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July 7, 2006
If unemployment has fallen since the 2004 election, then interest rates have risen twice and inflation is nudging the 3 per cent mark. Another interest rate rise looks likely, as fuel prices keep driving up inflation, before next year's election.And Labor looks as if it has Howard on the back foot, thanks to the industrial relations laws which are irrevocably tied to Howard.
Geoff Pryor
The political landscape is shifting, is it not? Just a bit? You can see the cracks in the earth from the "triple whammy" assaulting the electorate: rising interest rates, high petrol prices and an aggressive new industrial relations policy. Some commentary at philosophy.com about political receipes.
I prefer Pryor's pirate imagery to that of the horse race favoured by mainstream commentators. The former captures the friends/enemies conception of politics and the seizing of power.
Update: 10 July
Ross Fitzgerald, in an op. ed. The Australian, also say that the ground is finally moving under the decade-long federal Government:
For 10 years Howard has occupied the middle ground. He has skilfully managed an alliance of voters spanning the ultra-wealthy through to the socially conservative, economically vulnerable battlers of the suburban fringes. The Prime Minister's IR changes strike right at the heart of this coalition, giving Howard's battlers permission to look elsewhere for a middle-of-the-road leader who understands and will support them. It's an opportunity to reconsider what has become an almost habitual vote for Howard. And it's an opportunity federal Labor won't miss.
Beazley has the experience and resilience that conservative voters require for reassurrance.
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There is just a faint whiff of smoke in the air, there just needs to be a bit of wind to light the flames.
Funny how things can change, remember Hewson's devastating defeat, Keating looked unassailable, yet 3 years later the perennial loser crushes him, and becomes our second longest serving PM.
Now the sands may just be shifting again, in favour of another man seen as a loser.
Funny.