Comedy alert. What follows is a parody. It seems some readers actually thought it plausible that this was written by Chris Mitchell.
Guest post by Chris Mitchell, editor of The Australian.
Kevin Rudd’s prime ministerial ambitions lie in tatters today after yet another devastating opinion poll, this time from ACNielsen. For all the ignorant whingeing levelled at the government lately by out-of-touch ivory tower eggheads, loony left “web loggers”, civil libertarian do-gooders, bludgers and parasites from the Aboriginal industry and (SNIP – maybe I was a bit harsh on poor old Chris with this last one), the Coalition primary vote is still on 39 per cent. This is profoundly significant because, as those who really understand opinion polls can tell you, only four of the previous nine changes of government occurred after ruling party support remained steady in the last month before the election whose name began with a J.
Minor details of the poll include a Labor primary vote tapping on the door of 50 per cent, a further widening of the two-party gap from 57-43 to 58-42, growing opposition to Australian involvement in Iraq, little support for the notion that high house prices are caused by “inadequate land releases by governments”, and – this can’t be right – movements away from the Prime Minister on those all-important performance approval and preferred leader ratings.
In other news, it seems not even The Age can spell ACNielsen (I beg your pardon if this has been corrected by the time you read this).
It’s curious that no matter how right-wing newspapers are, they can’t find right-wing cartoonists. Nicholson started his career on Tribune, and Bill Leak is also a lefty. The last genuine right-wing cartoonist on a daily paper was the awful Larry Pickering (a Liberal candidate in 1974), whose idea of humour was drawing large penises everywhere. To find a *good* right-wing cartoonist you have to go back to George Molnar on the SMH in the 50s, and to the brilliant Ted Scorfield at the Bulletin, whose attacks on Evatt were legendary. Les Tanner started out as a right-winger, also at the Bulletin, but got more left-wing the older he got.
Although I’ve shared the consensus view that Turnbull will probably hold on, I’m beginning to question that assumption. If there’s anything like a 10 – 12% swing in NSW – as suggested by the State break-down from Newspoll (and given some dubious confirmation by Neilsen), it won’t matter what personal vote he can muster. So if he’s to be a near-future candidate for the leadership, he may first have to find a seat from fairly thin pickings.
In any case, if there is a serious wipe-out for the Government, would Malcolm be willing to do the hard yards of two or more terms in opposition?
Nick Says:
July 16th, 2007 at 10:42 pm
Strop – which seats and how will it be a scare??
Im going to keep this breif because Ive already posted 2-3 large blogs on this but here in QLD the non-scare (you can take it to the bank seats) on current indicators will be Blair, Bonner, Herbert, Longman, Moreton and Petrie(6)- and I am being conservative here.
If Laming (who survived being referred to the DPP but is now being questioned over other practices with a ‘ghost staff’ debacle) isnt JC himself you can add Bowman (7).
The ‘big scare’ seats will be Hinkler and the three vacant one’s Adam has mentioned elsewhere as within the bounds of possibility, Flynn (new), Forde and Leichhardt. I wouldnt be surprised if Labor wins any of these ‘big scare’ seats- Why a scare ? (a) These seats have 7.9 + 2PP notional margins and three of them have been in the Coalitions hands since 1996 or earlier.
Strop, Costello will accept the poisoned chalice and Turnbull will win his own tilt at a time of his choosing. Costello will lack the patience to do it all again and will accept some offers from the industry.
and.. I havent said anything about Ryan,Fairfax or Mcpherson.
Peter, why would Turnbull bail? He’s on a mission.
Amber Dekstris Says:
July 16th, 2007 at 11:12 pm
Strop, Costello will accept the poisoned chalice and Turnbull will win his own tilt at a time of his choosing. Costello will lack the patience to do it all again and will accept some offers from the industry.
I hope Costello accepts the chalice as you put it Amber-it would be read as ‘saving face’ but splatter egg all over the Liberal Party. I hope your right.
I think STROP is right, Costello was too gutless to challenge Howard last year, and he would be too gutless to be opposition leader.
Would Costello want ‘I lead the Coalition to a loss akin to 1983’ on his CV; I dont think so, but politics is a strange animal to that will not be tamed.
STROP if there is a really big swing in Qld (and as always I say “if”), then Ryan will go. Michael Johnson is decidedly on the nose and Ryan is a classic “doctors wives” seat where issues like climate change will hurt the Libs. Don’t forget that Ryan was the only seat in Qld to vote for the republic in 1999.
