PM wins 71 to 31.

Mining tax helps uproot Rudd

The ousting of Kevin Rudd from his job as Australian Prime Minister this week is a welcome reminder that voters aren’t quite as gullible as politicians believe.

And it is a warning to New Zealand’s Prime Minister John Key that no amount of popularity in the opinion polls is enough to insulate against policies that wreck the economy and needlessly cost people jobs.

Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has called for a Labor caucus vote on his leadership and faces a challenge from deputy leader Julia Gillard. If successful, she will be the country's first woman prime minister.

The spill, as Australians call a leadership challenge, comes after a precipitous fall in Mr Rudd’s popularity since the beginning of the year.

The Australian Senate has rejected the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme, leaving Kevin Rudd without an emissions trading scheme to take to Copenhagen.

The Labor government's ETS was rejected for the second time, according to the Sydney Morning Herald, by 33 votes for and 41 votes against.

Retailing group Hallenstein Glasson has credited several factors for its improved performance in the last six months – one of them being the Australian government.

The company today reported unaudited sales of $198.19 million for the year to August 1, up 2.3% from the previous year.

However, unaudited net profit after tax was projected at between $12.2 million and $12.4 million, a drop of approximately 23%.

The good news for the retailer was the turnaround it had made in the second half.

Independent Liquor’s Australian future hinges on the outcome of a revote on prime minister Kevin Rudd’s controversial alcopop tax, voted down by the senate last month.

Chief executive Peter Murphy says that the company’s Australian business would be untenable if the tax goes through on a revote, which may force the closure of its Melbourne factory in Laverton and send production back to New Zealand.