We still need Newspoll to seal the deal, but it does seem that normality has returned to the opinion poll landscape: we are seeing Labor with slight to moderate leads plus a few per cent extra from Roy Morgan, just like old times. As it does each Friday, Morgan has published a telephone survey from 614 responses (slightly higher than usual), which shows Labor down from 46 per cent to 43.5 per cent on the primary vote – 3.5 per cent lower than any Morgan result since January. However, the Coalition haven’t budged from 40 per cent. The remainder has gone to minor parties and returned as preferences, leaving the two-party preferred result steady at 55-45.
Bill, if the Greens do not direct their preferences to Labor in all marginal seats they will lose my vote in the Senate. It’s all very well to maintain one’s ideological purity, but I feel you and your party are starting to lose sight of the bigger picture and this is something that comes across very clearly in my many discussions with people of all political colours.
How about we focus on getting rid of Howard first, and then the left can get back to doing what we do best (tearing ourselves apart)?
I get the sense there is a bit of wishful thinking on the split thing Bill. You mentioned this some time ago. It would help you politically wouldn’t it? How much are you promoting it at these meetings?
I’m yet to be convinced by your polling but will be the first to congratulate you on being right if the coming polls reflect what you are saying and if such a split eventuates.
Rudd will pants Howard in a debate.
If Howard agrees to more than one debate, he is desperate. Or has found something he might get Rudd on, which amounts to the same thing (since why not just “get him” on it during the campaign proper?).
Does anyone know who won the Liberal preselection for the seat of Mitchell? Was it Alex Hawke? If so, perhaps we can expect a fresh round of destablisation in Liberal ranks?
The polls will stabilise over the next month or so with the Coalition’s primary vote in the 40-43 band and Labor’s in the 43-46. Then they’ll start to narrow again from August on, until the Coalition has a slim lead, at which point the PM will call the election. Then the campaign itself will seal the deal for the Government and they’ll be returned (with the loss of a handful of seats).
As to the debate – I predict that whatever happens, the media will declare Rudd the winner. Won’t help him in the slightest, of course.
One can only hope, Pseph. The corrupt branchstackers of the NSW fundy-crazy-right are the Liberals’ equivalent of the ETU. Handing their head hitman one of the safest Lib seats in Australia would be the equivalent of Labor running Dean Mighell in Watson.
I see the Greens candidate in Petrie is Terry Jones. I hope he is running in character as Brian’s mother from the Life of Brian. Where is John Cleese running?
Memo WA Liberal Party: Hire a new IT director.
http://nolamarino.com/
In fact it is notable that the Liberals’ websites are generally poor, except the Queensland one.
Pseph, I’m not sure who won in Mitchell but this morning’s Weekend Australian said that Cadman had pulled out upon realising that he had no hope of holding on.
Albert Ross above says that the Green ain Ireland increased their vote by 22% – yes from 5 to 6%. This was a very Jesuetical interpretation.
Let’s face it the only none conservative parliament is Sinn Fein – so all Irish Governments must be conservative and until last week the Greens were still talking to the even more conservative Finn Gael.
By the way the Socialist Party lost its only seat in the elections. I may be wrong but I think the Socialist Party is the descendent of the Workers Party which in turn used to be Official Sinn Fein as distinct from the Provisional Sinn Fein which is the party led by Gerry Adams.
‘Topic for discussion: How will Howard and Rudd fare head-to-head, under the forensic questioning of Tony Jones or whover?’
Related topic: how will Tony Jones fare at the hands of The Oz and the bias police should Howard fare badly?
Steven Kaye you have such vivid dreams.
“…Howard stands a better chance of exposing Rudd over the course of an hour-long debate than he does going soundbite-for-soundbite.”
Exposing what exactly?
Howard would be completely demolished by Rudd in a debate. I have no doubt. Rudd is a faster thinker, much more articulate, and is very good at presenting a cogent argument. Howard just runs with hysteria and a lot of overloaded spin. Watch some interviews. You will see that Rudd consistently handles them a lot better than Howard.
