• Australian National University politics professor John Warhurst who say that both Abbott and Gillard, "Both run the risk of not allowing their instincts to see the light of day." "Each is much more flamboyant and interesting than they are allowed to show. A lot of Labor people don't know what Julia Gillard is about."
• Mungo MacCallum: "They haven't got the guts to say anything, they're running so scared."
• Campaigns, says MacCallum, are in the hands of the "usual suspects — economists, psephologists, astrologists, personal trainers, homeopaths, absurd reliance on focus groups". These "cut the balls off every known process of politics", says MacCallum, and "you end up with policies intended to offend nobody and therefore do nothing".
• Andrew Hughes, a ANU specialist in political marketing says the Prime Minister is keeping the campaign as lacklustre as she can because "she's in the box seat and wants as smooth a race as possible". "Julia Gillard doesn't want you to think about it too much because that might get voters thinking more about 'brand Abbott', and you don't want consumers too interested in rival brands."

Dealing with hecklers once was part of an astute leader's skills. A woman heckler at working-class Williamstown, in Melbourne in 1954, told Bob Menzies she wouldn't vote for him if he was the archangel Gabriel. "If I were the archangel Gabriel, I'm afraid you wouldn't be in my constituency," Menzies shot back. He was the last PM in office when public meetings and radio broadcasts were the chief means of communication with the electorate.

Gough Whitlam was at Blacktown when another woman heckler interrupted his discussion of a plan to sewer western Sydney by demanding incessantly where he stood on abortion. "In your case, I'd make it retrospective," Whitlam told her. Imagine the furore that would be unleashed by such prime ministerial utterances today.

Sixty years ago, Menzies and Ben Chifley did battle over control of the national means of production, over left versus right tensions tearing the world apart. The picture was big. Finding room for differentiation was easy.

So far this has been a very low-quality election contest. It represents a serious regression in Australian politics, with less genuine policy discussion or commitment than ever before. Neither Julia Gillard nor Tony Abbott has offered more than a thought bubble on national security or foreign affairs. . . . Both Gillard and Abbott are deficient in similar ways as national leaders. Both are running as opposition leaders against the Rudd government, a bizarre position for Gillard, who now seems exempt from all responsibility for the fiascos of the past three years . . . [W]e have two competing national leaders who are just about untutored in the key aspects of modern government. And it shows.

In many contexts Abbott is brave as a lion, but he seems to have a reluctance to do the boring nuts-and-bolts policy work of politics, and in this campaign he is running against his own beliefs and his party's values. Courage in politics mostly means policy courage. Neither Gillard nor Abbott is demonstrating courage, knowledge or competence in the critical areas of national policy. We deserve a better politics than this.

Prime Minister Gillard's climate change policy announced today is an excuse for more delay on the climate crisis, the Australian Greens said today.

"Prime Minister Gillard is showing a complete lack of leadership on the climate crisis," Australian Greens Deputy Leader, Senator Christine Milne, said. "The Greens stand ready to work with a re-elected Gillard government to deliver a carbon price fast, and the community is clamouring for action, but the Prime Minister is making excuses for more delays instead of embracing the opportunity. Ms Gillard's announcement today does nothing to give certainty to business. Meanwhile, China is moving fast towards a carbon price and India already has a tax on coal, leaving Australia far behind.

What we have heard from the Prime Minister is recycled rhetoric from the past four years, a repeat of Labor's old failed climate approach, not any commitment to real action. Ms Gillard's talkfest is nothing more or less than trying to re-educate the community about the fatally flawed emissions trading scheme. We already have 150 people being elected right now to debate and make decisions on climate change — it's called Parliament, Prime Minister.

Leadership on climate would have seen the Prime Minister saying 'no more coal'. Instead, her promise on emissions standards for coal fired power stations is meaningless. There are 12 coal fired power stations on the books for Australia right now and Prime Minister Gillard's promise will not apply to these. The UK recently dropped its commitment to making new coal fired power stations 'carbon capture ready', acknowledging that it was meaningless. Instead they have committed to building no more coal fired power stations unless and until carbon capture is proven and adopted.

