Promises promises

Mike Steketee has made many posts critical of the Coalition this year, so it's good to see him making some pretty cutting remarks about Kevin Rudd's propensity to make commitments that he is never likely to be around to see achieved:

The Government is wrong to characterise Rudd as a policy-free zone: he has announced reams of initiatives. It is just that many of them have an elusive quality. Take his promise to ensure that nine out of 10 schoolchildren complete Year 12. It’s a laudable goal, but when would it be delivered? By 2020 is the solemn promise. That is in the fifth term of a Rudd government, unless it is the Gillard or Shorten government by then, or perhaps the Turnbull government after Malcolm’s frustrated ambitions get the better of him and he switches over to the winning side.

Don’t imagine that Labor is not accountable for such a promise: it has set an interim benchmark of 2015 to lift retention rates to 85 per cent. That is only three or four elections away.

Are we getting slightly ahead of ourselves here?

And he then goes into detail on the other policies "on the never-never." (Funny, I did a shorter version of this Steketee column a few of weeks ago.)

Also, journalists have indicated before that Kevin is not personally genuinely liked even within his own parliamentary party, and his refusal to commit to anyone getting the job they currently shadow if they form government will do nothing to alleviate that. It seems a particular insult to Wayne Swan if he won't commit to him being Treasurer. (It's a marriage of convenience for both Swan and Gillard to be seen as so close to Rudd at the moment anyway, as I understand it.)

Update: Rudd has had to come out today and promise Swan, Gillard and Tanner their positions. A bit of a turnaround, and something to do with faction power too, I suspect. I imagine there were a few calls last night about his attitude yesterday.