Word: costello
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...lowest since the '70s. "This is the first defeat of a government in decades where there was no evident anger or public rage," said former Liberal Senator Michael Baume. Instead there was ennui. Many voters were tired of Howard, and unexcited by Treasurer (now Opposition leader) Peter Costello, 50, who was due to take over from Howard in 2009. There were also concerns about small interest-rate rises, new industrial relations laws, health care and education, and - in a period of drought - water and climate change...
Indeed, on many issues - a new pulp mill in Tasmania, tax cuts, school funding - Rudd has simply echoed the government. That tendency prompted long-serving Treasurer Peter Costello to declare: "The more I hear from Kevin Rudd, the more I wonder whether even Kevin Rudd wants a change of government...
...Costello's point is valid enough, but so is the Rudd approach. Rudd knows Howard was vulnerable at the last election, in 2004. But Labor at that time was led by Mark Latham, who was quick-tempered and volatile, (at one time, he called George Bush as "the most incompetent and dangerous President in living memory"). Latham also espoused ideas too left-wing for a country that likes its politics fought in the center. Clearly, many Australians had tired of Howard and stopped listening to him, but needed a credible alternative before taking the next step of kicking...
Whether a Labor government would manage Australia's $1 trillion economy as adeptly as have Howard and Costello remains a voter concern, according to polls. However, Rudd has largely defused economic management as an issue. The thrust of his case is that Australia's strong economy is less the result of any judicious handling on the part of the government than of the ongoing minerals boom and watershed reforms undertaken in the 1980s by Labor governments. He's repeatedly cast himself as an economic conservative and tried to prove it by declining to match the government's extravagant spending promises...
...pressures." Experience: Shadow Treasurer since 2004 Rudd confirmed the party's former numbers man as Treasury spokesman despite past tension between the two men. Like his leader, the former lecturer in public administration is from Queensland, a key Labor battleground. Swan plays tough and held his own against Peter Costello in their campaign debate. Rudd has confirmed Swan will be Treasurer if Labor wins...