Rudd’s report card shows an “F”

With just a few months before the next Federal election, Prime Minister Rudd is fast losing his popularity with the Australian people. Over the past months polling by major research houses have been reporting on voters’ disillusionment with Mr Rudd and the subsequent slump in Labor votes. With the Greens attracting these disillusioned voters, it seems likely that they will hold the balance of power at the next elections. If, on a two party preferred basis, the Liberal Party is able to win, be prepared for an interesting time in Australian politics, with strange bedfellows.

Prime Minister Rudd’s report card really does not read very well. Swept to power on promises of a technology and education revolution and a commitment to environmental change, not a lot has been achieved in these areas, either due to politics or plan mismanagement. With the onslaught of the global economic crisis, Labor had rolled in power with cashed up reserves and the boom in the mining industry. Now only history will tell whether Mr Rudd has a highly ineffective team of Ministers or is he a control freak and unable to delegate well, but the fact remains that there have been far more failures than successes on his watch.

The failure of the emissions trading scheme was a major blow to Kevin Rudd. If he had won this high stakes game, it would have meant international and national accolades. His government home insulation scheme was poorly executed and monitored;

BY PAWAN LUTHRA

his school rebuilding programs are mired in controversy about overspending. His plan for a National Broadband network seems to have no clear strategy; his refugee settlement programme has a number of observers confused. And now his latest battle with the mining industry is one that he cannot lose for political reasons. Even the 20/20 summit at the beginning of his term was a lot of talk and no action.

Prime Minister Rudd and his government have done no favours for India and Indian Australians. On a national front, the Labor government’s decision not to sell uranium to India has been a major irritant, despite the United States agreeing to transfer nuclear know how for peaceful purposes to India.

The Labor party still hanging to the now redundant NTP (nuclear non-proliferation treaty), and continues treating India with arrogance in this area. India’s civilian need for nuclear energy will allow for greater environment controls, and by commencing uranium sales to India in 2007 when the Rudd government came to power, it would have been a positive start between a new government in Australia and one of the strongest democratic countries in the world. But that was not to be and yet another golden opportunity was missed. The Rudd government’s mishandling of the student issues is also disappointing to thousands of Indian students in Australia. Rather than fixing the system, the draconian step of radically changing the occupation demand list has impacted hundreds of thousands of Indian families who were committed to study and potentially, migrate to Australia. While the Australian government reserves to right to make changes, a more humane way could have been to allow a cut off time in the future, rather than retrospective so that people can replan their lives accordingly. This random change of rules without flexibility has even impacted many Indian Australian business people such as restaurateurs, travel agents, education facilities etc., who work closely with these international students. And since Australia’s unemployment rates have been falling over the past two years, this action reeks more of politics than the impact of the global financial crisis.

Rudd’s report card will unfortunately show an F where the Indian Australian community is concerned. Looking back at the last Federal election, it seems that people of Australia were voting John Howard out, rather than Kevin Rudd in.