Comments thread chat informs us that the headline result of an ACNielsen poll to be published in tomorrow’s Fairfax broadsheets has been revealed by Laurie Oakes on the Channel Nine news. This has Labor’s lead two-party lead at 57-43 compared with 55-45 last month. More details as they come to hand. There is also reason to believe tomorrow’s edition of The West Australian will feature one of its small-sample Westpoll surveys of voting intention at the Poll Bludger’s end of the continent; if so, you will read about it here in the small hours of the morning EST.
UPDATE: Sydney Morning Herald report here, though no detail yet beyond that provided by Oakes.
UPDATE 2: Primary vote figures at the Sydney Morning Herald: Labor up from 44 per cent to 49 per cent, Coalition down from 41 per cent to 39 per cent. Kevin Rudd’s approval rating is up 8 per cent to equal its March high of 67 per cent, “pushing him ahead of the pre-election ratings achieved by Malcolm Fraser in 1975 and Bob Hawke in 1983”. Remarkably, the Prime Minister’s approval rating remains steady at a more than respectable 50 per cent.
Swing Lowe,
I saw the nurses add running for the last two nights in the Hunter. Quite effective, nurses saying they cant continue to work with the Liberal IR laws, and asking people to consider this at the election.
Now the private school lame duck is trolled out every election, with the usual gist of the argument going: “Why should the government fork out money for private schooling when there is perfectly good public schooling! Let them pay for it themselves!!”
On the surface, it always sounds like a very rational argument. There are, of course, glaring flaws:
1. State Schools are nowhere near as efficient in terms of manpower. With a State School, you not only get the school, but its local regional unit of admin, state level admin, support services (like Psychologists, Speech therapists, behaviour mod units, professional development units etc) as well as government sourced building and maintenance. This costs, dollar for dollar, more than government investment for that same student in a private school.
Most independent schools operate as a single school, rather than a cooperative, with on site governance, so the layers of admin aren’t there.
2. Private Schools manage the capital and financial risk of buildings and development, maintenance, recruiting costs and administration and their inclusion in regional clusters shares professional development and skill-sharing with broader perspectives.
3. Governments in places like Queensland have recognised the value of private/public partnerships in new planned master estates like Forest Lake, Springfield and Northlakes. The model works and uses shared facilities and collaboration of staff and gives choice but also strong educational outcomes. This kind of “Competitive Collaboration” allows both schools to aspire to excellence by being in very close proximity to each other and sharing some core beliefs about standards.
I used to really wonder why any government gives money to private education, now I see real value economically, educationally and in terms of building diverse communities to do this.
Of course, old-school state school diehards would cremate me for this post, excuse me as I slip on a fire-retardant suit…
Aristotle, there are a couple of differences between those years and these years. The Chippocrats, or former Liberal-supporting Democrats, directed their preferences back to the Liberals. The Greens will still go heavily to Labor notwithstanding those who are disillusioned with Peter Garrett’s me-too policies on forests and the pulp mill. The Family First, obviously very conservative, can safely preference Saint Kevin.
If you have 12% non major party votes the difference in those preference trends could end up with an extra 1% for Labor. Imagine 56-44 versus 55-45. How many extra seats is that?
I also saw the first ALP funded ad for Jim Arneman in Paterson last night. Rudd introduces Jim, lots of images of Jim working as an ambo, helping people etc. Again quite effective and a sign that the ALP thinks the election must be imminent.
Generic Oracle [302],
That isn’t the NSW Teachers Federation’s argument at all.
Their argument is simply this:
Public schools teach 67% of Australia’s students yet only receive 35% of Federal funding for education. If the Howard government is serious about investing in education for the nation’s future then the share of Federal funding for public schools should be substantially increased to reflect the share of students that public schools service.
Please tell me that the ALP will run a positive campaign that focuses on its policies. Of course there needs to be some negative side like showing 5 interest rate rises, and WorkChoices, but being out there having a vision for the future will only help them out.
According to Senator Bartlett’s blog, there are already amendments being made to the Northern Territory Emergency Response legislation… as he says, I’m sure there’ll be explanations about why there’s no time to consult on the amendments.
I suspect there are many still to come. That’s what happens when you hurriedly draft and ram through legislation that’s 300-400 pages long.
BenC [304],
What it also shows is that NSW Labor is loaded up with cash, if it’s running those sorts of specific campaign ads before the election has been called.
