Verdicts on the debate in today’s papers divide neatly along organisational lines, with News Limited observers saying it was close and Fairfax giving a clear win to Rudd. The commentator who comes closest to calling it for Howard is Sid Marris: speaking with colleague Dennis Shanahan on a video at The Australian’s website, he judges that “John Howard was stronger, but Kevin Rudd didn’t suffer a loss”. Shanahan decries the “Rudd-centric” worm, and says only that the Opposition Leader “won because he didn’t lose”. Also on the video are Paul Kelly, who says Howard was “very much on top at the start but I think Rudd finished better”, and Sky News man-of-the-hour David Speers who gives the debate to Rudd “on points”. In the newspaper itself, Matthew Franklin gives Kevin Rudd a “narrow victory” in the face of a “well above par” performance by the Prime Minister. Doug Conway of the Courier-Mail calls it a draw, offering the wearily familiar assessment that “neither Mr Howard nor Mr Rudd made a disastrous blunder, nor did they land a lethal body blow on their opponent”. Only Mark Kenny of The Advertiser breaks ranks, saying Rudd “unquestionably had the better of it”, while echoing the customary caution that “the longer term political significance is unlikely to be great”.
By contrast, the headline in The Age tells us of “Rudd’s decisive win”. Michelle Grattan declares Rudd “the clear winner”, “sounding confident and convincing against an opponent whose energy flagged and temper flared”, while Tony Wright rates it “Rudd’s night on most fronts”. Similarly, the Sydney Morning Herald’s Peter Hartcher reckons Rudd the “clear winner”, and says he has “cemented his claim as frontrunner”. The assessment of the Canberra Times is that Rudd won “because he didn’t debate. He had a plan to sell and he came, he saw and he sold”. In the other non-News Limited paper available to hand, The West Australian, a report by Chris Johnson and Shane Wright talks of Rudd “clearly getting the better of the Prime Minister”. Political editor Andrew Probyn also gives it to Rudd, saying the Prime Minister was “on the back foot … over WorkChoices, climate change, leadership and interest rates”.
834 Comments
Pages: « 1 … 5 6 [7] 8 9 … 17 » Show All
Let me say I love the worm.
It dominates the news coverage for the entire day, drowning out both Howard’s announcement of his climate change fund and Costello’s criticism of Labor’s tax policy. If only we had a few more days of worm-dominated news, Labor would be a sure winner…
There’s an interesting article on nuclear power in today’s Slate:
http://www.slate.com/id/2176189/nav/tap3/
It contains the astonishing statistic that 80% of France’s electricity comes from nuclear power stations.
Typically, John “unlike Rudd, I take responsibility as leader” Howard claims he never heard of any anti-worm plan, denies all knowledge, refers all inquiries elsewhere, blames the Press Club,the ABC, Unions, state goernments, public servants, miniterial staffers, that bloke with a dog over there….
Last week it was John and Janette in Longman sussing out the Nuclear reactor site for Bribie Island and today it looks like a non core promise till after the election.
http://abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/10/22/2066193.htm
seajay @ 282: i agree. howard definitely looked “neurological” last night but he’s been looking a bit like that for a while. not sure exactly when i really started noticing it but i wouldn’t be surprised if he’s a [reasonably well-medicated] case of Parkinson’s.
Ah the sweet irony: Howard could lose an election based on a perception of his being a manipulative control-freak that was false in this particular instance!
I can see the scene on post-election morning. John and Janet will be chaining themselves inside Kirribilli singing “we shall not be moved”.
What was Howard on about with his closing statement? Read an article in the SMH this morning quoting how strong it was. Could not disagree more. Showed his age there – three R’s? WTF. Teaching basics sounds pretty basic compared to an education revolution. Nice 1950’s ideas.
305
I first noticed him twitching on that infamous night on the 7:30 Report when he begged us to be kind and re-elect him, but I just thought he was drunk. But last night’s twitching, together with that bizarre “Mr Speaker” slip at the apple festival in Bennelong is certainly suggesting he’s in trouble. If nothing else, his stress levels are through the roof and it’s showing.
That your rights at work ad with the Narre warren family nearly brings a tear to my eye. Very powerful, as is the mum with her kids.
More more more, how do I like it?
