• The Coalition proposes a Green and White Paper process between now and the next election, when they will take tax reform proposals to the electorate. Wayne Swan had said that if he does pursue tax reform, it will be in a similar manner. Delaying tax reform until the election after this one is the politicians’ way of putting reform off into the never-never. there is nothing politicians are currently thing less about than the next election. Policy cowardice of the highest order from both sides.
  • An embarrassing moment for Roy Morgan polling to get a rogue result (it could be worse, it could be next week) but that’s what last night’s 57.5-42.5 poll was. It also has the Greens on over 15%, an outcome that would be beyond most of the wilder dreams of experienced Greens. The level of the Greens vote on August 21 is the biggest mystery of the election campaign.
  • According to an Essential Report poll three weeks ago, about 20% of voters said they would make up their minds at the end of the campaign or on polling day itself. Labor has long planned to come home hard, while Tony Abbott took his foot off the accelerator this week. If nothing else, the Morgan poll should stop the Liberals thinking they’ve got it in the bag.
  • There have been a number of major issues noteworthy by their absence in this campaign, and the outlook for the Australian economy has been one of them. Both Gillard and Abbott shamelessly avoided answering Laura Tingle’s question at their debate at the start of the campaign about how they would respond to a double-dip recession. For different reasons, it’s politically inconvenient for either side to say whether it would accept the need for a more stimulatory fiscal setting, should that need arise. Another example of how this campaign has centred on confected issues designed to appeal to the prejudices of the voters of outer Sydney rather than the community as a whole.
  • When did it suddenly become a requirement for parties to identify their full ministerial line-up before an election? This was a line peddled by the Coalition and its media cheerleaders before the 2007 election and they have been running it again in this campaign, insisting that it somehow reflects weakness or instability that the prime minister declines to say who other than Wayne Swan will occupy what jobs if she wins. I don’t recall the same questions being asked of John Howard when he was PM. In any event, why is it a strength to claim that Joe Hockey would be Treasurer in an Abbott government while Malcolm Turnbull is left on the sidelines in environment or whatever swamp Abbott would like to strand him in?