Testing time for Gillard

Comments on “A whack in the polls?” see the Numble Blog, 2/08/2010, http://blogs.theaustralian.news.com.au/mumble/index.php/theaustralian/comments/a_whack_in_the_polls/
If Gillard can turn her campaign around, she will be a genius.

If she can't, she will regret for two things, timing of the election and the lack of new policy ideas.

One was that she called the election a bit too early before she has established herself in the electorate's mind. An October/November election would have given her more time to show the authority of her prime ministership, including developing better policy strategies.

The other was her almost indistinguishable climate change policy from her predecessor and premature announcement of the East Timor solution on boat arrival issues.

On climate change, she should ideally have announced a policy on carbon pricing, and possibly the citizens’ assembly to discuss the best design and implementation.

On boat arrival, a better strategy would have been only announcing offshore processing centres without any specific locations, but indicating intention of considering all options.