Morgan’s debate analysis:
http://www.roymorgan.com/news/polls/2007/4230/
Rudd was able to keep the ALP voters v. high for the whole debate, and Lib supporters were just below midpoint. Howard improved with Lib supporters as the debate wore on. Reactor generally split on party lines. However, on taxation and economic management, the electorate at large reacted positively to Rudd, while he didn’t do so well on climate change.
I think people are underestimating the extent of conservatism in the general public when it comes to education. I’d imagine Howard’s harking back to the 3 R’s would have majority support over the ‘airy fairy’ ideas of the latte sipping state Labor Governments.
Of course we all know its stupid, but it wasn’t aimed at us.
seajay @ 282
I am not a medico, but I was struck by his odd behaviour. It was obvious there is something amiss. I’ve mentioned this several times here and at this point wish to say that I bear no ill-will towards John Howard on the matter of health. In fact, if there is some disorder, I sincerely wish him all the best. It’s his policies I loathe.
There seems to be a pattern. There was his physical stumble a couple of months age, the strange “Mr Speaker” at the apple fest, the interest rate gaffe … small things that, taken in isolation, mean nothing much. And then last night’s performance.
This is a delicate area, however, I believe it is a legitimate line of discussion about a man asking us to re-elect him as Prime Minister.
On Howard’s closing, I think the poison dwarf got somethign right – the fact he referred to it so much in his closing is higly suggestive that Labor’s education rebate is biting, and biting hard.
LTEP: The problem was that this sort of thing is all about image and flash, and Howard’s closing statement had none of that. It was just dull and old-fashioned.
If anyone is going to slip up this election it will be Howard, IMHO.
Ltep, I disagree that his education closer was part of something bigger. I think Howard was expecting the debate to be all about education and had his conclusion planned based on that – he is not good on his feet, and didn’t adjust when he should have.
If this is not the case, the only other conclusion I can draw is that he expected to get onto this territory earlier in the debate but either forgot or wasn’t allowed to manipulate the discussion that way. Either way he just sounded weird bringing all that up at the end – not much of a conclusion to…whatever he was going on about all night at all.
But it probably does hint at the fact that the Libs will be bringing up ‘Australian values’ and education during the campaign. Maybe having a dig at the teachers union for being unaustralian?
LTEP, yes, many ppl would agree with Howard about education, but the fact is that it was off message. His closing statement should have thumped the “inexperienced union-dominated me-tooist Labor Party” etc etc. That’s their central theme and if he believes it he should have used it.
Kevin Rudd wants to debate Peter Costello: ABC News Radio.
yeti @ 46, if you’re still trying to catch the whole debate on-line, it’s @ The Australian’s website. That’s where I caught it this morning but was doing paperwork at the same time and did not catch JWH’s twitches nor his lizard tongue.
Has anyone noticed how the Libs are cleverly using Sky TV to introduce their policies and scare campaigns? Labor needs to do this. I’m sure it is just around the corner.
An interesting point I’ve picked up about Howard is if he gets a question that he doesn’t like, like the interest rate gaffe and one or two questions last night, he just goes ‘Hmm’. It’s like his mind is going ‘Oh cr*p, I have no answer for this’. I’ve not taken much notice of him in last decade, so I don’t know whether this is common or just a new thing for him.
Just checking MSM newswebsites at lunchtime and they are almost all calling the debate a win to Rudd now. That is also the view of whoever supplies the news headlines to the electronic panels in our building’s lifts (”most commentators call edbate as Rudd victory”).
It occurred to me, while I have seen some peopel say Rudd won, a few like Shanahan try to call it a draw, but I haven’t seen any credible commentator call it a victory to Howard. Has anyone seen such a call?
This was where the Longman seat got interesting.
http://bayjournal.com.au/joomla/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=574&Itemid=42
322 – no-one doing that would be credible!!!!
And what’s this?
Chris Uhlman, their ABC, on the World Today saying the Press Club chose the 90 minute format because they thought Kevin Rudd a two question sprinter, who would run out of puff in the long haul.
Surprise, backed the wrong nag, even though they rigged the race.
I think Rudd asking to debate Costello is a good move. I wonder if Costello has the ticker to do so? This puts Costello in a very awkward position.
