Labor Feels Weight Of Promises
Sun Herald
Sunday June 22, 2008
It is a critical, impatient and vocal audience that awaits the spoils of the election goodie bag.
TO STATE the bleeding obvious, Government is vastly different to being in the political wilderness.After six months in the prime seats in the house, Labor MPs are more than aware of the gulf between the glittering promises made in Opposition and honouring them when in power.Take the computers in schools promise, for one.A centrepiece of Labor's election platform, the firm pledge to deliver a computer to every upper secondary school child is the engine driver of Labor's education revolution.It is a promise that, if delivered, will be worth waiting for. But the path to achieving it is filled with potholes that could be costly to fix.The revolution was slated by Kevin Rudd to start from the day the Government was sworn in. The weekend before the November 24 poll, the aspiring prime minister told The Sun-Herald he had already decided how his reign should be characterised.He wanted to be known as "the education prime minister". The roll-out of his $1billion pledge to deliver a computer to every school student from year 9 to 12 was one of his top five priorities for his first 100 days.The Government did begin the program in the first three months and on June 12 Education Minister Julia Gillard announced the first round of funding for the "digital education revolution", delivering 116,000 new computers to 896 schools.To achieve that in six months is no small feat. But trouble lurks.Conservative estimates have put the roll-out cost at $100,000 per school. Who funds that? Labor premiers won't, and have said so.Alan Carpenter, the Western Australian Premier, has tipped that the real cost of the so-called revolution is three times the $1.2billion promised by the Federal Government over five years.He, and other premiers, have emphatically let it be known that they do not intend to be financiers to the revolution.Ms Gillard's rhetoric around the pledge has shifted. Delivering a ratio of 1:1 computer/student is now a "long-term vision".Round one delivered one computer to every two students. That is a remarkable boost to schools in anyone's language, but it is not fulfilling the Government's election promise.Keeping petrol prices low, thereby relieving stress on working families, is another area where the promises fall short of the delivery.Rudd and Labor wannabe ministers did not fall into the trap of promising to keep interest rates low, a 2004 Howard campaign tactic which came back to bite him the following term.But they did sell a firm message of a new fiscal approach which would deliver lower financial household pressures. Clearly, workers and financially stressed couples bought it.Promises of a new style of economic conservativism raised Labor's credibility in the polls.Tax breaks, a lift in the child-care rebate and other budget hand-outs flowing through on July 1 will put more money into pockets.Those benefits are separate to the clear impression Labor gave of forcing household costs down. It is disingenuous of Rudd to suggest, as he has been doing, that householders will be in a better position because of the budget, so it all comes out in the wash.Other big-picture pledges are blurring around the edges. Environmental groups are in uproar about the new funding regime for grants to protect the environment.Advertisements for Peter Garrett's $2billion Caring For Our Country program appeared in national newspapers yesterday calling for applications for grants.Confusion over the new program has led to the loss of jobs across the country. Garrett says groups have been kept in the loop, but complaints from grassroots organisations have been loud and bitter.There is a dispirited sense that the bald-headed eco-warrior, who was not only a great bellower of biting social justice songs but a former head of a leading conservation group, is a traitor to the cause.His polling reflects it. Essential Media, a communications and government relations firm, conducted polling this week on the standing of seven key ministers.Garrett's performance was rated by 47per cent of respondents as poor or very poor, the worst result of any minister.
© 2008 Sun Herald