I hate talking in negatives. And I hate people who dwell upon the negatives in order to justify themselves. But there's a poll out today and I have to say there can be no surprise.
After all, in the lead-up to the last Federal election, the Opposition strategy was virtually to take every policy of the Howard government and re-brand it as their own to prove that the Labor Party were economically conservative.
We heard that comment over and over again.
"Trust me, my name is Kevin," the Prime Minister said when he was elected, "and by the way I'm an economic conservative.
"In other words, I'm not going to do anything that's financially irresponsible."
In other words, Mr Rudd was well aware of the Howard government's record of sound economic management during its 11 years in power.
Yet once in power, Mr Rudd and Mr Swan have wasted no time in attacking the previous Government's economic record, calling them economic vandals who'd recklessly driven up interest rates, the highest inflation in history. And so, from the mantra of working families, we've received downward pressure on inflation rhetoric, every day.
The Reserve Bank has been given a blank cheque to do what it likes with interest rates. So we're going north while America goes south on interest rates.
As if Americans weren't using petrol or shopping at the supermarket or needing child care or buying houses or whatever.
Now one of the inevitable consequences of this doom-mongering was that the public would lose confidence, perhaps even in the government, as witnessed in the Gippsland by-election. But now we're told today that in the past six months the percentage of people who fear their living conditions will get worse has more than doubled. The biggest jump in the 23-year history of Newspoll's standard of living survey.
The percentage of those expecting an improvement has halved.
Now Brendan Nelson made the point recently that the introduction of Mr Rudd's carbon emissions trading scheme will make the GST look like nothing. That's what this poll suggests.
Fears about living standards for the next six months are worse than those experienced before the introduction of the GST in July 2000.
Now of course Mr Rudd created the expectation that he could do things a whole lot better, on petrol, groceries, interest rates, climate change, Work Choices. And by all of those barometers the new government has done infinitely worse.
And what did the Treasurer say yesterday? Fighting inflation required the government to be so determined and so tough. As if the whole world has to stand still to fight inflation.
In other words, you can't seemingly own a house and fight inflation. You can't keep your job and fight inflation. You can't spend and fight inflation.
It's impossible to imagine what has inspired anyone in Canberra to so terrify the electorate with everything they touch and say to the extent that the nation's confidence has completely dried up.
Confidence about their jobs, confidence about the cost of living, both of which are at their lowest since the recession of the 1990s.
The Australian newspaper tells us this morning in a Dennis Shanahan story, "Pessimism in the community at levels last seen two decades ago when Paul Keating warned that the nation could become a banana republic".
That we've got to this point in a matter of months is an absolute disgrace.
We are one of the richest nations on earth. We've got an economy the envy of the world. Six months ago we had unemployment so low it was almost zero. Industrial disputes at a level not seen for over 70 years. Interest rates were at levels that were unprecedentedly low.
And now, at the end of the first six months of a new government, the nation is plunged into this.
Mired in pessimism, when there is so much to be optimistic about.
Take petrol out of the equation and manage other things sensibly and we've got the world at our feet.
But a Government that seems to know so little that all it can talk about is inflation and working families.
Those who have given this nation this transfusion of pessimism and have sapped the nation's confidence have a lot to answer for.
