With the scent of the government’s blood in the water, the nation’s newspapers have gone mad with opinion polling. For reasons unexplained, The Australian published Newspoll results last Tuesday (57-43), on Saturday (55-45) and today (60-40). The Fairfax papers yesterday conjured a front page story by adding together the last six months’ worth of ACNielsen polling. Like Newspoll’s quarterly aggregates, these produced state-by-state figures from believable samples. The thrust of the South Australian and Western Australian figures is supported by two sets of local polls: in the Sunday Mail, a survey of 601 South Australian voters had Labor leading 59-41, while in last Saturday’s West Australian, a Westpoll survey of 409 voters had the Coalition leading 51-49. Also:
• Jackie Kelly has announced she will not contest the election, depriving the Liberals of her considerable personal vote in the outer western Sydney seat of Lindsay. The redistribution has cut the Liberal margin in the seat from 5.3 per cent to 2.9 per cent. Penrith councillor Mark Davies has been named as Kelly’s most likely successor as Liberal candidate, and reportedly has her backing. Labor has again nominated the twice-unsuccessful David Bradbury, former Penrith mayor.
• The South Australian Liberal party has selected Mary Jo Fisher to fill Amanda Vanstone’s Senate vacancy, the term of which will expire in 2011. In what would appear to be another win for the state party’s ascendant Right faction, Fisher was chosen ahead of the moderate-backed Maria Kourtesis, who earlier contentiously failed to secure a winnable position on this year’s Senate ticket.
• Labor provoked another round of debate over the merits of celebrity candidates last week when it preselected ABC weatherman Mike Bailey to run against Joe Hockey in North Sydney. Also widely noted was the number of ABC personnel turning up as Labor candidates.
• Labor’s Sharon Grierson has effortlessly survived a preselection challenge in Newcastle. The ABC reports that a rank-and-file ballot delivered her more than 80 per cent of the vote over her challenger, Merewether West branch secretary David March.
Well his article narrows it down to 2-3 ‘long serving cabinet ministers’.
Narrows it down a bit. Presumably excludes the likes of Bishop, Hockey, Turbull, Ellison etc who are not quite ‘long serving’.
Anyone see the story on ALP Senator Steve Hutchins this week in the Daily Smellygraph?
It was revealed Hutchins dug his snout deep into the TWU piggy bank before leaving for the Senate back in 1998 – giving himself a very very nice payout.
I wonder what the TWU members think of that – knowing their hard earned membership $ is filling the pockets of a bloke who is going to get a bucketload of dough during and after a lacklustre and lazy term in the upper house.
When Hutchins leaves will current TWU stooge-boss Tony Sheldon fill the Senate spot?
Two very unlikely tickets, one would think. My take:
The Dem ticket – The crude realities of US politics means that it’s unlikely that the first black major party presdential candidate would choose the first Hispanic candidate as his running mate. Richardson’s a potential veep pick, but not under Obama.
The GOP ticket – Liddy Dole won’t be anybody’s running mate. Her name is mud with Republicans after the party lost the Senate last year. And being somewhat facetious, I would also note that the Dole name is already associated with two losing presidential tickets.
I think Turnbull is a lot safer than people think. If it looks like the Libs are down a bit, he has huge resources to use in his local area. I think in the campaign against King he spent up to $2million of his own money to contest it. He can do that again – claw back 2% of the local vote, stay in and be in a good position to take over the party if the others are wiped out.
PS. Clinton(Prez)/Obama(VP) to win.
I had no idea of the sacrifices people were making to defeat the rodent.
According to todays AFR Sharan Burrow had to pass up a ILO conference to Geneva because she has to front up the ACTU whilst Greg Combet completes his orientation course in the wilds of Charlton.
“FEDERAL police raided the headquarters of the troubled Queensland Liberal Party as part of an investigation into the alleged misuse of electoral funding”…
…”A second raid on the offices of the Brisbane printer at the centre of the investigation took place over a week ago amid reports a senior Liberal Party official and several Liberal candidates have now been named as part of the investigation”…
http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,21833100-952,00.html
I thought Gerard Henderson made an interesting point regarding the Bennelong poll – these voters would be engaged with the election in a way voters elsewhere would not be at this stage. So it might be viewed as illustrating how Labor support will soften when the campaign begins in earnest.
