Opposition Leader Tony Abbott. Photo / Getty Images
Peter Beattie, pink batts and sliding poll ratings - as Australia enters week two of the campaign, voters could be forgiven for thinking it's back to the future for the Labor Party, rather than "A New Way", as its campaign slogan promises.
The New Way was supposed to deliver a
new, improved Kevin Rudd, who would soar above Tony Abbott and induce collective amnesia in the electorate, which would forget all about the dysfunction and policy blunders of the last six years.
Instead, Rudd - who leapfrogged Abbott in the trustworthiness ratings shortly after defenestrating Julia Gillard - is now seven points behind, says a Fairfax-Nielsen poll. In a new Galaxy poll, a third of voters cited Rudd's previous record in government as his greatest weakness. One lowlight of that first term was Labor's disastrous home insulation programme, which was linked to four deaths and more than 200 house fires. On Friday, Abbott pledged an inquiry into the "pink batts" debacle, while visiting an insulation factory in Rudd's Griffith electorate.
The Prime Minister was also in Queensland, where he unveiled a new/old candidate for the Liberal-held seat of Forde: Peter Beattie, the former state Premier. And in a new twist on an old catch-phrase which Australians are already heartily sick of, Rudd declared: "His name's Peter, he's from Queensland and he's here to help as well."
The parachuting in of Beattie, 60, prompted a senior Liberal strategist, Mark Textor, to tweet a picture from Dad's Army. But among Abbott's top media advisers is Australia's oldest federal MP, Philip Ruddock, 70. Ruddock has said his main task is to "keep Tony calm".
