Rudd gives good speech, if you hate Liberals and believe lies Former Rudd speechwriter Troy Bramston, like many commentators, say Kevin Rudd's campaign launch speech was his best: Rudd wrote most of the speech himself... The overarching theme of the speech was to set up a choice between Labor's plans to create and protect jobs and the Coalition's plans to slash jobs and cut spending on health and education services. Rudd wants voters to see Labor as the builders and the Coalition as the wreckers. But it's a good speech only if, for instance, you really think people are dumb enough to believe the Liberals" great purpose in office is to smash things and put people out of work - rather than to make the economy stronger so more people have jobs. It's a good speech only if, as Judith Sloan notes, you overlook what Labor has actually done with those jobs it says it will protect: KEVIN Rudd's big pitch is that "the core of Labor's vision for the Australia of the 21st century is one where every Australian should have the right to a job..." What he doesn't mention is that ... unemployment has gone from 4 per cent when Labor assumed office to 5.6 per cent now... On the government's own economic statement released just over a month ago, the rate of unemployment is assumed to rise to 6.25 per cent by mid-2014. It's a great speech only of you ignore that it's built on another lie about the Opposition, as Paul Kelly notes: While the $70 billion Coalition "black hole" figure is known by everybody to be false, Rudd used it to allege that Abbott's "massive cuts risk throwing the entire economy into recession." Recycling Keating from an earlier campaign, Rudd said: "If you don't understand how Mr Abbott's $70bn of cuts will affect your job, your school, your hospital - then don't vote for him." It's a great speech only if you ignore that some of what Rudd claims will increase jobs could actually kill them: The launch initiatives - a grab bag of sensible policy, electoral fixes and futile slide to economic nationalism - were tied to jobs and training... For big business, Rudd ... would extend Gillard's laws by lowering from $500m to $300m the threshold above which it is mandatory for projects to give Australian business improved access to supply contracts. This will further entrench government intervention in business decisions... The plans will be administered by the new Australian Industry Participation Authority. The documents say this regulatory incursion will increase the work going to Australian industry by something in the range of $156m-$624m every year. There is nothing on how much damage it will cause. Enough said.