Interestingly Abbott has now overtaken Rudd on the net satisfaction rate and Abbott still has more room to move upwards than Rudd does on the maximum possible support rate.

Either way the polls are tight and the contest will be real. My sense is that Rudd has recovered some ground on health, but health has only one direction to go for Rudd, and that is backwards. As the detail trickles out the negative argument will become easier and more persuasive.

In the meantime the insulation debacle shifts ever surely, if incrementally, towards the PM’s office. In the heat of an election campaign this could be the decisive factor that portrays Rudd and the ALP as dangerously incompetent, with a trail of victims, uninsurable and burnt down homes accross the land. The next set of problems for Rudd will start when insurance agencies refuse to pay out home insurance premiums if the fire was started due to dodgy insulation.

Once again we have to ask what are the Coalition doing to get in touch with the victims of the insulation debacle and what positive measures do they intend to put in place to help people out. Clearly a lot of people’s principle asset is in danger and the Coalition should offer a policy directed towards this large number of voters and ALP stimulus policy victims. Perhaps offering to underwrite any losses until the inspection, certification and repairs are completed might be a start. People mightn’t change vote for a small tax cut, but I bet they would to protect their investment in their homes.

Now correct me if I am wrong but didn’t the Greens support the insulation program? Is this where the Coalition starts to define the Greens as dangerous? At some point this slow drip of damage will burst the ALP vote dam wall. I remain confident that the Coalition can win the election, but still has much work to do, and it has to get smarter about how it does that work.