JON FAINE: When you get on a train in London's underground there's a big sign everywhere saying mind the gap. Well, Kevin Rudd should be minding the gap because the gap is closing between himself and Tony Abbott and himself and Julia Gillard. In fact, it seems that the Prime Minister's trend line in the polls is a steady down. Is this causing a rethink in the ranks of federal Labor? Lindsay Tanner is the Finance Minister in Kevin Rudd's Government. Lindsay Tanner, good morning.
LINDSAY TANNER: Good morning, Jon.
JON FAINE: Are you concerned about these latest figures?
LINDSAY TANNER: Oh, obviously we take a degree of notice of opinion polls and we've taken a bit of a hit over the past few weeks, in the wake of some difficult decisions. I think we've already talked about that. I guess today is just another symptom of that. We're committed to working our way forward and obviously we've got a pretty tough Budget that we've just laid down so we'll just keep chipping away.
JON FAINE: What was tough about the Budget? The Budget was supposed to provide some sort of lift for the Government, it was supposed to lay the foundation for an improvement in the polls and early indications are it's done nothing of the sort.
LINDSAY TANNER: I think implicit in your question, Jon, is a contradiction. Laying the foundations is the operative term and I think that's precisely what it's done. Opinion polls are, you know, not much more than a snapshot in time and they tend to reflect who's been in the media over the past couple of weeks, what's on people's minds. One way or another that picture will be very different in a few months' time. Whether it'll be better for the Government, of course, is yet to be seen. That's partly up to us.
JON FAINE: The trend line of the public polls shows the Prime Minister heading in the downwards direction, Lindsay Tanner. Unless the Labor Party has private polling of a different kind it's a fairly grim scenario, isn't it?
LINDSAY TANNER: Oh, look, you'd always rather be heading upward rather than downward but part of this, of course, is that for a long period - far longer than you would have expected - Kevin Rudd at absolutely stellar ratings so there was always going to come a time when the gloss would come off that because it's just impossible to sustain forever. In government you disappoint people, you make decisions where, no matter which way you jump, somebody's going to be upset and inevitably that's been occurring to us. So I think you shouldn't lose sight of the fact that he's come off a very, very high base, record levels, so what's happening now is that he's heading back towards the kind of levels that most of the time incumbent leaders, be they Prime Minister or premiers - prime ministers or premiers - tend to have.
JON FAINE: The poll published in today's Australian newspaper, Lindsay Tanner, suggests that not just is the Prime Minister on the nose, not just is the Labor Party struggling, not just is Julia Gillard now rapidly closing the gap on the Prime Minister, but the Greens have improved their standing by 50 per cent since the last election. This is, for someone like yourself in a seat that the Greens are targeting, I would have thought, about as bad as news can get.
LINDSAY TANNER: Look, Jon, that's a bit of a relief. I thought you were going to say I was on the nose. Look, one lesson I've learned over the years is that opinion polls are very, very poor guides of the Greens' standing. Like, if you look at the record you will see that the level they poll in actually elections is invariably well below what they poll in opinion polls, opinion polls relatively close to that election. And I think that's a factor of demographics, the kinds of people who tend to vote Green and their propensity to answer opinion polls, the question of whether you've got a fixed line telephone at home, a whole range of technical things which, in my view, overstate the Greens' support. Now, having said that, that doesn't mean I haven't got a big challenge on my hands nor do we ignore the fact that we've got a challenge from the Greens in a number of key Labor seats.
JON FAINE: And who represents your best chance to hold to your seat? A Labor campaign led by Kevin Rudd or a Labor campaign led by Julia Gillard?
LINDSAY TANNER: I'm absolutely happy and have no questions about fronting up to my voters on the basis of our record and our leader, Kevin Rudd, and saying this is why you should vote Labor because although inevitably we've disappointed you on a few things, we've done lots of important things, whether it's the apology, withdrawing combat troops from Iraq, getting rid of WorkChoices, massive new investment in public housing, and in the education system, in higher education and the problem is that some people will always look at the relatively isolated things they don't like and ignore the real achievements. Well, I think there have been real achievements and the person who's driven those has been Kevin Rudd.
JON FAINE: And particularly the ETS backflip, for the Greens, is pretty much all they need for a campaign against you, is it not?
LINDSAY TANNER: Well, frankly, Jon, if I were the Greens I'd be pretty embarrassed at all of that because they are the key reason there is no emissions trading scheme in Australia today. They had an opportunity, when their votes made the difference because we had two Liberal votes in December and if the Greens had have voted for it, it would now be law. Now, okay, they say it wasn't good enough, well, the answer is we're left with nothing and it reminds me a lot of the republic campaign when a whole lot of people on the left ran around saying vote no and then we'll have a big campaign for a real republic. Whatever happened to that campaign?
JON FAINE: Well, the alternative scenario was the Prime Minister putting his conviction to the test and calling a double dissolution which is still not happening and that's the other way of putting some substance onto the bones, isn't it? But that's not an option, apparently, either.
LINDSAY TANNER: Well, Jon, two things here. One is that the emissions trading scheme's not the only issue in town. Yes, it's a huge issue but it's not the only one. But secondly, there's no guarantee that a double dissolution would produce the numbers in a joint sitting, assuming we still couldn't get our proposal through the Senate, there's no guarantee it would produce the numbers in a joint sitting necessary to pass the emissions trading scheme because if the Greens and the Liberals are voting against it, which is what they've been doing, then we've got a fairly solid gap in the Senate and you wouldn't automatically assume that if we did get re-elected in the House of Reps that the margin in the House of Reps would be big enough to overcome that gap.
JON FAINE: Well, it's a fascinating situation. We'll be speaking to the leader of the Opposition this morning as well. I'm grateful to you for your time and thank you, Lindsay Tanner, Financial Minister in the federal Government and defending a slim majority from what's thought to be a targeted Green seat in inner Melbourne at the next federal election as well.
-ends-
| Media Contact: | Website: |
|---|---|
| Nardia Dazkiw - 0418 144 690 | www.financeminister.gov.au |
