Today’s Daily Telegraph carries a Galaxy Research poll of 1000 voters in the marginal seats of Camden, Gosford, Kiama, Londonderry and Menai, which suggests Labor will "almost replicate its two-party preferred vote of 2003 with 58 per cent of the vote after preferences". Presumably the hard copy comes with a table breaking all this down; perhaps one of my NSW readers will be kind enough to send me a scan. The poll was conducted on Tuesday and Wednesday, and thus gives no indication how voters in these mostly commuter electorates might have reacted to Wednesday night’s transport chaos.
UPDATE: No table breakdown – I have been widely mocked by those more familiar with the Telegraph than myself for expecting such a thing.
When is someone going to do a poll on Swansea or Lake Macquarie?
Bogun country – not worth the effort
Breaking news: Debnam has effectively conceded today the ALP will win the election. He is now campaigning for a protest vote against the Iemma government. Apparently, Pete was abysmal at today’s press conference.
Gee, real encouraging for those Liberal voters out there!
Despite Wednesday’s train chaos, I doubt it’ll change the expected election result that much, because those affected would live in safe Liberal North Shore electorates. I’ll stick with my prediction that Iemma loses 3 seats, maybe wins back Murray Darling or South Coast, and it’s still a comfortable Labor majority.
You give far too much credit to the Tele. No breakdown in the hardcopy.
There is a horrific picture of Debnam in his speedos though…
What about Manly, The local paper the “Manly Daily” is giving the Liberal Candidate (Mike Baird) so much coverage that the locals have renamed the Paper to the “Baird Daily”
Jason,
Has the proposed Catherine Hill Bay development become a big issue in Swansea?
I can’t believe a leader would do this. What a bloody goose, and a great testimony to his views about democracy and the will of the people.
You would think he was spinning to catch the protest vote, but if people can’t believe Debnam thinks he’s capable of leading them, they’re not going to vote for him, are they?
# Swinging Voter Says: What about Manly, The local paper the “Manly Daily†is giving the Liberal Candidate (Mike Baird) so much coverage that the locals have renamed the Paper to the “Baird Dailyâ€
Really? See the previous NSW thread for a 1-page summary of what is happening in Manly, including a comment that the Greens are probably getting the best run from “The Doiley”
The article in the Telegraph is headed “Four more years of hard Labor”. Me thinks they are pissed. I like the comments by one of the bloggers. He/she wants to know why the Telegraphs own online polling is so at odds with official polling. Would anyone expect any else?
William said: Presumably the hard copy comes with a table breaking all this down; perhaps one of my NSW readers will be kind enough to send me a scan.
You presume too much sir!
No tables, no numbers other than those quoted above. The Galaxy Research home page is equally useless.
anonymousie Says: I can’t believe a leader would do this. What a bloody goose.
…and…
ABCNet says: there have been reports the Liberal Party has given up and is already lining up its next leader.
When will Fatty O’Barrel strike?
Adam Carr….. in your vast database is there any precedent anywhere in history, anywhere on the planet, for a party leader having been deposed in the last days of an election campaign? Please don’t mention Hayden.
Galaxy research. . . an oxymoron? Out here the Liberals are really working Mulgoa, Penrith and Londonderry hard. Diane Beamer, Minister for Western Sydney is running her campaign out of her electoral office (no sign of any Campaign Office), and has been more or less invisible at local shops and railway stations. However, there is an almost endless amount of Labor and union spam spewing into people’s letterboxes. It looks like a remote-control campaign from Sussex Street, delivered via Australia Post. It looks like the Libs are relying on a small band of volunteer deliverers, and cannot keep up with Labor’s avalanche. I suspect the Liberals are being swamped 8 or 10:1 by Labor and Union spending. As Adolf Hitler once famously said. . . “repeat a lie 1,000 times, and it becomes the truth!”. Modern “Democracy” – he with the biggest campaign chest – wins!
The PM said he would make him and his ministers’ present felt in this election campaign. Are they there yet or has it already been felt out in the electorate, if you know what I mean?
Badgery Boi
Are you sure it Herr Hitler who said that?
I stand corrected! 😉
It was actually Dr. Joseph Goebbels, Propaganada Minister of the Third Reich who said , ” Repeat a lie a thousand times and it becomes the truth.”