Bennelong always has melbourne cup fields and the majority of candidates preference against Howard.
Bennelong is much safer than the margin says. when howard retires it will stay liberal.
The Republicans lost the congress not because of Iraq but because of sleaze, corruption and most importantly diverging from their core values. THe reason the republicans lost is to borrow a phrase, ‘because they were spending like drunken democrats.’
THe republicans will take back the senate and win the presidency next year
And if Al Gore doesnt nominate for the presidency then ill be prepared to tattoo ‘im an idiot’ on my forehead.
he is running-no doubt
Gerard Henderson is to be admired for making his point with a straight face.
Has anyone before ever argued that Bennelong is a representative sample?
The problem with that argument, William, is two fold. Firstly, there is no guarantee people in that electorate are more turned on than any other electorate and secondly, even if we accept that surely a it would be argued that if Howard’s popuarity is still high then this 6 percent swing is a disaster and bodes incredible danger in the other electorates. Sorry, I think Henderson is grasping at straws.
The head of the Galaxy Poll has given me my second belly laugh for the week. he says, “I know that the results at the moment are incredibly positive for Labor. But I still see this as ESSENTIALLY BEING MID TERM POLLING.
John Ferguson, whose report contains this quote, finishes off by saying, “Rudd is a long way from being a winner. It just looks that way.”
I wonder when this type of thinking will dissipate? Next set of polling figures, in one month, two months?
Has anyone else read Ferguson’s article in the Herald Sun?
Around the Congressional elections, I saw polling on the cnn or washington post website on the issues that were important to voters – and corruption/sleaze was a very important issue – right up there with Iraq.
De Lay on corruption
Foley making gay advances on 16 year olds
Hastert covering up for Foley
THere is no Right wing government that could survive that
I think looking at Bennenlong having a 6% tells me one thing very loudly the Liberals are in deep trouble for this seat would change hands and if the swing is that bad in Bennenlong, what will that swing be in seats like Lindsay.
I still think Howard can hang onto Bennenlong, but if it goes then Election night will be very ugly for the Liberals, I should remind all that much can change and we have a long history of polls predicting an MP is gone only to see that seat be held easily
Now I know the Rodent cant be written off,
Mike Carlton and Alan Ramsay all but writing him off today.
That same poll showed McKew getting an 18% primary swing to her. I can promise you she won’t. The poll question was simplistic and doesn’t reflect the truth of the seat.
The seat would be safer for the liberals if it were held by a friendly backbencher.
The margin is thin because every interest group in town tries to roll the Prime Minister so they can get a bit of air time in the media.
Bennelong will only be lost by the liberals at a byelection.
Many people site the high NESB population as a reason for the seat to change hands.
Asian people vote 47/53 Lib/ALP. Once Asian people start climbing the social ladder they switch. THese climbers are the kind who live in Bennelong.
Edward, you confuse me. You keep on calling Howard “The Rodent” , a put down at best, yet seem to be a supporter. Which is it?
Mr Pollbludger my congratulations, although you may have a mixed heart, but it appears the WA State Secretary of the ALP reads your web-site, and he credited it this morning in his report to the State Conf.
Andrew says:
Asian people vote 47/53 Lib/ALP. Once Asian people start climbing the social ladder they switch. THese climbers are the kind who live in Bennelong.
Yes but they have good memories and know when they are not wanted.
As I sip my Pol Gessner champagne (only $38 at Liquorland $30 on special), I respond as follows:
Gary,
My sympathies are broadly old-school Labor with considerable antipathy to the shallow model of Labor apparatchik which is now the norm.
On the Rodent I have probably moved from outright hostility in 1996 to grudging respect today. If he wins in 2007 he will go down as a legend. I think he probably will go down (at this stage) but I just have this sinking suspicion the ALP will be too clever by half and blow it.
Jasmine,
I hope you got to your feet in a suitable pose of adoration and ecstasy at the conference. Who knows maybe if you impressed enough there may a spot as an alternate on the credentials committee or some such!
Yasmin
Thanks Edward and I agree with you on this much – “If he (Howard) wins in 2007 he will go down as a legend. I think he probably will go down (at this stage) …” I will say that it is Labor’s to lose. I’m not worried that Labor will do something silly because I believe the thought of impending victory will keep them and their supporters on the straight and narrow. However who knows what else can happen.
