Idle speculation: budget edition

None of this actually has anything to do with the budget, but you know how it is …

• The ALP’s national executive, which was empowered by the recent national conference to select candidates for 25 New South Wales seats, announced the candidates for 10 seats on Saturday. In the western Sydney seat of Blaxland, sitting member Michael Hatton has been dumped in favour of another member of the Right, Transurban executive and former Bob Carr staffer Jason Claire. Hatton has held the seat since replacing Paul Keating at a by-election held in the wake of the 1996 election defeat. Others who had designs on Blaxland included constitutional expert George Williams, Bankstown mayor Tania Mihailuk and Electrical Trades Union chief Bernie Riordan. The Sydney Morning Herald reported that Mihailuk had been “likely” to win, possibly explaining Hatton’s decision to lodge disciplinary charges against her for “failing to properly manage her branch affairs”.

• The national executive has also chosen Penrith mayor David Bradbury (said by Brad Norington of The Australian to have “historical links” to the Transport Workers Union) to make his third successive run against Jackie Kelly in Lindsay. Joe Hildebrand of the Daily Telegraph reports that Bradbury’s win has greatly displeased the National Union of Workers, which had thrown its weight behind 23-year-old school teacher May Hayek. Others to get the nod in Coalition-held seats included human rights lawyer George Newhouse, who will run against Malcolm Turnbull in Wentworth (where the redistribution has cut Turnbull’s margin from 5.6 per cent to 2.6 per cent); former ministerial staffer Greg Holland, who will make his second run against Danna Vale in the long-lost seat of Hughes (which fell in 1996, and now has a post-redistribution margin of 8.8 per cent); Belinda Neal, former Senator and wife of state Industrial Relations Minister John Della Bosca, who will attempt to unseat Jim Lloyd in Robertson (margin now 6.9 per cent); and ambulance officer Tim Arneman, who suffered a 68-vote defeat in Port Stephens at the state election, and now faces Bob Baldwin in Paterson (6.8 per cent).

• Two incumbents have emerged from the national executive process unscathed: Julia Irwin in Fowler and Jennie George in Throsby. A highly fancied bid by former national party president Warren Mundine to unseat Irwin fell foul of the party’s affirmative action targets, after a number of defeats by female candidates in other seats. The irony of an indigenous candidate being squeezed out on affirmative action grounds was widely noted. The Australian Jewish News reports that both Rudd’s office and Melbourne Ports MP Michael Danby told the paper to keep quiet about the challenge to Irwin, a vocal critic of Israel, the former saying that “the best way to ensure her survival is for you guys to cover it”. According to Kerry-Anne Walsh of the Sun-Herald, Jennie George’s endorsement followed a “faction deal made between the Left and Right” that would “raise eyebrows”.

Mark Davis of the Sydney Morning Herald reports that affirmative action supporters in the New South Wales ALP’s Left have revolted against the factional leadership’s decision to deliver the number two Senate position to Doug Cameron, former national secretary of the Australian Manufacturing Workers’ Union. Seven women have nominated against Cameron for the factional ballot, including management consultant and 2003 state election candidate Imogen Wareing. The first and third positions on the ticket are reserved for the Right; it is anticipated that Ursula Stephens will be demoted from her number one position in 2001 to number three, making way for state party secretary Mark Arbib.

• A factional row has erupted in the New South Wales Liberal Party after its nomination review panel rejected country vice-president Scott McDonald’s Senate preselection nomination. The move safeguarded Left faction member Marise Payne’s third position on the Coalition ticket, behind Helen Coonan and the Nationals’ John Williams (who replaces the retiring Sandy Macdonald). Background to the dispute was provided by Imre Salusinszky of The Australian:

As part of its general reassertion of authority following the years in exile that began under former premier Nick Greiner, the Right has had its eye on the spot occupied by Marise Payne, who hails from the Left faction. Desperate to avoid predictably bad headlines in the Fairfax newspapers and on the ABC about right-wing “extremists” controlling the party, Howard told Heffernan to work the numbers for Payne. Heffernan went at the task the only way he knows: like a bull at a gate. At a fiery meeting last month, he tried to curtail the preselection process entirely and moved that the state executive simply re-endorse the sitting team. When this failed, Heffernan took the fight to the party’s nominations review committee, of which he is one of three members. The committee threw out the nomination of the Right’s challenger to Payne, state vice-president Scott McDonald. Designed to vet candidates on the grounds of character or ethics, or because their candidacy could damage the party, the committee operates as a “black box” and does not give reasons for its decisions. But it is understood the issue was a conflict of interest, McDonald having already spoken against Heffernan’s motion on the executive. The move has upset the NSW Right like nothing else done in the name of its Dear Leader. Meanwhile, the Left, for once, finds itself supporting Howard and Heffernan.

