Wakahuia

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MALCOLM TURNBULL last night described Kevin Rudd as a weak Prime Minister.
Yet not so weak that Turnbull wants to risk a big fight with him.
The
Opposition Leader, whose approval rating in the Nielsen poll is 43 per
cent, has decided discretion is the better part of valour in his
confrontation with a prime minister whose approval rating is 74 per
cent. .
In his budget reply speech, Turnbull has decided to pick only a small skirmish over the Rudd Government’s budget. He has
announced that the Opposition will oppose just one budget measure,
which accounts for only 0.
Turnbull evidently took the threat seriously.15 per cent of the spending the budget
proposes over the next four years.
Turnbull chose this skirmish carefully.
That measure is Rudd’s plan to deny the private health insurance rebate to higher-income earners. But it is a strongly symbolic issue in the Liberal heartland.
It is not big enough for Rudd to go to the polls over.
So
Turnbull, by making himself a small target, is trying to allow all the
attention to focus on Rudd and, in particular, the debt Rudd plans to
run up over the next four years.
It will give committed Liberal partisans something to fight for, without giving Turnbull much to fight over.
He wants Rudd and the Treasurer, Wayne Swan, to be the big targets.
He wants Rudd and the Treasurer, Wayne Swan, to be the big targets.
“He was so
ashamed he could not bring himself, in a speech of 30 minutes, to even
mention the $58 billion deficit he had created,” Turnbull said.
Turnbull
highlighted the fact that Swan’s budget speech to the Parliament on
Tuesday made no reference to the size of the deficit.
And Turnbull invoked the spectre of Paul Keating and all the old associations with debt and deficit.
Turnbull will spend every day to the next election highlighting what Swan was anxious to avoid.
This
is designed to prevent the two opponents being able to kill each other.
The
big table at the centre of the House of Representatives mimics the one
at Westminster, which measures two swords’ lengths across. He will, instead, taunt him endlessly.
Turnbull is not going to give Rudd the chance to get close enough for
electoral sword play.

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