KEVIN Rudd was always going to cover us in a snowstorm of new policies once he regained the top job.

It is one of the things he has always done well, come up with strategies and plans that look good on paper and sound good in short grabs. But all too often they fall apart in the real world.

In the less than four weeks since he rolled Julia Gillard, Mr Rudd has launched policies that have one thing in common - they're all trying to get troublesome political issues off the table before the next election.

He's presumably hoping voters won't notice that at least some of these shiny new policies are to solve problems he was instrumental in creating the first time he was prime minister, most notably his controversial Papua New Guinea solution designed to halt the ever-growing armada of asylum seeker boats trying to get to Australia.

They are also policies that barely stand up to scrutiny or survive any proper analysis of their implications.

His agreement with PNG might, at first glance, seem a clever solution to a problem that has been plaguing the Labor Government for its whole time in office, ever since it began winding back the Howard administration's hard-line asylum seeker policies.

Asylum seekers trying to reach Australia will now be processed in PNG, returned to countries of origin or settled in a third country.

But can it really work? Australia has won PNG's support with promises of financial aid, but if the boats keep coming Australia will have to keep building facilities and paying for their operation at unknown future cost.

Whatever the implications for PNG society and whatever messages it sends to the rest of the world, can this new program possibly be budget-neutral as the Government suggests?

And it would seem obvious the Government barely thought the implications of its plan to raise $1.8 billion by tightening fringe benefits attached to salary-sacrificed and company-provided cars.

It needs the money to offset Mr Rudd's decision to end Julia Gillard's carbon tax a year earlier than planned - itself little more than a political stunt dressed up as a cost-of-living savings for average Australians.

The Government claims it is clamping down on the rorters but the reality is that about 75 per cent of the 320,000 Australians affected by the change, to the tune of $1400, earn less than $100,000 a year.

The auto industry also warns the changes, introduced with no consultation, will have a huge negative effect on the sector, with some predicting the end of car manufacturing in Australia.

Surely that wasn't exactly what Mr Rudd had in mind.

But more offensive than his assumptions about the gullibility of the Australian public and the absence of useful detail to back the new policies is the fact that the Government is now using millions of dollar of public money - our money, our taxes - to market these very policies to us.

Within seconds, it seemed, of announcing the PNG deal, which hasn't been legislated and perhaps never will be, ads were appearing declaring, "If you come here by boat without a visa you won't be settled in Australia", all directed at course at would-be asylum seekers and their families rather than voters concerned about the issue.

This publicly funded promotion of government policies joins others such as the campaign for the Government's National Plan School Improvement - the Gonski reforms - even though it still hasn't been agreed to by all the states.

There is also extensive advertising for the DisabilityCare Australia, the national disability insurance scheme, which despite any other impression you might get from the slick marketing, is still a long way short of a national program.

It is, in fact, open for business in only four "launch sites".

The Government will spend $65 million in a three-month advertising blitz, despite Mr Rudd calling government advertising a "cancer on democracy" during his 2007 campaign.

Today in Sydney, the Labor Party holds its last caucus meeting before the election. Mr Rudd is expected to continue his efforts to distance himself from past Labor Government policy mistakes and poor public administration, many of them of his own making, by proposing rule changes that effectively have him campaigning against his own party.

The puzzling question is: why isn't the Coalition streets ahead in the polls against one of the most dysfunctional governments in Australia's history?

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Maroons' World Cup blue

IF we ever had a State of Origin for whingeing, NSW would definitely win it. Last week Queensland won its eighth straight Rugby League State of Origin and you'd think that after one of the most exciting series in years, Blues players would get back to the business of delivering their all for their NRL clubs.

But no. According to southern media reports, tension between NSW and Queensland players is now so bad Australian coach Tim Sheens is going to be flat out repairing things in time for November's World Cup.

The problem with the Queenslanders, according to one unnamed NSW player, is "they're so f...ing arrogant".

Queensland coach Mal Meninga has a different view entirely. He makes the obvious point that you don't keep winning games and series by being arrogant and assuming you don't have to do the hard work to win.

Self-belief and healthy egos aren't the same as arrogance, he notes.

And whatever tensions there might be between NSW and Queensland players, Meninga believes they're a world away from the 1985 tour of New Zealand.

Meninga was on that tour which saw NSW and Australian coach Terry Fearnley sack four Queensland players for the third Test, even though Australia had won the first two games. He says he knows Sheens well enough to know he'd never allow such a poisonous atmosphere to develop again.

Responsibility for election comment is taken by Christopher Dore, corner Mayne Rd and Campbell St, Bowen Hills, Qld. 4006. Published by NEWSQUEENSLAND. (ACN 009 661 778) A full list of our editors and journalists, with contact details, is available at couriermail.com.au/news/opinion/ourstaff

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