The week preceeding the beginning of the parliamentary year has seen a a flurry of prime ministerial activity. Possibly we should all take a holiday down at the Freycinet peninsula in Tasmania for that recuperative break, if the the Prime Minister’s verve is any indication.
He approached Australia Day giving seven speeches in as many cities…. all around the same messages of increased productivity and improved infrastructure to cope with our changing population demands as the contents of the intergenerational report were gradually leaked leading up to todays launch of the report by the treasurer to the National Press Club.
And he has been back in all the media, from interviews With the heavy hitters, Laurie Oakes and Kerry O’Brien, to the not so heavy hitters on the FM radio band and his first foray back into the Sunrise television domain of the uncensored live questions. It seems a lot to expect one person to have all the answers to all the possible questions and he humorously tweeted his inability to answer two of the three questions asked of him. More importantly, perhaps will be to see how he answers them in the same segment next week, having done his homework.
Nonetheless, from his speeches and interviews in the media and posted on his website he has a strong a consistent message around his four themes… infrastructure, education, health and the environment.
In the meantime, Tony Abbott has not had the same succes in dealing with the public. The response to his interview with the Womens Weekly went terribly askew when he delivered his answer on what advice he would give his daughters in relation to sexual behaviour. His ‘gift’ response brought out howls of indignation and highlighted his social conservatism amid the rampant criticism of his conservative attitudes to women. Certainly this didn’t help him with the womans vote which seems as far out of his reach now as it ever was.
A fascinating observation by Andrew Elder in his blog, and subsequent comments, point out that the weekly has a trans-demoghraphic readership of 2.2million readers, including 465,00 men per month, and has a signifiacnt political influence….. see what happened to mark Latham and Cheryl Kernot after their interviews here. Politicians taking these soft interviews lightly do it at their own risk.
Tony Abbott continues forward unbowed, turning the argument back to the governments lack of action on its previous election commitments and even finds time to respond to questions and comments on his blog. There is no doubt that he has energised his party, and while a considerable percentage were prepared to vote with Malcolm Turnbull previously on the ETS bill, and while he won the leadership contest by only one vote, he has given renewed energy and commitment to his party. This energised effort is reflecting in the polls with new newspoll result due showing an improvement for the coalition.
Of course the poilitical kudos this week goes not the the Prime Minister, but to his erstwhile deputy and chief succesor, Julia Gillard, on the release of her My School website which had over 9 million hits on its first day and the governemnt has promised to take it to a further stage if elected for another term later in the year.
So tomorrow we can look forward to Tony Abbott releasing his environment policy, and as we anticipate another interest rate rise from the Reserve Bank, we can watch the government explain that rising interest rates show the success of their poilicy to keep us out of recession following last years global financial meltdown while the opposition continues to accuse it of wasteful excessive spending.