Cheers
Ernie Durack, leader of the NSW (ALP) opposition, resigned on the afternoon he was due to give the policy speech during the 1917 election. This was 4 weeks before the election. I have never seen an authorative reason for his actions but it has been suggested that the Government had information about a sexual indiscretion -either sodomy or illegitimate parenthood.
I wonder if it might help the Libs if they dumped Debnam for O’Farrell right now?
What happened to Costello campaigning to rape Costa over the appalling economic management, Abbott and Nelson using their profile, Bishop helping with education and Vaile running the attack on trains etc?
What a loser Debham got to be, he was a former Naval Officer. If he was in charge of the Navy, he would have surrendered at Pearl Harbour. Those poor Liberal workers, Peter those comments are (not) great for moral. Didn’t the Navy teach you anything about leadership
I disagree. Conceding is a good move.
– It’s true. He won’t win.
– It puts voters in a safe-seat by-election mindset. ie blase and feeling like giving the government a kick without worry about consequences
– It worked wonders in Queensland 1995 (minus eastern motorway)
Without any evidence to support me, I think it’s good for an extra 2%
TS, I don’t know if you’re in NSW (and I have to admit I wasn’t in Vic 1999 or Qld 1995), but it’s not the tactic as such– it’s the way it’s been done. It’s been delivered appallingly. The only way that anyone would vote for the Libs as a result of Debnam’s performances today is if they feel sorry for such a badly beaten man who’s obviously on his way out, not because they want to ‘teach Iemma a lesson’.
From a long distance, Borbidge and Bracks managed to pull off the trick of saying to the electorate ‘we’re huge underdogs, so you can safely give the Government a kicking’ without also saying, ‘we have to concede that we’re hopeless and can’t win’.
Unless something remarkable happens in the last week, I can’t see the sorry state of the current ‘battle’ between the majors doing anything but giving independents a leg-up.
Lake Macquarie (Key Seat)
Hunter Valley and Central Coast
Assessment
A safe Labor seat, but one that will be much more interesting with the decision of Lake Macquarie Mayor Greg Piper to nominate as an Independent. Piper is teaming himself with Maitland’s Peter Blackmore and Newcastle’s John Tate, putting themselves forward as an Independent force in opposition to Labor, playing on local views that the Labor Party takes its traditional grip on the Hunter Valley for granted.
As for people from Swansea being boguns, they hate being betrayed by the ALP, the Australian Legion of Paedophiles, and elect independents following such scandals.
The Daily Telegraph website is hilarious!
Believe it or not, their interactive poll gives Labor a chance of winning Vaucluse and Epping – neither of which will ever happen, while Morris Iemma is supposedly under threat in Lakemba.
Interesting too how peed off is the media in general with the polls, especially the Murdoch press and commercial radio in Sydney.
As for Debnam: pathetic! There must be hardworking Liberals out there scratching their heads in frustration!
I think Peter should resign now and hand leadership over to Pru Goward. A HUGE call, I realise but:
1. Never been done before so it will be hard for the ALP party apparatchik to get into motion to slander Goward like it has done on Debnam;
2. It gives the public a contrast – new fresh blood, vast experience in the public, media savy; sort of “nanna” feel to leadership rather than the Dilemma “roger-a-thon” that NSW have had to endure;
3. What have they got to loose? It can’t get any worse;
4. It means the Labor wankers have spent millions of $$ for nothing (that alone would be worthwhile seeing Dilemma & co’s face!)
5. No reason a non-elected person cannot be leader of the opposition!
This is about the future of NSW – not about ego or factions. Lets face it NSW want a moderate conservative leader – in fact they are desperate – but are deeply suspicious of the far-rights control.
Green preferences for NSW election
Preferences:
The Greens preference announcements were greeted with the usual level of misunderstanding by many journalists. To set the record straight, the Greens will be recommending preferences to Labor ahead of the Coalition in 24 marginal seats and recommending an exhaust (no allocation of preferences) in 9 others. In many of these seats we will be going to progressive independents ahead of Labor. In no seats will we put the Coalition ahead of Labor. (see http://www.nsw.greens.org.au/campaigns/statement-on-preferences for more details)
The Greens’ balanced decisions recognise that there are major problems with the Labor government’s performance but that they are at least marginally ahead of the Coalition in some key areas including: industrial relations, maintaining public services, protecting national parks, lesbian and gay (lgbti) rights and creating marine national parks.
