The election:debates and dangers

Julia Gillard will want to get her story on East Timor straight, before calling an early election.

That’s why the Labor party, in Canberra, has been telling all who will listen that talks on a regional processing centre for boat people will proceed with East Timor and Indonesia this week.

Right now, Ms Gillard is vulnerable to criticism from all sides in this debate.

The Coalition is claiming that her Arafura solution confirms  the legitimacy of its own Pacific solution.

But refugee advocates are accusing her of “dog whistling” racists, who simply want to turn the boats back.

Calling an early election, before this debate is resolved,  would be very risky for Ms Gillard, despite her relatively good figures  in recent polls.

Tony Abbott’s charge of “amateurism” could easily take hold, after her clearly premature announcements on East Timor last week. That is the one Ms Gillard was at first forced to withdraw, before a clumsy attempt, later, to restore it.

So she will – probably – hold her hand, on the election date, for at least a little while yet.

She has had relatively little to say, though, over the issue which should be dominating the pre-election debate.  That, of course, is the state of the economy.

Gillard has said that her predecessor, Kevin Rudd, ran a good government, which went a little off track, in the row over the proposed resource industry super profits tax.

It is hard to avoid the conclusion that Mr Rudd was, indeed, unnecessarily obdurate in that debate.

Equally, though, its stimulus measures did much to protect Australians, after the global economic crisis struck.

The creation of some 353,000 jobs, over the past year, including about 200,000 full time positions, put that beyond doubt.

Certainly,  though, there were mistakes.  The worst of them was allowing reckless and incompetent operators install the ceiling insulation in homes, which caused several house fires and a number of deaths.

Sadly, though, Wayne Swan’s attempts to turn the debate back to the government’s economic achievements have so far failed to take fire.

As a graduate of the Kevin Rudd school of oratory, the Treasurer is simply not selling the government’s economic message.

That is a real danger for the government, which must face voters before the end of this year.