• Controversial Right faction powerbroker Alex Hawke has thrown his hat in the ring to contest Liberal preselection for Mitchell, where incumbent Alan Cadman proposes to run again despite a universal perception he is past his use-by date. Also in the running are Australian Hotels Association deputy chief executive officer David Elliot and state party vice-president Nick Campbell, described by Irfan Yusuf at Crikey as “the NSW Right’s main number-cruncher”.

• Western Australian Liberal Senator Ian Campbell, who lost his cabinet position in March on the flimsy basis that he had been at a meeting with Brian Burke, has announced he will quit politics in the coming weeks. The party moved quickly to fill the vacancy with Mathias Cormann, who last week defeated incumbent Ross Lightfoot to take the number three position on the ticket for this year’s election. Since the position filled by Cormann does not expire until 2011, the number three position is again up for grabs. According to Robert Taylor of The West Australian, “party insiders said it made sense to shift Mr Cormann into the Senate immediately and search for a strong number three given that Mr Cormann’s dominant presence in the last preselection discouraged many people from nominating”. Names of potential aspirants have yet to surface in the media; however, Campbell last month dismissed speculation that he might be about to resign as “wishful thinking” from those hoping to fill a vacancy, naming Cormann and Nick Bruining, a financial journalist who ran unsuccessfully for the state upper house in 2001.

• The ABC reports a field of nine candidates will seek preselection for the Liberals’ Tasmanian Senate ticket, which will be held “next month in Launceston”. They include two incumbents, John Watson and Richard Colbeck (who were number two and number three in 2001), along with “former state MHA David Fry, former Liberal staffer David Bushby, former political staffer Giulia Jones and Don Morris, the chief of staff to Senate Preisdent Paul Calvert”. The number one candidate from 2001, Senate President Paul Calvert, is retiring.

• In the seat of Newcastle, Labor member Sharon Grierson will face a challenge from David March, president of the party’s Merewether West branch, at a preselection vote to be held on May 26.

• In South Australia, Labor has announced candidates for the Liberal-held seats of Barker (Karen Lock), Grey (Karin Bolton) and Mayo (Mary Brewerton).

Author: William Bowe

William Bowe is a Perth-based election analyst and occasional teacher of political science. His blog, The Poll Bludger, has existed in one form or another since 2004, and is one of the most heavily trafficked websites on Australian politics.

393 comments on “Idle speculation: budget edition”

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  1. Mais qui. But one of the great things about watching politics is that you never know what’s around the corner.
    Even when the polls are horribly bad I always watch the results with the hope that a miracle will happen and vice-versa. Statements like “the government can’t recover from here” are both inaccurate and destroy much of the fun of political involvement.

  2. You’re right, of course, Oakeshott, and regardless of the end result, this election is going to be quite a ride. It certainly looks like Rudd is too far ahead, but things can turn around very quickly – he could have his “handshake moment”. Not that Rudd will muscle up like Latham, but some otherwise inconsequential exchange happens that plants doubt about him. Let’s say (as the money flows in to people’s pockets) that the government does get a Budget bounce, and has pulled the 2PP back 5 points by mid-July (which is, after all, still two months away). It’s still quite possible that Howard will see his chace and run to the polls. Come the end of August we could all be talking here about how Rudd lost it.

    I’m not saying that will happen, but rather it is meant as a cautionary tale against getting ahead of ourselves (and obviously I’m speaking as a Labor voter here).

    However, if Rudd does end up winning, I will look back at being part of the blogosphere who picked the landslide months before the commentariat did.

  3. I’ve been trying to find newspoll results from th may before the 2001 election, but it seems that there were no polls by newspoll in 2001 before october, does anyone know what happened?

  4. I agree with Hugo, there is an element of fate or luck that can’t be predicted or controlled, but some, including Mumble were convinced that Beazley would have beaten Howard and the polling pre him being defeated by Rudd certainly gave him a change.

    There was an immediate Rudd bounce that so far has been sustained and so far defies all the waiting for the election to engage, all the ‘delayed affect’ theorems and Howard trick theorems.