Gusface you have your bite (rx@291). I know you are trying to push the Exclusive Brethren line. Friends of mine tell it has been all over talk radio. But MSM appear to have ignored it. I suppose it is because it hard to get another angle on it except the one presented by 4 corners. If I myself was a liberal vote and not of the EB I be would worry, mainly due to their attitude gays, women, and Outsiders. As Christian I find it hard to see them as brothers in Christ. I am hoping that KR, when and if he wins office has an inquiry into groups like the EB and their ability to circumvent Family Law, Labour Laws and Tax Laws. I am concerned that they are outside normal Australian society but are still able to win and tender for government contracts. It is interesting that over the last 10 years we have seen the growth of Christian group like these entering and prospering in the world of business. They appear to worship mammon and god. I suppose they see JWH as the good shepherd and the wolves as previously mentioned the Tax Law, Family Law and Labour Laws. Other Business that compete with them don’t have this projection.
I agree that it was off-message Adam, I think his whole debate didn’t have much consistancy and that’s the problem.
In fact their whole campaign is based on the slogan ‘Go for growth’. I’d be surprised if anyone could tell me exactly what that means and how it gives a proper direction to their campaign. Whilst I still believe ‘New Leadership’ is a clunker of a slogan at least we know what it means and exactly how it plays into the general campaign sentiment.
Whilst we’re on slogans, the Greens slogan “Make the switch” has to take the cake this election for the worst. Nearly as bad as Iemma’s ‘moving in the right direction but wwe still have work to do” (or whatever it was).
Does anyone know what the Democrats’ slogan is? Family First? One Nation?
Citizen’s Electoral Council should have a good one going.
Hope that Costello and Rudd have something televised in the way of a Debate. That would get people interested, except that about all Cossie has to bang on about will be the alleged mistake in the ALP tax plan.
Still Costello is the anointed heir apparent to be Opposition leader, so he really should get seen in a head to head with the next PM. Wonder if he loves the worm??
Rudd vs Costello in a debate?
That would mean two spineless creatures on Channel Nine at the one time.
I reckon Rudd walked away with it. In terms of debating content I think they were evenly matched, but Rudd had it all over Howard as far as style is concerned.
Rudd by a c*ntry mile. Howard revealed as an unimaginative, cranky, po-faced, repetitive little solicitor.
howard came over as a cantakerous old man. Yes he did have a spassm. My wife thought he was going to have a heart attack.
Howard lost it bey being so negative and Rudd won pretty convincingly
LTEP: The Climate Change Coalition’s slogan is ‘Keep the bastards focused’
Interesting that News Ltd’s online polls usually set a cookie to make multiple voting a little harder to do from the same computer. The “who won the vote” poll does not. Instead it is a simple matter to vote as often as you like, and would, indeed, be very simple to automate with a script.
In the cold light of day I wasn’t as impressed with Rudd last night as I was with the worm to help me.
Watching the debate with the worm definitely does influence your judgement about how the debate is progressing. A very potent device. No wonder Howard hates it.
I was thinking that 1 or 2 worm notches should have been automatically deducted from Rudd’s scale just to normalise things up a bit. Every time the camera pointed at Kevin07 the naughty nematode seemed to start curling its tail upwards in a pure reflex reaction.
Rudd made some progress towards saying what the bloggers have been suggesting he says – on unions, on Labor’s economic record (and Howard’s), on WorkChoices – but it was slightly less than full-strength in my opinion. But then again, judging from the way the worm nosedived every time anything like a “negative” statement was made, perhaps that was appropriate prudence on his part.
Howard definitely behaved like a rodent caught well out of its drainpipe comfort zone. He’s used to facing down interviewers, threatening their jobs by denying them access to him if they persist with a particular line of questioning. He is used to being kow-towed to, not treated (as the irritated news director for Nine put it) as merely “the leader of the Liberal Party” (oh, how that must have hurt). This was no Question Time with a tame Speaker, three or four rows of sycophants rah-rahhing him in the background, and a gallery full of tame hacks telling us how brilliant he was and how beautifully wedged Rudd was (on any subject they care to mention).
