Lexi,

It is game set and match.

The best you and the other Labor tragics can provide is gaffes, and Abbott stating what he thinks is true without checking his facts, and having to retract.

What we have with Juliar is deliberate lies to gain power or to protect it to Rudd, to Wilkie, to parliament, and repeatedly to the electorate.

To all those blinkered, rusted on Labor deniers,

Tony might be a man's man but Julia is a liar's liar.

Most of the electorate are not choosing between Tony and Julia.

The polls show they are chosing between the two major parties, their policies and their performances and currently that is 54% Coalition to 46% Labor Greens alliance.

All the negativity towards Tony hasn't turned that around and it it won't in future. Nor will changing leaders ... that'll be guaranteed to make things worse for Labor.

As Tony goes into positive and visionary mode, aka his press club speech, and as Gillard and Labor are so obviously trapped into issue by issue defensive mode and the attack Tony negativity ... well we all know only the coalition will benefit.

All that is likely to happen is a continuation of blundering by Gillard and Labor and that will merely re-inforce current perceptions and change no votes. Any positives by Gillard and her mates will be met with increasing scepticism and will appear as more and more desperate.

I don't make the rules but that's how Rudd, Gillard and Labor has created them for now folks.

imajulianutter,

Choosing between the two major political parties in Australia at present is like choosing between Coles and Woolworths to do your shopping...it's akin to a duopoly, and neither party offers anything remotely inspiring.

No, Shadow Minister, all the evidence points in the direct opposite direction, doesn’t it?

Most well-informed commentators not welded on to one party accept that all leaders of political parties abandon promises from time to time.

John Howard famously repudiated his commitment to “no GST, never, ever” before the 1998 election with no-one obliging him to do so. This was a pretty craven backflip.

Gillard was forced to abandon her “no carbon tax” commitment in 2010 when confronted by a cliffhanger election, a hung parliament, a potential constitutional crisis and the overwhelming insistence of the independents, the Greens and her own party that she not allow a serial liar to become prime minister.

That was also a backflip and a broken promise. But it wasn’t a lie, was it? Because before the election, when everyone expected either Labor or the Coalition to win with a majority, it was a deliverable policy.

In fact, Labor’s preferred policy – a cap and trade scheme – remains deliverable. But in three or so years time. For now, the Greens have sufficient electoral support to have a voice in Government whether we like it or not. So Australia has carbon tax for now. That is how democracy works.

In contrast to Ms Gillard’s forced policy change, we have seen the Lateline clip, linked above, of Tony Abbott telling the nation he could not recall meeting the cardinal at the presbytery a week or so before. A deliberate blatant lie – in the sense of a statement he knew at the time was false.

Just watch the body language, facial expressions and the defensive “Why shouldn’t I meet with Cardinal Pell.” This was a serious, calculated attempt to deceive and mislead. There are others.

Here it is again in case anyone missed it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tc5ljcri6Nk

The question yesterday on Mirko Bagaric’s thread remains unanswered: Do you have examples of blatant lies – in the sense of false statements made knowingly – from Julia Gillard equivalent to that of Tony Abbott’s blatant porkie on Lateline? [excluding on leadership challenges and climate science.]

Anyone?

Alan Austin deliberatley ignores the fact that Howard took the GST issue to the election while Gillard is far gutless to knowing it is a betrayal of trust. With all the weaseling that fact remains and the electorate know it.

46% to 54% that is not a bad position for an incumbent 2 years out from an election. Those figures would be about normal. Wasn't it Paul Keeting that won the un-winnable election.