Commenters at the business end of the country inform me, via Lateline, that tomorrow’s Newspoll will be as you see in the headline (after a 56-44 result a fortnight ago). It is against my religion to read anything into one poll in isolation. Nonetheless, I am tempted to interpret this as the interest rate hike being cancelled out by what Matt Price describes as the government’s “potentially quite good bad news”, namely last week’s stock market dive.
UPDATE: Kevin Rudd’s lead on preferred prime minister has widened from 44-39 to 46-39.
UPDATE 2: The Australian reports Labor’s primary vote is down from 48 per cent to 46 per cent (equal lowest since February), with the Coalition steady on 39 per cent.
UPDATE 3: Graphic here, Shanahan here.
touche.
199 Luxury!!! I used to write code in binary by flicking off the light switch to my bedroom really fast!
Dario, lucky bugger having a light switch. I had to use matches.
JD @201
Correct me if I am wrong (anybody), but I think you are missing something (as may be I).
Certainly, the incomes of the Australian population will look normal, probably skewed long tailed to the right (there is no theoretical maximum income, but obviously a minimum one). Obviously, to see this, you are putting incomes into brackets, and this is where I assume the CLT comes into play.
Someone else may care to opine about this, especially with regard to ages of the australian population, but I would be surprised if it does not look normalish.
Just Me. Triple pffft.
Control Data Cybers using punch cards at the ABS. 😉 Oh what fun.
Pauline Hanson has her own website -between her toes.
bada bing bada boom
Ok.. now THIS is interesting, an admission by Elliot Osher, apparently the owner of “Scores” in the OZ this afternoon.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,22282564-11949,00.html
According to this, the story is that Mr Rudd left early with Snowden and Allan when he realised it was a strip joint and appeared to be “the most important man in the group”, they were apparently “fawning over him”.
Now, I don’t know how well we should trust this account, but the press release itself doesn’t add up:
1. Whilst Osher is attributed with quoting Rudd saying “Oh no, this won’t do” and then leaving, elsewhere he is reported as saying that they didn’t even finish their drinks. So it won’t do, but we’ll buy some overpriced drinks anyway, stay a while and walk out in disgust.. What’s wrong with this picture?
2. I am rather incredulous that this owner would have ANY recollection of this group of men from 2003. Rudd was an Australian politician, completely unknown, not even Opposition Leader. Even more incredulous is that some unknown men would do nothing and leave early and that this guy would remember this????
3. Rudd has not been consistent with his story. Sunday, remembered nothing and apologised for any possible inappropriate behaviour, which by Monday night had transformed into remembering nothing but definitely remembered doing nothing untoward. So if we are to believe this and the Osher account, then Rudd came in, realised it was a strip club, left without finishing his drink, told Therese and got a serious bollocking because “Therese is a very firm woman”!! Not firm, I would suggest, but completely unreasonable!! St Kevin was deceived, stood his moral ground, spun on his heels and gets roasted for it????
At the heart of this matter, I believe, is little to do with scantily clad women, much to do with judgment and representation of Australia abroad and quite a bit to do with just plain getting your facts straight!
Sure he has “blood in his veins”, “is human” and is a “good, ordinary bloke”, so are plenty of my friends, but I know, sure as hell, I don’t want some of my friends representing this nation internationally!!!!
This issue, is, despite the rhetoric since Saturday, an important issue.
If anyone is familiar with Hughes
http://psephos.adam-carr.net/countries/a/australia/2007seats/hughes.shtml
perhaps they could explain the red booth at Prince Edward Park. I doubt it is hippies or Indigenious this close to Sydney.
As important as the Treasurer bragging to journalists over a drunken dinner about how he would knacker the Prime Minister, then chickening out of doing so, then lying about it when it becomes public?
Adam’s MGBs are back!
I can feel a “I will decide who comes into this country blah blah blah” from Undertaker 2 himself (abetted by Undertaker 1 and King Rat)
Oracle, while it may be an important issue to you, it sounds like that’s because you want it to be not because it actually is. Sorry but you’re trying to pick holes in a story from 4 years ago like some kind of cop. The chances of four witness statements being identical after that period of time is bugger all, especially where alcohol is involved. Quite frankly if they had been picture perfect I would have been worried. Dead issue.
POSSUM
Given you have a good understanding of ‘aspirational nationalism’ could you please read my entry at 101 and comment please. I would appreciate your opinion on the triangulation risks Howard is taking with this approach.