Whilst the Greens welcome the Prime Minister's announcement of $1billion for the renewable energy grid, this is a drop in the ocean over 10 years. Compares it to the $2.5 billion already allocated to carbon capture and storage and it is patently nowhere near what is needed to drive a renewable energy revolution.

For all of this year, the government has argued that it will not move on a carbon price because it does not have the Senate numbers to do so. Prime Minister Gillard is now saying that she will not support the Greens' proposal for a carbon levy even the Greens and Labor have the numbers to deliver one in the new Senate because we have to wait for her talkfest to finish.

The community will not accept that excuse.

PM evades on climate change

PRIME Minister Julia Gillard hasn't reinvented the wheel. But she's gone as close to that exercise in fatuity as she possibly can, by announcing a "citizens' assembly" made up of "real Australians" to consider proposals for a carbon-emissions trading scheme and other responses to climate change. There already is a representative assembly whose job it is to deliberate on changes in the law. It's called Parliament. And, unlike the assembly Ms Gillard has in mind, it is democratically elected. So why does the Prime Minister want to take from the people's chosen representatives the role of debating and scrutinising measures aimed at dealing with the most serious issue confronting the planet?

Ever since Ms Gillard assumed the Labor leadership, and with it the prime ministership, she has talked evasively on climate policy. In her first news conference, she acknowledged the urgency of the need to reduce carbon emissions, and pledged that she would "reprosecute" the case for setting a carbon price. But this could not be achieved, she said, without first building a national consensus on the issue. As The Age has noted before, however, this approach is as likely to produce more of the present paralysis on climate policy as it is to result in real change. The only matters on which consensus is ever likely to be achieved are those that are uncontentious, which is why democratic politics is not about consensus. It is about building majorities, and if the Prime Minister is as committed to reprosecuting the case for pricing carbon as she purports to be, she should be making that case now, in the election campaign. Instead, however, she has effectively chosen to defer the matter again — and treated this country's elected institutions with contempt in doing so.

Ms Gillard is obviously sensitive to this sort of criticism, because in announcing the new citizens' assembly she said: "It is vital to be clear what I mean by that community consensus — I do not mean that government can take no action until every member of the community is fully convinced." Yes, Prime Minister. But why then speak of consensus? And why, instead of campaigning forthrightly on the need for an emissions trading system, tell voters that anything that might involve unpalatable changes in their way of life will be vetted by what amounts to a glorified focus group?

Details of the citizens' assembly proposal are sketchy, but the Prime Minister has said that assembly members would be representative of the broader population in age ranges and geographic origin, and chosen by an independent authority. She has not said what that authority would be, or how it would make its choices. Nor has she explained who will be on the expert commission that will explain the science of climate change, or how that will be chosen. Worst of all, in her public utterances she is content to appear blithely indifferent to the redundancy of all this new apparatus. The government already has available to it the advice of the CSIRO, and other scientists working in universities and research institutes. The findings of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change are well known, and mischievous attempts to undermine the credibility of those findings, such as the so-called University of East Anglia emails affair, have persuaded only those already disposed to see human-induced climate change as a myth. The great majority of the world's climate scientists think otherwise, and the evidence of successive opinion polls is that most Australian voters do, too. Ms Gillard does not have to build a majority for effective action on climate change. It already exists. She does, however, need to summon up the resolve to take that action.

[. . .] The Prime Minister knows the case for emissions trading. She should be taking a plan of action, not procrastination, to this election.

Both Gillard and Abbott have constructed their campaigns by a focus group audit of the Rudd government, stripping away anything that might be unpopular, difficult or complex.

It's the politics of the lowest common denominator.

It's the sort of leadership that the 19th-century French democrat Alexandre Auguste Ledru-Rollin described: "There go the people - I must follow them, for I am their leader."