By chalice I meant Opposition Leader not PM. Howard is man enough to lead to defeat, a quality Costello lacks. The machine will decide the battle is lost, allow Howard to lose, allow Costello to lead while in Opposition and allow Turnbull to have a tilt. Handing over to Costello will give the Libs the “makeover” that won’t wash this close to an election.
Howard doesn’t have many redeeming qualities but if he thinks a Costello defeat is a bigger disaster then a Howard defeat, Howard will take the ignominy for the sake of the party. He does believe some of the things he says.
Howard should’ve handed over last year — he would’ve ridden off into the sunset a true Liberal hero. His ego got in the way but he is prepared to pay the price.
Libs must regain power as soon as humanly possible so as to minimise the winding back by Labor of WorkChoices. This winding back will take time so Libs can afford to lose govt if they can regain it quickly and set in stone the new WC regime.
The question then becomes, when Libs do get back in, will the govt be dominated by people who care as much about WC as Howard did?
No it won’t and thus is writ the tragedy of JW Howard, the man with the tenacity to simply not go away, to become PM by default, to take advantage of opportunity and advice, to position himself as potentially a modern party hero, but ultimately to leave a legacy of … nothing of any consequence.
I think STROP is right, Costello was too gutless to challenge Howard last year….
Simon Howson
Don’t agree. Costello knew he didn’t have the public and hence party support to give him a hope in Hades of winning, and just accepted that fact. If he hadn’t, and had challenged, what sort of position would he be in now? Much worse. It all boils down to his lack of any substantial public popularity, which means he will never be PM in his own right.
Arbie, I’m not sure that Howard’s hanging on to the leadership is entirely ego. I think we tend to speculate too much on individual pollies’ psychology. I suspect Howard stayed on for lack of anything better. He was often a laughing stock prior to 1996, but since then, he’s managed to win several elections. He even managed to increase the Coalition’s majority in 2004, by which time his jingoistic ‘statesmanship’ was well-known, and his government was laden with plenty of pretty ugly baggage.
I wouldn’t assume he’s worried about his ‘legacy’ – in his mind, he’s probably already acheived everything he wanted, particularly with his ideologically-charged legislation, passed with Senate control (VSU, Telstra, anti-terror laws, and IR, among others).
As for his actual legacy, I would argue it’s far from inconsequential. Australia is a different country for having been governed by Howard, and not, I believe, for the better. My perspective is partisan, but still – Other than ‘managing’ the economy (and managing it well, for the already-wealthy), and tightening gun laws, I stuggle to think of any great contribution that Howard has made.
He’s shown himself to be an astute observer of public opinion, and opportunistic at every turn. Given his ideological preoccupations, and the fact that he was able to successfully ride a wave of anti-Keating, anti-PC, Hansonite hysteria, he was a suitable leader of sorts. Nonetheless, the Australia that he leaves behind will be one that is diminished in every respect, other than its imported plasma televisions.
Sorry, that last comment was for Amber, not Arbie.
>Don’t agree. Costello knew he didn’t have the public and hence party >support to give him a hope in Hades of winning, and just accepted that >fact. If he hadn’t, and had challenged, what sort of position would he be >in now? Much worse. It all boils down to his lack of any substantial public >popularity, which means he will never be PM in his own right.
Was Keating that popular with the general public when he went after Hawke? His main popularity was with the NSW Right, the press gallery, and himself, but not necessarily in that order. Unlike Costello, Keating knew that he had a better chance of seeing of Hewson than Hawke. Now, allegedly Howard told Costello that he could dispense with Beazley easily, but Costello countered saying that he doubted that the ALP would retain Beazley as the leader for the election. In other words, Costello knew what was going to happen, but didn’t act on it. Costello should’ve done what Keating did, resign to the back bench, then challenge Howard again now.
I say this as a person that thinks Howard has stayed on too long, I don’t think voters like Governments who hang around for over 10 years, and certainly not a government with the same leader. I don’t think the ALPs policies are all that different to what they would’ve been under Beazley, I think what the polls are showing is that people simply think the ALP will be competent under Rudd, but the main problem is the Government has been around too long without renewel at the top end.
This thread is taking a vacation. The Australian issue has probably played out anyway (until next Tuesday at least), but I’d be happier if we laid off it for a bit, for what my opinion is worth to you.