Interesting to note what Deputy PM Mark Vaile said only three weeks ago:

^{July 16, 2007}
Deputy Prime Minister Mark Vaile says the only appropriate response [to the poor poll results] was for the Government to govern responsibly.

“Obviously, you’re not going to rush out and do anything that is going to provide significant and quick stimulus to the economy that might put upward pressure on monetary policy,” Mr Vaile said.

“It’s very, very important that any responsible government doesn’t become poll-driven, we need to make decisions that we believe are in the best interests of the nation.”

“So that’s why we would never give $21 billion in interest-rate-increasing tax cuts, or funding a hospital for an election bribe of $500 million which while possibly gaining votes is generally agreed to be bad medicine and bad policy, or blaming the states for everything, or jackbooting into Aboriginal communities in the NT and stealing their land for reasons which can have no connection with the originally-stated reasons for the invasion, or rushing 400-pages of legislation justifying the invasion into law in 24 hours. We wouldn’t do that. We govern responsibly.”

Meanwhile, reacting to the latest (Textor) polling report, PM Howard claims the “Dossier” is old out of date hat. “It was done a couple of months ago, I think our position has improved since then,” he said on Southern Cross radio.

“For example, I’ve turned over a new leaf and I’m going to be really honest from now on¹. Also, I turned ten years younger the other day.”

^{¹ N.B. Non-core promise}

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