With the federal election set for September 7, newspapers in the News Corporation stable are expected to take the lead in attacking Kevin Rudd and the ALP.
Sydney’s Daily Telegraph has led the way with today’s front page exhortation to readers to “Kick This Mob Out”. The newspaper also runs an editorial on page one urging voters to “Consign Rudd to the bin of history”.
Text of front page editorial in the Daily Telegraph.
Consign Rudd to the bin of history
At last, the power is in the hands of the Australian people to deliver a change of government and to rebuild Australia’s strength and stability.
At last, the opportunity looms to put an end to two terms of political chaos and economic decline.
At last, the time is up for Kevin Rudd and his Labor government.
Announcing the September 7 election date yesterday, Prime Minister Rudd tried to distance himself from Labor’s years of disunity and destruction. He now promises “a new way” and “new politics”. But Australians know that Rudd is absolutely tied to old Labor and its socially divisive and financially ruinous policies.
Kevin Rudd is the leader of a government that confessed just three days ago that its most recent federal budget wasn’t worth the paper it was printed on.
Kevin Rudd is the leader of a government that has somehow turned Australia’s boom times into a massive and ongoing debt.
Kevin Rudd is the leader of a government that punched holes in Australia’s secure borders and cost thousands of lives and billions of dollars by reinvigorating the vile people smuggling trade – one of the few economic sectors that will be unhappy to see an end to Labor’s rule.
Kevin Rudd is the leader of a government that attempted to muzzle the media and to intimidate a free people into docile, compliant silence.
Kevin Rudd is the leader of a government that didn’t keep its word on the carbon tax. A government that didn’t keep its word on delivering a surplus. A government that, in the end, didn’t even keep its word on the 2013 election date. The Prime Minister’s cabinet has already had its say. Fully one-third of the cabinet walked out on Rudd rather than work with him. Several Labor MPs prefer quitting politics entirely to the prospect of serving under Rudd’s leadership.
Now it’s your turn. We agree with the Prime Minister when he says that “the old politics of the past won’t work for Australia’s future”. The problem is, those old politics belong to Kevin Rudd and to history’s rubbish bin.
On September 7, Australia will indeed find a new way – by throwing out a government that has completely lost its way.
In 2007, The Daily Telegraph supported the election of a Labor government led by Kevin Rudd. Our argument then was that the previous Howard government had become weary and unimaginative, and that Rudd represented an opportunity for advancement.
Labor has squandered that opportunity, and is trying now to present itself as the answer to problems of its own creation.
The amount of spin implicit in the Prime Minister’s “new way” rhetoric is beyond anything ever achieved by Shane Warne. It’s a high-rotation insult to an electorate that sees through Labor’s brazen electioneering.
At The Daily Telegraph, we’re not going to cop it. Kevin Rudd and his Labor machine can save their tricks and distractions for the focus groups. We’re not going to play Labor’s game.
At the same time, we will place Coalition policies under exactly the same level of scrutiny. Labor is a known quantity, which is why they’ve lost support. It is up to the Coalition to win those voters.
