The announcement by Kevin Rudd and PNG PM O’Neill that asylum seekers arriving by boat would, from now on, be settled in PNG came as a shock to most of us. I’ve waited a while to respond, because I’m neither happy with the policy nor satisfied with the critical responses from the Left. It also remains unclear whether the policy will actually work as planned, but that will take some time to determine.

The benefit of waiting is that I’ve had time to see this piece by Tad Tietze, who I think sums up the issues pretty well, making the point that, while Rudd has outflanked Abbott regarding a hard line on boat arrivals, he has also outflanked critics on the left by increasing the total refugee intake, which is already claimed by the government to be the highest in the developed world on a per capita basis. [1]

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I’ve written a piece for the Conversation about a side issue in the Rudd-Gillard contest, namely the view that, under the Westminster system, voters elect the politicians who then choose the PM. Rudd’s proposed reforms obviously contradict that. I argue that Rudd is effectively codifying the existing system, as established by the bulk of historical precedent and understood by voters, and rejecting the view of insiders (especially the kind who appear on Insiders, or so I’m told – I’ve never watched the show and plan never to do so).

As a side issue, my piece was extensively edited for publication. With the natural pride of authorship, I thought my original (over the fold) was better. But I’d be interested in a reality check on this from readers here.

As I’ve said before, I don’t want to rehash the substantive merits of Rudd and Gillard at further length here. If you want to have your say on this, go to the Crooked Timber post I’ve linked.

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I’ve posted a piece about Rudd and Gillard on Crooked Timber, aimed at an international audience. Readers here might want to present alternative, or concurring, views in comments there.

The Conversation has now launched its election fact-checking site. The opening set includes a factcheck I’ve done, on a claim by Tony Abbott that it now takes three years to get a mine approved compared to less than twelve months six years ago. This is wrong on about as many levels as it can possibly be, the most important being

* The claim rests on a single coal mine in NSW, which was initially rejected, then approved on appeal
* The implied blame is directed to the Commonwealth government, which changed in 2007. But mine approval is mostly a state function, and most states have switched from Labor to LNP governments in the last six years

Meanwhile, there was a Twitterstorm over the weekend, about a story run by independent journalist Margo Kingston, who used FOI to determine that Abbott had been made to repay $9400, claimed as expenses while he was promoting his book Battlelines in 2009. MSM weren’t much interested, but the barrage of tweets has elicited at least one story, here in the Age.

I’ve had two calls in the last 24 hours asking me to fact-check claims by Tony Abbott. I accepted one, and found that his claims were nonsense (links soon, I hope). The other didn’t sound much better, but I thought I’d let someone else deal with it.

The emergence of systematic fact-checking is a huge vulnerability for Abbott, coming at just the wrong time for him. Until recently, the perception that the government was untrustworthy and deceitful[1] allowed Abbott to get away with just about anything he said, and he took full advantage of this. Now his record is littered with obvious lies and he’s finding it hard to break the habit. Worse still, the post-truth state of the political right, in Australia and the US, makes it hard for anyone on that side of politics to discern the truth even if they want to. Once you assume (correctly) that anything said by Bolt, the IPA, the Oz, Fox and so on is probably false, where can a conservative go for information. Essentially, it’s necessary to do the work from scratch, and I don’t get the impression that Abbott or his team enjoy hitting the books[2]. So, switching from his previous line of fact-free negativity and putting forward a positive alternative to Rudd is going to be very difficult for Abbott, I think

fn1. As previously, I don’t want to debate the accuracy of this perception. I don’t suppose anyone will dispute its existence
fn2. To be fair, he obviously trains much harder than I do, as our relative performance in endurance events illustrates. But I haven’t found a lot of transference of training between ironman length triathlon and policy analysis.

Quite appropriately, since Kevin Rudd’s return to the Prime Ministership, a lot of people are reassessing his record in office. One of the stranger claims I’m seeing from a variety of sources is that he lacked policy substance. It’s fair to say that his election campaign in 2007 (when he had been Opposition leader for less than a year) was a fairly typical small target exercise, and that he didn’t have a big set of initiatives ready to go. But he soon started thinking about them – as the jibe of the time had it, he “hit the ground reviewing”. Among the reviews initiated while Rudd was PM were:

* The Henry inquiry into the Tax System, which gave rise to the mining tax
* The Garnaut review (taken over from the Labor states) which gave rise to the CPRS
* The Productivity Commission inquiry into a National Long-term Care and Support Scheme which gave rise to the NDIS
* The Gonski review of School Education
* The National Broadband Network
* A review of plain packaging for cigarettes, which came into force last year

In addition, of course, the Rudd government managed the successful response to the Global Financial Crisis. At the time, Rudd worked with Treasurer Wayne Swan and Treasury Secretary Ken Henry and it was hard to tell who was responsible for the brave and decisive switch to fiscal stimulus. But given Swan’s subsequent performance, especially after the departure of Rudd and Henry, it’s clear he wasn’t the leading figure.