    Personally I suspect it is a really really out of touch view. I will illustrate with comments of the PM on PM tonight. Where in relation to a 33 million annual salary the PM said that the Govt doesn’t involve itself in caps and then went into Citizen John mode to drool in amazement at the big number.

    He forgets and ordinary Australians do not forget that Workchoices is not just a cap it is much more a kneecap. So Government can force largely female workforces in retail and hospitality backwards with a disgraceful and dishonest policy they didn’t bother to outline before the last election but can’t ‘cap’ such a blatant excess. Out of touch.

    Finally did Howard or his howardettes think he could give the impression that interest rates wouldn’t rise under him, and the say he never said it when they went up 4 times?

    What amazes me most is how long Howard has got away with it, not that Australia’s patience has run right out.

  5. 1997: Despite presiding over an economic boom, the British Conservative Party was tossed out of power, after being in office for 18 years.
    Tony Blair’s Labour Party won in a landslide.
    A parallel with Australia 2007?

  6. oakeshott country Says: May 15th, 2007 at 9:19 pm – “BTW with regard to an “obvious, unheard of advantage Labor holds at the moment”. Newspoll had the primary vote at Alp 48/Coalition 35 in March 2001 – within the margins of error of the current poll. Labor lost a significant number of seats at the next election.” The “unheard of advantage” refers to more than one poll, not just the voting intention poll and not just by one organisation.
    Can you direct me to this poll please? I’ve looked up the Newspoll site and gone through thepolls of that time and cannot find it. While you’re at it, can you show the four months of very strong polling for Labor beginning 2001? Can you also show the other polls taken at the time by other polling organisations showing the same consistently strong figures for Labor? Can you show the preferred PM figures favouring Beazley over Howard as they now favour Rudd? Can you show me the polls showing Beazley’s satisfaction rating as being as high as Rudd’s is now?
    I ask this not to be a smart ar.. but to point out that this is a far cry from the 2001 situation.
    Do you also remember that the election was held in November that year and in September disaster struck? I know you’ll probably say that that is your point but the chances of this happening again?

  7. Just a thought, while I still won’t predict that Rudd will win the election, would people agree that this is clearly the best position the ALP has been in at this point in the cycle (or really any point in the cycle) since Howard came to power?

  8. The Newspoll figures can be found by fiddling with this following site on voter intentions. From memory Newspoll did not do a 2pp question until late in 2001. However the primary question showed a labor lead from February onwards- at times getting into double figures. (democrats and Greens combined were polling about 10 -12% – presumably increasing Labor’s 2pp) The change started in late May long before 9/11.
    http://www.newspoll.com.au/cgi-bin/polling/display_poll_data.pl?mode=trend&page=select_category
    Roy Morgan was showing a 26% 2pp lead to the ALP in February 2001. He even had Labor 9% ahead in November.
    http://www.roymorgan.com/news/polls/Trends.cfm?
    A C Neilsen had Labor 20% ahead in 2001 in April 2001but by August this was down to 4
    http://au.acnielsen.com/reports/documents/ACNielsenPoll2001.pdf
    The preferred PM and satisfaction listings are also on these sites Beazley led Howard from March till August on A C Nielsen and from March till June on newspoll. Admittedly his satisfaction ratings were not as good as Rudd’s but that may be related to the length of time he had been leader or to the perception that he was a fat lazy buffoon

  9. On the comparative poll position in 2001, 2004 and 2007, the Oz Politics site has a table tracking the comparative position. Go here: http://www.ozpolitics.info/blog/ and scroll down. Labor is currently 6% higher than it was at this point in 01 and 04.

    I of course agree with Oakeshott that anything can happen between now and the election, and I’ve been saying all along that no poll in May can guarantee a Labor win in October-November.

    But the facts remain: Labor is well ahead of where it was in 01 and 04, and so far neither Howard nor his media running dogs have found a way to damage Rudd’s standing – a sharp contrast with both Beazley and Latham, whose vulnerabilities were well known by this stage in the last two cycles. My clear recollection is that Labor hardheads had already given up on Latham by May 2004.

  10. I have a fuller response held up in moderation (all I did was call Beazley a fat lazy buffoon). However the ozpolitics graph isn’t that clear cut, at weeks 17-18 (early May) the comparative difference is about 1% 2007 v 2001- Labor’s primary vote then dived. Yes, Labor is in a good position but it is by no means unassailable.

