The Poms may be dumb, but John McTernan is finding out that conservative Aussies are way smarter than Mr 457 gives them credit for... and it's the conservatives he needs to convince.
He has taught the Gillard front bench how to ignore any question and revert straight to message which this week is, "cut to the bone". The "Abbott's relentless negativity" phrase was wearing thin.
Doesn't McTernan understand that the same ALP puppets popping up on different channels, blurting exactly the same phrase every five minutes, reeks of insincerity?
Seriously, the only people who don't see through this pantomime of posturing marionettes are the brain dead who intend to vote for Gillard anyway.
But he doesn't need to convince Labor rank and file, and conservatives don't need polls to show them he is doing very poorly.
Every sneaky stunt known has been pulled in an attempt to give Gillard one legitimate term in Office and the games played are far too politically complicated for Abbott to complain about.
Abbott needs to convert ALP votes to LNP votes and ALP voters have a lower IQ. So the message must remain simple.
One of the more devious of Gillard's tricks involves the illegal boat invasion.
The cost of Labor's broken borders policy is massive and increases by the minute. It amounted to $7 billion last year and $10 billion this year including many millions in legal aid to allow arrivals to appeal adverse security rulings.
All except a few of those adverse rulings have been duly overturned. Mmm, you need to wonder who walks among us.
This appeal process has been a windfall for Labor law firms who in turn donate millions back to the ALP.
In an effort to keep the 2012/13 budget blowout below $20 billion Gillard repeated the scam of the previous year and transferred the illegal immigrant costs to the foreign aid budget. Wow!
Then, without a shade of embarrassment, Labor suspended foreign aid increases for yet another year.
[Senator Carr confirmed that the government delayed its UN-agreed goal of increasing the foreign aid budget to 0.5 per cent of GNI by another year, to 2017-18.]
Not only has this move effectively taken these increases "off budget" but has landed the future budgetary cost fair and square in Abbott's lap.
Last week, in her weeping session, Gillard explained that the NDIS will begin in July this year. That is an outright lie. The NDIS "cruel hoax" will not begin until 2019/20 at the earliest, if at all.
What Gillard was referring to were cheap "trials" of the scheme which are needed to determine the insoluble problem of eligibility.
Gillard claimed the kudos for a scheme Abbott will have to implement and find the money for.
Let's be generous and say the NDIS will cost Abbott and the States $16 billion. Add Gonski to that, $14 billion (both a per annum cost) and throw in the off-budget NBN farce of $96 billion.
Then, don't forget the deferred "foreign aid" budget which includes the $17 billion illegal immigrant cost and an ugly picture starts to emerge.
It gets uglier when Wayne Swan has his wont of extending the nation's credit card by a further $50 billion which will be added to the $350 billion he is already in deficit for and you begin to understand the extent of the financial mess Abbott will be faced with.
Then there's the borrowed $463 million Gillard has just stashed way for marginal electorates. Abbott will have to repay that too.
And there is much, much more fiscal chicanery than that.
You can add it up, I'm not going to... it makes me feel sick!
The media won't explain this because they don't wish to.
Abbott won't explain this because the Labor voters he needs to convince simply won't understand it.