From what I’ve read on this blog before, the previous Labor candidate for Paterson barely got any advertising DURING the 2004 campaign, let alone before it started…
John Howard assumes that his campaign can claw back votes but it may well be that the ALP which really has heaps of “ammunition” will widen the gap. So far their campaign has been really professional.
Many commentators automatically assume a closing of the gap. I certainly did. It may be that any gap closing already occurred in the earlier phoney campaign.
Also Kevin Rudd is in the position to announce initiatives in a whole swag of areas and if John Howard does this, people will be inclined to say “you’ve had nearly twelve years to do that, why didn’t you do it before?” Fresh face wins.
To Generic Oracle
Its not about being old state school diehards…in most countries of the world, with the big exceptions of America and Australia, most countries integrated their private and public schools 30 years ago, like all of Europe and New Zealand. Public and private schools are integrated, teachers get same salaries, some funding but on the provisio that all school are charging similar fees – to ensure equity of access. The Government’s of most western countries make this provisio so as to not create a 2 tiered system – one for have’s and one for have not’s. If you fall outside of this, you normally get a little or no govt funding. This is what separates australia and US – they get buckets of money regardless of how much money they charge.
The Federal Government’s own recent evidence is that private schools, despite their increasing subsidies, are pulling more than ever from the top half of the socio economic ladder….so, as you can see because capitalism is winner takes all, it sucks the upwardly mobile middle classes into the private school system and leaves the public for the bottom half – so 2 tiers!!
Betfair is now offering $3 for a coalition win. Thats almost, but not quite, put down yer glasses odds.
Portlandbet has Bennelong odds back up:
Libs $1.70/Lab $2.00
It’s now the equal second closest seat to “fall” to Labor on the betting markets. Only Herbert is ahead and it is tied with Page.
Swing Lowe [308]
Exactly right. The 2004 candidate (I’ve even forgotten her name), had no support, no TV adds that I can recall, all I heard were a couple of radio spots.
Even though I am in Hunter, I live very close to the Paterson border and areas like Metford, Tenambit and other East Maitland booths have been brought back in, which should help a fair bit for Arneman. Although Baldwin is favourite it looks like he has a big fight to retain, and the betting markets seem to agree, with a slight shortening in the ALP odds over the past week to $2.40 from $2.75
gee, SWing Lowe,you’ve got to be quick
The nervous nellies at Portland have indeed got over their vapours, and re entered the lists at Bennelong..and what a macho call! Maxine is now ar 45%+ to win the seat(up from about 37% now), while the incumbent is at 53%+.
my contention is that it is the direction of the market that is important in the early stages, and it looks like the punters are hopping on the McKew Bandwagon
Swing Lowe, I’d be happy to bet on Page. Visited there yesterday and the feeling was “anyone but Howard”.
Sideline Eye
Yes I understand about the NSW teachers’ Fed argument and it is the issue of perceived equity but figures like this based out gross outlays of funding tend to ignore several key factors:
1. Independent Schooling is growing at a much faster rate than state education in Australia, this means strong periods of capital growth to accommodate this change. This is not new. This trend existed in the previous Labor government as well. Much of this is attributable to block capital grants, which swamp amounts spent on ongoing expenditure/smaller periodic grants.
2. State governments are primarily responsible for education. States give a much higher proportion to state schools than the Feds do (though it is still high in the private sector, as a proportion of students, due to factor 1 above).
Of course, the Labor party is having a harder time these days maintaining what is colloquially called “class envy”. Latham made several glaring political blunders in 2004, one of the biggest being the “private school hit list”. A simple glance over demographic data in marginal seats (particularly high growth “family” seats like Bonner in QLD) would have shown him that many Labor voters are now choosing low-fee independent schooling for their children. The construction boom gave tradies nice utes and blazers for their kids!
A smarter operator by half, Kevin absolutely knows this and will not give himself an atomic wedgie with this. Vote Labor, we’ll look after your kid’s schooling. The day of the Labor state school loyalist is gone. Ask MPs/Senators where they send their kids to school!!
Generic Oracle (176),
I have now checked every country of more than 500,000 square kilometres. There are 51 of them, and every one has at least three tiers of government.
One point I am trying to make is that removing a tier of government does not reduce bureaucracy. It simply removes a democratically elected level of supervision from it.
But I really think we ought not to divert every thread into the subject of federalism, not that all three-tier systems are federal.