Adam
Are you serious? I’d say yes, on three counts:
1. Rudd’s incident was real, admitted, overseas on a taxpayer funded trip, involved drunkenness to the point of apparent memory loss. Costello had a dinner in Canberra and may have made a conceited boast which he later denied???
2. Media attention has been lately on the concerning role of alcohol in our indigenous communities and younger Australians binge drinking. If footballers get disciplined for public drunken behaviour, how much moreso should our politicians??
3. It was relatively recent. This was not part of Kevin’s wild youth, it was 2003. This may well matter to voters.
Generic Oracle : Would I want a PM who has addressed Parliament drunk or who had in the past turned to drink because of losing an election – representing me overseas…and all the other sundry lies and deceit I wont restate here?
Enough with the false mock horror.
I wonder what the rounding of the Newspoll was, they never do fractions like Morgan. Hmmm 55.7 becomes 55
Just seems that the other variables like PPM and Economic manger moved in the opposite direction to the TPP.
LOL. Good one, folks.
Ruawake. My father used a hand cranked tabulator for processing punch cards full of agricultural stats. I remember when his department got their first ever computer. He would take us kids in on the weekend and show us how to play 3-dimensional tic-tac-toe. Oh happy days. It has all got so complicated since then.
This is very curious. Prince Edward Park is a small booth in Woronora. In 2004 the Green candidate for Hughes, Lorraine Dixon, polled 37% there, an increase of 27%, and since the Greens preferenced Labor this produced a two-party swing of 21%, taking Labor from 49% to 60%. Who is Lorraine Dixon and why is she so popular in Woronora?
That should have been “from 39% to 60%”.
http://andrewsmustresign.com/
click, signup..
Generic Oracle ,
So now you’re saying there is a conspriacy involving the Club owner. What next? The strippers were on Sadaam Hussein’s payroll. Bin Laden was using the strip joint to hide weapons?
Give it up. The story is over.
Dario
I think it is not so much “dead” as “unpleasant” or even “irritating” if you happen to want to vote for Kevin. Just as it is when coalition politicians hear stories about Costello and Leadership or imply Howard lied to Australians about a range of issues. Either we consider it important when ALL politicians appear to be untruthful or we take your approach and call it a “dead issue”. Either way, consistency is needed.
I have no problem if the issue is real, Kevin ‘fesses up, takes it on the chin and levels with us about the facts. I think it would be awful to have that level of public scrutiny on your life but that’s life at the top of politics.
The other issues about professional conduct, international ambassadorship, publicly funded trip spending and reporting facts accurately when questioned are important on all sides of politics. I was concerned with AWB, the children overboard incident and Costello’s recent claims. As I was with this. Not a dead issue at all. I haven’t voted yet, have you?
I think it is certain that the incomes of the Australian population will not follow a normal distribution. I think you are right that the distribution will show a skew and a long tail: in other words, it won’t be a normal distribution! I wasn’t thinking about brackets, and I don’t see what connection brackets have with the CLT.
You would be surprised if the ages of the Australian population do not follow a normal distribution: I would be surprised if they do.
Whatever Oracle, knock yourself out and vote Lib
Generic Oracle
Its a norwegian blue issue. 🙂
Will Ron Boswell win a senate seat now, was the Lib/Nat joint ticket in Qld a good idea?
No surprise that Andrews is appealing the ruling. What a clown he truly is. If incompetence could be spelt with an ‘A’ it would be his surname.
JD @222
Just got the data from the ABS. Almost “double peaked” – but normalish. I could not get http://www.swivel.com to play the game (bizarrely – I mean, how hard can this be?), otherwise I would have a graph to show you. Trivial in excel.
Skew and Kurtosis are the typical methods that I know of to measure how far something deviates from the normal curve. If you want to be pedantic, then nothing in the real world will show a normal distribution, one imagines, but many things will approximate them to various levels of usefulness.
ABS Household income data here:
http://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/Latestproducts/6523.0Main%20Features52005-06?opendocument&tabname=Summary&prodno=6523.0&issue=2005-06&num=&view=
JD @222.
Oz population shows something that could be said to have characteristics of a normal distribution, albeit with an extreme skew.
It has the “head and shoulders” pattern of the normal distribution. Unfortunately, my knowledge of stats is very weak, used only for the most mundane of business purposes – perhaps a little knowledge is a dangerous thing.
