demeanor of pugilistic smarm. This has of course endeared him to his colleagues, but yesterday's performance, stumbling from character slights on a terminally ill invalid, to the Roxon debate cock-up, to the subsequent Mark Latham ''bullsh-t'' handshake, to the revelation of what looks like good old-fashioned incompetence in the delay of the Mersey hospital takeover. Formidable Tony. What a farce the day turned out to be, from the rolling and increasingly hysterical pantomime of the PM's daily walk on through duelling health policy announcements, one of which featured Kevin Rudd in what appeared to be a shower cap and baby blue bunny slippers, all of it so comprehensively overwhelmed by the Health Minister's vigorous incompetence, that by 10pm even an ABC discussion between Simon Crean (who?) and Warren Truss (what?) on trade looked like the solidly edifying policy deliberation. Which it probably was. Meanwhile, Crikey's very own Screaming Lord Sutch, Stephen Mayne, has today announced an independent tilt against Peter Costello in the entirely unwinnable seat of Higgins by releasing this very bad YouTube video from out the front of Kevin Rudd’s favourite strip club. This will be Mayne’s 37th campaign – albeit his first federal tilt – in search of a single hitherto elusive victory. It has nothing to do with us. Day 17: So hang on, let's look at the objective circumstances: by pretty general agreement we face a global ecological cataclysm within a generation. Dislocation of vast populations, famine, disease, deconstruction of entire economies, war, rescheduling of prime time TV, test pitches far too prone to day three seam etc. Meanwhile, Labor wants to boost renewable power generation and the Coalition says that only reconfirms Labor's opposition to the domestic coal industry. Are we all on the same page here? Kyoto, the environment and the overwhelming importance of domestic employment security in the face of planetary catastrophe hogged the headlines for the second campaign day running, most conspicuously in The Australian, a paper which gives the clear impression that it has at last found a chink in the armour of a hitherto implacable foe. Relief. Strangely though, while Kyoto was the talk of the continent - or at least it was among the continent's politically sentient 2% - the federal minister charged with responsibility for the portfolio was nowhere to be seen. We can take Malcolm Turnbull's sudden uncharacteristic invisibility (other than a lingering background presence through his apparently preferred medium of selective anonymous leaking) to be a fairly reliable indication of just how robust the battle will be for his treasured seat of Wentworth. We see more at stake here than the future of the planet, we also see Mr Turnbull's political ambitions - and they are substantial - in the balance. How could he crusade on behalf of the environment while simultaneously shoring up the pink vote in Woolloomoolooloolloloo? Wherever. Meanwhile - and speaking of the pink vote - Australian Christians Limited, sorry the Australian Christian Lobby, seized on the momentum gained for the campaign's spiritual dimension by the exposure of Andrew Quah's p-nis - and organ that brought new meaning to Family First - to grill all contesting parties on their ontological preferences, and more importantly their s-xual preferences it must be said, for the key obsessions of modern Christian faith seem to lie somewhere between the soul, the pubis and YouP-rn. The Greens, alone of all the parties, refused to cooperate. What could they have to hide? Much of the day's limelight fell on Peter Costello and Wayne Swan as they engaged in what the national Press Club laughingly terms ''debate''. The worm scored it for Swan, but the Treasurer had the better smart a-se cracks. That is probably the core of his problem. Day 16: Don't expect to see much of Peter Garrett for a day or two. The lofty Labor spokesman's confusion over the party's position on dealing with post-Kyoto agreements and non-compliant nations from the developing world was yesterday's sleeper, a blunder so subtle it seemed to elude even the eerily leering form of the Prime Minister when interviewed on The 7.30 Report last night. Howard, between constant cheesy - I'm no grumpy hasbeen - grins, acknowledged the discrepancy in the ALP position without going to town. Leave that to the folks at The Australian who teamed Garrett's stumble with a good news Newspoll for the Coalition to create a jubilant GOTCHA! moment across its front page and a barely contained sense of glee and relish. Could this be a contest? Could the old boy be back in the game? The argument seemed to be that Garrett was so ideologically fervent he would have Australia sign any old treaty on climate change regardless of the company we found ourselves in. The government meanwhile was divided between those who want to sign Kyoto right now, despite the absence of major polluters - Turnbull - and those who actually don't think climate change exists - Vaile - and those who think God made prickly bushes - Costello. Thus did Labor demonstrate its unfitness for office. Meanwhile there was spending a-plenty yesterday, $2.1 billion for 10 years of tech schools from Howard, $200 million to salve the agonies of the Great Barrier Reef