Just prior to the return to parliament, Tony Abbott had decided to publicly air his decision to introduce a private member's bill to the lower house on its return to work and Kevin Rudd's return from holidays for the 2010 calendar year.
Rudd had been absent from our screens and papers for a while, soaking up the summer sun in Kirribilli, a suburb in Sydney's lower north shore. Kirribilli House, the Prime Minister's residence in the town in which over 4million Australians resided, was one of the best pieces of real estate anywhere in the country.
Meanwhile, Abbott was discussing issues pertaining to the First Australians, the indigenous community. The Wild Rivers Legislation, passed by the Queensland Government in 2005, with the scope increased to cover other rivers in 2009, was the source of Abbott's concern.
The legislation was designed to gazette development within a declared 'buffer zone' of the rivers covered in the legislation. However, in securing Green preferences for the 2009 State Election, by declaring the Archer, Lockhart and Stewart Rivers in Cape York as 'wild rivers,' the Premier, Anna Bligh, also secured the opposition of Noel Pearson, the respected indigenous leader and Director of the the Cape York Institute for Policy and Leadership. Crippling economic activity in the Cape York area was sure to gain the ire of a man with the interests of his people at heart.
And so this brought Tony Abbott into the fray, with his member's bill designed to proclaim the need for State legislation to be "struck down." The invitation had been given to Kevin Rudd to back Abbott's bold move so the Prime Minister could have the opportunity to finally address, even if belatedly, the problems the Wild Rivers Legislation was creating for the future of indigenous communities in Cape York.
Abbott stated in The Australian on January 12 that:
"a national government which fails to become involved in a serious problem of a State Government's making, where it has ample capacity to do so, becomes complicit in the original error."
Believe it or not, Abbott had actually spent time in Cape York, as The Australian was keen to bring to our attention, including 10 days in the peninsula in August 2009, "in the Peninsula Top End as a school truancy officer in...Aurukun, and 3 weeks as a volunteer teacher's aide in Coen in 2008."
Unique amongst politicians? Perhaps so. If not unique, certainly worthy of praise.
Although the private member's bill seemed socially responsible and designed to improve the economic opportunities available to the Cape York indigenous community, Abbott's bill would also fit comfortably with his view of there being a need to re-establish a more 'official' chain of command pertaining to Commonwealth-State Relations, as he explains in some detail in his book, 'Battlelines.'
Was Abbott using the private member's bill as a 'guinea pig' or 'trial balloon' via which he could espouse the need for change to the federation? Only time would tell.
But time waited for no-one. As the latest Newspoll was released, showing Rudd's satisfaction rating having declined six percent and Abbott's having jumped four percent, it was clear the Liberal heartland now felt more comfortable in declaring their support for the Coalition.
Soon after Newspoll results were published, the Massachusetts Senate seat that had been 'owned' by Ted Kennedy since 1962 was lost. Kennedy had recently passed away and the seat was seen as a 'sure thing' for Barack Obama and the Democratic Party.
However, Obama had not countered on the swinging voters swinging to the right of centre, resulting in the Democrats not only losing the seat but also the balance of power they had enjoyed in the Senate since Obama's election a year earlier.
Was there a message in this for Kevin Rudd? Could an election half a world away be a sign of things to come closer to home? If nothing else, it was certainly a sign that incumbents need not take the electorate for granted. Terms such as 'taking a tumble' in reference to Rudd's personal rating and 'recapturing the Liberal base' in reference to Abbott's effectiveness since his election as Opposition Leader, were not terms Rudd would be pleased to see or hear on an ongoing basis.
The Government was seen by some commentators to be in need of a change of strategy. And now!
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