Howard is the one who would be worried about debating Rudd, so I seriously doubt that he will be signing himself up for two debates. I was actually wondering if Howard would try to wriggle out of having even one debate. Howard relies on soundbites to mislead the public because he knows that many of his claims do not stand up under scrutiny, such as the whole union fear campaign we have seen recently.
This is why you will notice that Howard usually conducts press conferences outdoors where he has a door or a very clear exit right behind him. It enables a quick escape as soon as questions start to become too probing.
I am greatly looking forward to a debate between Howard and Rudd, if there is one.
Supernova, the direct quote from Price is as follows “On present form, the Labor leader will smash the PM in the daily TV news battle, but Rudd may be vulnerable to more extensive intensive scrutiny, thus tempting Howard to back himself against the rookie”.
Make of that what you will. For what it’s worth, I agree that Rudd will eat Howard for breakfast in a debate – even if Alan Jones were the moderator.
Thanks Charlie. I stopped reading The Australian a couple of months ago, so I just ran with what you quoted.
I do find it quite amusing that the government and its friends continually run with the assumption that providing greater scrutiny of Rudd will only result in a lot of negative things to emerge. LOL. OK, a couple of points:
1) The fact is that Rudd has been under VERY intense scrutiny over the past few months, much more so than any other politician. He has been under considerable pressure.. We have had story after story about his personal and professional life, some of it fact, most of it beaten up as fake scandals because the government couldn’t find enough negative material.
2) It is highly possible that placing Rudd under the scrutiny of a debate might actually expose some of his POSITIVE qualities. But of course, the government wouldn’t want to consider that. As far as they are concerned, and some of the media, especially News Ltd., Rudd is pretty much the devil incarnate. According to some of them, apparently it is just a matter of time until we all come to the same conclusion.
If Howard agrees to a second debate with Rudd it will prove:
1. The government is a long way behind in their private polling.
2. That he is worried about the campaign proper and wants to roll the dice.
It would be risky. Rudd is a snappy debater and Howard’s record in these debates is poor. Remember 2001 and 2004.
A second debate is unlikely.
News Ltd are just going over the top. Gerard Henderson in the Herald Sun is a Rudd hater. All polls show Rudd is popular. He rates highly both in preferred PM and job satisfaction polls. Galaxy had him way in front in their Queensland poll, yes that same polling organisation that see Rudd losing popularity in Queensland (according to the headlines).
Gary, despite the media’s best efforts to bring down Rudd, the fact that Labor are still featuring strongly in the polls is quite remarkable.
I think that Labor should not take anything for granted though. With a major anti-Rudd or anti-Labor campaign going on the media, especially News Ltd, it must be getting very difficult for Rudd to get a positive message out to the masses. They need to find any way they can to bypass the media and speak directly to the public.
By the way, any ideas why you think the anti-Labor campaign in much of the media has so far failed to sway voters?
ELECTION UPDATE.
This smacks of the 1999 Victoria election. Both Howard and Rudd have enough wriggle room to win or lose. The next few polls will be most important. I am predicting in Newspoll a swing to the government but not much. Rudd is beginning to get off target. Someone should tell him to drop the Kirribilli thing, the public don’t care. Howard’s in the position where he is starting to focus more. but he needs to avoid going over the top and maybe censor Abbott or Downer as I believe they were a negative for him. Howard’s got history behind him, but he could still lose.
I agree c-woo, Rudd needs to stop pfaffing about with sideline issues like Kirribilli. He needs to get on top of the bigger issues, such as directly countering Howard’s union scare campaign.
ELECTION TIP:
One thinks (despite the polls) this election will see a big protest vote against Howard, in which he will either lose 9 or 10 seats (giving him a 4 seat majority), or hand Rudd a 5 or 6 seat majority. This is what I am picking up by feeling the current public mood and trends. Howard (whether he wins or loses) is going to lose more seats than he wins. From where I live in Adelaide, how do any of you think Makin (for example) is going to go. I am doing paid work for one of the parties on election day in Makin and I want to know what I can expect maybe in terms of a result. From where I stand, it’s too close to call but leaning towards a Zappia-Labor photo finish win.
