I have just awoken to a barrage of “Turnbull and Downer deny calling for PM to quit” headlines, capped by Andrew Bolt‘s sensational assertion that Peter Costello will be Prime Minister tomorrow. No time to absorb any of this, but a new thread is clearly in order.
Author: William Bowe
William Bowe is a Perth-based election analyst and occasional teacher of political science. His blog, The Poll Bludger, has existed in one form or another since 2004, and is one of the most heavily trafficked websites on Australian politics.
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Maxine has been backed into near favouritism in Bennelong.
CBet 3:15 PM EST. Ratty: $1.80 Max: $1.85
McKew has firmed 25 cents in the last few hours. As William headed the thread, there is “movement at the station”, indeed.
I know that the betting market has been pretty accurate for election results as a whole but does anyone know its performance on a seat/electorate level?
portland shows Turnbull blowing out from 1.42 to 1.55 in Wentworth.. first movement since ?24/8? Alp prob frm 36.4% to 41%
Gillard to Hockey – “Said in 2004, only have a policy if you are planning on changing the laws. Recently said, we will have an IR policy before the next election.”
Speaker – “Jules, don’t say “your”. That won’t fly.”
Hockey – “Minister will see policy well before election day. We believe fundamentals of workplace relation systems are right. More jobs, lowest level of strikes, etc.” Let’s face it, you know what he is saying.
Umm… does Truss realise that it was the Hawke/Keating Government that was behind getting APEC up and running? Of course Labor knows the benefits of it.
Rupert of course the ALP have an election script. I’m sure the Coalition does too. Sounds like standard election tactics to me.
Cabinet minister, Peter McGauran said:
“We know we’re a long way behind our opponents, but we’ll fight the political battle to the death.”
Or did he mean to say, “to OUR death”??
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,22399956-12377,00.html
Haase to McFarlane – “Any resource news from APEC?”
McFarlane – “Oh boyo, yes. Everything must go, boy, lots of money for resources sector. Tangible outcomes from APEC. High level of international confidence in Australia’s resources sector. Labor forecasts end of resources boom, and promise to abolish key component – AWA – we are working with industry to deliver jobs, etc.”
Nah. no balls!
Howard will take the coalition to a resounding loss.
And if I were Smirk I wouldn’t touch it with a ten foot barge pole!
Sky News told us to tune into QT because of leadership speculation. They obviously don’t know how politics works. QT today was utterly predictable. A subdued Government and a disciplined Opposition. Rudd’s question on election timing will play in the news clips tonight. Most people will agree with it. The real story will be in Howard’s office. Howard will talk with Minchin, Downer ( maybe), Loughnane, Morris, Nutt. They will know there will be no challenge from Costello- but they will also know that radio, TV and newspapers will only be covering one story from Canberra: will he or won’t he. And they know it will continue right through the week. It will all be about leadership and who supports who. Ministers and backbenchers will ” background” and on it will roll. That will widen the Newspoll gap another three to four points. And leadership speculation will start all over again from next Tueday. I thought Howard would have quit by today or called the election. If he puts his Party before himself, he will call the election this week – probably now on Sunday, for maximum coverage and on his terms.If he does not it will simply mean that he puts himself ahead of his Party. No surprise there.
Darryl,
Seat-by-seat betting was (I think) first tried in the NSW State Election this year.
From what I recall, they were mostly accurate, but they didn’t predict a few incumbent losses (both Labor and Independent).
From memory, they didn’t pick:
Tweed (Lab to Nats)
Port Stephens (Lab to Libs)
Lake Macquarie (Lab to Ind)
Pittwater (Ind to Lib)
Manly (Ind to Lib)
Not sure if that highlights a favoritism towards Labor or to incumbents in general – although my leaning is that it favours incumbents too much, as they are almost always installed as favourites in the markets (for example, Portlandbet had only a handful of seats moving towards Labor when they started their seat-by-seat betting, but now it’s up to 16)
Dinsdale to Scott: Please stop paraphrasing Dorothy Dixers.
Big question: What’s Dennis Shanahan going to say tomorrow??
Rudd to PM – Workchoices question. “Will PM confirm that Workchoices allow award conditions to be stripped with no compensation, and no remedy.”
PM – “Nyah – Gillard has done the same thing. Workchoices was a great change, subject of fear campaign by unions (note – I count that as 300 ‘union’s from PM). It’s not legal to strip conditions in return – not legal as result of the fairness test. That doesn’t trouble union movement, Labor party. What matters are outcomes – 370,000 more people in jobs since Workchoices. 85% of those new jobs are full time. Wages have risen, 21% higher in real terms (he just defined “higher in real terms”), now the PM is starting to buffer.
PM – “If he watched 7:30 Report, he would have seen I said one of coalition goals is for the first time we might be able to have a full employment economy. Canadian PM said today anecdote involving Chifley. Chifley made a full employment pledge, as a social justice goal. Why does party of full employment have an IR policy that will destroy full employment possibilities. [More jobs, less unemployment, bet he says flexibility and unions shortly…] Small business will be destroyed with unfair dismissal laws.
to be fair to Scott, Dinsdale, someone back there did ask for the questions… and you can’t expect Scott to do it verbatim! 🙂
Some food for thought.
There are 108 members of the Liberal Party Room (I think – where do the CLP sit?)
Of them, 81 were elected after the 1993 election and so have never known defeat at a general election. (Three members and a senator were elected during the 93-96 term so briefly knew opposition).
Clearly this is uncharted territory for the vast majority.
Cadman, Jull, Prosser and Wakelin are retiring. Assuming they lose government Howard and Ruddock are likely to retire (or be defeated).
