Opinion polls have shown the Clark Government trailing the main opposition National Party for several months, although the gap narrowed to 6.5 percentage points at the start of September. The announcement came amidst a scandal involving political donations to Foreign Minister Winston Peters’ New Zealand First Party.
With the mood turning against Labor in Western Australia and the Northern Territory, Kevin Rudd may need a new plan. How about an action plan? For more than nine months, like a period of gestation, we have waited in anticipation for the change that the Prime Minister claimed this country needed after the Howard years. Smarting from attacks that his Government lacked direction, Rudd hurriedly rushed out a few planks in his education revolution a few weeks ago.
Growth rose, but so did unemployment. Productivity surged, but wages fell. Growth was fueled by reckless lending and borrowing, it created an illusion of wealth even as many Americans lost ground. Fixing that disconnect is the central economic challenge for the next president.
The bailout plan for the companies, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, a seismic event in a year of repeated financial crises followed by aggressive federal intervention, places the companies in a government conservatorship, much like a bankruptcy reorganization. The plan also replaces the management of the companies.
New South Wales Premier Nathan Rees says he will not be raising taxes to fix the state’s economic woes, but has labelled government departments “absolutely ripe for reform”. Mr Rees’s new cabinet team will tomorrow be briefed on the grim economic outlook that has put the state’s triple-A credit rating at risk.
With just over eight weeks left until Election Day, the two sides are settling into a set of state-by-state face-offs, with an increased focus on turning out supporters and tough decisions looming about where to invest time and advertising money.
Ross Garnaut’s new emissions trading report represents a double bonus for the Rudd Government. It is desperately needed. Garnaut has given Rudd more policy flexibility and better political options on the nightmare issue. The unknown test is how Garnaut’s ideas will carry in the international arena.
Alaska’s economic well-being — sustained by oil and federal spending — has allowed Sarah Palin to avoid some of the tough budgetary choices vexing other governors. That raises questions about how much Ms. Palin’s experience is relevant to the rest of the nation and how much she can relate to struggling blue-collar voters.
The question we want answered is whether the growth slowdown under way will be another mid-cycle correction as in 1996 and 2001, or alternatively the long-predicted business cycle recession, last seen 17 years ago in the recession we had to have? Unfortunately corrections and recessions can look similar in their initial stages.
News of the Government’s push to merge its infrastructure policy with its ambition of reducing indigenous disadvantage came as Kevin Rudd told business lobby the Australian Industry Group his Government was embarking on the biggest infrastructure project in the country’s history as part of the Labor tradition of nation-building.