Rudd faces new opponent, new tactics 

Source: ReutersKevin Rudd

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd ends his second year in power facing a new opponent and a changed political outlook, with his government in need of fresh tactics for the 2010 election year.

In a dramatic past week in Australian politics, Rudd's landmark carbon trade plan was rejected by parliament and the opposition dumped its leader Malcolm Turnbull, who was considered too close to Rudd on climate policy.

The opposition elected as its new leader social conservative Tony Abbott, a former boxer and Rhodes scholar who once studied for the priesthood, in a move analysts said would sharpen the choice voters face at elections due by late next year.

Rudd and his Labor Party have led in opinion polls since he won office in late 2007, but Abbott's election is likely to lead to a short-term revival of opposition support, which would dampen speculation of an early election.

"Voters might give Abbott the benefit of the doubt, and a honeymoon of around 100 days," said Australian National University professor Ian McAllister, who has tracked opinion polls and leader's ratings since the early 1970s.

"That is one reason why the Labor Party might not want an early election."

Abbott won the job with support of climate sceptics in his Liberal Party by promising to scuttle the centrepiece of Rudd's climate policy, overturning bipartisan support for action to curb carbon emissions in a country hit hard by drought and heatwaves.

Abbott has already moved to clearly differentiate the opposition from the government. He has promised not to support carbon trading or a carbon tax, and has floated the use of nuclear energy as a way of curbing emissions.

Voters have the first chance to deliver their verdict Abbott's new climate stance on Saturday, with by-elections in Liberal strongholds in Sydney and Melbourne to replace former Treasurer Peter Costello and former Liberal leader Brendan Nelson.

Scare campaigns?

The defeat of the carbon laws in parliament's upper house Senate gives Rudd the right to call an early election at any time, although he has played down the option and has said he would prefer elections at the normal time of late 2010.

That would give Rudd the chance to mount a new political campaign against Abbott, who has a reputation as a thoughtful but ideological politician with a blunt and combative style and who once described the prime minister as a "toxic bore".

Abbott has signalled he will run a negative campaign, already warning voters of the dangers of rising prices if they support Rudd's climate policies, which he says will amount to a new tax.

"People don't like new taxes," McAllister said. "I suspect an emissions trade election, if it was focused on a new tax, could be very dangerous for Rudd."

But Abbott has political baggage. He was a workplace minister in the former conservative government, which enacted deeply unpopular laws that stripped back worker and union rights.

While the opposition would run a scare campaign against emissions trading, Rudd would counter with a scare campaign against Abbott over nuclear power and worker rights, Monash University analyst Nick Economou said.

Australia has the world's largest reserves of uranium, but has no nuclear power. Australians remain largely opposed to nuclear energy due to long term safety concerns and worries about how to properly dispose of used nuclear fuel.

"I think Abbott is unelectable," Economou said.

"He'll be at war with a range of interest groups. Feminists don't like his position on abortion, anti-nuclear people don't want nuclear power, and people are worried about climate change. And the trade unions are just waiting to have another fight."