from Labor. A strong poll on the back of solid policy put a spring in the Government's step as it headed into the new day and the prospect of the Treasurers debate. No-one would watch, but Wayne Swan was odds on to die. Day 15: And then, as week three dawned, the economy seemed something less than a positive for the government. John Howard spent the weekend trapped in a feedback loop that mashed three-year-old campaign interest rates promises against reality and delivered nothing coherent or optimistic, just a low, menacing hum. Not to mention Kyoto. Or cabinet solidarity, or the sudden burning whiff of every man for himself. Week one had been the government’s service game, and they sent the ball hard and deep on the back of tax cuts and surprise. Week two Labor took the momentum on the back of a debate performance that pitched a lack of error against a sullen, twitchy PM. Now, week three, a month to run and the government is sucking its own oxygen unable to make headway thanks to a sudden entanglement that twists promises, with a record of five rate rises and the looming prospect or more, leaving the Government’s instinct to focus on economic performance looking like risky business. And did Malcolm Turnbull leak talk of his Kyoto preference just to shore up the Wentworth vote? Or did some other Cabinet loudmouth drop the ball? And does it matter when the impression is just as damaging either way? Not a very bright way to begin Monday. Day 12: Politics today isn’t about governing. It’s about control. Total control. Control of the agenda. Control of the economy. Control of history. As we saw on the campaign trail yesterday. Peter Costello gave the banks a mouthful. Paul Keating gave Peter Costello a mouthful. And the man who want to succeed Paul Keating as a Labor prime minister copped a mouthful from someone outside the game – old, but still able to spot phonies when he sees them. Day 11: It now seems certain. It’s a matter of when, not if, interest rates will rise. Will the Reserve Bank act during a campaign or wait until it meets in December? Economists warn that Australia is confronting its greatest inflation problem since the late eighties and early nineties. The say the underlying inflation figures from yesterday shows the highest quarterly result since 1991 and the annualised inflation rate for the past six months also at its highest since then. Since then, however, things have changed. The Reserve now has a strict inflation target, and interest rates are a key control. The government is adding to pressure by spending, there is a shortage of skilled workers and the global economy is booming along. A rates rise looks certain – or even rates rises – as the Reserve seeks to prevent inflation becoming entrenched at 3.5% or more. Peter Costello yesterday warned that Labor would plunge the country into recession. Rates rises could be a problem for an incoming Labor government, but the ALP has more immediate troubles with the trade union movement. It has been revealed that the Joe McDonald, the CFMEU’s West Australian deputy secretary is still a members of the ALP, four months after Labor leader Kevin Rudd promised to expel him after he was caught on camera threatening construction bosses. And yesterday Brian Courtice, the former Labor member for the regional Queensland seat of Hinkler attacked union influence in the ALP at a press conference with Workplace Relations Minister Joe Hockey. Courtice declared: “Kevin Rudd couldn't go three rounds with Winnie the Pooh, so there's no way he's going to be able to stand up to the union bosses”. Day 10: It’s save the base vote time. When a conservative government starts chucking money at pensioners, carers and the disabled, you know the government is really in trouble. Pork for all. Pork and beans. Day 9: It’s wormwood and gall for the government. Or worms and gall. Kevin Rudd – let alone the travelling media pack – could barely keep a straight face yesterday as they talked about the naughty nematode and its appearance on Channel Nine. The National Press Club, instead of hosting a debate, has became the centre of one. John Howard takes a towelling in today’s Newspoll. He’s been heckled again while on his morning power walk, this time on the banks of the River Torrens in genteel Adelaide. His Treasurer would like to get some clear space for his attacks on Labor’s tax plans. But it’s all worm, debate and polls – and economic management. There’s bad news for the Coalition on that in today’s Newspoll. The Bureau of Statistics might have worse in tomorrow’s CPI figures. Day 8: If you win elections by staying on message and keeping succinct while making a pitch for the future, then Kevin Rudd received a boost last night. Rudd seemed to sound better than the PM most of the time – particularly when the debate got close to being a proper contest between the two leaders, when they questioned each other in the closing minutes. Still, he got bogged down - not by the Prime Minister, mind you, but by the ABC’s Chris Uhlman. The PM and his advisers may have made some errors with the format. The debate was too long, with too much time devoted to statements, rather than argument and rebuttal. The audience, although it was large, was only present in a couple of cutaway shots. The stage set and lighting