This week was a time for new beginnings. In the US, Barack Obama accepted the Democratic Party nomination, while Republican John McCain the little-known Sarah Palin as his running mate. In Australia, the Liberal leadership speculation entered an even more confusing stage, while the Labor Party outlined a number of new policies.

If Kevin Rudd can get the punters to stay awake while he makes the states and the Jurassic education unions line up where successive Howard government ministers failed, then that’s terrific. After all, there’s no copyright on decent policies in Parliament, where one man’s plagiarist is another’s visionary.

While the messages are various, the stands taken by Kevin Rudd this week will send a few shudders through state government and the unions. They’ll also suggest to the “battlers” that on some things, not all that much has changed from the former Howard government.

As Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and his deputy Julia Gillard began the hard sell of tough new measures to improve school standards, the trade unions continued to flex their muscles behind the scenes over a number of policy measures.

The former health minister is the first Liberal frontbencher to plump for the former treasurer to remain in parliament and to try to become prime minister. Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard both launched pre-emptive attacks on Mr Costello in parliament yesterday, suggesting he was both a stalking assassin and a jelly custard.

Opposition education spokesman Tony Smith has labelled the Prime Minister’s plans as copycat measures and says Mr Rudd has not yet delivered his promise of a computer for every senior secondary student. The Australian Education Union also says Mr Rudd’s proposals are not new and are merely a diversion.

This is an unacceptable situation that penetrates to a pivotal issue in politics: Rudd’s ability to win enough goodwill from state governments to make viable his economic and social reform agenda. The time for a national industrial relations system arrived some years ago. It has been championed by everyone from Gough Whitlam to John Howard and, in 2007, Rudd and Gillard.

Rudd and Gillard will not under any circumstances break Labor’s pre-election promises, and certainly not at this early stage. Anyway, the stand-off over the building industry watchdog could turn out to be an electoral plus, as the militant construction union has a reputation for thuggery and is hardly popular.

Union leaders have unveiled plans for a three-week advertising blitz highlighting the fact that the Australian Building and Construction Commission is empowered to fine individual workers up to $22,000 for stopping work, or jail them for six months for simply refusing to answer questions about union activities.

Rebel Labor MPs have raised concerns about the Australian Building Construction Commission, as well as the welfare payment plan. But the Government defended both measures, arguing that it had flagged the welfare reforms in the May budget and that it had promised to retain the ABCC until 2010 at last year’s election.