PRIME Minister John Howard is under pressure to call the federal election quickly, after the release of boom economic growth figures that threaten to push interest rates higher by November. Despite another horrendous opinion poll this week showing a potential election wipe-out, Mr Howard yesterday appeared to hint he would go to the polls sooner rather than later. Political pressure on him to do so has been intensified by the latest GDP figures, which show the Australian economy has been growing at its fastest annual pace for three years … With an increased prospect of an interest rate rise in November, many in the Government which has staked its re-election hopes on its ability to sell its economic credentials will be wanting the election before the inflation figures come out on October 24, or at least before the Reserve Bank board meeting to be held in early November. That would mean a polling day of October 20 or 27. An October 20 poll would have to be called in about 10 days.
THE Senate Finance and Public Administration Committee was in Cairns yesterday conducting its inquiry into the Commonwealth Electoral Amendment (Democratic Plebiscites) Bill 2007. This dry piece of parliamentary advice masks an intensely political exercise and explains why John Howard will not call an election the moment his APEC fiesta shuts down next Sunday. The legislation is the stunt law that Howard pulled out of his box of tricks to drive a wedge between Labor leader Kevin Rudd and his fraternal Queensland Premier Peter Beattie … The committee reports on Friday and the Senate will debate the law next Tuesday, when it’s expected to be passed, in time for plebiscites on Beattie’s amalgamations likely on October 20.
THERE was speculation last night that Prime Minister John Howard could delay calling the federal election until November or even as late as early December. Yesterday, Mr Howard gave his strongest hint yet that the election date would not be held in October after declaring that the federal takeover of the Devonport Mersey Hospital would not occur until November 1. Mr Howard said the Tasmanian Labor Government had agreed to the terms of the handover of the hospital in the state’s north and that the documents would be signed between the two governments on that date. Senior Liberal insiders said it would be wrong to assume too much from the announcement, but said a later election was now a genuine possibility. Nobody knows the date except the Prime Minister, but you would have to think a later election is now a good chance, a senior government figure said.
A Canberra insider told me today with absolute certainty that the election would be announced on 13 September. I was told that Howard does not believe he can cut through the political disengagement that has grown up with the last 8 months of pseudo-campaigning. Howard needs a circuit-breaker. In whispered tones, it was also suggested that Howard would rather go to the polls now than face a leadership challenge from Costello, Abbott or Downer apparently an almost certainty if the Coalition’s poor showing in the opinion polls continues for much longer. According to my source, there would be a longish seven week campaign designed to test Kevin Rudd in the reality of campaign politics (and hopefully expose some Rudd flaws and gaffes). The election would be on 3 November 2007. Living in Canberra, I often hear these (so called) insider rumours. Rarely do they prove true.
Crikey:
Tips and rumours: The election date will be Nov 3. This is based upon the bookings made with Australia Post for mass mailots by the coalition – including in Bennelong. The Coalition recently cancelled their November mailouts and have maintained October ones.
That’s would they should have done in 2000. Gore would’ve been a much better Prez.
Quite agree, looking pompous and smart is not a good look nonetheless wasn’t it interesting that everyone clapped Rudds’ mandarin talk except one individual Mr Howard….
Feel sorry for Howard???
AAAAAHHHAAAHHHAAAHHHAAA and again AAAAAHHHAAAHHHAAA…
Simon (300) – the VP has to be eligible to be President, so if he has already served two terms as Pres (which Clinton has), then he would in ineligible. It would be the same as a VP not born in the US.
Scorpio (297) – Don’t worry, I’m enjoying Johnny’s meltdown as much as anyone!
Um, in 1992 I meant to say.
US CONSTITUTION:
Amendment 22 – Presidential Term Limits. Ratified 2/27/1951. History
1. No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice, and no person who has held the office of President, or acted as President, for more than two years of a term to which some other person was elected President shall be elected to the office of the President more than once. But this Article shall not apply to any person holding the office of President, when this Article was proposed by the Congress, and shall not prevent any person who may be holding the office of President, or acting as President, during the term within which this Article becomes operative from holding the office of President or acting as President during the remainder of such term.
2. This article shall be inoperative unless it shall have been ratified as an amendment to the Constitution by the legislatures of three-fourths of the several States within seven years from the date of its submission to the States by the Congress.
OC
Better an intelligent PM than a sly one.
Read some good comments about Howard and Bush talking about Iraq when the focus should be Asia Pacific.
Was good oportunity for Rudd, whilst Howard says he will stick all the way with Bush, Rudd said that he will act in the interests of Australia and made his position quite firm. Whilst Downer acts the buffoon again and tells silly schoolboy jokes Rudd is engaging the Chinese at their level as an equal.
Been a while since we had a PM who looks and behaves like a statesman not a fawning little puppy dog.
