- Posted by Ad astra on April 24, 2009
Late last year I wrote a rather long piece The curse of adversarial politics which was an update of an article I wrote for Possum Box in July, at the beginning of my blogging efforts. This morning, as I accessed the Liberal Party website to update a regular service on The Political Sword – Opposition Watch, I was reminded that nothing has changed since then, politics is as adversarial as ever, in fact of late negativity has intensified, so much so that it was argued that it was the major reason for Malcolm Turnbull’s unpopularity in Why is Malcolm Turnbull so unpopular. You will recall my trilateral label: Turnbull’s Terrible Trifecta: Negativity-Arrogance-Disingenuousness.
If you suspect I may be overstating the case, take a look at the following items that appeared on the Liberal Party Website today and yesterday. In the interests of brevity, I’ve deleted the dates and details of the person authoring the post, leaving just the linked title and the summary. If you’re interested to learn about any item in more detail, click on the link and it will take you to the page on the Liberal website where the date, author and full text is to be found. The list is displayed though more to illustrate the style of Liberal media statements, many of which end up in newspapers and on news bulletins. Is it any wonder the negativity continues and spreads?
Rudd's cruel tease for first home buyers Kevin Rudd must immediately provide certainty to first home buyers and announce whether the First Home Owner Grant boost will be extended beyond June 30.
Another broken promise on health by the Rudd government The Prime Minister took another step back from his election promise to ‘fix’ hospitals by mid-2009, with media reports today the Government is planning to slash access to the health insurance rebate.
Rudd's clean coal commitment faces its biggest test Prime Minister Kevin Rudd must step in to save Australia’s only commercial clean coal demonstration plant from being closed down, or have his Government’s claims to be a supporter of clean coal technology exposed as a sham.
Lost: 786 aged care beds Found: aged care crisis Evidence from the Department of Health and Ageing has revealed that the Rudd government is losing aged care beds at a rate of 1 every 14 hours and has been doing so since December 2007.
Turnbull interview with David Koch (Sunrise) - Australian economy, the Coalition’s plan for economic recovery I don’t think the question of whether we are technically in a recession today or not is the real issue. The real issue is what are we doing to get out of it? Where are the policies? Now Mr Rudd has had his cash splashes, two cash splashes. He said they’d create jobs. Have they created jobs? No. He said they would provide economic growth. Did they create any economic growth? No. We’re going backwards, and we’re continuing to go backwards.
Rudd catering upgraded, troops go hungry Kevin Rudd’s priorities for Defence catering should be with troops serving overseas, rather than the VIP jet.
Garrett in hot water over higher solar costs Australians face the prospect of paying thousands of dollars more to ‘go solar’ under new Rudd Government plans.
Labor's policy sinks This latest illegal boat arrival off the coast of Western Australia demonstrates that Labor’s changed asylum policy has left our borders porous and vulnerable.
14th boat and still no action from Rudd Another boat, the fourteenth since the Rudd Government softened its border protection policies and the fifth to arrive in just over a fortnight, has been intercepted by Australian Authorities.
Opposition seeks full audit of Labor's failed broadband tender The Federal Opposition is urging the Auditor General to conduct a full audit of the Rudd Government’s failed National Broadband Network tender process which saw millions-of-dollars of taxpayers’ money wasted.
Labor's policy sinks This latest illegal boat arrival off the coast of Western Australia demonstrates that Labor’s changed asylum policy has left our borders porous and vulnerable.
Roxon failing on health Revelations that only 10 per cent of the nation’s four-year-olds have taken the “Healthy Kids Check” showed the Rudd Government was failing in health.
Prices to soar under Labor's broadband plan - concept economics Industry predictions that consumers will have to pay more than $200 a month to use Labor's proposed National Broadband Network have now been supported by analysis conducted by a highly-regarded economist.
Not one item escapes the tag of negativity. It is acknowledged that any Opposition has the task of keeping the Govenment of the day accountable, but is there nothing positive that can be said about the Rudd Government's efforts? Is it always failing, utterly hopeless? Where are the positive suggestions coming from the Opposition?
Notwithstanding comments from many journalists that it is the Opposition’s negativity that is costing it in the polls, and that specifically Turnbull’s almost continual negativity is eroding his satisfaction rating and increasing his dissatisfaction rating so that he’s now nine percentage points in negative territory, the negativity continues unabated.
Who is advising the Opposition? Are the minders really advocating such unremitting negativity? If so, should the Coalition engage different minders who might begin to replace that image with one more positive?
Can any Government be as hopeless are the Opposition paints it? How could it be so hopeless and still enjoy such high popularity? Is the electorate blind, deluded or simply not competent to judge the work of the Government almost half way through its term? Does the Opposition still believe that a large majority of voters are sleepwalking, and one day will awaken? Why can’t the Opposition see its negativity is not changing public opinion? Is Turnbull’s supreme confidence in his own judgement the problem? Is he or his party capable of change?
What do you say?