A late change of direction for Abbott and Labor

Strange things are happening on the way to Australian election – both sides are changing direction. And even stranger things are happening behind the scenes at the Group of 20 summit in Russia, which starts today.

Domestically, the Coalition had planned a firestorm of 'scare' advertisements but has discovered that the electorate now expects them to win and so too many negative advertisements could be counterproductive.

And the main issue in the electorate is now about whether the Coalition and Tony Abbott can be trusted with the task. There will still be strong advertising but it’s more about 'contracts' and 'plans'.

Today the Coalition will release its costings but the detailed plans will come after it gains office (Abbott's secret plan forces Rudd into error, August 30). 

At ALP headquarters the debate is about whether to continue the 'we can win' line or concede defeat and go for sympathy. Bill Shorten is manoeuvring to take over from Kevin Rudd, whose presidential campaign style has failed badly (The scene is set for Rudd 3.0, September 4). Whereas the Coalition was organised like a military machine the unpredictability of Kevin Rudd destroyed ALP morale and left them disorganised.

And while we look internally our prime minister should be at today’s G20 meeting in St Petersburg. The election should have either have been last weekend or in two weeks' time.

We fought hard to get into the G20 and the next meeting is in Brisbane so our prime minister should not have called an election for a date that made it impossible for Australia to be represented at the highest level. Kevin Rudd should have known better. 

At the G20 the surface debate will be about whether the US bombs Syria. But the debate masks the basic change coming to world power, which will greatly affect Australia.

America has ruled the world for six decades but the Iraq and Afghanistan wars have exhausted its ability to continue the role of being the world ‘policeman’. World power is going to be defused and shared with Russia and China. The way to get Syria to stop using chemical weapons is not to bomb them but to work with the Russians to achieve the goal. And the only way to curb North Korea is to work with the Chinese in the same way.

America clearly does not yet understand the new dynamic. And power diffusion will get much worse because the US has put much of its long-term air power in the hands of the Joint Strike Fighter, which is simply no match for the equivalent Russian/Indian aircraft (which will also spearhead Indonesia) and probably does not match the equivalent Chinese aircraft.

Australia’s task will be to help the Americans understand the new realities. But first we must understand them.

And we have just been through an election campaign that simply did not discuss what would probably become the biggest issue for Tony Abbott and his cabinet – the new role of the US. Strange things indeed.