Rudd's big policy push as election dates loom

Kevin Rudd. Photo / Greg Bowker

CANBERRA - Australia is becoming awash in promises as Prime Minister Kevin Rudd feels the political tide tugging at his feet before this year's election, and as three Labor states prepare to go to the polls.

Rudd, who has publicly acknowledged failings in his leadership and the Government's performance, has already started pumping out much-delayed policies that were central to his campaign in 2007.

A rush of similar pledges is pouring out in Tasmania and South Australia, where elections will be held on March 20. Victoria will also go to the polls before the end of the year.

While the outcome of state elections is determined mainly by local issues and is rarely a reliable guide to federal voting trends, the polls will be closely watched in Canberra as strategists plan for an election now likely to be much closer than expected.

Since the conservative Tony Abbott won leadership of the Liberal Party in December and shifted the Opposition solidly to the right, life has become harder for Rudd.

He has been widely criticised for failing to fulfil his election promises and for poor communication skills that, for example, first forced major compromises to his key greenhouse emissions trading scheme, and then aided its blockage in the Senate.

Yesterday Agriculture Minister Tony Burke conceded the Government had done a terrible job of explaining the scheme to the nation's farmers, among the most determined of ETS opponents and whose views hardened the decision to kill it by the Nationals, the junior Coalition partner.

Rudd has also been forced to demote his Environment Minister, Peter Garrett, after the bungled subsidised home insulation scheme that is linked to four deaths and more than 90 house fires.

Rudd acknowledged his problems at the weekend, telling the ABC that the Government was taking a whacking in the polls and that worse could be expected.

"The bottom line is I think we deserve it, not just in terms of recent events but more broadly," he said.

"Where we have to improve and lift our game - where I need to lift my game - is in delivering in the key outstanding areas of reform in both health and hospitals, in education and in getting on with the business of action on climate change as well."

As Rudd delivered his mea culpa, a Taverner poll in Sydney's Sun Herald showed support for the Government and the Opposition in New South Wales was running 50-50 in the two-party preferred vote that determines Australian elections. Abbott's popularity had also risen, with support as preferred prime minister now 40 per cent against Rudd's 53 per cent.

A Newspoll in yesterday's Australian reported that as well as leading Labor by one point in the federal primary vote, the Opposition had narrowed the Government's two-party preferred vote to four points - 52 per cent to 48 per cent.

Rudd's former dominance as preferred prime minister is also shrinking. At the time of Abbott's victory over former leader Malcolm Turnbull, Rudd was ahead of the Opposition as preferred prime minister by 65 per cent to 14 per cent.

His lead has fallen sharply against Abbott's rising star, ahead now by 55 per cent to 30 per cent, the closest an Opposition leader has come to Rudd since 2007, according to Newspoll.

Rudd has now released his long-awaited national schools curriculum, which will be trialled in 155 schools and operating at all schools by 2013.

The curriculum places emphasis on literacy and numeracy, and on indigenous history and culture, Asia and sustainability. But it has been attacked by the Opposition, which said it promoted a "black armband" view of Australian history by focusing on the treatment of minorities at the expense of Australia's European heritage.