Radio Australia Today Editorial

Kevin Rudd’s worm turns

24 March 2010

In case you missed it, the Australian prime minster Kevin Rudd took on his Opposition counterpart Tony Abbott in a major debate about health policy, answering questions from the Canberra press gallery.

There was much ado, and as it turns out, the ado was about not very much at all.

This should have been expected, because although the PM went into the debate with a fully set health policy, the Opposition leader walked in empty-handed. He hasn’t announced his health policy yet.

So the situation was always going to be a case of the PM trumpeting what he has already announced, and Tony Abbott trying to tear down those announcements.

It was never going to be a good look for Tony Abbott, especially since he was attacking policies that appeared to be about building health infrastructure.

And it wasn’t a good look. Commercial television brought back a worm, a visual indicator directly linked to assembled groups of swinging voters who had buttons in their hands. They pressed either positive or negative as each leader spoke.

The worm didn’t favour Tony Abbott very much, probably for the reason I just outlined.

But what was interesting was how the PM just had to open his mouth to get the swinging voters buttoning their approval.

Is this because they love our PM, or because he was sayingg the right things. Probably the latter. The PM’s talk was full of positive reinforcement. He was often positive and talked of construction, reform and improvement. Tony Abbott found that such words are hard to beat in a debate, and that you’re probably only going to beat them with messages that are even more positive. Unfortunately he brought nothing to the debate that could out-positive the PM.

It’s a mistake he won’t make again.