Rhetoric Ramp-Up Alert
When John Howard says he’s going to work harder on improving the now-dismal poll results being returned against him as preferred Prime Minister and his party overall, believe it. Sure, Costello’s on record now saying the budget’s tight, so don’t expect any pre-election tax relief or hand-outs, and after a few weeks of playing the man rather than the policies during question time, childish taunts and all (“they started it!”), he’d seem to have his work cut out for him. But listen, “I think one of the reasons is that the Labor Party has successfully created the impression that it doesn't matter who is in Government, the economy will continue to grow.” Ah. Back to interest rates and scare tactics. I wonder how well that’s going to fly, with all we know about the negative effects of “WorkChoices” and the interest rate rises that haven’t come back down yet and the property market that’s turned into a rental nightmare as well as depressing growth. No, I think Mr. Howard’s got a tough row over these next eight months, and it’ll only get tougher in March, when NSW returns Labor to power despite Morris Iemma, et al.