Following Labor's collapse at the polls after Abbott's relentless attack on every mis step or blunder by Labor, Shorten and the Labor cabinet have clearly decided that relentless negativity works and that they will use Abbott's tactics against him. However, this is not as easy as it looks, as there is a fine line between focussing the attention of the voters on government blundering, and simply looking like whinging without reason.

Abbott did not oppose everything (the record shows that 80% of legislation passed without opposition), he carefully chose the issues where the malfeasance by the government was clear, and resonated strongly with the voters. Debt, the carbon tax lie, and the boats were the clearest examples.

Shorten has chosen

1) Boat arrivals and Indonesian relations. The initial missteps by the government were met with cries of derision from the opposition and predictions of failure to stop the boats. This has now fallen silent as the boats have stopped, and relations are normalising.

2) Shorten as the architect of scrapping the BCC, tried to frame the attempt to re establish the BCC or set up a royal commission as an attack on the unions and workers. The multitude of stories of union corruption and Shorten's union background is starting to look like a cover up. The Royal commission is starting to look like an issue that will bleed Shorten and Labor slowly for years.

Etc,

The issues that Shorten has chosen to fight on resonate most with rusted on Labor voters, and while his attacks initially had traction, the latest Newspoll shows that the coalition is beginning to claw back, and Labor and Shorten have dropped sharply. The essential poll also shows that while Abbott is not popular, that the coalition is preferred to manage nearly every important issue.

Abbott's popularity is -5 .
SM is winging labor are not in govt; Abbott and his clowns are in govt; but they somehow don't know that yet.
If Abbott can't get his legislation through that is his problem, lets remember the DD election.

Have the Tories finally stopped blaming the Whitlam government for all Australian's economic woes, and moved on to blaming the Gillard and Rudd governments instead. With all their false posturing that they, and they alone, are Australia's economic gurus, surly we will see Australia on Easy Street before we know it. With those two economic titans 'Sloppy' Joe Hockey and Mathias (I'm really Arnie Schwarzenegger) Cormann calling the economic shots we can't fail to prosper! Or can we? If the economic record of the previous Tory Howard Government is anything to go by, they will be a complete failure.
Here is a link to a SMH article on what the IMF made of Australian governments economic records.

http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/hey-big-spender-howard-the-king-of-the-loose-purse-strings-20130110-2cj32.html

It was clear from the title, only Shadow Minister could post such a thread.
While unsure Shortens negativity is near as bad as Abbott,s,it never could be.
I am sure Shorten needs to think as the voters he wants to win over do, not those already in the ALP camp.

Needs stating however Abbott,s conduct before we go past it is awful and negative.
No leader of any opposition can avoid bringing that to our attention.
SM tells us of his life time achievements and how intelligent he is, no doubt all true.
But a closed mind is in my view an empty one and this thread talks to me of an unwillingness to see views other than his.

Paul,

While I expect mindless blather from 579, I had hoped that you might have the IQ to read the post and comment on the contents. Instead all you offer is an irrelevant mindless rant that affirms yet again that you don't like the coalition.

Perhaps you could intellectually pull your finger out of your backside and address the issue w.r.t:

a) the approach that Electricity Bill has taken,
b) your comments on its successes / failures /
c) where he could go from here.

If you do rise to the challenge of forming a considered opinion I would be delighted to debate the issue with you.

http://www.tradingeconomics.com/australia/government-debt-to-gdp

Note that the debt increases during Labor governments and reduces under coalition governments.

And how much has Abbott and co; stacked on the debt since he has been there doing nothing. It was 40 billion at xmas it will be at least 60 billion now. Abbott was always on about the 150 million / day so what has he done about it, besides nothing. All talk before the election and nothing since. What a con job.