  11. oakeshott country: The Speaker – I was waiting to see who would fall for it! Malcolm Frazer was the prime minister at that election and was returned with a very large majority.

    Ah, yes you’ve got me – but I still think it should count as a change of government election, especially for analytical purposes.

  12. How far can Rudd fall?

    To answer the several questions about how 2007 compares with previous election years, below are the figures for TPP. The poll numbers are averages of at least 3 polling organisations, averaged over 3 periods and so have a sample of about 10,000 and an “error margin” of less than 1%. The “election” for 2007 is my estimate of the nation-wide TPP that the ALP will need to have a majority of 1.

    mid-May Election Fall
    1998 50.1% 50.7% -0.6%
    2001 54.5% 49.4% 5.1%
    2004 52.8% 47.7% 5.1%
    2007 59.2% 50.8% 8.4%

    The only way forward for the ALP is probably down- the above is virtually the ceiling: the rusted-on Coalition primary vote is probably between 31 and 32%, so this could fall further. But the rusted-on TPP for the Coalition is between 40 and 41% and so this can’t fall much further and thus the ALP can’t rise much further.

    This is all phenomenological psephology of course, devoid of analysis, but the statistics are pretty robust because we have 15 years of fortnightly polls of some 2,000 people from each of at least 3 pollsters to work with.

  13. Oakeshott,
    The reason many of us disagree with your cautionary analysis is that you have selected a one-off comparison with 2001.
    Any version of moving averages/multiple polling companies makes the 2001-2007 comparison more favourable for Labor this time around.
    In addition the fact that the Government is now much more damaged goods, and the obvious superiority in vote-winning potential of Rudd compared to Beazley makes it very easy to suggest the high probability of a change of government.
    I also reckon that the economy was going OK in 1972 when the change of government occurred, and in any case, 1969 (when the economy was unequivocally booming) was the effective first stage of that victory, with a 7.5% swing to Labor off the very low 1966 (Vietnam election) base.

  14. Thankyou Geoff Lambert for these figures. Were these falls immediately after the budget and did Labor recover any lost ground before the up coming election in any of those years?
    I never thought I would ever say this but the significant change surely must be Rudd’s popularity in the preferred PM poll and his high job satisfaction rating. These have been consistently high, unlike Latham and Beazley. This presents a whole new set of problems for the coalition when it comes to combating Labor this time around.
    I agree also with Peter Fuller (May 16th, 2007 at 11:59 am).

  15. Don’t get me wrong, I agree that Labor is in a better position and the Coalition in a worse position than 6 years. My argument is that it is a big leap to call the election result from opinion polls 6 months out. I very much hope the polls will be vindicated
    “Staggering Stagflation” is the headline I remember from 1972. The quote was from Lance Barnard. All these things are relative but the long post war boom was beginning to tire and inflation and unemployment levels were up. One of Labor’s ads had a picture of Newcastle and suggested that under Billy McMahon unemployment might get to 300,000 – the size of Newcastle at that time – how aweful. Of course the first oil shock made this all look like minor stuff. It should be remembered that, despite a brilliant campaign and after 23 years of a very tired government led by someone picked from the bottom of the barrel, Gough’s majority was single digit (?9 without looking it up).

  16. oakeshott country – thankyou for supplying the poll information. I’ve learnt something now about the newspoll site – very handy. I think we share the same wish for the election outcome and I do understand your reluctance to allow yourself to think this will happen this time, anything can happen. I must admit though I’m getting this feeling that people have stopped listening to the government and are seriously looking for a change.

  17. Slightly off topic. The talk of 1972 made me look at Adam’s site for the results of the 1974 double dissolution senate results. Whitlam was doomed when (amongst other results) a liberal posing as an independent one the last seat in Tasmania. What impressed me was that the quota was just over 19000!!!. Crikey, more people have been known to turn up at a Rooster’s home game than this and yet Michael Townley and his senate colleagues were able to launch Australia into its worst, so far, constitutional crisis.

  18. I was wrong when I said that The Australian would have an editorial on Tuesday that would “attack teacher unions and point out how parents want standards and school autonomy and how the astute John Howard recognises this, while the ALP is unable to because it is in the pocket of the teacher unions, stuck in the past, etc.” It was delayed until Wednesday.

