“Trust me,” says John Howard, as the latest opinion poll continues an apparent trend back toward the Coalition.

Michelle Grattan reports:

John Howard is flagging that he will make trust a central election issue as he seeks to counter Labor on climate change by pledging a national emissions-trading scheme ‘built to last’ for the rest of this century.

Bryan Palmer, however, comments:

This looks like a significant movement in the Government’s favour. However, those of you familiar with my rules of thumb for interpreting polls, will know that I typically reject as noise any significant poll movement that can not be attributed to an event that one would reasonably expect to change voting intention. Even if I can point to a plausible explanatory variable, I usually suspend judgment on a single poll result that could mark a discontinuity.

Henry ventures judgement that the latest Newspoll is a rogue poll, and that the recovery trend will soon be the big story — almost as telling in its own way as Caaaaaarlton’s brave win over the Doggies yesterday!

Just as the Coalition comeback seems underway, Paul Kelly sees Labor as settling in for a run to government:

More than ever the Labor Party is gearing itself to govern and is focused on how it will manage the economy, convinced the polls show a permanent change of sentiment.

While Labor’s most radical policies are industrial relations and climate change, the thrust of its economic policy suggests a strong continuity with the Howard-Costello framework as well as a new interpretation of Labor reformism.

The best way to brand Labor’s policy is safe on macro-economic management, reformist on the supply side and collaborationist with the states and business on policy co-ordination. The tactics for a Rudd government seem clear. It will partially re-regulate industrial relations in the cause of fairness and trade union appeasement. It will run an ambitious climate change agenda to command the politics of the future for an entire decade. And it will run a disciplined macro policy backed by a reformist, Treasury-friendly, supply-side reform agenda. This, at least, is the plan.

Interest rates

This week there is a slew of local economic news, and the experts are confident that interest rates are on hold for the foreseeable future.

Henry’s advice to the RBA board tomorrow will look to the role of global asset inflation and its potential to derail the prosperity we have come to expect:

The question of course is what should be done about the situation. Easy money has helped fuel a global asset boom, and asset booms always lead to busts. So what can be done to avoid a bust? It is a bit rich to see Alan Greenspan warning of the coming bust in China shares, when it was his policy that helped create that boom and the global asset boom in general.

Clearly savage deflation is not the answer; just as inhibiting industry suddenly is not a sensible approach to global warming.

Read more at Henry Thornton.