Going, going...

Tony Abbott seemed to be on a roll. Kevin Rudd’s popularity was continuing to go south and Julia Gillard, all smiles and jocularity, was having to answer questions about the leadership and her aspirations for Rudd’s job pre-election. A comedian was in the audience, according to Gillard, but the front page photo of her seemed to be airbrushed to make her look ‘prime ministerial,' whatever that meant.

But as the government and the opposition continued to journey towards the election, a bend in the road appeared. Abbott was managing the turn well until he came across Kerry O’Brien and a night on air on The 7.30 Report.

All started well enough until O’Brien asked Abbott how he could promise no new taxes one month and the next month repudiate those comments by promising to increase taxes to fund his paid parental leave scheme. Abbott:

“Well, again Kerry, I know politicians are gonna be judged on everything they say, but sometimes, in the heat of discussion, you go a little bit further than you would if it was an absolutely calm, considered, prepared, scripted remark, which is one of the reasons why the statements that need to be taken absolutely as gospel truth is those carefully prepared scripted remarks.”

Oops. Abbott had just handed the Rudd government more ammunition than he could ever have dreamed of. 'Phoney Tony' was the term being bandied about in the course of the day. And on the very same day, the ALP had rushed to air an ad using that term to say Abbott could not be trusted.

But Abbott's blunder was nothing compared to a report a week earlier. A new month had begun and the paper had just been thrown out the window of the oncoming car. It landed somewhere on the front nature-strip. What was news that fine and sunny late Autumn morning? For one, the insulation program seemd to be anything but forgotten.

The Weekend Australian got straight to the point:

“Officials in Kevin Rudd and Peter Garrett’s departments assessed the risk of death or injury under the government’s insulation program to be ‘extreme’ three times in the past three months before the first of four young workers was killed.”

Spokespeople for Garrett as well as for Rudd were reported as saying neither the minister nor the Prime Minister had seen the risk assessment. This seemed to show the insulation program and the deficiencies in its handling and delivery, was anything but ‘dead.’

Who knew what would follow in the coming months? Rudd’s only hope could be that surely it could not get any worse. Surely.

If Tony Abbott was to be believed programs such as insulation were unnecessary at best. That same week, the Opposition Leader had been in the federal electorate of Sturt, marginally Liberal and held by Chris Pyne...for now. He’d been busy inculcating into the minds of children the idea that climate change had little if anything to do with the activities of man, and was anything but a recent phenomenon. As Michael Owen reported in The Weekend Australian, “climate change happens all the time and it is not man that drives those climate changes back in history," referring to the Ice Age and the Dark Ages, Caesar, and Jesus of Nazareth.

What a fun lesson for a Year Five or Year Six student. Yet the question had been raised – if Abbott was close to the truth, then what benefit is obtained from government initiatives such as the insulation program?

As the weekend came to an end, lo and behold, who should be on the TV screen but Tony Abbott? A new liberal ‘campaign ad’ had been launched, with Abbott explaining to the people he had a plan. The unofficial federal election campaign had begun.

On the Monday of 10th May, the media had seen the AC Nielsen poll, published in Fairfax newspapers. The Newspoll had been proven to be anything but a ‘rogue poll’, as some media commentators had hoped only a week earlier. Rudd was in trouble.

Fran Kelly was lucky enough to have Julia Gillard as company that Monday morning. With headphones on and her best and most non-descript answers at the ready, Gillard was placed in the difficult but perhaps not unwelcome position of having to answer questions about the leadership...the leadership of the federal government.

Although Abbott's 'gospel truth gaffe' was generous, it proved not to be enough to help Rudd escape the abyss in which he now found himself.

As the days and weeks went by, it was looking like a potential position, post-politics, with the United Nations, was becoming an attractive proposition for Kevin Rudd. Was this the future he had set for himself? One wondered.

Although President Obama had declared him to be a humble man, surely Rudd’s ego and need for vindication would not allow him to take the easy road. An election victory would provide Rudd with a moment in the sun, a moment to savour. But the question remained as to whether he would be given that opportunity. Going quietly did not seem in his nature. Going was now a distinct possibility.