After what a weekend that most commentators described as a disaster, Prime Minister Julia Gillard has started the third week of election campaigning with new momentum, after two polls revealed Labor has regained its lead.
This morning’s poll from Newspoll showed Labor was back out to a 52-48 lead over the Coalition on a two-party preferred basis, just a week after the Coalition appeared to close the gap to 50-50.
The latest Galaxy poll also suggests Labor is back in front, with a 51-40 lead.
The poll results will be a relief for Gillard, who suffered through a horror weekend. On Saturday, a tense meeting with the man she deposed, former PM Kevin Rudd, produced a series of dour, awkward and uncomfortable looking photographs.
To make matter worse, former Labor leader Mark Latham, who has been employed by the Nine Network as a reporter, accosted Gillard in front of the media pack and demanded to know why she had not granted him an interview.
Gillard later described the incident and Latham’s behaviour as “inappropriate”.
These events took some of the focus of the Liberal party’s campaign launch, where Tony Abbott reiterated a lot of his party’s existing policies and put forward a plan for the first three months of his government.
Among the promises included in the “action agenda” is a promise (set down for month one) to publish all the modelling from the Henry Tax Review, as part of a wider promise to outline a tax reform plan in his first year in office.
Abbott also promised to publish an “economic statement” in the first month of his government, with the implementation of his small business reforms set down for month three.
Treasurer Wayne Swan was quick to ridicule Abbott’s launch as being “policy free”.
This weekend he also announced further funding for the ATO to continue its crackdown on phoenix companies, as well as a plan to cut passport fees.
This morning, Gillard announced the Government would provide grants of up to $100,000 for top performing schools and grants of $8,000 for top-performing teachers.
James was the editor and publisher of SmartCompany and LeadingCompany for five years. He is now the Australian Financial Review‘s companies & markets editor, and a former BRW editor.