So instead of an expansive election about how to solve the problems facing Australia, it will be a reductionist campaign about the negatives of the other, full of the vehemence of small differences.

. . . [Gillard] will lead the nation by keeping the Rudd program, minus the most controversial bits.

. . .[Abbott] is forging ahead with his protest vote strategy.

. . . It’s the political dynamic of the double negative — I’m promising to do less than Kevin Rudd, says Gillard, and I’m promising to do less than Julia Gillard, says Abbott.

[T]here is no transformative reform, and no ambitious national agenda. A modest set of offerings for a time of modest ambition.

There's an actor who hopes to fit the bill
Sees a shining city on a hill
Step up close and see he's blind
Wined and dined
All he has is pose
And that's the way it goes — George Harrison.

Excuse me, but what's the tearing hurry? We've had a new Prime Minister for five minutes, but we're being rushed off to an election before we can get her measure. Why? Is there a fear, if the election were delayed until October, the gloss would have worn off and we'd see Julia Gillard in a less hopeful and flattering light? Is the new leader's fleeting honeymoon all that stands between Labor and electoral defeat? Is Labor's record in government that bad? Is Tony Abbott such a formidable opponent?

I'm not impressed by what we've seen of the Gillard government so far. We've seen the triumph of political expediency over good government. From her first day she's left little doubt three running political sores — the mining tax, resentment of boat people and the vacuum left by Labor's abandonment of its emissions trading scheme — needed to be staunched quick smart if the government's re-election were to be secured.

But what hasty, amateurish patch-up jobs we've seen. Wayne Swan has fudged up figures purporting to show the revenue cost of the deal done with the three biggest mining companies was minor, whereas sharemarket analysts are saying the extra tax to be paid by the companies will be minor. Then we had the fearful muddle over the Timor solution the Timorese hadn't agreed to, and now we're getting the climate change policy you have when you don't have a climate change policy.

The trouble with all this is it's terribly reminiscent of Kevin Rudd.

As I left the Anglican church in a suburb of Harare, my Zimbabwean host said: "Don't forget us." Yet the persecution of Anglicans in the diocese of Harare, which is spreading, is being seen and remembered by few Christian communities across the world. My hosts do not worship in the fine building that was built by the Anglicans themselves—some told me that they even made the bricks with their own hands, freely and willingly giving their labour as a gift to God—but in a colourful marquee in a supporter's garden.

The marquee is so packed that some have to worship outside; the joy, energy and silences in the worship are indicators of the depth of commitment to God and each other. But not far beneath the surface is the pain of being exiles, forced from the spiritual home, built to the glory of God, that is rightly theirs.

Like all the congregations in the city and surrounding areas, they have been forced out of their place of worship by the police on the orders of Nolbert Kunonga, former bishop of Harare and avid supporter of Robert Mugabe. Kunonga was elected bishop in 2001, but his increasingly pro-Zanu-PF political stance alienated many Anglicans and he withdrew himself from the church in 2007, taking the church's assets with him, including cars, clergy houses and access to churches.

There have been long and costly legal wrangles, but the courts are reluctant to rule that these assets, illegally held by Kunonga, do not belong to him.

Some court rulings, such as a decision that churches be used at different times by different groups, are flagrantly ignored by the former bishop, who has the power to summon police to support his cause.

A small number of priests followed Kunonga and have remained in their vicarages mustering only a handful of people into church on Sundays. Kunonga has described Mugabe as a prophet and, like Mugabe, wanted to cut off links with the west and change the Anglican church into a mouthpiece for Zanu-PF. He failed in this and was told by the Church of the Province of Central Africa that he was no longer a bishop, and has since taken every opportunity to identify the Anglican church with the Movement for Democratic Change. This has attracted the ire of Mugabe's Zanu-PF.

