The dying days of the Fourth Reich: it's the 2007 AUSTRALIAN FEDERAL ELECTION

Please explain?

The economy is Howard's and Costello's ground, as is reflected confidently in opinion polls.

If the ALP announces its tax policy today, it'll put economics to bed in week one and move the campaign focus onto health, education, environment and housing for the next five weeks -- all areas in which the ALP is favoured in polls.

If it were released before today, it would have looked like a rushed response, and it would also have appeared as though Costello's bullying had scared the ALP.

Oh, and a tax policy release today will get Saturday morning headlines. Easy and prominent coverage on a day when less news is being gathered.

I get what you're saying, but Howard and Costello will be very, very quick to remind us all of their "awesome" tax cuts.

True, but over five weeks it'll lose its punch. Particularly when the ALP releases its more cautious tax policy with funding for schools and hospitals, effectively neutralising Howard's big trump card.

That's my call anyway.

It merely underlines why I think the ALP should release its tax policy today. I'm not saying it's going to win Rudd the election. :)

Interesting comment from Michelle Grattan:

The Government would have hoped for more bounce from the tax package. But people are blase about tax cuts. And who wants to admit to taking a bribe?

The message of this poll and this week? The Government has a very difficult but not impossible task.

In my view, if the ALP stays on message and cautious (and, importantly, retains its status) it may not lose much ground at all.

"And who wants to admit to taking a bribe?"

A small percentage of those people who'd want to actually take said bribe, unfortunately.

Yer, let alone those who don't have to admit taking a bribe because ballots are SECRET. Sexy ms grattan is a bit dim sometimes.

ALP's tax plan!

$2.3b in education tax rebates for pri & sec schooling. Six-year plan to reduce four tax thresholds to three (40%, 30%, 15%). $400m to cut waiting times for elective surgery. Total rebates $31b, just under what the Coalition announced.

AMIRITE

nice

So close to the Coalition's that it effectively neutralises the whole economy issue. Bang. The polls should stabilise now, if this announcement gets enough press.

It's getting enough press.

Well done Almy. You must be the expert commentator on ILX at election night.

yes, i am deeply impressed.

Yay!

The polling is a bit misleading, considering the Coalition was guns blazing on day one but the ALP's campaign really hasn't started yet

I reckon two weeks before election day we'll get a sudden avalanche of ALP ads about the big stuff: WorkChoices (the elephant in the room), nuclear power stations, Al Gore, etc. I think they'll make a lot more difference than FREE MONEY, and Howard really can't come back at any of it.

This year's different to previous elections in that the ALP has far greater support this year, which means more financial backing, which means a bigger warchest for the campaign.

And more yummy ads for all!

"Sexy ms grattan is a bit dim sometimes."

I'd guess 'sey ms grattan' is one heck of a lot more sexy than dim 99% of the time, and I've never found her specially sexy....

Man I need to watch more TV, I'm missing a lot of this.

Nice ALP policy though - good work.

If the Libs still win after all this, I will despair at the state of humanity and move to Patagonia.

agreed, ms grattan is ace.

Trayce: What you've missed is that Howard is still a racist cunce.

costello's getting a bit repetitive with the whole "you copied us" thing. "oh, so you have a tax policy too, we already have one of those! copycats!"

Predictable too. And incredibly childish. But economy is all the Coalition has left, so they'll run it into the ground and hopefully BORE EVERYONE SHITLESS with it.

Yeah cause no one really understands it anyway innit. They'd rather be told they were getting a new school or something.

ABC headline:

Coalition, Labor tax policies 'virtually the same'

Exactly the headline the ALP wanted.

No comments about the debate yet?

i didn't watch it, how was it?

roffle, channel 9 used the "worm" and had the plug pulled by the authorities!

Howard's people pulled the plug through the ABC and the Press Club.

Today watch Howard deny any knowledge of it.

Oh and Kate, Rudd won the debate convincingly. Howard's performance was utterly appalling. All he did was sling mud at Rudd and avoid questions. I mean REALLY avoid questions. Even Rudd pulled him up on it about four times, right in the middle of the debate. By contrast, Rudd pointedly answered questions and avoided negativity for the most part.

