Articles on OLO or anywhere else always contain comment. No "facts" stand by themselves.

It would be a poor reflection on some commenters if they decide to nail the messenger (Bruce) rather than concentrate on his message.

While I often don't agree with Bruce, I've seen comment threads on OLO descend into vicious character assassination.

OLO IS about comment - and it takes more guts to write articles than to snipe anonymously from the galleries.

Regarding the message - I think its a good article. Rudd has gotten himself in trouble, but he may be wise enough to mend some ways. The alternative of an Abbott in the Chair is risky.

Much of what Abbott has stood for before is vigourous High Church intervention into our secular society. The current airbrushed Ironman Abbott appears a facade to win over swinging female voters who up to now have rightly been suspicious.

If we're worried about internet filtering just imagine what Abbott's moral filtering/censorship policies might be.

Then there's Abbott's touted reintroduction of fault/blame divorce http://www.theage.com.au/national/no-fault-of-abbotts-but-big-marriage-idea-gets-little-support-20090712-dhe7.html sitting, waiting.

Many aspects of the Coalition policy are appealing, but not from the gospels of Abbott.

Come election time careful what you wish for.

Pete

A “sour grapes” diatribe.

I agree Rudd has been a disappointment, but he served his purpose weaning people off the mendacious and nasty Howard-led government by not scaring the horses.

People voted for change at the last election. The country had tired of Howard's divisivness, his targeting of minorities and his deceit. The cosying up to the Bush adminsitration over Iraq, the denial of climate change (until the last moment, thanks to Turnbull) and the refusal to apologise to the aborigines were all black marks against Howard.

The country wanted to move on to a better-spirited centrist politics that recognised climate change as a reality, moved away from the extremist neo-libertarian economics represented by Work Choices, recognised past injustices against our native people and used the one-off wealth injection of the commodities boom for long-term structural change in our federation.

Rudd promised much, but apart from symbolic gestures, has delivered little. The problem is Abbott merely represents a rearguard action by the defeated Howard forces to set the country back again.

The Liberal Party is terminally divided. Its moderate conservative and small-'l' liberals have been hounded out of the party by far-right xenophobes, fundamentalists and 'Tea Party' style populists. Gone altogether is the Liberal Party's heritage of moderation.

Rudd or no Rudd, Labor's centrist, progressive and global perspective still represents Australia's best chance for the future. Australia dodged a very big bullet in the GFC - thanks to the rapid fiscal stimulus by Swan and the legacy of both the ground-breaking reforms of the Hawke-Keating era and the surplus left by Costello.

Most people agree that our overall direction should be about using the proceeds of the commodities boom to invest in long-term needs in infrastructure, health and education. We need to skill ourselves for a much more competitive world and we need to maintain the good things about Australia - its tolerance, fair-mindedness and willingness to innovate.

Despite Rudd's failings, there are at least see some ideas from Labor on those fronts, but nothing from the Coalition except a return to divisive dog-whistling politics.

plantagenet, the whole article is a vicious character assasination from someone who hates Kevin Rudd and others in the government. Genuine criticism and analysis of political leaders is welcome but ranting is a waste of time and designed to mislead. There are too many good writers and analysts with some insight for OLO to indulge this rant. I know nothing of Mr Haigh other than the comments I read on ABC online when they ran the same article (just with a different heading) that he has written about 19 articles in the past year that basically say the same thing - ie I hate Kevin!

We all know that the polls show a decline in support for Rudd at the moment. Big deal. This article speculates, makes statements that are not backed by evidence, projects lamely into the future. Unless you want to latch on to this as Liberal party propaganda you can't take this stuff seriously.

I agree with your assessment of all the politicians Mr Denmore, but do not agree with you over the stimulus. I think it has been a waste of money and has only delayed the inevitable position of returning to square one.

It seems to be a world wide phenomenon that all governments have taken on private debt and it has now just become sovereign debt. The scenario unfolding now seems to justify this opinion as the debt is still there, it has just changed hands in many cases. No one has satisfactorily explained to me why increasing debt ultimately solves the problem. If it is to gain time before increased production kicks in, it will fail.

I wonder how Greece will can ever afford to pay back one billion dollars if it cannot even pay back half the interest on that amount.

There will be many more debt wrote-offs around the world and "quantitative easing" (firing up the printing presses) before all this plays out.

Although I have got off the subject a little, it was a good article

I agree, true for me. Not sure why someone who may represent the views of some us are not worthy. Make me sick people lke that exist and the type of person that feeds into Rudd's control freak machine.

I have never heardd of you echidna and certainly never voted for you. If you own the website and do not like an article then remove it. Otherwise what is your problem? Little Miss Political Censorship is it?

Perhaps another reason why I am disgusted in this government. The internet filter goes too far and is censorship. Now we have Conroy overstating what Google has done for political gain. They want to be bigger than business, they want more power than business. They will never get it but the damage their ego centric ways is doing is costing society big time. They use spin to moralise. I have never been so angry at a government in my life, never not even close.

Yet Abbot? All I can see see is divide and conqueor power trippers so maye it will be an election for Independants. Labor would need to re-organise NOW for me to even consider them.

I voted Labor at the last election.

Also if writers are required evidence then why not government? Have not seen any from them. Oh yes I did, that there was no evidence to suggest money should be spent wisely lol.