Did anyone Gerard McManus’s article in the Herald Sun today? It’s on the net. Talk about wishful thinking. Gerard stilll thinks he’s on a winner.
Politicians read these sites all the time.
I wonder if they comment under fake names ?
I remember I tracked the IPs that accessed my site, #1 was parliament.gov.au.
what is your site The Speaker ?
Greetings from London, fellow rodents.
There was a long interview with Gore in this morning’s Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uselections08/story/0,,2093814,00.html
in which it seems to me that he has pretty much ruled out running. Which is a crying shame, since he is head and shoulders above all the other candidates in terms of intellect and policy, and also I think highly electable in the current political mood. I suppose he can still change his mind, but it is getting very late. I don’t have any doubt that Clinton will be the Democrat nominee if Gore doesn’t run. The Republican race is still wide open. I still don’t think they can bring themselves to nominate McCain or Giuliani. Romney is an empty suit, the rest nobodies. The fundies still can’t find a viable candidate, so Fred Thompson becomes a serious possibility. He might give Clinton a run for her money.
Oh Bill… Click on the Speaker’s name and it will launch you to his excellent site Upperhouse.info.
The primary reason for Parliamentarian’s to access that site would be to use the Upperhouse calculator.
Whether this translates to blogg participation is another question. Certainly aspiring parliamentarian’s do. Don’t they Bill.
Another good site speaker. Gee more to read. Like i posted before these sites are a great place to learn
Edward sweetie, I am a noob to this whole go and watch the State Conf thingy but Rudd spoke well and long and a little bit fast at times, but I have good listening skills …
Watching the delegates playing games I suspect that getting onto a committee would only require a stroke of bad luck, or owing the wrong person a favour.
Western Australians are very restrained and suspicious of wise men from the East, but Kevin got standing ovations in and out an it is hard to believe but at least 3 rounds of applause during the speech. We don’t do spontaneous well and we didn’t want to miss three paragraphs while we clapped.
I just found some very old circa 1971 pamphlets titled ‘ crisis in the countryside’ ‘for whom the road tolls’ ‘portrait of a puppet’ ‘ the pensioners struggle’ ‘ struggle at latrobe brings victory’ ‘ australia develop struggle against us imperialism’
What is interesting is that the political players have changed but the social enviroment has not!
!
“…Once Asian people start climbing the social ladder they switch. THese climbers are the kind who live in Bennelong.”
If anyone has this one covered, it must surely be Kev.
He’s going to return from China with an enormous scroll he will tell the rest of us is an ancient text on acupuncture.
In reality it will be an authoritative assessment by an army of soothsayers, geomancers, and Taoist priests that the Mandate of Heaven has passed from JWH.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandate_of_Heaven
Morgan says that on the weekend after it was revealed Therese Rein had underpaid some of her workers, Labor’s primary vote dropped 2 per cent to 49 per cent and the Coalition’s rose 2 per cent to 37.5. The two-party vote was 57.5 to 42.5.
ESJ, how exactly could the ALP blow it by being “too smart by half”? It just seems to me that the disaster in the making for the Howard Government has everything to do with JWH and nothing to do with the ALP, save for the fact that Rudd has now clearly been accepted by the great unwashed as an acceptable alternative. In that respect, an ALP victory will be a 1996-in-reverse.
I know US politics doesn’t really belong here, but jeez its been fun!
If Gore does not run for the Democrats, it will be a tragedy. This is looking less and less likely by the day.Of the remaining candidates, Richardson is so far ahead of the pack its embarrassing. If Hilary’s spouse was not William Jefferson Clinton, her candidacy would be a joke
On the GOP side, every one of the present frontrunners has so much baggage, its hard to see how they could possibly get the party nomination, let alone win on the first Tuesday in November. That leaves the first of ‘second-tiers’, Fred Thomspon, who is definitely not the idiot modern-day Reagan the media would hve you believe. And if I am wrong on that, the GOP will be at its most divided since Barry Goldwater ran in 1964.
Phil, you and I both know that such a change is meaningless as it comes well within the margin of error with such a poll, which is 3 percent plus I believe. All polls need to be viewed over a period of time. I might also add that Newspoll, conducted on the same weekend as the Morgan Poll has a different result. They still both show, however, that Labor has a very healthy first preference vote and a subtantial lead over the coalition and that the trend is continuing. That’s all we can really gain out of these polls.
