AUSTRALIA HAS A VERY CONSERVATIVE LEFTIST LEADER

In American terms, he would be the bluest of the "Blue Dogs"

We read:

KEVIN Rudd has risked a brawl with Labor's Left by placing economic growth and free trade at the core of a new policy platform. The Opposition Leader's proposals, obtained by The Australian, would denounce passive welfare, embrace the casualisation of the workforce, boost business grants and formally bury Mark Latham's disastrous Tasmanian forests policy with support for logging.

The draft platform, which also embraces public-private partnerships to fund roads andother infrastructure, ensures a showdown between Mr Rudd and powerful Left unions at next month's ALP national conference. Seeking to win over swinging voters, Labor dumps previous positions on welfare and indigenous affairs in the new policy platform as Mr Rudd shifts to the middle ground.....

More here

(For more postings from me, see AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, DISSECTING LEFTISM. My Home Pages are here or here or here. Email me (John Ray) here.)