I don't get it. On a range of indicators from the UN Human Development Index and OECD, Australia is the best country in the world to be living in (see Peter Hartcher excellent book The Sweet Spot). Kevin Rudd's government got us through the global financial crisis, so that we are the best performing developed country in the world.
Julia Gillard's government made a start in redirecting more of the mining industries massive profits back to Australians and made a good start on tackling climate change.
But what do most Australians want? Dump Labor and vote in Tony Abbott, a man with some dangerous economic, environmental and social ideas and no positive policies.
What is happening to Australia when the country is doing exceedingly well, yet the electorate wants to change government? What is much of our media and press gallery doing? Not providing the analysis on why Australia is in this paradoxical situation, but obsessing about the possibly imaginary conflict between Gillard and Rudd.
If I wasn't patriotic and Australia wasn't the best country in the world to live in, I'd want to live elsewhere.
Rod Holesgrove, O'Connor
In denigrating Kevin Rudd (''Gillard seems to be a goner but Rudd may still be a dud'', February 4, p21), Judith Ireland is guilty of selective use of polling data. To make her argument against Rudd's return, she tells us that the Coalition led Labor 53-47 in June 2010 when he was still prime minister. Well, it did, once, in the Nielsen poll of June 6.
This was the first and only time that Rudd trailed between December 2006 when he took the Labor leadership and June 24, 2010, when he lost it. On the more influential Newspoll, Rudd was similarly behind only once, in April 2010, when the Opposition led 51-49.
But Rudd again led by 51-49 on May 30 and by 52-48 on June 20, four days before he was replaced by Gillard. He also led Tony Abbott as better PM by 47-36. Rudd lost only two opinion polls in more than 3 years as Labor leader. This makes him the most consistently popular political leader Australia has ever had. There may be plausible arguments against a Rudd renaissance but neither past nor present polling is among them.
Phil Teece, Sunshine Bay, NSW
Ned Ovolny (Letters, 4 February) quotes Goethe in praising Kevin Rudd. I'll respond with some Rudd-apposite Shakespeare: ''I am above thee: but be not afraid of greatness: some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them.'' The point being that the speaker, Malvolio in Twelfth Night, is not great at all, and is mocked and disliked by those around him.
The parallel with Rudd goes further - when Malvolio suffers a humiliating, if deserved, downfall, it is with him rather than the plotters that our sympathies tend to lie. I look forward to seeing how the next act unfolds.
G. Burgess, Kaleen
OVERDUE RESPECT
T. Willis (Letters, February 2) suggests in effect that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders need to earn the respect of other people first. I would put it another way - ''We other Australians should respect (acknowledge) our first people, as other countries have done.'' That recognition is well overdue.
They do not need to take any particular steps to earn that recognition. The mere fact that they, as a people, occupied this marvellous country for 40,000 years or so before white settlement justifies that recognition, not only in the constitution, but also publicly by all elements of Australian society.
The fact that some Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people might have behaved badly on Australia Day (invasion day to them) should not distract Australians giving them due recognition as Australia's first people.
Maurice Sexton, Duffy
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