It was also not a good look of Howard not to clap. It makes him look like a bad sport and impolite. I wonder if Rudd clapped Howard speech too? Because at an event like that isn’t it just polite to clap.
Oakeshott
I don’t think it matters much to the Australian people, certainly not if the polls are to be believed.
In any case, I don’t think the ALP will be very strong in the bush and not a whole lot better in regional towns either.
The effect of Boomer migration along the Eastern seaboard might also change the voting pattern in these electorates. Retired boomers may just care a little more about superannuation, security and the economy in general than education, health and IR changes.
The fact that the coalition is not necessarily the best to deliver good outcomes for super, security and the economy and Labor is not necessarily the best choice for education, health and IR may not matter either. Politics is perception and these divides are old.
It is still possible that such voters would have the cognitive dissonance to vote for the “one they like on Telly” rather than the one who brings policies they want, in which case, I’m guessing Rudd has an edge here.
[Simon (300) – the VP has to be eligible to be President, so if he has already served two terms as Pres (which Clinton has), then he would in ineligible. It would be the same as a VP not born in the US.]
Sorry, I was unclear! I meant HILLARY Clinton. Could Gore be the vice presidential candidate with Hillary Clinton as the Presidential candidate? Or can you only be vice president for two terms? Thus making Gore only eligible to be a presidential candidate, but not a vice presidential candidate?
Agree that today Kevin Rudd dominated in all the news channels I watched. Poor JWH. He didn’t expect APEC to end up being a plus for Kev.
Simon,
There is no law against it but neither is there any precedent for it. In reality I don’t think it could happen as it would be totally against the spirit of Amendment 22 and against tradition.
[Agree that today Kevin Rudd dominated in all the news channels I watched. Poor JWH. He didn’t expect APEC to end up being a plus for Kev.]
Rudd is meeting with Jintao tomorrow, so there will be even more Rudd stuff to balance out whatever Howard does.
So much to talk about today!
Polling date – sorry to go back to something that is SO this morning! I’ve said before a seven week campaign and 3 Nov. I’m now tending to six weeks and 27 Oct, but primarily because seven weeks may be a bit too long. If the coalition starts losing seats in Vic they are done, and a bit of disruption in the week before the Melbourne cup is probably less of a problem than taking time to try and find Rudd’s glass jaw.
APEC – so entertaining. My view is that the yesterday was completely dominated by the JHW-Bush love in and disruption to Sydney. I don’t think this has gone down well domestically. Today was dominated by Rudd – talks with Bush and Mandarin welcomes to the Chinese delegation. Both will go dowm well with the electorate. The first displayed differences of opinion with respect, which voters will agree with. The second had the risk of elitism. However, my feeling is that most voters will have a feeling of pride that a (potential) prime minister can talk to one of the most important countries in the world in their own language – as long as he doesn’t make a big point out of it. The reactions on TV certainly helped cement this view. I am amazed that today has panned out this way, given the tens of billions worth of deals signed.
For the rest of APEC, I don’t think Rudd will fare as well. He will be sidelined for the rest of the event while the leaders play. However, he’s probably done better than he thought anyway.
JWH stepping down – won’t happen. If they change leaders at this stage, they lose their most important argument against an incoming ALP Government – experience. The ALp could argue that Rudd has more leadership experience than whoever is temporary PM.
Simon, nice to see you are on firstname terms with the Chinese President.
Are we expecting a Morgan tomorrow? Predictions? 70-30?
China is now our biggest trading partner, agree Rudd went very well and Howard looked positively sick with rage, wonder if the pressure will drive him back to the drink if it hasn’t already.
Chaser incident was hilarious, great to see good Aussie stirring alive and well. Rudd got done by the Chaser on Wednesday when they sprung the stripper on him, he took it in good humour.
Hope the Chaser does a spot on election night, interviews with Howard, Downer, Costello, Nelson and Pyne would be good to see.
[Simon, nice to see you are on firstname terms with the Chinese President. ]
Rudd will be too by the end. 😛
[Are we expecting a Morgan tomorrow? Predictions? 70-30?]
Morgan phone poll?
My guess is 57/43
I think the last Morgan F2F was a rogue, low by 2 or 3, and I think this week’s Newspoll was 2 or 3 too high.
That’s my unscientific opinion.
[Hope the Chaser does a spot on election night, interviews with Howard, Downer, Costello, Nelson and Pyne would be good to see.]
They could do a 2 hour show leading up to the actual coverage of the count.
When too much election coverage is barely enough…
even if it is higher a 56/44 would be better, dont want the pulbic think it is going to be too easy.
Haven’t been following the thread so don’t know whether this has been raised – but very strong rumours in Canberra that Howard will step down after APEC (for the good of the party). Coming from the pollies, not he commentators. Many quite certain this will happen. Don’t believe it myself – but Libs own polling obviously shows they need to take some drastic action – a circuit-breaker. But will surely reflect badly on them – Howard too gutless to face the inevitable. So will he cut and run?