From the SMH

http://www.smh.com.au/news/National/Howard-Rudd-face-off-in-election-debate/2007/10/21/1192940904527.html

"According to the Nine Network's controversial "worm", Mr Rudd won the debate with 65 per cent of viewers' approval, compared to Mr Howard's 29 per cent.

The worm tracked the reaction of 90 swinging voters in Nine's Sydney studios to the leaders' comments."

Swinging voters eh? They swing on a zephyr. They're like Melbourne weather.

Started the debate, expecting to switch off after about 20 minutes, but stayed to the end. Quite interesting. Rudd looked comfortable, upbeat, mostly on top of things. Howard looked distinctly uncomfortable the whole time, avoided answering direct questions repeatedly, and his own questions to Rudd were feeble. He looked, as my wife said, like a bad-tempered little boy being forced to do something he really didn't want to.

Didn't he? He waved his arms around loads as well.

I expected Howard to do less well than Rudd, but I didn't expect him to be the angry quivering mess that he was. Really, really frustrated and not in any way cogent.

And yeah, his questions to Rudd were bloody stupid. The one about Rudd and Bush: what the fuck was he (or his people) thinking?? Boughing under pressure is understandable, but these questions were written before the debate; what this tells me is that Howard's got bugger-all to use against Rudd and is just desperate.

Howard's weird and dopey closing statement was another wasted opportunity. Teaching history in schools, what the fuck?? How is that in any way a closing statement? This was written in advance as well, and betrays a government in freefall.

Howard's six-week campaign was designed to expose Labor's mistakes before voting day, but I suspect it'll backfire significantly.

What bothers me about this whole Howard's version of Australia's history thing is the potential for it to be some insipid watered down version of events where the white man did no wrong and everything was just dandy. Goodness knows the current curriculum (at least here in QLD) glosses over all the bad stuff enough already.

Yyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyep.

I wouldn't trust that prick to spell the word indigenous, let alone mount a truly unbiased and sensible history agenda for kids. Evidently brainwashing adults through the Murdoch press is not enough.

Have we had this? Old, but Rudd interviewing Rudd:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KHPij5Q9geQ

What about Rudd eating his ear wax?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3aQ8YiIV1AI

I am NOT going to click on that.

I was disappointed Rudd didn't let Mr Hat say anything.

"Prime Minister John Howard has denied any responsibility for a decision to pull the Nine Network's broadcast feed during the live televised leaders' debate."

http://www.theage.com.au/news/federalelection2007news/i-didnt-kill-worm-pm/2007/10/22/1192940956744.html

Gee there's a surprise. It's like TAMPA never happened.

Kev's getting cocky.

Newspoll shows Labor on 58% TPP to Liberal's 42%, and Rudd on 50% as preferred leader to Howard's 37%. Thereby eliminating last week's perceived Liberal 'comeback' in the polls. WATCH YOUR GOVT BLOW ONE (1) FUSE AND GO KRAZY.

Right on cue...

http://www.theage.com.au/news/federalelection2007news/howard-offers-pensioners-4bn/2007/10/23/1192941039664.html

They're getting desperate, aren't they? Next thing you know, a Jewish Sudanese bloke will have burnt down the Reichstag Parliament House.

Yeah but moley, the grannies are all voting for him anyway so I don't know how much difference that's going to make.

Oh and yes, fake terrorism threats are ready to pounce. Just wait for it.

70% of the Labor front bench is ex-union officials.

The poster of Christopher Pyne in our local supermarket has had the added speech bubble "I eat poo!" for 3 weeks now, and nobody has taken it down. This amuses me beyond all reasonable bounds.

Brilliant.

He sounds like his throat is lined with poo when he talks, so perhaps it counts as substantiated recourse.

Do you think Rudd will match the pensioner spendfest?

Indubitably.

Yesterday's Newspoll showed -- for the first time -- Rudd gaining on Howard in terms of economic approval. He absolutely does not want to lose this momentum, however transient it might have been. Economic management wins elections in this country, fact.