EXCEPTIONALLY among rich-world economies, Australia is now enjoying its 22nd year of uninterrupted growth. Much of the lucky country’s recent prosperity came easily—from shipping coal and iron ore, Australia’s two biggest exports, to China, its biggest market. But now that the Chinese boom is fading and commodity prices are slumping, that luck may be on the turn.

This backdrop makes the election on September 7th critical. Australia needs a government that can take difficult decisions when forecasts of budget surpluses are turning into deficits, and a bit of inspired leadership to help it face a trickier future. The choice for voters, frankly, is not great.

Daggy Abbott and rude Rudd

Of the country’s two main parties, the Liberal Party, now in opposition in a Liberal-National coalition, is the natural home of The Economist’s vote: a centre-right party with a tradition of being pro-business and against big government. But the coalition’s leader, Tony Abbott, does not seem an instinctive fan of markets, and one of the few key policies he has let on to possessing is a hugely expensive federal scheme for parental leave. That may help him persuade women voters that charges of misogyny are unfair, but he has not properly explained how he intends to pay for it (see article). His social conservatism does not appeal to us: he opposes gay marriage and supports populist measures against Afghans, Sri Lankans, Vietnamese and others who have attempted to get from Indonesia into Australia in rickety craft that have drowned thousands in recent years. Indeed his promise to “turn back the boats” seems to be his only foreign policy.

The argument for the protean Mr Abbott is that he might change yet again—and prove more pragmatic in office. He has certainly waged a disciplined campaign, helped by the strident support of Rupert Murdoch’s newspapers, and is ahead in the polls. But to switch to Mr Abbott requires a leap of faith. So how bad has the Labor Party been?

The main mark against Labor’s policy card is that it has shifted a long way towards Mr Abbott’s position on asylum-seekers. Aside from that, it has a reasonable record. It has loosened its traditional ties to the trade unions and promoted growth and enterprise. It has managed the economy well while introducing popular social programmes, including an insurance scheme for disabled people, reforms to schools aimed at raising teaching standards and a high-speed fibre-optic network that is now being laid out across the vast country. It put a price on carbon emissions by introducing a carbon tax in July 2012. Given that Australia is both the world’s biggest coal exporter and heavily reliant on coal for its electricity, this is a laudable achievement. Mr Abbott, once a climate-change denier, vows to scrap the tax (as well as cut spending on Labor’s schools and broadband projects).

The trouble with Labor is twofold. Its internecine strife makes the Chinese Communist Party look harmonious—warfare within its ranks has undermined Labor’s governance during its six years in office—and there are questions over the character of its mercurial leader, Kevin Rudd.

The two are connected. After leading Labor to a landslide victory in 2007, Mr Rudd was suddenly defenestrated by his deputy prime minister, Julia Gillard, in 2010. Though still popular among voters, he had forfeited the trust of his colleagues through his contemptuous treatment of them, his meddling and his indecisiveness. Ms Gillard’s legislative record was better than Mr Rudd’s (she introduced the carbon tax), but the party barons ousted her this year and reinstalled Mr Rudd, in the hope that he could work his old magic with voters.

The choice between a man with a defective manifesto and one with a defective personality is not appealing—but Mr Rudd gets our vote, largely because of Labor’s decent record. With deficits approaching, his numbers look more likely to add up than Mr Abbott’s. Despite his high-handed style, Mr Rudd is a Blairite centrist. A strategic thinker about Asia, he has skills that will be useful, especially as Australia has to balance its economic dependence on China with its security dependence on America. It would be nice if he revived his liberal approach to asylum-seekers. And, who knows, he may even live up to his promise to be less vile to his colleagues.