David Charles (May 31st, 2007 at 11:35 am),
It is helpful to think of the political spectrum as a circle in which those going left and those going right will both meet at the same extreme point. Hitler, Stalin – what difference?
Stephen L (May 31st, 2007 at 1:48 pm),
There was an “old Left†which believed in rigorous education for the working classes. Unfortunately the Sloppy Left did away with such beliefs and it is they who produced the VCE. You may notice at the beginning of every year there is complaint that more students from Victoria miss out on university than those from any other state. This is nothing but a demonstration of how easy it is to pass VCE compared with higher standard required elsewhere.
Bill weller (May 31st, 2007 at 5:40 pm),
Most members of the community never go to a “community†rally. I think such rallies and demos and street theatre are basically part of the feelgood political tradition and achieve precisely zero.
Riccardo (May 31st, 2007 at 5:58 pm),
The reason NSW Labor never fell for the Left ideology on education is that the Split there was comparatively mild, whereas in Victoria it was devastating and handed the party over to the hard and unelectable Left, part of which eventually became the Sloppy Left. (See above for what that meant for education.)
I remain intrigued by the failure of Kevin Rudd to end once and for all the speculation about further Labor backdowns on IR. Why, when IR is such a winner for Labor, would he be contemplating reneging on his promise to tear up of AWAs, or are the reports just pressure from the Murdoch press?
I still think Labor will win, and do so convincingly. (I’ll leave the figures till later.) The Liberals have been totally ineffective in countering the Labor message since last year. I think many are being misled by the previous Liberal victories from behind and cannot risk believing that Labor will finally do it, in case the disappointment is too great. At the same time, there is northing inevitable about a Labor victory. The spin from The Australian is the most entertaining I have seen in 40 years, but very few people read that paper, and its stance is so obvious that no one will not see through it.
The Liberal misreading of the minds of voters is the greatest I have ever seen too. This suggests to me that they have simply lost it.
Thanks for that explanation, Edward.
“On the Rodent I have probably moved from outright hostility in 1996 to grudging respect today. ”
That is so distinct from the mainstream, where a lot punted on Howard in 96, jumped overboard after Tampa, and got upset about that interest rate line in 04. Nobpdy can ever accuse you of following the mob.
As Kerry Packer was to the stock market, so you seem to be to politics. Well, it worked for Kerry – did he ever give Bond a workover! Good luck.
Next election the Libs will be trying to sell an IR policy that has a negative popularity rating, an Iraq policy with the same rating and an environment policy that is seen as too little too late. If policy is to feature at all during the election campaign the Libs need all the help they can muster.
Chris Curtis Says:
Most members of the community never go to a “community†rally. I think such rallies and demos and street theatre are basically part of the feelgood political tradition and achieve precisely zero.
Interesting that you have that view because what i have found is that rallies etc boost up members when passerbys join in and join up if they believe in the cause. I have seen this at YR@W Greens and SA actions. Maybe the smaller parties and community groups attract activists while the ALP and Libs don’t.
Oh and my Branch is growing due to the ALPs anti union move in its IR policy so we are gaining in both areas
Chris from Edgecliff,
I dont think the Rodent has been particularly popular ever, certainly never at Bob “The messiah” Hawke levels, I think the electorate has been willing to vote him out for quite a while, hence the 2004 effect.
However there are a number of preconditions for winning from opposition which include:
1) Being seen as a safe pair of hands
2) Have a requisite level of experience
3) Being seen to break from the perceptions of your party which were established when it first went into opposition and were part of its original reason for losing.
There is no question that the polls show a strong lead and it seems people are prepared to give Rudd the benefit of the doubt on Point 1.
I just dont think Rudd cuts it on 2 (which Beazley had in spades – see how many prime ministers other than Hawke got in with less than 20 years service in the House)
On 3 I think the current union movement is a deadweight and any fair minded observer would say it is chockers with its share of careerists, time servers etc which was not what the union movement was originally about in our history – not too many of the depression era calibre amongst this lot . This is after all the leadership that has lost 1% per annum for thirty years – not too many businesses would keep their leadership intact with this sort of loss of market share. To win Rudd needed to make this decisive break from the ACTU which he hasn’t done.
