Bad news, Tony, you're in trouble. We've just got the polling back from ABC Land . . .

The Abbott factor. Barrie Cassidy on ABC online's The Drum last Friday:

Have we had a great, or even a halfway decent, opposition leader? . . . Tony Abbott still sits with the long list of low achievers. His populist, contradictory, rhetorical and shallow analysis of the budget has been matched only by the shadow treasurer, Joe Hockey. If the budget gives the government a bounce in the polls, don't forget to factor in the performance of the opposition.

Selfish! Deborah Cameron on Mornings on Sydney's ABC 702 yesterday:

Can an opposition leader making no effort at all to talk about the serious challenges that face Australia take it all the way? Do you sense a kind of bullying tone creeping into Australian politics, especially when the Opposition Leader can have a budget in reply [that] doesn't deal with anything serious at all? Will Mr Abbott start to talk about some policy development? At the moment you could easily cast him as selfish, self-righteous. You know, don't listen to anybody and it's all about people who are already doing well in this economy.

The budget was good enough to eat? Infrastructure Minister Anthony Albanese yesterday:

This is a budget that had meat and potatoes in it, but also some veges and some, some other things on the side.

Or sinking like a stone? The Age national affairs editor Tony Wright on Mornings with Ian Henschke on 891 ABC Adelaide:

Wright: The budget appears to be well, sinking like a stone.

Henschke: It was interesting that Tony Abbott was criticised for being more opposition and less of a leader, and yet the public are now saying they prefer him as a leader.

Wright: Well, they don't quite prefer him. In The Age's poll today preferred prime minister remains Julia Gillard but by a whisker, 47 per cent to Gillard, 44 per cent to Abbott, but of course that doesn't give any comfort to Gillard, whose approval rating is now sliding on what you would call the rock bottom, and the party itself or the government is in terrible strife, it would appear from the poll results.

Or drowning duck? Chief political correspondent Phillip Coorey in The Sydney Morning Herald yesterday:

If this government had a duck, it would drown. Indeed, one feels that if [Julia Gillard] found a cure for cancer, the Coalition would criticise her for putting oncologists out of work and be applauded for it.

Misleading! Laura Tingle on ABC1's Insiders on Sunday:

I mean, I just think that the media coverage of this has been nothing short of disgraceful. I mean, it has been misleading. The News Limited tabloids in particular have gone out and there's some extraordinary stories where they've told people that they will be X dollars worse off, which has been wrong, and then said, "Tell us why you're really cross about this."

Misleading? Tingle again:

Higher health insurance premiums, well, that's not something that the government really, ultimately controls, no matter how much they'd like to talk about it.

Tingle again, this time in The Australian Financial Review on May 5:

The Australian Health Insurance Association released data yesterday based on phone polling which suggested that about 11 per cent of people with private hospital cover would drop their insurance entirely and 24 per cent would downgrade. The government's modelling shows that 99.7 per cent people will keep their hospital cover, with only 25,000 choosing to drop the cover. Opposition health spokesman Peter Dutton said the AHIA research suggested private health insurance premiums would increase by more than 10 per cent above annual premium rises.

Press release, February 25:

The Minister for Health and Ageing, Nicola Roxon, has approved private health insurance premium increases to 34 out of 35 health funds by an average of 5.57 per cent, which will take effect from April 1, 2011.

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