The oz population graph starts high, and slowly moves towards the peak around age 35-40 and then starts to taper off fairly quickly. Whether or not this is further ‘proof’ of the CLT, I don’t know, but I suspect that it is in play here. Someone with greater knowledge than I would have to say.
Mock horror and outrage, Generic Oracle. It is such a trivial incident.
Of course desperate Liberals will try to make the most of it. Who on earth really gives a damn?
Better open the cupboard door and check out all those old dusty Liberal skeletons again. There conservative voters will really find something to be shocked about. If they get rattled around in full glare of public gaze then John Howard would certainly lose. I wonder if anyone is really game enough?
I only got to comment 60 before being distracted by two things:
1 The lack of movement in the polls during one of some three months to the election suggests Howard has lost considerable opportunity if not support; and 2 I think there’s considerable confusion over the term ‘the economy’ (as in managing it).
I’m among the crowd who wonder when (was it the late ’70’s?) we became an ‘economy’ as opposed to a ‘community’. I think a lot of voters may well see the coalition as effective ‘money managers’ but when it comes to the broader issues within Austrealian society they respect the Labor (and Greens, and Democrats, et al) approach to environmental/societal matters as part of the whole.
Which of course has me wondering about the implications of Howard’s recent strategy of blaming the States (the ‘local’ community managers per police/ hospitals/ water/ libraries/ sporting facilities) for supposedly poor services will wash.
Sure, he might run a good (‘better’?) balanced/ surplus budget using my taxes; but can he deliver me a broad and better quality of life ?
O
And I forgot the biggie.Howard’s .economic management’ credential includes IR; and sure he can balance the taxpayers’ cheque book, but is it at the expense of my/ my kids’ job security ? I think that perception (and that of his dishonesty) are his primary risks as the election looms
JD @222
Actually, thinking about it, I agree with you. Population age structure is almost certainly not normal. A country with very low immigration and a high infant mortality rate would have a very different looking graph to Australia’s – probably a fairly pronounced decline from 0 to death.
Generic Oracle, the issue appears to be that what Rudd has fessed up to is not what you want him to fess up to. Costello said things to journos on the record then next day told them it was off the record then now denied saying those things. Rudd never denied the substance of the claims apart from the ones which are false according to his companions and the owner of the club.
Rudd has certainly wavered a little in the detail but perhaps he had buried the memory as one does with embarrassing memories and the detail is slowly coming back over a period of days. Costello flatly denied the claims against him and was exposed.
Obviosly the whole Haneef thing has turned into a farce but one would assume that Andrews had legal advise that he was acting legally. If so then I don’t see why he should resign but if I was Howard I would be putting him on a very short leash. However if he acted without legal advise he should hang his head in shame and resign.
Richard, yes the Liberal pollies stayed right away from this one — a cynic might suggest they didn’t want similar questions asked of them for fear of being required to answer them.
Ebenezer (111), Nathan (88)
But on the arm up the sleeve is a tatoo which says ‘mother’ and an image of a little house, with a white picket fence
Dario, Amber, Paul K
Again the “knife-edge” discrimination on these same political blogs. Why is it that when anyone questions a politician it is assumed that one must be partisan to “the other camp” and just political point-scoring?
When I have criticised Howard I have been on the “loony left”, when I ask questions about an issue which has dominated the media since Saturday about Mr Rudd, I should “go off and vote Liberal then”. It worries me when people frequenting what is apparently a psephologist’s website can’t see far beyond their own political bias. It is all “my party/leader is all the best” and “your party/leader sucks man!”, “my guy has integrity and principles”, “your guy is a liar and I hate him”.
This monochromatic polarity makes wading through for thoughtful reflections hard. You guys all gave Costello a far longer run on discussion than you seem prepared to do for Rudd. If one is confident of a political ideology, party and leader, then one ought to be able to weather a little scrutiny about these. I like Howard and Rudd, though one is not God and the other Satan.
Generic Oracle
I for one didn’t say anything about Costello because I didn’t care what he was bragging about to some journalists at a drunken dinner. Likewise I see the whole ‘Strippergate’ saga as incredibly unimportant. Both men got drunk and made some bad decisions. Do we really expect our pollies to be perfect and never make a mistake and walk on water. I think all this talk about Rudd with the strippers and Costello with the journos is incredibly petty and childish. Both were drunk and behaved as they should not have, but as far as I am aware neither one has a drinking problem so they’re probably one offs. End result: who cares.
Paul K:
Andrews and the Solicitor General should resign.