You may be worried about the dog. He still got his walk through our pleasant town, its pleasantness protected by the Labor Government’s urban growth boundary. This morning we went past the brand new Labor Government-built CFA station, past the brand new Labor Government-built primary school, with its classes for prep to grade 2 capped at 21 pupils each and with its teachers free once again to debate educational issues, to the brand new Labor Government-built police station. It’s ugly, but at least it’s there – like all the other supposedly non-existent infrastructure in the State of Victoria.
I am disappointed that the swing to Labor is so strong because, if it is maintained, it will prevent my prediction of a further swing to Labor in the following election coming true, just as the infrastructure on the ground helped state Labor gain a further swing in its second election victory.
Richard Jones,
I’ve already put my money where my mouth is on Page – $10 invested on Labor at Sportingbet ($2.10 for ALP there). It’s good to hear that my money seems to be well invested…
I think the election will be called soon, it will provide a useful circuit breaker and a long 6 week campaign would give the government a chance of winning the election on little as 48% of the two party vote, although that would mean Labor and Coalition tied on the primary vote.
The Coalition’s Primary vote has been stuck around the 40% mark for sometime, means it is achievable.
Generic Oracle,
Swan’s argument goes something like this;
The reason that the current Government is overtaxing is because it has a surplus of $17 billion that it is just sticking under the bed.
The reason that this government is spending too much is that the economy is hitting its head against production constraints. This is causing inflation to stick up its ugly head for the first time in 15 years. The Government is fuelling this inflation by its spending.
To raise the production constraints (and reduce the risk of inflation) one has to spend money on infrastructure. Things like broadband coal loaders etc. Remember that one of labours key economic plans is to develop infrastructure projects.
In simple terms it is not the spending that is the problem it is what the money is being spent on.
Your argument might work with someone who has no understanding of economics but a bare smattering of economic knowledge, obtained from the papers, makes these statements understandable.
Swing Lowe, I base this not just on a few visits but also knowing the Labor candidate Janelle Saffin. She is well known and performed excellently in the NSW Upper House. Also I have known Ian Causley for many years, when he was in the State parliament. He had his faithful followers and was obviously also extremely well known. He must have been worth a few per cent in his own right. Also Page is battlers territory, but no longer Howard’s battlers. A leading Lib up here told me he thought Janelle would win and he also knows her very well – and respects her.
Tristan Jones it really would be a miracle of biblical proportions if the Coalition were able to lift its vote 8% in 8 weeks. John Howard better do some praying but maybe Saint Kevin has a more direct line.
GENERIC ORACLE
Its not about class envy or labelling anyone worried about what happened during thatcher’s years where the public becomes a 2nd class system for the poor, its just about not creating a 2 tiered system – and who are you referring to when you say ‘sideline eye’. My address is bird.
Any way my argument is not from the NSW Teachers Federation – its from listening to education specialists.
Everyone is aware that most funding for state’s comes from state government so my argument is directed towards them as much as Federal govt, its a wholistic argument. Anyway, that is the way its done in Holland, all Europe and really most western countries. Its not about whether a building is private or public – its about allowing the government to stipulate certain social outcomes for the population. I think that is a good thing…
Call the election please says@#262
“I’d be glad to have a few chats with ALP insiders to see what their internal polling is showing. I’ve talked with a Coalition insider who insists their internal polling shows them hanging on in most seats.
If you insider is correct one must assume the all the polls are incorrect
If the polls are correct and you insider is correct there must be some seats with massive swings.
Sounds more like hope more than fact from you friendly insider.
I have definitely been spending too much time reading and listening to commentary about federal politics. I dreamed the other night that we were watching the election on tv and it seemed labor was going to win. Then I had to go away and do something and when I got back to the party an old movie was on telly and people were saying it’s all over, yes labor won, but it didn’t seem to be a big deal.
My analysis of this dream is that, while I’m obsessed with the latest opinion poll, normal people (everyone else I know) is not.
But what keeps me hanging on to every moment of what I hope is the last days of a rotten government is the thought that labor is elected to government from opposition less than once every twenty years. If it does happen in a month or two then it might happen only once or twice again in my lifetime.
I think Workchoices is really bad for the Libs. At my work we had a union meeting recently (our first for about six months) and a colleague came along who is quite anti-union and who has never come to a meeting before. At the end of the meeting she offered to put up union notices on the noticeboard! I’m sure lots of non-union people know enough about work-choices to know that it stinks and they are especially concerned for their children and grandchildren.