C-Woo, who are you doing work for?
Don’t forget Peter Hartcher in the Fairfax papers doing his best to get Howard reelected. I always thought that guy is a Liberal Party hack.
I agree, Rudd would be better off focusing on some big issues, like the economy, tax policy, making some concessions to business on Industrial Relations, health, family policy etc.
The economy is still Howard’s trump card! The ALP will have to make a convincing case to the swinging voters that Rudd/Swan can be trusted to keep things moving in the right direction. Otherwise, Howard will once again get away with bribing particular interest groups in the outer metropolitan seats of Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Adelaide.
Labor. But at most i’m only a halfway fan of Federal and dislike the state Labor government. I’ve actually been trying to cancel my membership (couldn’t be buggered going to any meetings) so I am not writing through partisan lines and am attempting to be a neutural critic. And Evan, the economy is the trump card but I sense that is not all that is on the marginal’s mind. Both look unconvincing at the moment of trying to trap it.
Makin despite the low margin I think is still winnable for the Liberals, given their candidate is Bob Day.
Supernova – Rudd doesn’t publicly display the flaws the media want to concentrate on. In fact quite the opposite. For the average person the media is talking rot. No demonstration, no believe.
C-Woo – which state Labor government do you dislike and why?
I think Rudd is using the Kirribilli issue as a diversion. It worked. Rudd will keep much of his powder dry for later in the year, closer to the election where it really counts.
South Australia. The problem with them is you can see happening with them (in the last few months) a minor version of what happened with Bannon. They just seem a victory of style over substance.
In the last few months, what I meant in the last few months are flaws that could hurt them in the long run.
“Rudd will keep much of his powder dry for later in the year, closer to the election where it really counts.”
You are probably right, Gary. I just hope Rudd doesn’t leave it too late! Howard and his hounds seems to be getting a lot of room right now to hammer home their “Labor win = economic armageddon” line.
I’m surprised really, but I’m not over there. Rann should be there for many years shouldn’t he? Is he still popular?
He’s extremely popular. But he benefits from a apathetic public and a Liberal party, who despite having nine years in power. have never really got it together in government or opposition, and who basically got in in 1993 from a huge anti-Labor protest vote and in 1997 nearly lost. You can see Labor being in power at this point until at least 2014 if the Libs don’t get their you-know-what together (Personally, this is a team that will benefit from a federal Liberal loss this year for them to think “Hey, something’s wrong here!”
I think being political tragics we tend to watch everything political, including parliament. I’m not so sure the average person is taking much notice of what is going on right now. Howard and his hounds have been pushing that line for ages and we know how the polls have been. The next round of polls will be very interesting though.
Agreed.
The Kirribilli thing was good I felt. Let the Libs get hysterical over unions now, fatigue the population, while Labor beats the drum about “ACA/TT” issues such as expensive tables, fundraising at Kirribilli, etc. Save the WorkChoice, Nuclear Power stuff until the campaign and then run hard negative on that. A scare campaign about Howard then will be more effective than now perhaps.
What would really help Labor in the next election is to paint the Libs as not for business, but for Big Business. The $8000 fundraising at Kirribilli is perfect for that, it really splits the Libs economic credentials in half – big business v. small business.
In response to Albert Ross and the Irish Greens:
The Greens are in a number of European Governments of both conservative/non-conservative shades, but remember much of Europe uses PR, which can (and does) through up unworkable coalitions (note the Czech Republic where no-one can work with the Communists). Ireland really just has two forms of conservative party in Fianna Fail and Fin Gael, so the choice is which one…I’m not actually that surprised – there’s at least a few commentators and academics suggesting the Greens should look to the centre (ie right-ward) for voters, allies and policy, so maybe thats the beginning of the trend internationally.
At this election, however, I think many left-leaning Oz electors will be doing what Charlie suggests further back in this thread and checking whether the Greens preference the ALP in the HoR before they actually vote for them in the Senate.
