Wednesday, November 21, 2007

The clever questions were bowled up...

...and here's how Kevin Rudd handled them at the National Press Club:

* He committed to give a press conference after every Cabinet meeting.

* "When I talk about a razor gang, I am dead serious. It's probably not the right place or town to talk about it. I am not talking about a reduction in services, but I am talking about a reduction in the administrative expenses of departments."

* "We have a panel of 6 or 7 business advisors ready to roll."

* "Whoever wins this on election on Saturday will win by a nose. This is tighter, tougher and nastier than many people in this room think."

* "If ministerial staff have exercised executive responsibilities, they should be accountable to parliamentary committees."

* "This will horrify senior public servants and many future ministers but I want to hold Cabinet meetings outside of Canberra on a monthly basis. I want to see the West, aboriginal communities..."

* "I want the mandatory renewable energy target in place by the end of the year.

* "I want the Council of Australian Governments convened within the first 100 days, we have to sort out accident and emergency, critical hospital care. If not we will move on taking over over the funding of hospitals..."


Okay, so the questions weren't that clever. But that's how it went.

John Howard's turn tomorrow - 12.30pm AEDT Thursday