And then there was Costello, interjecting, smirking, sledging from the bleachers, treating the whole thing as some kind of joke event that had to be gotten over with before the natural, corrupt order of things was restored. As many have pointed out, this was not Parliament. They did not have their tame Speaker to shut up the Opposition. They must have hated it. They looked like the bullies they are: born to rule (in their own minds), but forced on the night to shut their traps and allow the people to have a listen and a think about the issues for themselves. Downer, the other schoolyard bovver boy was next to Costello. What a picture they painted together! How miserable they must have felt afterwards when it became clear that their great leader – whom they had declined to oust several times when they had the chance – had failed to cut the mustard with the voters.
I’m hoping the Rudd keeps up some of the fire in the belly that this debate would have ignited. I’m hoping he realises that he can be a little more assertive, and demonstrate a little more pride in his Labor heritage, without totally scaring off the horses. I know he’s got it in him. I think the public wants to see that too. Every PM, or potential PM, must display a bit of the mongrel to reassure the punters that they’ll stick up for Australia when the time comes.
LTEP, I think it was “More to do but… we’re moving in the right direction’.
Absolute shocker.
What are the “rumblings” about the newspoll?
Rudd clearly won the debate. Howard was rattled and tired.
Charlie, Howard won’t be there.
Yes, indeed… Ray Martin – the face of journalistic integrity for the KRudd Ascendancy.
I do not agree that Rudd worked to a script, inasmuch both the contestants did work to a script to a certain degree, as they had to. In other words, Rudd worked to a script less than Howard. Indeed, Rudd made it a point to attack Howard, mano a mano, and used a slightly below-the-belt tactic of attacking Howard in a following question about what Howard did not say (i.e. answer the question) in the previous question. It showed a great deal of freestyle enterprise, thinking on his feet, flexibility of mind, all the things that Howard wasn’t capable of.
This tactic seemed to annoy Howard no end, and he blanched and twitched as a result, but because he was so tightly scripted he didn’t make it a free-for-all, thus giving Rudd a decided advantage in allowing him to bitch-slap him whenever the latter felt like it.
The worm reacted very negatively to the cutaway shot of Costello and Downer, with Costello smirking his face off. This was the most damaging moment for the Coalition in the whole of the debate. While The Smirker has kept the smirk under tight rein throughout the campaign thus far, this unguarded cutaway moment will haunt the prime minister in waiting and waiting in the same way that the ad nauseam replayed aggro handshake damaged Latham. It was one of those moments where the normally hidden character trait leaps out and does a little prance.
While the debate itself has shown in the past not to correlate to election success or otherwise – the relationship appears quite random – the tv audience WILL take away the smirk in their minds eye. They will also remember Howard’s geriatric confusion and bad temper in contradistinction to Rudd’s cheerful confidence and master of his material; Rudd’s polished, even slick, camera performance in addressing the home viewers directly from time to time.
Howard seemed to suffer indigestion, or pinching shoes or too tight undies. Or something. He seemed unhappy and looked as if he wanted to be in his comfy chair in Kirribilli (Kevin seemed to be beatifically in his element like a boy saint). Howard was far from being on top of his agenda and suffered a serious flesh wound when he had difficulty answering the rising cost of living expenses question. In many people’s minds this reversed the assiduously planted propaganda that Howard was such a brilliant economic manager. Here was a demonstration that he indeed is out of touch.
The worm spent most of its time on top of the box and climbed the curtains over my AWA Deep Image when Rudd spoke, and languished at the bottom of the cage when Howard was perorating.
The worm took a particular dislike to Howard’s arm movements, especially the pulling on the invisible church bells. The left shoulder twitch seemed under firm control. I wondered if a restraining device in the form of a modified flak jacket was in place.
One question to the audience: Is Paul Kelly on Ibogaine?
derek corbett, i agree with you – i wish no-one ill health, not even john howard (despite a deep loathing of him and his policies). but he is getting on in years, there is obviously something big happening with his health and the stress of this campaign might be helping it along.
Milne has also claimed the Press Club (PC) and not the Libs ordered 9’s feed to be pulled, which raises a few questions.
1) How do the PC know what, if any, agreement the Liberals and Labour had with 9? Where the 9/Lib+Lab agreements incorporated into the PC/Lib+Lab agreements? If so then why didn’t the PC include them into its agreement with 9?