    It’s about time for another “I love my AWA” article in The Australian to play tag-team with the “The sky will fall in with Labor’s IR policy” articles of the last few days. We do need some balance after all.

  19. There is one good thing about “The Australian” though, hardly anyone bothers with it. I read some of it on line only because I need a good laugh in the mornings.

  20. # Adam C Says:
    May 15th, 2007 at 7:38 pm

    Yes Bill that’s true: for example, someone has been coming here using your name and trying to discredit you by making all kinds of extreme and silly statements

    # Gary Bruce Says:
    May 15th, 2007 at 8:05 pm

    Adam C – I think you’ll find that’s just Bill. LOL. Just joking Bill.

    I love you guys !

  21. Also Beazley was faced with 9/11 and Tampa. My assessment is if Rudd is running evenly with pre-Tampa Beazley, he’s on track to win.

  22. I’ve always thought Howard would have won in 2001 regardless of 911 and Tampa mainly due to the return of the One Nation voters to the coalition fold. I have no real evidence to support this but the polls were already heading his way.

    Another little theory of mine that I haven’t researched is that One Nation distorted the 1998 2PP result to make Labor look better than they actually were because of Labor receiving half the One Nation preferences in safe-safe-safe coalition seats.

  23. I too am heartened by the polls, but I stick to my initial claims:

    – WorkChoices is what is toxic to the government, like nothing else (except maybe power plants in your backyard) and Howard can’t fix it (damned if he changes, damned if he doesn’t).

    – It is almost impossible for Rudd to win, and I think it is a two election task. The fact people are seriously talking about him winning is a pretty impressive achievement by itself!

    – Even if Labor win, the Coalition will still control of the senate.

  24. I’m not sure if that specifically was the cause of Labor’s swing, but I’m sure that One Nation’s existence majorly helped Labor out in 1998.

  25. Ben,

    You’ve missed my point and you’ve missed TooBee’s point on the other thread. Your irony radar is not working. If it were, I’d make a joke about the inflection in “so”.

  26. dembo are you aware that in the 1969 poll Labor achieved a 6.4 per swing after preferences and gained 17 seats, although it lost the election . Kevin Rudd needs a 4per cent uniform swing and 16 seats.

  27. dembo – in 1996 the coalition managed a 5 percent swing towards it to win that election. When the swing is on, it’s on.

  28. Sure Rudd could lose the next Election but for Howard to survive it would go down as one of, if not the greatest turn around in history.

    I don’t think Howard can do it for if the Liberal heartland is angry then there little hope, remember if you can’t keep the heartland, what chance do you have.

    Rudd needs to keep on message, yes he might be seen as nerdy, but the Liberal heartland likes a person to be smart and considered.

    The Economy is the only ace going right for the Liberals at present, so while there daylight there is hope, but the Sun is fast setting.

  29. Chris,

    Maybe it was ironic, but I wouldn’t have noticed it because people in the past have complained about that perfectly seriously.

  30. Ben,

    Every word ever used was once used by someone for the first time. I suspect “majorly” arrived in Australia in Clueless, but that is only a guess. Because I was a teacher, I was able to keep up with some changes in expression and thus able to enlighten those who had no idea what The Speaker was saying when he posted “my bad” instead of “I’m sorry”. Adding “ly” to “major” is not bad grammar at all – it is rather the application of the normal rule for making adverbs to an adjective that had not in the past been formed into an adverb. It is an example of Valleyspeak (a word I just made up – some will get the meaning, while others will not). Thus language progresses.

    The choice of “TooBee” as a screen name seems to be a play on the verb, “to be”, as in Shakespeare’s “To be, or not to be – that is the question”. The teacher’s version is “2B, or not 2B. Oh no! I have got 2B.”

    About 25 years ago, students started to refer in their work to authors of letters to the editor and the like by their what were then called Christian names. I would always correct this undue degree of familiarity, yet here we are today as people who have never met addressing each other by what are now called first or given name). I saw a transcript of an interview of Malcolm Fraser by Virginia Trioli. She called him “Malcolm”. (If you watched West Wing, you would have heard that most of the script was “Yes, Mr President”, “No, Mr President”, “Thank you, Mr President” even when the president should have been doing the thanking. Even the vice president told someone off for using his name instead of calling him “Mr Vice President”. In fact in the final of the series, the new president kept getting addressed as “Mr President-Elect” before his inauguration. It’s worse than royalty.)