That should have been “throw up” not “through up” …make of that what you will…
Labor is at it again. This time apparently the PM hosted the young liberals at the Lodge for a dinner last October. The average voter is going to get tired of this eventually it actually shows how “out of touch” labor has become.
I mean shock horror the PM hosted guests at the lodge……..pfffft isnt the lodge where the PM lives????
Not for much longer, Freeman
Hope this isn’t too off topic, but there has been some EMRS polling results for all 5 Tasmanian seats released in today’s Launceston-based Sunday Examiner. 200 respondents in the 5 seats = 1000 total. I know very very little about polling, but the ALP vote does seem rather large, and GRN 14% in Bass with only 11% in Denison seems skewiff:
Bass TPP: Lib35/ALP65
Lib 31%
ALP 53%
Greens 14%
Others 1%
Unsure 2%
Braddon TPP: Lib36/ALP64
Lib 32%
ALP 54%
Greens 3%
Other 1%
Unsure 10%
Franklin TPP: Lib33/ALP67
Lib 28%
ALP 58%
Greens 8%
Others 2%
Unsure 5%
Denison Lib31/ALP69
Lib 28%
ALP 54%
Greens 11%
Other 1%
Unsure 8%
Lyons Lib41/ALP59
Lib 36%
ALP 49%
Greens 8%
Others 1%
Unsure 7%
3% for the Greens in Braddon seems a bit low too.
Interesting fiquares, I’m not surprised the Green vote would be higher in Bass than Dennison maybe Bill could advise but I suspect city greens are moving towards the ALP, while rural Greens arn’t moving
I winder if we were to add the unsure votes to the Liberal Party (for arguement sake) what impact this would have.
some of that unsure vote will go to the Greens for both the ALP and Liberal Parties appear to have taken Enviroment policy debate away to the mainstream sidelining the Greens a little..
Bass TPP: Lib35/ALP65
Lib 31%
ALP 53%
Greens 14%
Others 1%
Unsure 2%
Braddon TPP: Lib36/ALP64
Lib 32%
ALP 54%
Greens 3%
Other 1%
Unsure 10%
Franklin TPP: Lib33/ALP67
Lib 28%
ALP 58%
Greens 8%
Others 2%
Unsure 5%
Denison Lib31/ALP69
Lib 28%
ALP 54%
Greens 11%
Other 1%
Unsure 8%
Lyons Lib41/ALP59
Lib 36%
ALP 49%
Greens 8%
Others 1%
Unsure 7%
ALP-FAMILY FIRST PREFERENCE DEAL IN SOUTH AUSTRALIA ? TOPIC FOR DISCUSSION-
“ bill weller Says:
One reason that many ALP supporters are moving back to the Greens is the alleged dealings that the ALP is having with Family First on preferencesâ€
Charlie Says:
June 16th, 2007 at 6:39 pm
“Bill, if the Greens do not direct their preferences to Labor in all marginal seats they will lose my vote in the Senate “.
Im going to assume Bill Wellers comment was made specifically in the context of SA, as was Charlies ?
Putting to one side Bill’s probable ‘the Greens to snaffle another Senate seat in SA campaign’ motive for claiming people who voted ALP are going to go “back” to a Green vote in 2007 because they are ticked about an ALP-Family First preference deal in SA, which i dont give much credence, i put this question up for discussion>
What are people thinking about the potential impact of an ALP-FF preference deal in SA ?
Thanks to information referrals provided by The Speaker elsewhere, I learnt that there is not much to be gained for the ALP in ALP-GREEN preference deals because (a) the Greens can only ‘advise’ people to give their preferences to x party (b) most Green primary voters ignore HTV stuff anyway and (c), and this is interesting, Family First (see 2005 State Election results in SA), apparently, can be directed and will follow directions to a much more reliable extent than the Green primary voter.
Peter Brent produced statistics in 2005 that indicated that —
“In 2004, Family First ran in 109 of 150 electorates, preferencing Labor in none. Family First’s total national vote was only 2.1 per cent, but even so we can definitely say this: the coalition won four seats that would have gone to Labor had they received 26 per cent more of Family First’s preferences. And four seats is a lot in a close election…. 66% of voters followed the Family First how to vote card”.