The Solicitor General as he apparently gave incorrect advice.
And Andrews because he exploited Haneef for political reasons as dictated by cabinet.
Yet another shameful episode in Australian history courtesy of the Howard government.
Paul K
but as far as I am aware neither one has a drinking problem
Not sure about Howard, the Courier Mail story and photo in the link show himfalling flat on his face in the middle of the day and then admitting he was drunk when he addressed parliament. It is also well known that he walks in the morning to overcome a drinking problem.
http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,22130111-952,00.html
But as I said before and others had pointed out other pollies have liked the drink yet still governed well, we should be looking at that rather than their demons.
1. Downer’s office leaks some ‘faked’ info regard Rudd’s short appearance at a strip club while drunk 4 years ago. Some smearing of his character with the help of the media.
2. Next day uncle J Howard releases new paternalistic grand policy.
Thus:
Rudd = smeared
Howard = good boy
Coordinated event Govt & Media
The SMH bragged they had this story ready to run near election day.
So there we have it – some parts of the media have their plans to try and discredit Rudd and Co, probably nearer election day.
maybe a little off topic but does anyone think that shanahan & others at thr g/g just dont get that the internet records everything they write and as such what they do write can be and will be instantly reviewd.
i think this newspoll is a classic example. if as im sure you will remember well a couple of polls ago whe j.howards ppm came in a couple of points dennis was crowing that this was the big turnaround and was the most important point of the poll. thus ensured the so called “blog wars” when dennis was quite rightly castigated over his blatent right wing pro/howard bias.to cap all this off o’shanney (forgive spelling} writes a piece sticking up for dennis and then the editor of the g/g also gets stuck in accusing all the bloggers{read us} bludging off his hardworking non-bias employees.
to todays newsepoll j.howards ppm takes a loss and not one word from dennis/g/g about how this is is relavant to anything?
i may be missing something but if one month when the figures are good it is most important and the next if dosen”t go your way not important just does not add up>
or maybe dennis is bias ? or im a idiot?
Generic Oracle I would love to have a debate with you on the morality of strip joints, and the basic premise that you can exploit someone, without them feeling exploited. That is to say, a debate that concludes strip clubs are bad always because women are exploited there no matter how much they like it, and no matter how much they get paid (ie so there is no moral difference between a high end high class establishment and a dump with drug users on and off the stages).
This could then be extended to whether or not they should be banned or whether they should be legal and the users shamed and disadvantaged (the cigarette ‘solution’).
Then the Rudd thing has an alcohol aspect as well and we can have the same moral decision, action going forward debate and discussion.
The with two sound conclusions we could characterise Rudd’s decision to attend with the journo and determine how much he should be condemned. Particularly with respect to exploiting women.
We could also discuss and critique his response. He has said he was wrong, whereas I am pretty happy to conclude that most male Australian’s would only really consider it wrong in limited circumstances. I think he meant ‘politically wrong’ and if the report from the club is right, that seems to have been his instincts on the night. Not withstanding he’d had some alcohol.
Interestingly my view is Rudd confessed to a greater wrong than he actually thinks he committed for political reasons. Compare this to Costello who just outright lied for political purposes.
I think also, while I would encourage a detailed considered rational debate, that it is the wrong debate to be having. We have workchoices and the already demonstrated disadvantage and exploitation of women. This is a much greater wrong in the sense it victimises women who are vunerable without giving them a choice. We could also talk about the morals of the war, and the morals of demonising people of one religion for political purposes. We could talk about business ethics and bribery of foreign powers. All these things are obviously more important than a 10 minute trip to a strip club surely? We could even talk about experience and the economy.
I guess my point is if there is a moral question here, it is a pretty minor one, and the context of Howard vs Rudd a silly one. In terms of polls and polling it seems to me the small boost to Rudd theory is good. It aligns with a theory / discussion of the voting demographic referred to as ‘bogans’ in todays press.
And without characterising you as partisan one way or the other (I have frequently admitted I am) continuing to concentrate on this issue, with the general high level ‘unfit’ for office type smear, without looking at the underlying moralities, makes it all like Burkegate, a partisan smear without any foundation of analysis. Hopefully the moral wrong of exploiting women is clearer here, arguably there is no wrong at all anywhere in Burkegate, but it looks partisan to pursue and issue that seems so trivial only a partisan would pursue it, whether or not it genuinely is partisan.