Both major parties are bad on most issues, including: failure to seriously address global warming by limiting the expansion of coal mining, biasing planning laws to developers, taking corporate donations, building motorways instead of public transport, compromising civil liberties in the ‘law and order’ auction and continued funding of the wealthiest private schools. The vast majority of conservative legislation passes the NSW parliament with the support of both major parties.
The Greens are not endorsing Labor: our preference decisions acknowledge that however bad the Carr/Iemma government has been, Labor is a better option than the Coalition on a range of issues. The best solution for the challenges facing NSW is more Greens in the parliament and a large Greens vote.
Oh please…….sounds like a regurgitated greenies press release Bill.
As for “balanced” – according to who?
Another question – why did the Telegraph choose these seats as the supposed “litmus” test of the opposition’s chances?
From what I can see they have almost all been safely held Labor strongholds since inception (with the few exceptions of course). I understand that they have all undergone significant boundary changes but…….?
The “tactic” of Debnam basically conceding defeat to encourage a stronger protest vote against Labor doesn’t exactly have the precedent of success Debnam is looking for.
Bracks edged Kennet out with a smaller primary vote, fewer seats, the support of independents and just 50.1% of the 2PP vote. Borbidge in QLD had to wait another 8 months before he could made Premier after the Mundingburra by-election. If this is the best Debnam can hope for then he’s definately clinging on to some desperate and unlikely scenarios.
Paul M said
This is about the future of NSW – not about ego or factions. Lets face it NSW want a moderate conservative leader – in fact they are desperate – but are deeply suspicious of the far-rights control.
I’m not up with NSW politics but starting to learn through Williams great website. Do people want a mod conservative leader? why? I thought your last few governments have been of that persuasion.
Bill Weller
Green candidate for Kingston SA
AMWU delegate
Would you wonder why Peter Debnam has raised the white flag today.
With Alan Jones, Ray Hadley and the Daily Telegraph running his campaign and acting on a daily basis as his adviser has failed dismally.
Just watching an unbelievable interview with Quentin D on Stateline – Quentin asked Debnam if he would resign tonight and hand the leaders job over to Barry O.
If I were an independent I would be going whoopi and turning it into a bye election all the way home.
Bill, there are no swing voters here.
No one is going to change their vote.
Hey I’m in the NSW Greens but most people here can find the political party’s website easy enough, so we don’t need to be copying and pasting what I think was the spiel on our website.
So what would happen if Debnam resigned today?
I reckon a new leader like Goward or O’Farrell would do quite well. It would put everyone off balance. They hate Iemma, they hate Debnam, someone new would probably do well. I doubt they’d win, but minority govt could happen.
As Simon above points out, can someone explain to me why Peter Debnam is so bad ?
To me he is as boring and uninspiring as any other political leader but I haven’t seen him produce any stupid comments or obviously bad policy ala Colin Barnett and his canal in WA.
So can someone please give this Queenslander a summary of “the feeling on the ground”.
I thought Barnett’s Kimberley canal policy was great and visionary. If we had more nationbuilders like him running the country we wouldn’t be suffering from the infrastructure crises afflicting the economy.
Im not trying to get people to vote differently. I was just showing the preferences as some have been misinformed
George – I’m a political pragmatist in these things. If voters don’t like it, it’s bad policy, even if it’s good policy.
Plus it was too expensive and poorly costed out.
Anyway back to Debnam, what’s so bad about him ? (Maybe I should refer to my second sentence above)
“I thought Barnett’s Kimberley canal policy was great and visionary. If we had more nationbuilders like him running the country we wouldn’t be suffering from the infrastructure crises afflicting the economy.”
Yerrrr and that JB-P wanted to build a car that ran on water didn’t he? We coulda put water supply servos all over WA and keep those nu-clear powered trucks rolling.
And Alan Jones for Prz I say – once QE2 drops off the twig. Wouldn’t be much of a change… really just replacing a Queen with a queen.
Quentin Dempster’s interview with Debnam tonight was awful: Dempster was terrible, and Debnam was even worse!