So, the idea that Rudd lacked policy substance is silly. A fairer criticism is that Rudd was better on getting policy formulated than on getting legislation through Parliament and implemented. Against that

* He could reasonably have expected two full terms, so the fact that much of the agenda was unfinished when he was deposed is not a valid criticism
* Although he had a majority in the House of Representatives, he had to deal with a far less favorable Senate than that of the current Parliament. Despite that, he got a fair bit of legislation through

Finally, it would be worth doing a comparison between Rudd’s achievements and those of Tony Abbott, who held office for 11 years under Howard, first as a Parliamentary Secretary, then as a junior minister and, from 2001 as a Cabinet Minister.

Update In comments, Bronster reminds me of the the White paper on homelessness ‘The Road Home’, which led to a number of improvements. There was also the Dental Health Reform package, which finally came in last year. Then there was the elimination of most substantive discrimination against LGBT couples, the replacement of WorkChoices by FairWorkAustralia, and the abolition of full-fee university places for domestic students. Most of these last initiatives were not just proposed but implemented during Rudd’s first term.

Given what seemed like the certainty of an Abbott victory, I haven’t paid much attention to Labor’s policy agenda for the next Parliament, which Rudd has now inherited. The listing at Ausvotes mostly links to the 2013 Budget, which wasn’t big in the way of new initiatives as a I recall. Can readers point to policy initiatives from the current Parliament that Rudd (and his radically reshaped ministerial team) should be expanding on (or, alternatively, dumping).

If so (advice from anyone who actually knows the rules would be helpful), it should. I assume this would require an election date later than 14 September but I don’t see a problem with that. A

In general terms, the democratic process would be improved by a chance to see the aspirants to the Prime Ministership present their case to the Parliament. The public is entitled to ask for a decent look at the new improved Kevin Rudd, and also for Abbott to present a positive alternative, rather than coasting to victory on the basis of negative views about the incumbent, as was his plan until yesterday.

More specifically, there are a number of issues where Rudd ought to put forward legislation.

One of the most important is equal marriage. Abbott is fudging on the question of a free vote, and Rudd ought to force him to take a stand. He should say that the vote will be either free on both sides, or party-line on both sides. Since the majority of Labor members voted for equal marriage last time, a party-line measure would mean equal marriage passing both houses.

A number of the other suggestions I’ve made, such as increasing Job Search Allowance would need legislation. That would be much better than having them as campaign promises, since it would put the onus on Abbott to endorse them or commit to repeal.

Regardless of attitudes to the leadership dispute, politics is no longer a question of waiting for Abbott’s inevitable victory. So, for those of us who don’t desire an Abbott government, it’s now worthwhile to consider how Labor, and Kevin Rudd, should use the limited time available before the next election. Here are some suggestions, obviously preliminary

* A root-and-branch review of the Labor Party. The relationship with the union movement, the continued existence of the factional system, the relationship between the PM and Caucus and the need for MPs with real life experience, rather than party/union careerists – everything should be on the table. I’d suggest John Faulkner as the person to lead such a review. Other names that come to mind are Ged Kearney and Peter Beatty

* Take the economic policy debate to Abbott, as he did last night. Instead of Swan’s deficit fetishism we need a full-throated defence of the 2009 stimulus package, and Keynesian fiscal policy in general, and a correspondingly sharp attack on austerity

* The return to CPRS has already been announced. Since I’m part of the Authority responsible for advising the government, I’m not going to comment on the details. But Rudd should return to the attack on Abbott’s scientific and economic delusionism on this issue.

* Fix some of the worst Swan-Gillard decisions, like the refusal to increase Job Search allowance

* Scrap Gillard’s deal on the mining tax

* Mend fences with the Greens – this was one of Rudd’s biggest failings during his period as PM, and one of the things he needs to change

* Get Combet back – of all the ministers who’ve quit, he’s the only one who’s a real loss. The departure of people like Conroy and Ludwig is one of the unqualified benefits of this change, and that of Swan and Emerson a net plus for the government

Feel free to offer your own thoughts. Rehashes of the leadership debate will be deleted with prejudice.