I hope the government spend more and more of my money trying to tell us that workchoices is great. It only reminds people of how bad it is, whose fault it is and how much of our money they are wasting on it.
More Labor policies: Labor to help reduce cost of transporting a car from Vic to Tas with it’s $10m package. http://www.smh.com.au/news/National/Labor-offers-Spirit-traveller-cost-cuts/2007/09/10/1189276597198.html
Meanwhile, we have Howard still working out when to call the election. Labor is taking the initiative and isn’t waiting.
I believe that the TTP vote on Election Day will be basically where it is today Lab 57 – 59.
Changing leaders; Naming the Date; Or prolonging the Agony may cause slight variations but the electorate has made up it’s mind and just want to get on with it and cast their vote.
A Good song to play in the background on Election Day as the coalition seats fall is Queen – Another one bites the dust
The first question Rudd should ask in Question Time is, will Howard sack ABC board member Janet Albrechtsen for calling on the Prime Minister to stand down.Such partisan political interference should not be tolerated from a taxpayer funded body.What will Helen Coonon say about this? If only Santo Santoro had not resigned, he would have known what to do with with this clear breach of ABC guidelines.
I wonder how all those stacks on the ABC board are feeling right now 🙂
Rats
Well-thought out reply, thanks. Yes, I agree with you that the infrastructure argument is paramount. However, we have a “Zero Sum Game” here. If you want more money on infrastructure, you either:
a) Keep everything as is (Coalition budget and promises) OR
b) You get into debt/borrow savings (future fund etc) to fund it
The problem with b, I think is that it plays into that whole “Here we go again, Labor frittering the money away again” picture that the electorate has very clear in their minds (which is why Liberal Party Ads do so well with this premise in elections).
Watch the palpable shockwaves in the retired/nearly retired when Rudd suggested “borrowing” from the future fund for Broadband. Poor move politically and wrong choice of infrastructure tactically (Broadband!) if this demographic is to be won (and won they need to be in this election!).
No, I stand by it fully. There are serious holes in this approach tactically and Labor must be careful that it is not another political time bomb. Economic credibility is the Coalition’s “Alamo”. Don’t think they won’t defend it to the hilt. Costello will cream Swan on this. He just will.
“Kevalanche!”
This education stuff is really annoying. Chris will have a good answer I just have
GO is effectively arguing, and quite well if you stick to his paradigm, not the ‘liberal’ position that government should interfere as little as is possible in the free choices of individuals, but that Government should subside the free choices of people.
Soon as you recognise the ridiculous right then it becomes an economic question and they want equal funding (or greater than equal funding) to recognise the massive saving their chosing to reject the Government alternative has. You argue that they should be damn happy the Government is giving them anything at all and it is class welfare and you just have to shutup and sit down because class warfare is so 1850’s.
Stupid stuff. And the teachers are much too honest they should run the funding numbers as ‘Funding to Private Islamic schools has increased x% while as the sametime your ordinary Australian students are being ripped off’. Nasty racist stuff by all means, but Adam says we in the Labor party have to be aware of that and as Maxwell Smart says, “if only we could use the nasty racist stuff for good rather than evil.”
“…how will the ALP promise surpluses…without over-taxing as they have accused the coalition of doing??”
Generic Oracle, you need to understand that the charge of being “overtaxing” is a subjective and relative to the spending plans of a government.
The government has failed miserably in investing taxpayers money in areas that will help to sustain economic growth into the future. They don’t seem to know what to do with all the money that they are taking from taxpayers pockets, which is why they are creating big savings accounts and simply throwing money all over the place in often wasted attempts to try to win elections, such as giving away bonuses to senior citizens just before election time.
From this viewpoint, if the government doesn’t know what to actually do with all the tax that they are collecting, then they should stop collecting so much in the first place. In this sense, they can be accused of overtaxing because they are taking much more tax than they reasonably plan to spend.
Labor, on the other hand, are proposing to spend money much more effectively than the government. They have some very clear ideas about investing funds into areas of the economy that will generate clear returns for the future, such as broadband, education, renewable energy, and so on.
They are planning to tax either the same as the government or less (depending on the tax policy that they plan to release just prior to the election) but they are much less open to a charge of overtaxing simply by planning to put that tax to much better and productive use.
It is the wastefulness of the Howard government than leaves it open to the charge of taking more tax than it needs.