Yep, it’s amazing that with the support of one major Sydney newspaper and the Alan Jones/Ray Hadley conglomerate, the Libs aren’t doing much better! In fact, I can’t find any media backing Iemma.
NSW is the ALP heartland after all so why is anybody at all surprised when the state stays faithful to the one true faith. The Tele is a joke (vide the bumper stickers which say “Is that the truth or did you read it in the Telegraph” and the people who listen to Jones and Hadley are cardy wearing rusted on Lib voters anywho.
The Tele has had no cred ever since they reported that the Ruski nuke satellite had crashed in WA when in fact it had landed somewhere in the Indian ocean. They admitted that they had written the story in afternoon and gone to bed as usual before the space junk was due to crash anyway.
The Telegraph opinion poll confirms my predictions for the NSW state election, Labor will not lose any seats to the Coalition. Although Labor might lose say 1-3 to Independents.
Although the Coalition might pick up to 4 seats off the independents, who knows. Debnam being a hard right wing culture warrior, could rally the Liberal vote and depress the independent vote, although not gain any off Labor.
Y’all gonna be eating humble pie next Saturday,
Iemma will win but its gonna be closer than you think –
Debnam’s reaction was real today, I think the Libs cannot believe the polls given the feedback they have had, things might be hunky dory in Herald journo land but something is rotten in the State and enough people sense it for a substantial swing – unlike most of the posters to this site the bulk of undecided voters know what they smell and will vote accordingly.
Resolutely I am sticking to 53-47 – I’ll be happy to pay for adam’s soy latte fo a year if it is any worse.
Don’t forget the Tele only has a circulation of 400,000 whereas at the last State Election, the Liberals alone polled about three times that (which incidentally was a very poor result for them). So no matter how much sway the Tele has sway over its readers, it’s hardly going to have much impact on the final vote.
Not sure how many ppl listen to Alan Jones / Ray Hadley. Chances are they are listening to them whilst reading the morning’s Tele anyway. So methinks the influence that the shock jocks and tabloids have over deciding elections is rather inflated. Even if every listenener and reader backs the Libs, the Libs will still need another 1.5 million votes to get into power.
Edward, if you are right, Iemma won’t lose any seats: the Coalition need a 4% swing to win Labor’s most marginal seat, Tweed. A 53-47 result would be a 3% swing against Labor.
According to ABC News tonight, the Libs have private polling that suggests they are in deep trouble.
Goward for leader!!! 🙂
Seriously though … this is going to be an independents election. I’ll come up with my predictions next week but I reckon a whole swathe of seats will fall to indies … Maitland, Newcastle and Lake MacQuarie will all fall to the indies, as will anything else with a decent candidate.
Are the Nationals distinguishing themselves enough from the Libs to make an impact in the marginals they are targeting? The Nats managed this very successfully in Victoria and came away with two seats no one thought they had a chance in. Stoner is a far better leader than Debnam, if he’s appealing to swining voters in Tweed, Murray Darling and Monaro these seats should be gained/kept by the Nats.
I’m not sure what people will make of this, but… If they polled those same seats last election, (well they kinda did with a ballot) the 2PP on these boundaries would be 59%.
58% is as bad as it sounds when you look at the recent history in the seats being talked about. It is however not good when they need at least two of those seats to form government.
So what point are people gonna start making final predictions? I’m not quite ready, but maybe early in the new week.
I agree with others that he’s trying to do what Bracks did with Kennett; make out they have no hope so people will post protest votes. I still don’t think they’ll win, but switching leader now will merely reinforce the perception that the Liberals are a split party (which they are) and the Liberal Right will rear it’s head: you might as well put the nails in the coffin now.
Debnam has made no impact and will not last beyond the election. He’s shown his inexperience in numerous things; accusing Bob Debus of criminality based on the word of a convicted pedophile, and he’s done a very poor job of defending their policy of sacking 20,000 workers, among other things.
The real question is whether the Libs will they continue to bicker between factions, or will they oust the problem and reunite? Until an opposition is completely competant and united, governments are much less likely to change.
As far as the telegraph is concerned; you were hoping WAY too much. This is the same paper that announced that the Liberals held 60% of the 2PP, and then 24 hours later came up with another poll that switched 20% towards Labor (which matched what the SMH said the day before).
There are a few reasonable newspapers in this country, but the Daily Telegraph is not one of them.