As Australia prepares to swing into election mode, many questions are being raised about the first term of the Labor government. How can we judge its record so far?

To discuss this very question, La Trobe University Ideas and Society program is presenting a forum at lunchtime today entitled The Rudd Government: what has gone wrong (or right)?

Chaired by Robert Manne, Professor of Politics at La Trobe University and editor of Dear Mr Rudd: Ideas for a Better Australia, the speakers will be Paul Kelly, The Australian’s editor at large and author of The End of Certainty and March of the Patriots; Lenore Taylor, national affairs journalist at The Sydney Morning Herald and author of Shitstorm (on the Rudd Government); and Judith Brett, professor of politics at La Trobe University and author of Ordinary People’s Politics and Australian Liberals and the Moral Middle Class.

Join them today from 12.30-2.00 in the Chamber room at the John Scott Meeting House, La Trobe University Bundoora, for a lively discussion about where the government went wrong, or what they got right.