Desire for honesty and fair go

Have John Howard and Peter Costello simply stopped listening? This is the question I’ve been hearing from Australian families all over the country in recent months.

Notably, we’ve seen a series of remarks from Mr Howard lately which have struck many around the kitchen table as, quite frankly, arrogant.

A few weeks ago he declared that Australian working families “have never been better off”.This is despite slapping working families with an extreme workplace regime that cuts penalties and overtime. This is despite standing idle while petrol prices skyrocket. This is despite health and childcare costs that have spiralled on Mr Howard’s watch.

Similarly, Mr Howard declared yesterday that Australians were “more relaxed about interest rates”.

This is despite four rate rises since Mr Howard and Mr Costello gave their word to keep rates at record lows. That’s a total of eight straight rate rises on Mr Howard and Mr Costello’s watch.

In Brisbane that’s added a staggering $114,000 to mortgage interest repayments on the median-priced home over the life of the loan. This translates to an extra $380 per month squeezed from the household budget, yet Mr Howard thinks we’re more relaxed about interest rates.

But while he may seem chronically out-of-touch with Australian families, there’s one group of people who still have Mr Howard’s ear - his pollsters and spin-doctors. You only have to observe his recent pre-election back-flips to know that Mr Howard is scrambling desperately to catch up with community opinion.

Take education for example.

Labor announces plans for an Education Revolution - including 15 hours a week of early-childhood learning and Trades Training Centres in secondary schools to combat the growing skills crisis. Education has been a core Labor value for over 100 years, and our Education Revolution strikes a chord with many Australian families.

All of a sudden, hey presto - after 11 years of neglect, Mr Howard suddenly rediscovers education.

On climate change Mr Howard is hatching exactly the same plot - he’s limbering up for another pre-election back-flip - although this one is perhaps the most difficult of his entire career. For 11 long years Mr Howard has been determined to ignore the mounting evidence. Despite the overwhelming mass of scientific evidence on climate change, several of his ministers are still in denial.

But the community wants 21st century leadership on climate change. The community understands that taking firm action now is the only way to protect both our jobs and our environment.

The threat of climate change is particularly acute in our home state of Queensland where destruction of the Great Barrier Reef threatens many thousands of jobs. Kevin Rudd understands this. Labor has committed to decisive emissions reductions targets and a range of positive strategies to help reach them.

Again, the community responds well to Labor’s climate change leadership, and hey presto, John Howard is suddenly talking climate change.

Don’t worry that he rejected a Cabinet submission on emissions trading four years ago - you can bet your bottom dollar he’ll be suddenly converted to emissions trading when his taskforce delivers its report in a few weeks.

But Australians have in-built bull-dust detectors. Australian don’t just ask what our leaders are doing. We also ask why they are doing it. We ask: are our leaders motivated by genuine values and nation-building, or are they simply saying, doing and spending whatever it takes to cling to power.

Mr Howard has been failing the “motivation test” quite a lot lately and when that happens people stop trusting their leaders. Australia deserves more than trickery and self-interest from its politicians.

Australia deserves fairness and honesty. It deserves leaders who will invest the wealth of the mining boom to secure our future prosperity, not politicians who squander it on their own re-election.

Labor has the positive plans to take our country forward into the 21st century.

If the Australian people elect us this year, we will repay that trust with fairness and honesty.