Insanity

The definition of insanity is meant to be doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. Three years ago, Labor axed Rudd for his poor polling in advance of an impending election, which ended up resulting in a hung parliament. Today, Labor is looking to axe Gillard for poor polling in advance of an impending election - frankly a continuing hung parliament after September 14 is probably the very best they can do.

Quite apart from my political feelings on the matter, I truly wonder what's more important to Labor - retaining power or listening to its people. At the moment it seems like they will do anything, anything to save a few seats. The polls are pretty clear - even with Rudd in charge, this country is pretty much all set to vote Liberal come September. Because it is not about Rudd (has an ideology and little else) or Gillard (little at all) or even Abbott (who moonlights as the boogieman, if you listen to either of the former pair) - it's about the condition of this country. This country alone, not in comparison to any other country's economic and social climate. Ours.

And Rudd's big ideas claptrap nearly two hours ago is not what this country needs. We don't need bullshit about WorkChoices, or the ongoing labelling of Abbott as a monster. If it's really about policy and not about personality, then surely then all Rudd should be talking about is policy. How his will differ from Gillard's, and how, in point of fact, he will differ from the substance-free ship he ran three years ago. And obviously, key differences between his plans for the country and Abbott's. We don't need a man who looks ice-cream who gets a rock star reception in schools and shopping centres. No.

What we actually need is this - capability and competency in our government. Experience, above all. At the end of the day, Rudd made a huge quantity of the debt this country is currently in, thanks to the thousands of dollars thrown out people to stimulate the economy...and everyone promptly went out and bought a Chinese-made plasma. Well, not everyone. I bought a (now-deceased) Siamese fighting fish, if I recall. And Gillard? As education minister, she presided over the heavily rorted schools scheme. As Prime Minister, she has presided over lies, broken promise, backflips, schemes put forward without talking to the people who need to agree in the first place (see Malaysia) and an almost unbelievable level of poor political know-how. I couldn't do it myself (nor would I want to), but I think the current state of affairs shows how little she can control her party or indeed how the public sees her. No amount of spin has fixed the problem.

And while as a Liberal voter, I know what I say next must be taken with some salt, hear this - I think the best thing that could happen to this country right now is a Liberal prime minister. Even if you hate Tony Abbott, the fact is we actually need the penny-pinching sobriety of conservatism right now. There are things I'd like to see happen that will never happen under the Liberals - the legalisation of same-sex marriage, the end of religious institutions' tax-free status, the list goes on - but we are in mountains of debt, some of it for no good reason.

And for all Rudd's talk of himself and his party as the experienced people in Parliament, the fact is I don't know of a single Labor politician who had a career in government prior to 2007. Whereas the Liberals have - lots of them. Whatever you may have thought of Abbott as health minister, he did the job for a long time. And the same can be said for a fair quantity of other people who would form the basis of a Coalition cabinet. 11 years in gun-abolishing, surplus-producing government is experience - six years of lurching from one crisis and stupid remark to the next is not.

In short, expecting sanity out of any Labor government in the near future is insanity. It's the same people, the same problems, no matter how you shuffle the deck. Whatever happens tonight, the current make-up of the Labor Party is in no state to govern this country. Not when Rudd himself quite rightly points out the resources boom is set to end. Not when the Aussie dollar is losing ground on the greenback. Hate the Liberals all you like, but at least they knew how to keep the house in order. We should give them the chance to do it again.