The claim that the Latham private school hit list was a disaster is one on the great myths of the 2004 election.There is/was no research evidence to back this up – quite the reverse. Labor pollies got the wobblies when the private schools screamed. In fact, most people are horrified that the Federal Government gives millions to the elite wealthy schools. These schools have enjoyed a building boom over the past few years because of government funding. But I’ll admit that it was sold poorly – Labor should have focussed on the additional funds going to needy schools.
In the story: Dumping PM would be ‘panic, betrayal’ (at http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,22392300-29277,00.html) Tony Abbot says that:
“It would be very, very foolish of us to do anything that would possibly make a bad situation significantly worse.
Is this a Howard Minister actually admitting they’re in a ‘bad situation’? He obviously hasn’t been reading the script. Tony tony tony… you can say they’re ‘bad polls’ but they definately don’t reflect reality.
“The last thing you want to do when things are looking difficult is to jump out of the frying pan into the fire.”
Is Tony Abbott suggesting making Costello the leader of the party akin to setting yourself on fire?
Howard is trying to work out what a year’s worth of bad opinion polling is telling him. This is what he came up with today:
“What they’re telling us is that although they believe we’ve done a good job with the economy, it’s simply not good enough to propound the strengths of the economic status quo.â€
Hmm… I guess he is starting to get on the right track, but his lack of real insight is actually quite alarming. I don’t think he really understands what is going on, which has been evidenced by running a politically counterproductive strategy all year. He has been way off-target with just about everything this year.
Howard obviously has a lot of learning to do over the next few weeks…
PM can call the election anytime after the party room rallies around him and worships him as the victor of the fourth coming poll. Anytime before that he’d be taking a divided team to the election which popular wisdom says is political death.
I think the party room would be wise to suggest “soon” & “quick” in the kind of this internal rubbish will keep coming if you don’t blackmail tradition.
And now GO has his fire retardant suit on lets test the whole ‘layers’ of beauracracy thing. Firstly these schools can pick and chose new places to setup. Government schools must go where the demand is. Do these schools, so ‘economically efficient’ have no courses, not sit state exams, have no teacher accreditation etc and accept that their students are just not going to be able to go to university? No of course not. Far from being the inefficient layers of public servants GO would have us believe, they are providing services to the private sector as well as the public sector. I go back to my foundation liberal small government point, and ask why the hell should Govt fund private choice.
Swing Lowe [312]
At Portlandbet Deakin has now come in to $1.95 for the ALP
BenC,
That’s true. When I wrote that post, Deakin was at $1.70/$2.05.
Since I wrote that post (2 hours ago), I’ve notice that in Herbert, Labor has fallen from $1.95 to $1.90, the Liberals in Melbourne Ports have moved out from $9 to $10 and I’m sure a few other seats have moved around as well (Canning for example…)
I’ve been wondering why Portlandbet haven’t released their weekly Market Movers posting on their blog – I understand now – the market is moving all over the place today and its continue to move. Either those markets are incredibly thin (which is likely) or there has been an avalanche of betting on Labor in a variety of seats (which also is likely, considering how many seats have shifted odds in the last 24 hours).
Re Education & the Howard Government, Trevor Cobbald (a former economist with Productivity Commission) sums it up perfectly:
1. The Howard Government has transformed the delivery of school education in Australia by increasing:
• The role of markets in education on a national basis;
• Privatization of schooling; and
• Federal control over curriculum, teaching, assessment and reporting.
2. The transformation in school education has been assisted by three great frauds perpetrated by the Howard Government.
• Fraud no. 1 is that there is a crisis in Australian education;
• Fraud no. 2 is that markets in education will improve student achievement;
• Fraud no. 3 is that increased school choice will help low income families.
3. There is no crisis in school outcomes in Australia.
• Government claims that over 30 per cent of students do not achieve adequate literacy standards are rebutted by international and national test data.
• Australia has amongst the best average school outcomes in the world.
4. The weight of major international research studies shows that privatization, choice and competition between schools does not improve student achievement.
• Student outcomes in Australia have not increased since 1999.
5. Research studies show that markets and privatization in education generally:
• Fail to increase innovation and diversity in curriculum and pedagogy;
• Reduce collaboration between schools;
• Increase effective choice largely only for the middle class;
• Contribute to socio-economic and racial segregation in schooling;
• Increase disparities in performance between schools; and
• Exacerbate social inequalities in student achievement.
