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Rudd weighs options for election date
Monday, July 08, 2013 » 01:59pm
Political analysts believe Prime Minister Kevin Rudd risks losing the honeymoon effect if he delays the election date to October.
He has already said the election date would not be a significant shift away from September 14, the date nominated by his predecessor Julia Gillard.
A source close to Mr Rudd says he has not yet settled on a date and is expected to discuss it with his cabinet on Monday.
The source says a longer timeframe could allow the government to make more policy adjustments.
But political academic Nick Economou, from Monash University, says an August election would allow Mr Rudd to 'flush out' Tony Abbott.
'If he goes now he would be rewarded as the man who got rid of Gillard and the longer he allows time to lapse then people are going to lose that enthusiasm,' he said.
Mr Rudd also faces the potential problem of his ministers starting to argue over policy and budget settings, the academic said.
He said Mr Rudd had seriously erred in 2008-09 by not calling a double-dissolution election over the carbon pollution reduction scheme.
'Previous form shows he is not good at calling elections and he may well stuff it up again,' Dr Economou told AAP.
University of Queensland's Dr Ian Ward said Mr Rudd was still in a 'honeymoon' phase, but would start to take some damage as the coalition rolled out its advertising campaign.
'When people start seeing that on their television screens before the election it may well remind them of what Rudd was like,' he said.
'He is going to wear some of the blame for not stopping the boats, the insulation scandal and so on.'
Australian Greens leader Christine Milne said Mr Rudd should announce an election as soon as possible.
'There are a lot of hypotheticals going on at the moment and no doubt Kevin Rudd is trying to play with the minds of the community,' Senator Milne told Sky News.
She said the recall of parliament should only go ahead if Mr Rudd planned to overhaul the federal budget.
Opposition Leader Tony Abbott told reporters in Sydney it was time for Mr Rudd to decide whether he was 'governing or campaigning'.
'If he is campaigning, name the date, end the suspense, tell us when the election will be and then there will be a program of election debates,' Mr Abbott said.
Queensland University of Technology political academic Clive Bean said a late September or October poll appeared to be a more realistic option for Labor.
He said Mr Rudd and other ministers needed to get on top of their portfolios, develop a strategy and hope that some cracks begin to appear in Mr Abbott's team.
'Then there's the experience of 2010 when Gillard took over and most would say it was a misjudgment to go as early as she did,' he said.
'Weighing those things up it's probably more likely they will go later.'
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Weighing up election dates (Read 891 times)
