It is hard to find a historical comparison for the stunning turnaround in federal politics of the past two weeks. We’re not talking just polls here, but the change in the debate, in the psychology, in the way whole political armies, and their massive caravans, have had to manoeuvre in hasty and sometimes messy fashion.

The only comparison that seems to come close is the change in the way we discussed politics and the nation’s future after Bob Hawke replaced Bill Hayden as Labor leader in early 1983.

Suddenly a Labor Party that was seen by many Australians as nothing more than a scrawny child of the Whitlam government (and not in a good way) was a real prospect for forming government under a figure much admired by the public who promised a government of “reconciliation, recovery and reconstruction” after the divisiveness of the Fraser years.

The business community, for one, really didn’t know how to quite come to terms with the change in what were just a few weeks between leadership change and election, between Labor being the front runner that you still didn’t quite believe would win, and the sure thing.

Similarly now, we have moved in just a fortnight from a government on its knees and facing a catastrophic loss to one that is, at worst, within sight of being returned and, at best, already in the winner’s seat.

Some polls have led people in the Labor camp to believe that, if there had been an election last weekend, the government would have been returned with a majority (albeit of one). The growing confidence in Labor ranks is palpable. They believe the signs of its reversal of fortunes, if anything, are becoming more entrenched, rather than just being a short-term rush of blood to voters’ heads.

Labor is suddenly in the hunt for Coalition seats, rather than just desperately trying to hold on to its crown jewels. The Prime Minister has been visiting Coalition seats such as Macquarie in NSW and Solomon in the Northern Territory. People speak of winning back seats like John Howard’s old seat of Bennelong.

Lobby groups that were not bothering to talk to Labor are scurrying back. State governments are having to re-assess the wisdom of not locking in deals on education funding.

BITTER BLOW FOR OPPOSITION

The country’s independent schools chose to come out this week to endorse the dare-not-say Gonski funding reforms – a bitter blow for an opposition that regarded the Catholics and independent as “theirs”.

Suddenly, the four issues that dogged Labor for at least the past three years are in the process of being transformed: leadership, the carbon price, boats and economic management.

Leadership: Instead of being about Labor’s internal woes and, across the political divide, a contest between two deeply disliked political leaders there is a choice between a liked Prime Minister and one of the most disliked Opposition Leaders of recent times.

The carbon price? Well, we don’t know how the government will finance an early shift to an emissions trading system and, in the process, the slashing of the carbon price, but it is spoken of across the government as a done deal. It brings with it the spectre not just of removing the carbon tax, but the reason why Labor will predict a fall in electricity prices, which have been a cost of living irritant since before it first came to office in 2007.

The politics of boats are also changing. This was already happening under prime minister Gillard, but as Rudd has gone on the attack in areas that have traditionally been the preserve of the Coalition, it has been more apparent.

As the election loomed, the Coalition had started to hedge it bets on just how fast it could stem the flow of people arriving in Australia.

The points of policy difference had already been whittling away until, in recent months, the one remaining stick of Coalition policy was turning back boats.

This hit a rather unfortunate snag when the Indonesians, in a series of escalating statements, made clear they would not be party to such arrangements.

The government now has at least two explicit policy proposals under consideration: changing the definition of refugee and changing regional visa arrangements, for example, to stop people coming from Iran applying for a visa when they get to Indonesia.

DON’T BELIEVE ABBOTT

When people in focus groups are asked whether they believe Tony Abbott can really “stop the boats”, they don’t believe it.

However, they still react at an emotive level with hostility on the issue and this is why Abbott continues to push it. But it is nonetheless becoming more complicated as voters embrace a new, positive politics.

Kevin Rudd is moving fast, and moving into comfortable Coalition territory wherever Tony Abbott looks, adopting the fast-moving battle tactics of Napoleon rather than, Abbott’s more concentrated Schwerpunkt-ish tactics (sorry, had to get that word in) which have been summarised by battle tactic experts as “Klotzen, nicht kleckern!” (literally “Boot’em, don’t spatter’em”).

Rudd is benefiting from a sense in the electorate that the hung parliament, with all its negative politics, with its sense of a government held hostage to a handful of independents, is already a thing of the past.

This is lethal news for Tony Abbott who Rudd branded with ‘negative politics’ no less than five times in his speech to the National Press Club on Thursday.

Rudd, by comparison, is painting himself as Mr Positive and this is no more so than in his repositioning of Labor on economic management.

Labor was always waiting for the marching band and dancing girls to arrive, signifying a grateful nation acknowledged its triumph in saving the country from the global financial crisis.

It got bogged down in its frustration that this didn’t happen, meaning it could never quite explain why, if it had done such a great job, the economy wasn’t quite what it had been before (no matter how much better it may have been performing than the rest of the world).

Freed by the dramatic events of a fortnight ago, Rudd is able to change the story to one about things not being as great as you might like, but nowhere near as bad as they would be under the austerity of the Coalition. And in an eerie echo of 1983, he is promising to bring the nation – particularly business and the unions – together. Tony Abbott has, to date, only looked as stunned as Malcolm Fraser did 30 years ago. It only lengthens the odds of a later election than an early­ one.

PM's Blitzkrieg Has Opposition On The Back Foot