That will leave at most 13 lower House Liberal MPs who have ever seen opposition (assuming no other retireemnts and that all these hold their seats): Tuckey, Hawker, Downer, McArthur, Slipper, Costello, Somlyay, Andrews, Moylan, Pyne, Abbott, Bishop, Georgiou.
It will be interesting to see how they cope with opposition with little experience.
[Maxine has been backed into near favouritism in Bennelong.
CBet 3:15 PM EST. Ratty: $1.80 Max: $1.85
McKew has firmed 25 cents in the last few hours. As William headed the thread, there is “movement at the stationâ€, indeed.]
Surely they are just covering themselves in case Howard resigns.
If it is Howard v McKew at the election, I still think Howard would win his seat.
Notice how Hawker/Britton has gotten repeated mentions by the Coalition today in QT?
An acute bout of projection me thinks.They seem to be trying to cut the Crosby Textor stuff down before it starts.
It wont work.
re Garret’s question.
The prime minister said that the comments about “äspirational”goals were made in response to something the ALP said… In other words, “ïf you say it it’s bad. If we say it, it’s good”. Typical weasel.
Brendan Nelson is a strange, strange man… he is a ghoul. Definitely botoxed – his face just does not move. Just that monotone voice. He scares me even more than Dolly! Does anyone know if Brendan has a nick name?
Re (119)
“Fizzer of a first question from Rudd.”
I missed all of it :(:(:( ….. ABC radio had the bloody Senate, not the house. Hope it was good for those who watched on TV 🙂
John
that is his nickname 🙂
his real name is richard cranium
Spanky
Is Howard staying to lead the Libs into the election an aspirational goal?
QT was a fizzer. I think Rudd is doing exactly what Adam said he should do: stay schtum and allow the Libs to drown in their own shizen.
Looks like there is going to be an MPI debate, cos heaps of opposition members are staying.
Dinsdale, are you serious – is it Spanky… if so, I can live with it – very funny. Dolly and Spanky… wouldn’t you love to have dinner with those two!
Just realised, Chaser is on tomorrow night, that would just add some fuel to the fire. Those pesky, lefty, anti-APEC, ABC cronnies will cost JWH his election. I’m sure JWH would love to axe that show, or the ABC if he could.
Chaser is not funny any more. This has nothing to do with whether they should/shouldn’t have breached APEC.
They just aren’t very funny. They’ve jumped the shark.
Little Britain got this way towards the end as well.
“It will be interesting to see how they cope with opposition with little experience.”
Oh my God. How can we vote such an inexperienced team into opposition? If they haven’t put in the hard yards at losing how can they possibly manage the business of sulking and recrimination and complaining about the smaller offices?
I wouldn’t pay too much attention to anything a flat-Earther like the Bolta says.
After all, he’s been wrong all year about Labor’s prospects of winning (only changing his mind in panic in the last 5 minutes) when blind Freddie could see a Landslide has been coming since at least March.
No
Well, in the absence of a better (or indeed real) nickname – I’ll cruise with Spanky.
Either the whole Downer and Costello push story was a complete fabrication by a journalist who has beer for breakfast, or the story was shot in the kneecaps before it could take a second step.
I don’t want to hear the sordid details of what you’ve got planned for the weekend!
In fairness, I think we should promulgate this new moniker for Brendan throughout the web.
Pass it on. Use it in posts, emails etc.
If someone can get Tim Dunlop to use it, it might take off.
Crispy: How will they handle it when the Speaker says – ‘The members on my left’. It must send shivers down their spines.
You can laugh – I think Glen was making a similar argument in all seriousness not long ago 🙂
But seriously, if you think it looks bad in the party room now, it could get a whole lot worse next year…
Will, it took me a good five years to get used to the words “Prime Minister John Howard”. Let ’em shiver.
Watching the broadcast of the matter of public importance on ‘low’ quality I just had a midnight oil moment as Garret waved his hands jerkily thanks to the internet.
Turnbull “one track and committed to meeting the kyoto target” did they sign Kyoto while I did a bottle of SSB?
sorry ratify not sign … of course we signed it…
Oh dear …. libs party meeting might be brought forward to this evening …
(from Crikey)
“The party room is due to meet tomorrow morning, although there has been speculation of a meeting this evening after Harper departs.”
AND Howard is an out and out liar too, remember his line repeated ad nauseum about “when my party says it is time to go”? (also from same articl)
“Last night, the Prime Minister said “I’ll stay as long as my party wants me to”. Crikey understands he has been told that it is in his party’s interests to go. The Prime Minister disagrees. “
One of the reasons that the Libs have not been able to get a handle on Kevin Rudd is that he has been very good at shutting his mouth.
Can’t imagine he’ll behave any differently this time.
And, as if by magic, Piers began using it in his tanty blog in response to some posters.
Matt Price has been updating his article all day. He notes “Costello’s studied silence is fuelling the instability. Rudd did the same, remember, when he broke a lifetime habit and made himself unavailable for comment for a couple of weeks before rolling Beazely.”
I don’t reckon the moving forward of the party meeting means anything really. It could just be that they want to knock this on the head quick so it doesn’t make bad headlines for tomorrow’s papers.
He will do what he did a few months ago and pretend to put his neck on the line. No one will have the guts to stand up, and we will still be stuck in limbo. A few days later we will get another leak and we go through it all again.
Can the PM head off to the GG BEFORE the party meeting, and announce the election date in a door stop on the way in, and then anyone in the party to make a move?
From the SMH article
That sounds like very qualified support to me. Not exactly designed to house down speculation.