Rudd’s Mandarin speech:
Pauline Hanson watched Rudd’s speech and had a cow.
This has been speculated based on a post on Crikey.com.au saying that Howard is going to consider his future over the weekend:
http://www.crikey.com.au/Politics/20070906-The-last-days-of-John-Howard.html
The Crosby / Textor report from June was leaked to Crikey, making some speculate that the ‘Costello Forces’ (surely an oxymoron) are some how trying to get Howard to jump.
The leaked Crosby/Textor research (taken in June) actually showed the Coalition behind 59/41 on 2PP – and getting worse. Thus the desperation of their tactics. And after throwing millions in advertising at Workchoices they have noithing to show for it. So what else can they do?
321
paul k Says:
September 6th, 2007 at 9:52 pm
“Rudd’s Mandarin speech:
Pauline Hanson watched Rudd’s speech and had a cow”
Now thats funny !
I actually felt proud today.I don’t think he was showing off.To me it showed respect for the leader of the planets most populated country.
I suspect JWH will step down after APEC. He was not his normal twitchy self when he was interviewed after the Newspoll figures came out this week.
Kevin just looked overclever to me
Someone asked me today if I found Kevin Rein impressive because he could speak to the chinese in mandarin
As I said in a post on another thread>>>
> I would have been more impressed if he spoke to me in australian
Winston 320 – we kinda did the Howard dilemma thing this morning, see posts 1 to 200-ish. To summarise:
He’ll definitely resign.
No he won’t.
Downer will tap him on the shoulder.
Costello will knife him in the back.
Or vis-versa.
He’s too much of an egotist to go.
He’s a broken wreck and wants to go.
Janette will tell him to quit.
Janette won’t let him quit.
He’ll resign.
No he won’t.
I think that covers it.
Oh, and the election will be on Oct 20 or 27, or possibly Dec 1, or maybe Nov 3, or Nov 10.
It’s all been fascinating, and I’ve got about eighteen minutes work done.
Kina
Nothing wrong with a one sided result. The liberal party desperately need a clean out to get rid of the staleness.
A landslide has many benefits, it brings in new blood and talent to the winning side and gets rid of the inertia that a close result could bring. And contary to expectations a landslide can make the new memebers work hard as they realise that they will be lucky to repeat the result again.
It will also inevitably bring in new talent to the losing side in the next election when there will be the swing back as there always is.
In the liberal party case this will be a good thing, new people with new and more liberal ideas and ideals not this lazy far right conservative mob we have now.
This ain’t no landslide, it is the whole continental shelf.
Mr Squiggle, Kevin Rudd does not need to impress you but he needs to impress the Asian voters in Bennelong whom I suspect will decide on who wins Bennelong. I am impressed. With my skin tone I should be able to speak Mandarin but KR puts me to shame!
325
Have to say that I see a subtle but quite real difference in Howard’s behaviour over the last week or two. Not sure why, but it is as though he has finally got the message from the polls, is finding it very confronting and depressing, has lost the fire in his belly, and is just going through the motions for the sake of appearances. I think the chances of him resigning have risen significantly. He must know there is no easy out for him any more.
Simon,
“Completley unrelated question. Does the U.S. vice president have term limits? Could Gore run with Clinton as V.P. candidate?”
I am really struggling to remember the rules over there but literally I would say “no”. However, in practice, I would say yes. That is because there is a chain of “replacement” of who comes in to the Presidency should he/she not be able to serve (resigns, dies in office, etc.). This was set and voted on after Nixon resigned in 1974 as they didn’t have an answer for this situation prior to that point. The VP is the first in that line so I think that no one would pick an ex president for that position based upon that reason, if he were called in an emergency to assume office, that would be his “3rd term”. It has been a long time since I took that class though lol, I am 46
Thanks Crispy – saves me going back over the posts – don’t think I could manage it at this time of night. My point is that this is not speculation from us wonks but coming from senior pollies who are absolutely convinced it will happen.
GG
I think we would need to the shelf to flush the unflushable.
http://www.101usesforajohnhoward.com/2006/07/14/23-floater-john-howard/
Site says it so aptly, how would you like to wake up on the Sunday facing this.
Julie
Bill Clinton could become VP.
the constitutional question arises as to whether he could become Pres if say Gore died or resigned while in office. The constitution only says that you may not be elected to office more than twice. it is not tested as to whether he could be come VP as he wouldn’t actually be elected to office, he would just be second in line of sucession
Going back to the Chaser Arrests, I feel that the NSW Govt in a perverse way has actually helped Rudd by having any court action being heard next moth – hopefully during a Federal Election Campaign. The publicity will remind voters, especially those in NSW of the APEC lockdowns and how it basically stuffed everyone around.
