Rudd himself, however, draws public heart from a couple of pieces of history: a horse race and the 1993 election. “Someone told me a few days ago it’s 150, 160 Melbourne Cups – the favourite has won 35 times”, he told journalists yesterday. And then he reminded them of 1993 when John Hewson “was the favourite and regarded as a shoo-in. Well, that’s Mr Abbott’s attitude today”.
Only up to a point. Abbott worked for Hewson at the time and is seared by the memory of an election that turned more silently than most realised until it was all over.
At the moment Labor’s polling numbers suggest a loss of about 15 seats, with NSW likely to be a rout and Tasmania expected to see casualties while Queensland has stabilised. Despite the strong Liberal campaign in Rudd’s seat of Griffith, the ALP expects to retain it.
The Labor campaign organisation is performing better than earlier, with more power going back to ALP national secretary George Wright; members of the Rudd entourage, the hubris of the early days faded, are said to be better team players than they were.
Labor has forced bipartisanship on the boats; the Liberals have cuddled up to Labor on education and health. When Abbott found himself slightly exposed on Medicare Locals during Wednesday’s debate he declared that he wasn’t planning to close any of them. This was a touch impetuous – yesterday he had to say they would not necessarily all “stay exactly the same”.
But economic management remains a key defining issue in the campaign, and the Liberals retain their superiority. In the Labor camp they muse on how a Triple A rating can be accompanied by such a negative rating by the voters.
One wonders whether the way Rudd and his ministers stick to their claim that the Coalition has a $70 billion funding gap – when fact checkers and leading economist Saul Eslake have discredited the number – is just counterproductive for Labor. The ALP is working on the principle that if you say it often enough, people will buy it. It’s also so locked into the claim that retreat has become impossible.
But people are so disillusioned, indeed disgusted, with politics after the last three years that politicians who make exaggerated and clearly false claims are just likely to further alienate them. Voters (or at least enough of them) know when they are being treated with cynical disrespect and they give back the treatment in spades.
At the end of week four, the question on the Liberal side is how big a majority the Coalition can get – because size will matter – while for Labor it’s how much “furniture” Rudd can save. And remember, when caucus members were considering reinstating him, it was all about the furniture, rather than victory.
Michelle Grattan is a Professorial Fellow at University of Canberra .
This piece was first published on The Conversation.
Michelle currently holds an academic position at the University of Canberra and is associate editor (politics) and chief political correspondent at The Conversation. She was the former editor of The Canberra Times, was political editor of The Age and has been with the Australian Financial Review and The Sydney Morning Herald.
