Abbott favourite for Australian general election

As the clock strikes 9am in Ireland next Saturday, polls will close on Australia's east coast. By the time polls close on the west coast two hours later it will probably already be clear that Australia has replaced the Labor government with the Liberal-National Coalition.

Bookmakers are so certain Labor will lose that some have already paid out on Liberal Party leader Tony Abbott becoming prime minister.

The Economist magazine backed incumbent prime minister Kevin Rudd over Abbott at the weekend, but that won't change a lot of votes in the western suburbs of Sydney, Brisbane and Melbourne – "heartland" seats Labor must hold to retain power.

Newspaper editorials
Of far greater influence are the Australian newspapers, whose Sunday editorials were united yesterday in advocating a change of government. It was no surprise the Murdoch press did so, given its relentless hostility to Rudd and Labor, but the Fairfax-owned Sunday Age (Melbourne) and Sun-Herald (Sydney) did too.

The News Corp-owned Sunday Telegraph screamed out "AUSTRALIA NEEDS TONY'' in huge capital letters on its front page. Labor's deputy leader Anthony Albanese described it as "an absolute disgrace'', and said those involved breached their journalistic code of ethics.

“If a political party wanted to engage in that sort of propaganda it would cost tens of millions of dollars, but we’ve had it day-in, day-out, that’s what they’ve relied upon rather than serious policy debate and the costings,” he said.

Tom Watson, the British Labour MP who helped expose the News of the World's phone hacking scandal, is currently in Australia and is not impressed with News Corp's election coverage, such as front pages depicting Labor politicians as clowns and Nazis. "It insults Australians when they produce content like that,'' he said.

The last-minute fundraising emails being sent out by the major parties tell their own tale. Labor’s asks people to donate $5 (€3.36), while the Liberal’s asks for $500.

It was all so different just five years ago, when Labor was in power federally, and in all six states and both territories. The highest-ranking Liberal in the land then was Brisbane mayor Campbell Newman. Now Newman is the premier of Queensland and Labor has also lost power in all but two states and one territory.

Labor was beginning to gain some momentum last week with improved polling figures in the wake of its warning of severe cuts if the Coalition gains power. But the tide turned again when the heads of the departments of treasury and finance took the extraordinary step of publicly advising that neither had examined the opposition’s policies, despite Rudd saying they had.

Labor would have been better advised to stick with its previous position; that treasury and finance could not examine Abbott’s promises as he has released very few concrete details of how he intends to fund them.

One policy he has detailed is the contentious – and costly, with a $5.5 billion annual price tag – promise to introduce a six months' fully paid maternity leave scheme for women earning up to $150,000 (€101,000) a year. This is not popular with many in his own Liberal Party (which, despite its name, is conservative), nor the big businesses that will be charged a 1.5 per cent levy to fund it.

Maternity leave
"I accept that for some conservatives this policy has been a far bridge," Abbott said. "But if we want families to have more kids and to have a career, we need a policy like this."

Regardless of how his promises are funded, the election is Abbott’s to lose.