In Harare, arrest, threats and beatings can be the rewards of Christian commitment. Congregations meet in a variety of locations. As well as in tents, worship may take place under trees, in street squares and in supporters' gardens. But nowhere is safe. One priest told me how his congregation of 1,000 was given permission by the authorities to meet close to the church building but, when they did so, 21 canisters of tear gas were fired into the gathering as they were worshiping, a group of women were detained for four days and he himself was arrested.

At the recent Bernard Mizeki festival, an annual gathering in honour of Zimbabwe's first martyr, a heavily armed police force prevented the pilgrims from gaining access to the shrine, despite public assurances of safe passage from a government minister. The festival took place in a nearby showground, where the largest gathering in recent memory was witness to the fact that persecution and harassment strengthen the Christian faith.

The Anglican church's persecution at the hand of the Zimbabwean government points to disarray within as well as the inexplicable influence of a disillusioned former cleric. What is also inexplicable is the way in which the plight of Zimbabwe's courageous Anglicans has been ignored by so many. "Don't forget us," said my Zimbabwean host.

1. Choose your venue wisely. Where you are living when you retire need not be where you end up, but moving gets harder as time goes on. If you move to reduce costs, factor all of them in: Low property prices may not make up for high health-care costs, rising property taxes or travel expenses to see family.
2. Know your benefits. Many pre-retirees have an outdated idea of how much they’ll have in pension income and how much health care will cost. But laws and policies change, generally not to the benefit of retirees. Sit down at least a year in advance with a benefits expert and get the correct, up-to-date information.
3. Have a cushion handy. The best insurance against rising costs is to have liquid assets set aside to throw off income or draw down in an emergency. Salt away as much as you can in the years leading up to retirement. Do not count on being able to sell illiquid assets, like real estate, in an emergency, as the market may be against you just when you need it most.
4. Lowball your budget. Living below your means is the best way to ensure that you do not outlive your money. Even if your pension is lower than your final salary, aim to keep monthly expenses at least 25 percent below your monthly fixed income, at least at first. Bank the rest to add to your cushion (see above).
5. Stay out of debt. Paying interest, otherwise known as rent on money, is a bad idea when you are earning a salary. On a fixed income, it is positively foolish. Before you retire, pay off credit cards and other consumer debt. Once retired, don't take on any more unless you can pay it off easily each month.

. . . attacks against the pope or the church do not only come from outside; rather the sufferings of the church come from within, from the sins that exist in the church. This too has always been known, but today we see it in a really terrifying way: the greatest persecution of the church does not come from enemies on the outside, but is born from the sin within the church, the church therefore has a deep need to relearn penance, to accept purification, to learn on one hand forgiveness but also the need for justice. Forgiveness is not a substitute for justice. In one word we have to relearn these essentials: conversion, prayer, penance, and the theological virtues.

These measures, though culpably slow and dreadfully inadequate, are sufficient proof of Benedict's moral superiority to his much-loved predecessor, and of the rightness of the claim that he has done more than anyone else in the Vatican to deal with perpetrators of sexual abuse and those that protected them.

But during [the 13 May] press conference, Benedict demonstrated something else. He demonstrated just how important symbolic — or rather, liturgical — gestures are going to be in effecting the healing and purification the Catholic Church so desperately needs.

The Pope's Duty

When rolling scandal forced the American Catholic bishops conference to take action against pedophile priests, the prelates issued a tough policy requiring accused child molesters be reported immediately to secular authorities. This mandate finally acknowledged that crimes against children should take priority over bureaucratic church policies that served to cloak rogue priests and bishops in a fog of ecclesiastical evasion.

Eight years after the American church's overdue order, it is shocking that Pope Benedict XVI and the Vatican have not yet applied it to the worldwide Roman Catholic Church. The pedophilia scandal has erupted in other nations, leaving parents concerned about a repetition of the harrowing experience in America, where more than 700 priests had to be dismissed across a three-year period. Yet the Vatican is reportedly working on new "guidelines" — not mandates. They are likely to fall short of zero-tolerance and other requirements in the American church that parishes and communities be alerted to abusers.