If we are conducting a comparison of politicians’ characters, I would have thought truthfulness comes well ahead of “gets drunk occasionally”. Let’s see what we have:
* We now know that Howard had a period when he drank too much. He has apparently been honest about that to the current biographers, although of course he did not announce it before being asked. I think that is to his credit. He has a proved record of serial dishonesty on political matters, but on personal issues I think he has generally been pretty honest.
* We also now know that Rudd has been drunk twice in his life, and that on one of those occasions he was taken (by a News Ltd executive, but we won’t go into that) to a strip club, where he spent 40 minutes. He denies any further impropriety. Like Howard, he did not announce this lapse in judgement before being asked about it, but since it became public he has been quite open about it. As a Labor voter I must say I was somewhat dismayed that Rudd did something so silly, but I see no grounds to revise my view of his character.
* We also now know that Costello had too much to drink at dinner with three senior jouranalists, and made a lot of empty, egotistical boasts about what he was going to do to Howard, none of which he had the guts to follow through on when the crunch came last year. When this was revealed in The Bulletin, he said “I don’t know where The Bulletin got that from.” This was a direct, public, bare-faced lie, on a matter of his own personal conduct. The next day, when he realised that all three journalists had written evidence of what he had said, he retreated from this lie, and since then he has dodged and fudged the issue.
I think these three stories tell their own story about the personal moral character of these three men. I detest Howard politically, but I think his personal integrity is reasonably intact, which is some achievement after 33 years in politics. I have lost some respect for Rudd’s judgement, but none for his integrity. I am confirmed in my view that Costello is a shallow, vain, treacherous, gutless, dishonest windbag, who has coasted through his career and has nothing to recommend him, politically or personally.
Adam: Good analysis, but I disagree wholeheartedly that Howard’s personal integrity is intact.
Howard is one of the most deceptive, manipulative politicians of all time.
From WMD, Iraq, Children Overboard, “Never Ever” GST, to his support of the denigration of asians, muslims and anyone else that might get him elected. As far as I’m concerned, Howard has no integrity.
Line 142 Steven Kaye reveals himself as a complete economic illiterate.
(Whatashock)
The Hawke Labor government inherited an economy where a substantial portion of the labour force were unionized and the wages share of GDP was 60.1%. This created endemic and institutionalized cost-push pressures as wage increases were not necessarily linked to increased output. Instead they were the result of a strong bargaining position and as a product of the desire to maintain relativities in living conditions insulated from external events. Labour market reforms, most notably the enterprise bargaining aspects of the accord in 1993-94, helped transform the previous high inflation, dispute plagued system into a decentralized, productivity based one.
This approach helped to curb what had developed into a spiral of wage and inflationary pressures by linking increased purchasing power with increased productivity. In short, aggregate domestic demand was much more closely aligned with aggregate supply and increased output. It left scope for short-run aggregate demand to fuel modest increases in inflation accompanied by gains in Real GDP, but reduced the capacity for wages pressure without accompanying productivity gains.
The resulting changes, also tied to changes to make the aussie economy more international, did result in large amounts of structural unemployment and a recession. And of the course budget deficits ,(sorry I know deficit is a four letter word). However, it is on the supply side where we have been let down as the current government has steadfastly refused to address capacity issues by pulling funding from universities etc, preferring to prop up private health insurers and provide tax breaks.
JWH on 7.30 Report: the sort of responses that should reinforce current poll trends if anyone was listening to the chap. I mean – what does Rudd stand for he asks? How about a vision articulated through this year on education, IR fairness, broadband etc that you’ve been playing catch up on. But thats a bit unfair – we now have aspirational porkbarrelling/state bagging…I mean ‘nationalism’. It really is ‘Time’…
on the ny thing. whats the diff. between males going to a strip joint or females going to see manpower etc.
does it really matter?who is deeming who or is 1 rule right and the other wrong ?
Couldn’t agree more Not’Appy.
Didn’t Keating recently get a lot of flack for referring to JWH as a dangerous nationalist?
JWH on 7.30 Report
He was a whisper from announcing his resignation. A defeated, tired old man. The last hurrah. He has realised that his time has passed. RIP.
Derek Corbett Says:
August 21st, 2007 at 7:59 pm
JWH on 7.30 Report
He was a whisper from announcing his resignation. A defeated, tired old man. The last hurrah. He has realised that his time has passed. RIP.
———–
No… say it ain’t so…. don’t resign Johhny.
I’ve been looking forward to hearing a concession speech for the last few months.