KEVIN Rudd was a fiscal conservative, then a neo-interventionist, now he's an instrumental rationalist, but for how long? Many commentators have remarked on the confusing and conflicting themes within the federal budget. This confusion is making it difficult for the Government to convincingly sell its budget message.
It would be easy to accuse the Prime Minister of falling victim to the dangerous strategy of trying to be too clever by half, attempting to cover every base and appease every potential critic. If this is the case, he has ended up achieving nothing more than general dissatisfaction.
A simpler, and possibly more generous, explanation is that Rudd is incapable of fundamental logical consistency. The heart of Rudd's problem seems to be that he does not have a consistent framework to analyse and construct solutions for the country's economic problems.
As much as I love that opening I don't think he really nails our PM, who is little more than an arrogant, power hungry spin merchant cut from the same cloth as Tony Blair, until later in his article:
Rudd has a highly developed ability to ignore inconvenient views he has recently held when they conflict with his immediate political requirements. This is what makes him such a good, media-driven political operator. In his desperation to sell the budget, he has even resorted to accepting the endorsement of the much-maligned ratings agencies he chastised as playing a dubious role in the fiscal crisis.
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