was the bog standard job you’d expect to see if the Minister for Inland Drainage was addressing the Australian Plumbing & Pipefitting Conference. A sense of engagement was totally missing. Down at my grocery store yesterday afternoon, the views were unanimous: it was being held too early. John Howard said something last night about trusting the people. Their verdict is right in this case. For all the column centimetres and airtime lavished on the debate, next Wednesday’s inflation figures will probably have a more significant impact on the outcome of this campaign. Day 5: It’s getting heavy for Kevvie. Can he hack the pace? Late yesterday, he blinked on the debate and gave in to the PM’s demands. Will he now blink on tax? Probably not, but pressure is mounting on the Labor leader to get something out – from both the media and, Crikey understands, nervous Nellies within the ALP. The Coalition has had good momentum this week. They dropped $34 billion worth of tax cuts, then got stuck into the bruvvers of the union movement and their influence in the ALP. Labor responded with post modern negative positive ads (or should that read positive negative?), but everything over the past 24 hours seems to have gone the Government’s way. Gavan O’Connor’s blast at the bruvvers has been a gift for the Government; both its timing and its message. The polls appear to have “rewarded” them. That will boost morale at campaign headquarters and in the marginals. They have upped the pressure on Kevin Rudd and the ALP – with five long weeks to go. Day 4: The two leaders were sombre as they attended the funeral of Trooper David Pearce in Brisbane yesterday. In the backrooms, however, it was politics as usual as the attack ad factory churned away. Blow and parry. Blow and parry. And debate about the debate continued. In Washington, however, the International Monetary Fund was thinking beyond the next few weeks – or the day’s media cycle. It released its World Economic Outlook, which found the Australian economy was “expanding strongly” and feeling a “more limited” impact of the recent international market wobbles. It warned, though: “The main short-term policy challenge… continues to be to keep firm control on inflation in the face of strong domestic demand and tight labour markets”, and urged the government “continue to exercise fiscal restraint”. As it landed on their desks, the party leaders were divvying up 60 billion dollars – that’s 60 thousand million – of surplus to spend over the next four years, chopping and slicing it into tasty treats for voters. Day 3: Kevin Rudd is Captain Courageous – courageous in the Yes, Minister sense of the word. He is not only running an “I have not yet begun to fight” line on tax, but wheeled out a 30 second ad where he goes negative on the government for going negative while being positive about his positive agenda. Perhaps this is what he meant about messing with their minds. It’s all a bit complicated. The Government continues to huff and puff and demand Labor release its tax plans – and that Rudd debate the Prime Minister on the terms he outlined at the start of the week. John Howard says he’ll be there in the Great Hall of Parliament House on Sunday night come what may. Labor’s campaign spokesperson Penny Wong says her leader isn’t running scared. Instead, he’ll duck this debate in favour of three others. All a little complicated. All a little risky. But better than a Mark Latham handshake if you want to look strong. Day 2: $34 billion worth of tax cuts makes for a beautiful set of figures. Nothing like getting the campaign off to a good start by throwing the focus firmly onto the Government’s greatest strength, economic management. A good way of reinforcing the team, too – the two blokes who have run the economy that gives them this room to move. But what does the government do for the rest of the campaign? Is this enough? Will it actually work? Back in August, when the mid year economic review figures were released, a Galaxy poll found that 51% of Australians thought the surplus came about because they paid too much tax, not because of John Howard or Peter Costello’s competence. Yesterday’s announcement will reinforce their views. The leaked Crosby Textor research published in full in Crikey pointed out how there was no Budget boost for the Government because it talked about Labor issues like the environment and education. The economic good news is out right at the start of the campaign. The Prime Minister has promised a statement on climate change. Won’t this look late? Won’t it throw the focus onto a negative? No wonder the PM wants to have the election debate at the end of the first week of a six week campaign. The first full day of campaigning opened with a big bang from the big guns. But Labor isn’t showing signs of shell shock. “What we now have is a new set of numbers in terms of the Budget outlook,” Kevin Rudd said on the 7:30 Report last night. “Mr Costello today admitted that for months they've been working on this with the full support of the Treasury and out they plonk the official fiscal outlook and a tax policy within 30 seconds of doing so, a cautious and considered approach means we should do this in our own season.” That’s Labor’s roll for now – to stay on message and not get rattled. |