Finding The Chinks In His Armour

The Age

Saturday February 24, 2007

MICHAEL GORDON - Michael Gordon is national editor.

It's been a miserable three weeks for John Howard as the battle for electoral supremacy has taken on a more personal edge.

THE accusation by Kevin Rudd came out of the blue and, the first time it was put to John Howard on Perth radio, the Prime Minister deflected it with ease. "Yes, I listened to that interview," he began, then headed off in another tangent.

The interview in question was with the Labor leader on ABC radio's AM program earlier the same morning, on Tuesday, the day after Howard had announced that Australia would send another 70 soldiers to Iraq.

"Mr Howard's strategy on Iraq is the greatest single failure of national security policy since Vietnam," Rudd had declared, before adding: "And Mr Howard himself represents a national security risk for this country in the future."

Certainly, it was the most serious accusation Rudd had levelled against Howard since he assumed the Labor leadership early in December, and it was delivered with the composure of a man utterly convinced he has his opponent's measure.

When it was put to Howard a second time on Tuesday, the PM was less circumspect. "Really?" he replied. "I think he's getting a bit full of himself. Rhetoric is fair enough, but you can get a bit carried away."

Suddenly, the contest that is being waged with the intensity of the election campaign that is still eight months away has a distinctly personal edge. Not since he questioned whether Kim Beazley had the ticker to be prime minister before the 1998 election has Howard given such a pointed character assessment of an opponent. Almost certainly, the Howard critique was informed by another Rudd observation, when he told The Australian's Christine Jackman: "I instinctively know how Howard is going to play things . . . I think it will be fun to play with his mind for a while."

But will it prove as damaging? Probably not. Yes, Howard has highlighted Rudd's propensity on occasions to give the impression that he considers himself intellectually superior to his interlocutors. And yes, Rudd does have to be careful not to present himself as a smarty pants.

But since when has having an ego disqualified politicians from running the country? Gough Whitlam, Malcolm Fraser, Bob Hawke and Paul Keating were never found wanting in the self-esteem department and even Howard has succumbed to occasional bouts of hubris.

Howard needs to find a crack in Rudd's defences, but it is safe to assert that he hasn't found one. Yet. He is depicting the Labor leader as the opportunist who wants to be all things to all people, whether the issue is Iraq, climate change or industrial relations, but the attack isn't biting. Not yet, anyway. On the contrary, it is Howard, who was so completely ascendant 12 months ago, who is vulnerable on many fronts. Moreover, the 18-year age gap between Rudd and Howard - the same as the gap between Costello and Howard - is looming as a big plus for Labor.

Howard's attack on Barack Obama a fortnight ago gave Rudd a big opening in the debate about Australia's involvement in Iraq, weakening the central pillar of the Prime Minister's national security credentials - that he can best manage the US alliance.

Tony Blair's decision this week to reduce Britain's contribution to the coalition of the willing moved the debate further in Rudd's direction, undermining the rhetoric of Howard and George Bush about the dangers of setting dates for staged withdrawals.

The result is a narrowing of the gap between the parties on national security, making it even more certain that the central battleground for the election will be the economy, where the Coalition still holds a commanding lead. Even here, however, Howard has his problems. Before new Reserve Bank Governor Glenn Stevens appeared before a parliamentary committee on Wednesday, it was generally accepted that interest rates would not rise before the election, and that the next move just might be down.

Stevens' message was that the next move was still likely to be another increase in rates - and that the federal election campaign would not stop the bank from acting if it felt the need. ANZ Bank chief economist Saul Eslake, who still believes rates will not rise before the poll, drew another conclusion from Stevens' testimony. "The Government may have felt the December quarter inflation figure (which saw annual inflation fall from 3.9 to 3.2 per cent) was so good that it could now go on a huge vote-buying spree and the Reserve Bank wouldn't raise interest rates. I think Stevens was saying, 'Hang on a minute, that ain't so'."

Then there is water, where Howard is generally acknowledged as having come up with a visionary plan, one that, with minor modifications, won the support of all premiers apart from Steve Bracks yesterday.

It was Bracks who led the assault on the Howard plan, zeroing in on what seemed to be the kind of failure of process that tends to afflict governments in trouble. "I don't think we have seen before in Australia a proposal of such magnitude, of such far-reaching implications which has been prepared on the back of a postage stamp in the Prime Minister's office without reference to cabinet and other government departments," said Bracks.

In the end, however, it is results that count. Howard has had a miserable three weeks, but ultimately the contest will be between what Howard has done and what he promises to do, on one side, and the detail of Labor's policies and the credibility with which Rudd presents them, on the other. In this sense, the significance of the polls showing a whopping primary vote and two-party preferred lead to Labor - and Rudd with a commanding margin on the question of who is the preferred prime minister - should not be over-stated.

Even so, averaging out the most recent ACNielsen/Age poll, Newspoll and the Morgan Poll, Labor's primary vote is now a shade under 47 per cent, well clear of the Coalition's 38 per cent.

More telling, perhaps, is the fact that the bookies now have Labor as favourite to win the election, paying $1.80 to the Coalition's $1.90. Before Rudd, Labor was at the long odds of $2.75 and the Coalition would only return $1.40 for a $1 investment. Moreover, the last two Morgan Polls have a higher proportion of voters expecting a Labor win than a Coalition.

Social researcher Hugh Mackay says the turnaround in Labor's fortunes is remarkable, except that voters were inclined to vote against Howard in 2001, before September 11 and Tampa, and in 2004, before they decided Mark Latham was not the answer. "It's up to Rudd to prove that it's OK for voters to do what they've been wanting to do since 2001," says Mackay. Maybe, and herein lies the possible chink in Rudd's armour. Labor's new leader has maintained a breathtaking intensity since he toppled Kim Beazley, one that may be unmatched in Australian politics. Can he keep it up?

© 2007 The Age

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