Incoming foreign minister Bob Carr has called Tony Abbott a ‘‘cheapskate hypnotist’’ and says that the Opposition Leader should be worried about the latest poll results showing a drop in his personal support.
Mr Carr, who was sworn into the Senate at 12.30pm, said that Mr Abbott was treating the electorate as fools by relying on populist ‘‘slogans’’ rather than policy detail.
‘‘I think that it is striking that 18 months out from the election there is simply a six-point gap between the two sides,’’ he said. ‘‘I think it is very interesting that Tony Abbott’s support has gone down. Tony Abbott is like a cheapskate hypnotist in a run-down circus.
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‘‘He’s saying to the electorate ‘look into my eyes, you are growing weaker, no more boats, end Labor’s big bad tax, debt and deficit.
‘‘It’s a very cheap performance and if you paid five bucks to get into Wirth’s Circus and that’s all you got from the hypnotist you’d ask for your money back.
‘‘The endless repetition of these slogans is like an attempt by a trainee hypnotist to work wonders on a cobra in basket.’’
Mr Carr was responding to the latest Newspoll, which showed the hangover from the Labor leadership brawl manifesting in a four-point collapse in the party’s primary vote.
But Prime Minister Julia Gillard received a boost in the survey, overtaking the Opposition Leader in the preferred prime minister stakes, with support of 39 per cent compared with Mr Abbott’s 37 per cent.
The poll shows while Labor’s primary vote slipped from 35 per cent — recorded just before the leadership ballot between Ms Gillard and Kevin Rudd — to 31 per cent, the Coalition’s primary vote also fell over the same two-week period, sliding from 45 per cent to 43 per cent.
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/political-news/carr-attacks-abbott-as-a-cheapsk...
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