That "quick thinking" bank garuntee of the Labor party also, in accordance with the law of unintended consequences, nearly destroyed the managed funds industry overnight and saw the big banks ingest their credit union competitors, spit out the bones and start raising interest rates above fed reserve rates whenever they felt like it.

Even in its greatest moment, the Rudd government was wrecking things.

I think even Whitlam might get off the scrap heap when history looks at the current deceit and incompetence.

Wakatak,

Shouldn't there be an 'n' in your name?

Point taken Keith. I think Wakatak wants big government (and Big Sister specifically) to control our lives. He seems emotionally invested in bowing to the state. Perhaps he would feel more at home in Red North Korea.

In any case, Peter’s point about Julia’s lack of focus is a central concern to many voters, as the polls indicate. She is losing touch with the common man. Labor’s carbon dioxide tax too looks like her undoing

The other version of this philosophy is that it is the duty of government to ensure that the country is well run by the people most capable of doing so, and government should only intervene when this is not running well or equitably.

The ALP is trying grandiose schemes of social engineering without the experience to do it well. The voters today are intolerance of waste and incompetence, even when the ideas are good.

I disagree with almost every position espoused by this author, but agree with part of the conclusion. Labor seems to be addicted to self flagellation by taking on controversial issues and turning them into rods for their own backs by stuffing them up, if not in the policy, then definitely in the politics.
Some examples:
1) Taxing the miners is a sellable policy, but only if people know specifically why it's being done. Just giving more funds to the Treasury is not going to cut it. So far, the government has been very vague about what would be done with this money, leaving them open to 'No'-ny Abbott's criticism that they just like taxes.
2) It might have been possible to win the argument over 'boat people' if a clear and defensible policy had been consistently applied. So far, it's not clear what the policy is, other than to set up a highly unlikely facility in Timor. The obvious conclusion is that Labor simply doesn't have control of this area of policy.
3) Taxing carbon is probably the right thing to do, but that's only the first step. Again the government is very unclear about what will replace carbon, but seems to assume that everyone knows this, which is not the case. Again, unless Labor makes clear how the tax will lead to alternatives and at what cost, they will be painted as being enamoured of taxes for their own sakes (as No-ny is doing).
4) The climate change issue was a joke from the time Julia announced her citizens' council during the election campaign, as good an admission as could be imagined that she didn't know how to solve the problem, which subsequent actions and debates have confirmed.

In other words, Coulson's views on issues are antediluvian, but his comments on Labor's political incompetence are close to the mark.