It is becoming clear that, as a Vatican administrator for two decades, the future pope handled the pedophilia scandal with no great distinction. Church policy under his aegis was too often a study in confusion and frustration for diocesan authorities looking for firm guidance from Rome, according to an investigative report by Laurie Goodstein and David Halbfinger in The Times. Alarmed bishops in English-speaking nations put unusual pressure on the Vatican to have a secret meeting in 2000 to consider stronger countermeasures.

Unfortunately, a dynamic policy has yet to emerge. As new reports arise of pedophile abuses and diocesan cover-ups in Europe, Chile and Brazil, Benedict has had to face the scandal and its victims more directly. He has put aside defensive Vatican complaints about anti-Catholic persecution and admitted the problem is "born from the sin in the church."

In this spirit, Benedict has the obligation to shepherd not just guidelines but credible mandates that all priest-abusers and bishops who abetted their crimes face disclosure and punishment.

Tone-Deaf in Rome

There was not much to like in the Vatican's news conference this week about its pedophilia scandal, but among all the defensive posturing and inept statements, there was one real stunner: The citing of the movement for the ordination of women as a "grave crime" that Rome deems as offensive as the scandal of priests who sexually assault children.

Calls for ending the ban on women priests are only a blip on the ecclesiastical radar screen. Yet Vatican officials gratuitously raised them at the news conference, while they offered limited antidotes to the crimes of sexual abuse and the long history of bishops dithering and covering up these crimes.

They doubled the internal statute of limitations to 20 years for defrocking abusers. Yet they failed to emphasize the problem as a state crime as the American bishops did after being forced to dismiss more than 700 priests. "It's not for canonical legislation to get itself involved with civil law," one prelate airily declared, insisting Rome's existing "guidelines" — not mandates — are sufficient for prelates to obey civil laws.

American bishops finally signaled an end to recycling serial predators through parishes by committing to zero tolerance and requiring secular authorities to be alerted from the beginning. These two steps should be embraced by the Vatican worldwide.

A third measure proposed by the Catholic laity panel that investigated the Roman Catholic Church in the United States is no less important — that there must be consequences for culpable bishops who protected pedophile clergy and paid hush money to victims. Neither the American bishops nor the Vatican have dared so far to bring offending prelates to full accountability.

Catholic parents, their trust violated, deserve to hear clear and firm countermeasures for enacting Pope Benedict XVI's promises for reform. Red herrings about female priests only display the tone-deafness of the Vatican's dominant male hierarchy.

New challenges have also emerged which have tested this organisation as much as its member states. One such is the struggle against terrorism. Another challenge is climate change, where careful account must be taken of the risks facing smaller, more vulnerable nations, many of them from the Commonwealth.

Julia Gillard has promised the nation's top mandarins she will rein in the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet and that it will no longer have the over-bearing role it had under Kevin Rudd — implicitly criticising the way the bureaucracy operated under her predecessor.

At a lunch with departmental secretaries two weeks ago on her first full day in the job, Ms Gillard said advice and expertise across the bureaucracy would be respected and her department would go back to its primary function of co-ordination and providing her with advice, rather than trying to initiate and oversee all main policies.

Sources say she told the officials she understood the past three years had been difficult for many of them and that the processes of government had not always worked efficiently.

Under Mr Rudd's leadership many public servants complained that the prime minister's office was chaotic and had become a bottleneck, and that his department — which expanded enormously over the past three years — had assumed too much power.

Ms Gillard has also reorganised her office to allow government processes to work more methodically. . . . Many senior public servants have said that in recent years they held back paperwork until Mr Rudd was overseas and Ms Gillard was acting as prime minister because she dealt with it more quickly.

In the Catholic Church such an apology is a public act of confession, which includes the commitment to seek reconciliation, to make reparation where possible, and not to sin again. The symbol presupposes that the Church is more than a collection of individuals, that its members are accountable to one another, and that that the Bishop has the responsibility to act on its behalf.