Not a good look for Howard and basically he’s kicked another own goal 🙂
[Bill Clinton could become VP.]
Hillary Clinton was on Letterman last week and she said he couldn’t be for constitutional reasons. But maybe that was just a joke I didn’t get!
Simon
i think this is also untested – i think where it say you have to be eligible it relates to that you have to be a US citizen and over the age of 30 etc.
It would be a good dream to see Bill and VP but never gonna happen
haha Frank you really are funny.
A court case will remind voters of the blocked streets, so they will vote against Howard. The Chaser saga is an ‘own goal’.
It’s only on a board like this that such rubbish would go unchallenged.
Um, I think you just challenged it Greg.
Perhaps Frank is being a little optimistic, a little over-excited, but the small things do feed into the dominant narrative… the creeks turn into a river, the river becomes a flood…
Thank God the NSW Keystone Cops at APEC saved the free world from those extremist comedians. What sort of a world would it be if Comics were allowed to practice comedy anywhere they wanted to? Why we’d be the laughing stock of the whole world. Arrest all comics, I say. They could have weapons of mass hysteria!
Just watching the bomber. Content is good, delivery is awful. So glad Rudd tapped him on the shoulder.
Only just got to look in today. The Crosby/Textor report on Crikey was fascinating. You can see why Howard was talking about annihilation back then.
Somebody noted that the CT analysis was straight out of market positioning analysis 1997. As a matter of fact, it was straight out of Prof Gibson’s marketing notes from my Macquarie MBA course in 1974.
It still powerful stuff though, and shows the absolute mire that Howard is in. Now that his ‘security’ and ‘economic management’ relative strengths have been all but neutralised, he is stranded. No buttons to push, no rabbits to find, just a sad old man, with only one friend in the world. And that friend is a profound embarrassment to everybody who has associated with him.
Ah, the joy!
Alan H
Arbie 334,
I will proceed undeturd.
Yep, pathetic the total event, a waste of money with extradinarory deals, such as selling arms to one country from another on the one hand heaps of security and the other greater weapons of mass destruction being sold-
APEC: so much security but a bunch of comedians can get through two checkpoints incredible…
Next time let another country hold this talkfest and meet and greet what of the people who elect these boozas do they get a say?
The Bomber was being mischievous suggesting some Libs had spoken to him about dumping Howard. A small bit of psychological warfare on his part.
[The Bomber was being mischievous suggesting some Libs had spoken to him about dumping Howard. A small bit of psychological warfare on his part.]
His only giving back what Downer was serving up earlier in the week.
Good grief – Libs talking to the Bomber? He’d be lucky if anyone from Labor was talking to him.
So who was talking to you today Winston?
I’ve just been going over the C/T June document – working out their regressions, comparing theor results and whatnot to other polling.
Howard has gotten away with murder over this.Every major policy announcement since June has followed the script set out in this document, from the 10 bill water plan, to the NT intervention.Every single piece of taxpayer funded policy announcement has been an exercise in pure, unadulterated electoral politics of the most shameless kind that has delivered exactly zero result electoral result.
Not just the usual type of politics where the pork hides behind a layer of semi-decent projected outcomes, but disgusting politics where taxpayers dollars are treated like nothing more than the petty cash tin.
The problem with leaking this document to journos a few months back was that none of them (based on their columns) demonstrated an ounce of understanding about what it contained.
The further into it I go, the more disgraceful Howards behavior becomes in hindsight, but the true depth of his electoral problems has only been hinted at even among the cynical Poll Bludgers here.What the C/T document does is put the how and why behind the abysmal polling results of the last 6 months.
If the trends and patterns of the C/T document hold even 75% true on election day, we arent looking at some 53/47 job, we are looking at a 57+ job. 20 of the 28 issues measured became Rudd strengths overnight.The issues Howard was left with were statistically low confidence issues (in that they are mostly inconclusive vote drivers).Undecideds are low, soft voters are low, the biggest swings against Howard are where the he holds the most seats but most importantly – he has no issues registering with voters that significantly drive their vote.
Interest rates and the economy arent being used as issues by Howard because they register strongly, C/T suggests they actually register relatively weakly but they are the only issues Howard has left which still register positively for him (even if weakly).Nearly everything else has become an ALP strength.
Howard isnt playing to his strengths, he has none according to this research.He’s playing to the only issues he has that even remotely correlate with his vote.
This is General Custer stuff folks and is absolutely astonishing.It fills in every gap in the quarterly newspolls and none of it is good for the Coalition.
According to the Libs own research, Howard will be smashed to smithereens in this election.And because of the composition of the swings, more seats will be lost than the uniform pendulum suggests, not less, but more – a lot more.