These “four seats” would, i presume, include Makin, Kingston and Wakefeild in SA in the 2004 Federal Election context.
As an aside, Bonner in QLD would have gone to the ALP in 2004 based on Brent’s formula and an improved chunk of FF 2PP preferences would have gone a long way to helping the ALP cause in Greenway (NSW), Braddon (TAS) and Solomon (NT).
On paper, this scenario would also shore up ALP marginals in SA (Adelaide and Hindmarsh). Moreover, I reckon Rudd is going to be appealing to the bible bashing, conservative FF mob for his publicly conservative, Christian/family oreintated image, at least as much as little Johnny and the Abbott and Costello show is appealing to them and FF did direct preferences to the ALP in several 2005 State Election seats, so it appears they are open to dealing with the ALP, at least at some level.
As for Charlies concerns about the Greens preferences, dont worry about it Charlie- There is too much weight given to Green preference ‘direct’-ions: I would only be concerned about Green preferences, from an ALP stand point, if they ever chose to actively campaign against the ALP, and i dont see that happening in the near future, even in SA.
I think Bill’s mob might still be fuming about the fact that in South Australia, “the Australian Democrats did a preference swap with Family First that prevented the Greens winning the final vacancy” and ” When the Democrats were excluded, preferences flowed to Family First which prevented the Greens’ Brian Noone passing the third Labor candidate. This resulted in a seat that could otherwise have been won by the Greens instead being won by Labor on Green preferences” :Wikepeda.
This whole attack by Labor on the PM’s dinners at his residences is rather disappointing – it’s the kind of pathetic attempt to “get Howard” that Beazley Labor frequently indulged in, but I was under the impression that Rudd was going to be above that sort of thing. I guess he needed something to distract the electorate from the ACTU’s dirty tricks manual, but I think he overdid it when he had practically the whole frontbench huddled together pretending to discuss tactics as the PM, Costello and Hockey hammered them in Parliament last week.
The problem with Howard and Co. is the feeling in 2007 is different that in 2004. Just by feeling the current mood.
And with Steven Kaye, don’t try and ruin this blog with partisan stuff. I am a member of a poltical party, but I try and make my stuff less pro-Labor than I can. And I do agree with you on the Kirribilli stuff. Rudd should concerntrate on more meat and potatoes stuff. Like meat and potatoes.
When it comes to lower houses, FF direct their preferences based on the social beliefs of the individual candidates. Therefore, if the ALP candidates are more socially conservative, they will get FF preferences.
With regards to the upper house, SA is FF’s strongest state. If the ALP primary vote stays low (it was 36% in 2004), and they give FF their preferences, FF will win the seat. If labor improves their vote, they will win the seat regardless.
It’s just up to the ALP on who they want to give that third senate seat to if their primary vote doesn’t hold up–FF or the Greens.
The EMRS 200-vote samples are individually next to meaningless because of sample size issues. Factor in, say, five points for drift back to the Coalition and ten points for sample size error and Bass, Braddon and Lyons are still winnable for the Coalition although no-one really believes they will win Lyons.
The strength of the Labor vote across the full 1000 vote sample is interesting though.
The Franklin numbers certainly don’t gel with the ACTU’s decision to make it the sole ALP seat subject to the so-called ‘dirty tricks’ campaign. Incidentally, that’s an indictment on the selection of Kevin Harkins that the ACTU thinks Franklin – a seat with a margin of over 7% – is the most vulnerable Labor seat in the country.
However, as Kevin says above any state wide poll that gives Labor a 23% primary vote lead and a combined ALP/Greens vote of over 60% should make them feel confident about withstanding any swing in Franklin and regaining Braddon and Bass.
i think some of labours vote has gone back to the greens it dosent seem to have helped the coalition too much in the 2pp. i agree with c-woo lets not try and destroy this blog with personal rubbish