Prime-Minister Kevin Rudd was at the Labor National Conference today talking at length about his Government's various achievements.  What was made painfully clear by his speech was that his leadership has been mired by giving enormous promises, (still awaiting my education revolution) but delivering poorly - By Sean Maguire

  To start off with, people on his mailing list would have received an automated e-mail detailing his Government's successes, and here they are in full, reproduced verbatim:

• an Australian Labor Government apologised to the stolen generations;
• an Australian Labor Government ratified Kyoto;
• an Australian Labor Government threw out WorkChoices once and for all;
• an Australian Labor Government abolished the Pacific Solution; and
• an Australian Labor Government withdrew our remaining combat forces from Iraq

Not a very long list or a very courageous list from a self described ‘party of the future' which is ‘always prepared to be bold'. For one, the apology to the stolen generations was always needed as a beginning and not an end to closing the gap between the indigenous and non-indigenous populations. Something that hasn't happened.

Secondly, Australia did ratify Kyoto, but so what? Apart from some international kudos, signing Kyoto isn't really important. Primarily, because with the Copenhagen Conference this December it will be replaced and also because with so few developed countries even coming close to the targets agreed upon, it needs to be replaced.

Thirdly, the Australian Labor Party cannot say ‘it threw out WorkChoices once and for all'; its replacement Fair Work Australia is hardly any better. The ACTU may be happy with FWA as it gives a greater role for Unions in the work place but it's still debatable whether it's a move forward. For instance for a work place with 15 employees or less, the employer can ‘have 12 months to look at a new employee' then fire them in that period without having to worry about Unfair Dismissal Claims. Seems a little unfair and un-Labor Party.

Fourthly, abolishing Nauru and the Pacific Solution was definitely something positive, yet, the offshore Detention centre on Christmas Island remains active as does the Villawood Detention Centre outside Sydney. For a brief outline of where the rarely reported on Immigration Detainees are, visit this page.

Finally, withdrawing Australian troops from Iraq earlier this year, as US troops are all but a memory, is hardly an accomplishment. Five years ago, when Iraq was topical and on the news nightly, then to withdraw would have been an accomplishment and a strong stand against American militarism. No, Australia waits till now, when focus (and a significant number of Australian troops) have shifted to Afghanistan- bravo ALP.

In the speech itself the policy announcement that will get the most column inches will be the creation of 50,000 new Green Jobs. A policy so practical in helping to solve youth unemployment and climate change that the Liberals and the Greens will have difficulty arguing against it. A policy so practical, that environmentalists have been campaigning for it, for years. This should raise the question- why should we be celebrating when this government brings policy in when it's politically popular rather than when it's first found to be necessary?

Then Rudd went on to mention that ‘this Government's education revolution is well and truly underway'- something quite debatable here on the ground. Yes, Rudd was able to produce some lovely sounding figures such as:

      ‘And we're undertaking the biggest long-term investment in higher education and research in Australia's history, including an additional50,000 students attending university by 2013'.

But he, and the policy that hasn't been written yet, doesn't explain how or where these 50,000 students will be taught. Practicalities (as Monday's Health Care Proposal showed) are clearly not Rudd's strong point.

Moving on. What was most interesting about the speech was what was left out. He mentioned that the 21^st century would ‘be turbo-charged' but the almost life-less broadband revolution wasn't mentioned, he avoided the same-sex marriage issue by not talking about how he over-turned over 100 discriminatory pieces of legislation to same-sex couples. And finally, he was painfully brief in his description of Climate Change policy, yes their might be people working in environmentally friendly jobs, not much good if there isn't an environment left to work in.

Finally, what was sad about the speech was when he mentioned Labor leaders gone by. He briefly described the achievements of Andrew Fischer, Hawke, Keating and of course the likes of Gough Whitlam and Lance Barnard, a government of two, staying up all night revolutionising Australia. Days long gone by. Today we have Rudd, boring the world and claiming achievements that aren't his.

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