6. The Howard Government is increasing the social divide in school education.
• The Independent private school sector and the most wealthy private schools have received the largest increases in Federal funding;
• Socio-economic inequality in reading achievement in Australia is amongst the highest for the high-income OECD countries;
• The large gap in Year 12 completion rates between high and low SES students has increased since 1996, especially in recent years;
7. The Howard Government’s school education policies are beset by two major contradictions:
• The Government supports the role of markets and limited government, but has increased private school dependence on government funding;
• The Government supports the federal system and states’ rights, but has vastly increased federal control over school education.
If you want to read how Cobbald demolishes the pro-private school propaganda espoused by Generic Oracle and others then please see The Great School Fraud (PDF).
Generic Oracle: I understand the political strategy argument you are putting across here; that Rudd should play it safe on schools funding to avoid a wedge and a fight he doesn’t need to have.
But my view here is that the Federal funding of private schools (at the expense of public schools) is so grossly unfair and so against our national interest (ie education investment = productivity growth) that there is plenty of room for Rudd to be a little bit more brave on this issue and put in place a policy that at least starts to redress this funding imbalance.
I am smiling now – I got on Maxine at $3.25 (and a large bet too!)
And in respect to Howard the Duck (see link) getting support from the other cabinet ministers, remember that to stab someone in the back you have to be 100% behind them.
And interesting (and fun) week ahead I think.
Swing Lowe,
Yes Canning is now $2.65 fro ALP.
A few other notable movements.
Solomon: ALP$1.77/$1.95 to $1.57/2.20
Boothby: ALP$3.50/1.26 to $2.65/1.4
Dickson: ALP$3.20/1.32 to $2.40/1.48
Longman: ALP$3.35/1.28 to $2.30/1.52
Peter Beattie about to stand down, breaking news, will address the media at 2:30
Yes, BenC, by my count, in the last 24 hours, approximately 30 seats have moved towards Labor on Portlandbet.
As I said before, this is probably a combination of thin markets and the AC Nielsen (and perhaps the Westpoll) encouraging a plunge on Labor.
Interestingly, there’s a report in the Daily Terror about the latest punter plunge on Labor. I’m not sure who the unnamed betting agency is, but it shouldn’t be too hard to find out:
http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/story/0,22049,22392394-5001021,00.html
It appears that the punters are coming into the market, and it all looks good for the ALP. Maybe we’ve had our “circuit breaker”?
Has anybody got some ideas about Wentworth?
ABC news has a piece about General Petraeus’ impending report on Iraq.
Are there any bloggers old enough to notice the eerie similarity to General Westmoreland’s reports from Vietnam?
Generic Oracle,
Thanks for you comment.
Maybe I am wrong but I don’t think you get the drift of my argument.
What makes the $17B an over taxation is how it is treated. $17B just salted away under the bed is over taxation. The same $17B spent on broadband and such is not over taxation.
It is the same with overspending. Any amount spent to increase production capacity is not overspending. However, the very same $ spent on “pork†is an overspend for the simple reason that it fuels inflation.
I think most would agree that the general trust of the Liberals budget is quite acceptable. This does not mean that we agree with every line of the budget but that it is (to use a current popular phrase) heading in the right direction. Sure we want more spent on infrastructures and hospitals and educations and less on Government advertising and advisors/contractors but in the terms of the budget it is minor.
In respect of treatment of the “Future Fund†I cannot see what is the difference between Labor’s treatment of the $6B invested on broadband or the treatment by the Liberal Government of the entire amount.
The sort of argument proffered by the Liberals in respect of Labor’s policy is misleading. I think it says more about the Liberals and those who believe it then it does about the Labor Party.
I understand you argument and the reason you wish to standby it however I think it is catering to the lowest common denominator and underestimates the great bulk of the community. It also reduces the argument to the lever of someone in early high school. I would think that those who worry about such things would have an understanding of the argument and those arguments to the contrary are generally mischievous.
Brilliant work sideline eye.
If Beattie does go how many comments like:
“In politics it is important to know when your time is up, when you aren’t focusing well on the ball and get out for the benefit of the team.”
“9 years is a long long time in a very demanding job. I owe it to my family, to myself and to the people of Queensland to hand over the reins to a younger fresher pair of hands.”
“I have been privledged to lead Queensland for so long, but it is time to move on, people can become stale in these kinds of jobs.”
Anna (assuming she gets up) could dump the amalgamations in favor of doing them later.
Note this line in this story (http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,22392717-952,00.html) which I thought was a bit out of place:
Mr Beattie has also had long running battle with his weight.
Huh? What relevance does that have?