2) If the PC and 9 did not have an agreement about the worm then on what authority did it order the plug to be pulled? Who appointed them the media/political parties agreements police?
3) Who in the PC actually ordered the feed to be pulled? Was it Milne? If so, was he sober at the time?
I have made mention of this all year after I saw him in an interview not long after Rudd become Opposition leader. He is more irritable than ever and unable to hide or be aware of it, in parliament you may notice Costello having to cover for Howard, even in the last debate. On ABC AM earlier in the year he sounded fairly unwell a few times, short of breath, panting, but apparently it was just a cold. And he has had a few dark nights of the soul. Lat night he voice on the radio sounded no good and on TV for a while he looked like it was a strain to be out there.
Probably the stress of a fight and Rudd really is playing with his mind. Howard is panicking. Makes you wonder what treasures lay hidden in those departmental files.
If the polls even out a bit more he will probably settle down.
Re 285,
“Bob Brown calls for Senate ‘worm’ inquiry:
http://abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/10/22/2066142.htm
Hilarious.”
I hope he seriously does this. I understand that Nine at no time agreed to not use the Worm. In fact, they clearly said all the way through the process that they *would use* it. Everyone on both sides of the table full well knew what was coming down. For the press to be censored like that is unforgiveable. I know that Australia doesn’t have quite the same legal protections for freedom of speech that the USA does where I grew up, but perhaps it is high time that they legalized more so that this fiasco doesn’t have to happen again.
An independant agency to handle debates like what the USA has would be a good first step. Bob Brown to handle a Senate inquiry would be a good second step towards deciding what legislation is needed to prevent problems in the future.
The Greens are warming on me
[but not enough to vote them in the HOR]
The main talking point from the Howard camp is that Howard won it on substance; Rudd on gloss. It is long overdue to debunk this myth.
It goes back as far as the Peacock wars in the 80s. According to the spin then, Howard was strong on policy (substance) and Peacock on style. It was as wrong then as it is today – just as is the myth that Howard is a ‘conviction politician’.
Howard helped spread this myth by constantly staying ‘on message’ on IR, taxation, economic policy. But it was all just a rattling off of Institute of Public Affairs and other right-wing think tanks urgings without necessarily even understanding what they were about and/or what would be required to implement them.
He has long had a reputation in the Liberal Party as being some sort of specialist on industrial relations. But it is entirely a political myth. Look at the absolute shambles he made of IR with Workchoices, or even before with the Bastard Boys. He clearly has no idea and has taken IR backwards from the deregulation changes that Keating introduced.
We have seen something of the same from his economic mantra, repeated so often as to establish a reputation as a boring but knowledgeable nerd when he is not even that. He made a mess of his stint at Treasury. Even then he has tried to blame it all on Fraser (untrue according to Fraser) and even claim that Hawke-Keating just pinched all his ideas. His PM attitude to fiscal management seems to be to cut everything except ‘core’ stuff, to budget for a modest surplus and then claim that it was his and Costello’s brilliant management that led a bumper surplus, and then try to use some of that for pork in the next election.
But to return to the ’substance’ myth. John Hewson worked for him as a staffer, then later with him as a polly and then as his leader. Hewson said Howard had no interest in policy development – only in the political impact of decisions. If we take Border Protection-Pacific Solution, the Aboriginal ’save the kiddies’ intervention, and the Mersey Hospital rescue … there is ample evidence that Hewson was right.
‘Man of Substance’ my foot! I suppose it is possible to admire the ingenuity that went into creating this myth over the years … after all he managed to transform some of his least attractive features into assets. But essentially he is superficial, an electioneering political animal. No depth at all.
Ah, the Fourth Estate – infested by bloody worms! Shock, horror, probe!
I too don’t wish Howard ill-health. I’d like to see him suffer a crushing defeat, then have many years to reflect on it in less up-market accomodation than he enjoys now. Perhaps something in Lakembaa, where his broad views on racial tollerance will ensure he is embraced by the locals.
And on shutting down the media, Bob Brown, I think, ‘this is not Burma.’
It is our election, not theirs.
GO get him, Rudd
……. Now Costello will have to find some weasel words to explain why he can’t/won’t do it 
……
Can’t wait to see the next chapter in this developing story
Pages: « 1 … 5 6 [7] 8 9 … 17 » Show All