    We all make mistakes in spelling, grammar and punctuation. I do not pick people up on them, except for teacher-bashers who had better be perfect in the spelling, grammar and punctuation of their own invective. I was certainly not having a go at you, because you in fact made no mistake.

    I do, however, think it is disrespectful of other posters if anyone doe not make the effort to use correct English, and the “I was typing quickly” excuse does not wash with me. (The use of a quotation as an adjective, as I have just done, is not part of the English I was taught, yet it seems perfectly understandable and I accept it as grammatically correct.)

    Language changes. It’s hard to know when new words and ways of expression pass from unacceptable to acceptable.

    AFAICS IMNSHO, the use of txt detracts from clear meaning.

  31. Chris Curtis, it’s interesting to consider what constitutes “correct” grammar – it is not fixed by anyone or anything and it changes over time.

    I have noticed that on many US TV shows, people say phrases such as “You did brilliant”, or “You did good” instead of “You did brilliantly”, or “You did well”. I don’t know if this is a recent phenomenon, but if it is, language in the US is changing before our eyes. It’s very interesting! Does anyone know how this change was initiated?

  32. Sacha,

    The ‘ in words replaces the “e” in the “es” which used to be there to indicate the possessive. I don’t know who first dropped the “e” and how it became acceptable to do so, but somebody did. Wednesday is Woden’s day. We’ve kept the “e” in the spelling, but we do not bother pronouncing all the syllables any more. I guess in time dropping “ly” from adverbs, as in “he did brilliant”, will become acceptable.

    I accepted American spellings such as “color” from students. After all, in this case, the American spelling is the original, the “u” being added to English to be more like the French.

    As for the political implications, there are possibly none in these examples, but the word “reform’ is the most misused in the English language, and “Choices” (always a lie) has gone from “WorkChoices”. Labor is in on the act too with its decision to replace the neutral term “Industrial Relations Commission” with “FairWorkAustralia”. Who first decided it was okay not to leave gaps between words? I’d hazard a guess that it was someone from computing, not Apple though.

  33. Thanks Chris – I didn’t know the derivation of “Wednesday” – I’m reading up on the derivation of all the day names – very interesting.

  34. Jasmine

    Long delay on your post but, Howard’s classic statement about interest rates in 2004 was “Interest rates will always be lower under a coalition government than they will under a Labor government”. This statement was first made on the 30th of August 2004, on the radio national AM program with Catherine McGrath.

    As I heard the sound bite in the loungeroom that night I said two things to my wife a) That is one of the shrewdest political comments I’ve ever heard an Australian politician make and b) They’ll be misquoting this one for years.

    How true it has turned out to be. Latham took the worm and misconstrued the meaning as, variously:

    a) There would be no rate rises
    b) That interest rates would remain low under the coalition
    c) That coalition governments tend to lower interest rates

    None of which JWH actually said. To compound it, the ALP picked up on this in 2006 and drove a truck around with Howard and his long “lying” nose about rate rises, with Beazley claiming (this part, correctly) 8 rate rises since the 2004 election. Actually, this campaign was the lie and the ALP was absolutely aware of what was actually said.

    The reason that this is a beautiful piece of politics is:
    a) You don’t have to define what “low” means
    b) You can’t have parallel realities.. we didn’t have a Labor government at the same time, so we’ll never know how they would have been different
    c) It plays into both fear and mistrust of Labor governments with people’s mortgages, the biggest debt they carry and the primary reason they go to work.

    Great piece of politics that he may still be paying for but we’ll never really know whether this statement was the one that got him over the line for a fourth term!

  35. Comment 143 by Mad Dog on Tuesday 22 May 2007 at 1:28 pm

    This site
    way2bet.com.au/odds_comparison…
    shows a continuously updated record of the various bookies’ odds.

    Here is way2bet’s assessment of the situation as at 20 May.

    way2bet.com.au/news/article/au…

    Sportingbet Australia CEO Michael Sullivan said punters were reacting to the polls and continuing to back Labor who have shortened again today to be a clear $1.80 favourite with the Coalition drifting to $1.95.

    “We simply can’t ignore these polls. We were happy to play it safe with the Government until the budget rolled out but the punters continue to pour the money on Mr. Rudd and the ALP,” said Mr Sullivan.

    “In the past two elections, the ALP has looked good in the polls but the punting money simply didn’t arrive.”

    “This year the punters just can’t get enough of the ALP and the budget has not dented their confidence at all”.

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