The widening gap between political spin and substance was put on public display during the recent tele-debates. Even the worm revealed itself as a card-carrying Labor supporter!
Kevin Rudd is a political chameleon who can change his persona and his language to suit whichever audience he is talking to. Climate change, until recently the greatest moral issue of Kev’s time, has quietly disappeared off his political radar.
Rudd has now shifted from the ‘great big tax’ he wanted to impose via his unworkable climate change legislation to a ‘great big lie’ over health funding during Tony Abbott’s term as Minister. His claim that Abbott ripped $1 billion out of the health system between October 2003 and December 2007 is at odds with Treasury records that show the health budget actually increased from $7.11 billion to $9.76 billion during that period.
Kev also had a bit of a memory lapse during the debate. He forgot to mention grocery watch, fuel watch, whale watch, the pink-batt calamity, the school computers and assembly hall rorts the Copenhagen catastrophe or his promise to ‘tow the boats containing illegal refugees back to sea’.
He is now desperate to pin the blame for his failures on Tony Abbott. Somebody should remind him that he was elected to lead the nation, not to cringe, whinge and lie.
On the State scene Kristina Keneally is much more believable that her Prime Minister. Unfortunately she cannot contain the stench seeping out of Labor’s cesspit in Sussex Street or cut the strings being manipulated by Eddie Obeid and Joe Tripodi.
After 15 years in office Labor has rorted NSW to the max and no amount of lip gloss can hide the daily debacle on our roads, in our health system, on our streets or in our disadvantaged communities. It is interesting that Eddie Obeid, Joe Tripodi and the backroom boys in Sussex Street have handed the mess to a woman to fix. One can only hope that she does not follow Morris Iemma and Nathan Rees to political oblivion as a result. She is smart, presentable and articulate and her demise would be a catastrophic loss for Labor in NSW.
The debate proved that Barry O’Farrell is ready to lead NSW after the next election. It will be a herculean task to get NSW back on the rails and put some integrity back into the political process.
Nobody should doubt that O’Farrell has the experience, the knowledge and the ticker to start the change and work towards re-establishing NSW as the Premier State.