He has tried to substitute with faux moments a la dean mighell but the break has to be real and genuine. I think the ALP has largely squibbed that battle because they have thought
a) Workchoices is unpopular enough for them to win and;
b) with 60/40 tpp why do anything?
I may or may not be wrong (as per Don’s comments) but I think if they lose that will be the clincher and come the post-mortems a lot of the blame will be sheeted home correctly to Julia “Medicare Gold” Gillard.
I think much of the debate to date has confused people’s concerns about “working conditions: which is akin to a general fear or anxiety (which has probably existed since about 1985 in our community) to the totally selfish what’s in it for me which will come into play in October 2007.
Also climate change is a loser for the ALP – come October its going to be what my car will cost $1000 extra per year to register because of Labor’s emission targets etc etc.
Of course as Gary has said I may be getting out the tomato sauce in November but these are my humble views.
Edward I got as far as this precondition for winning from opposition 2) Have a requisite level of experience and can honestly say that if this was a precondition no opposition would ever be voted in unless they were returned to government after one or two terms. Certainly in the states right now we can be sure that not one opposition could fulfill this precondition. I think this is a precondition that would not feature if a government was on the nose and I believe this one is.
Requisite level of experience for the prospective PM – ie time in Parliament before election
Howard 22 years
Hawke 3 years
Fraser 20 years
Whitlam 18 years
McMahon 20 years
(Approximate figures I think)
Beazley would have had 24 years
Rudd – 9 years????
Need I say more.
As for this comment Edward, “Also climate change is a loser for the ALP – come October its going to be what my car will cost $1000 extra per year to register because of Labor’s emission targets etc etc.” Howard himself admits there will be an increase in costs. Ther goes his advantage there. The fact is Labor is perceived to be the party best placed to tackle climate change. Howard’s report today has not only done nothing to change that perception but has in fact enhanced it.
Edward experience is obviously not a problem out there in voter land. The polls show this, particularly the preferred PM poll.
Climate Change 2007 = Tasmanian Forests 2004
Am I doomed to be Cassandra on this?
Rudd has been in parliament since 1998, that’s 9 years as opposed to Hawke’s 3.
Well Gary I may be wrong. These seem to be the factors that have counted in the past.
Remember even Whitlam only won by 4 seats in 1972 against Billy McMahon. Rudd has had zero pressure so far – I will be interested to see how he handles it if the polls drop – but then again maybe it will be 60-40 on election day.
Yes and Hawke was President of the ACTU for 11 years before going into parliament which then would have been equal to being treasurer for 11 years in terms of recognition etc..
I dont think anyone is seriously comparing Rudd to Hawke in terms of Labor Pantheon.
Bill writes:
I just found some very old circa 1971 pamphlets titled ‘ crisis in the countryside’ ‘for whom the road tolls’ ‘portrait of a puppet’ ‘ the pensioners struggle’ ‘ struggle at latrobe brings victory’ ‘ australia develop struggle against us imperialism’ What is interesting is that the political players have changed but the social enviroment has not!!
I remember those pamphlets well. They were produced by the Communist Party of Australia (Marxist-Leninist), a stalinist-maoist sect of which I was at that time a transient supporter (my only excuse being that I was 17 at the time and had fallen under the malign influence of Albert Langer while an impressionable Monash fresher). They are full of the crudest kind of palaeo-marxism. I guess some of us grow up and some of us don’t.
If the voters decide to throw a government out, they are not particularly concerned about the Opposition’s lack of experience. After all, this amounts to an argument that once a government has been in power for a decade or more, it can never be put out, because the Opposition has no experience. There also comes a point where a government’s “experience” becomes a liability (ask Fraser and Kennett). Obvious examples of successful Oppostion leaders with “no experience” are Hawke, Bracks, Goss, Wran, Askin and (further afield) Tony Blair.
Of course the Libs don’t use this argument when they run virgin leaders like Brogden, Debnam, Baillieu, Flegg etc. Question: does any state Liberal or National leader now have ministerial experience? How many ex-ministers are there now on state Opposition front benches?
It’s an Australian phenomenon at Federal level, Adam,
I think if you look past Hawke (who is a special case) you would have to go back to Stanley Melbourne Bruce for the next PM who breaks the golden rule.