FED:Former federal minister slams govt

AAP General News (Australia)
04-24-2011
FED:Former federal minister slams govt

SYDNEY, April 24 AAP - Former finance minister Lindsay Tanner has criticised his colleagues,
saying Prime Minister Julia Gillard's "moving forward" election slogan set "new records
for banality".

In the first memoir written by a Rudd government insider, Mr Tanner, who quit politics
on the same day Ms Gillard became prime minister, says the 2010 election campaign was
the "worst in living memory", with "banal slogans, robotic delivery, and trivial policy
announcements deployed by both the major parties".

He also says Ms Gillard has dyed her hair red for years to help build her personal brand.

"It makes her more noticeable. She has registered as an individual personality in the sideshow."

Delivering a damning assessment of politics, Mr Tanner largely blames the media in
a new book, Sideshow, for descending into "info-tainment" rather than serious policy analysis,
News Limited newspapers say.

Mr Tanner, who was one of the "gang of four" ministers who ran Labor's policy agenda,
also writes that the media failed to twig that the government did nothing for two and
a half years to deliver on a key economic pledge by then prime minister Kevin Rudd in
2008 to boost national savings.

AAP ao

KEYWORD: TANNER

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