However dubious the exercise might be, let it be noted that Roy Morgan has aggregated its polling from the supposed bellwether electorate of Eden-Monaro since Kevin Rudd became Labor leader last December, producing a result of 62-38 in Labor’s favour. As observed in the previous post, Liberal internal polling from this electorate was used by the Prime Minister to calm the party room’s nerves during its anti-climactic meeting on Tuesday morning.
Antonio, yep I agree the ad is pretty basic but its the speed of the response that is impressive – run it for a couple of days while the issue is fresh and move on.
Is the ALP machine functioning better than last election or is it just easy to look competant right now?
Antonio @ 91
It’s in Labor’s interest to undermine Howard in every possible way.
There were a few other comments in the thread in a similar vein to this, but this was the most recent so I plucked it.
I disagree. I think the ads are a bad move for Labor. I said last night – no idea where, there’s that many comments I lose track of where I am – that this leadership perception alteration is a good thing for the libs. They have tried all year to rip Rudds credibility to shreds. They failed every single time, so the message will now be focus on the team, the future, and the positives.
It is a good move, because this has been a very stable, disciplined government, I don’t think many could disagree with that. Of course, its much easier to be disciplined when you keep winning, but thats beside the point.
Labor appears intent on running these negative campaigns against Howard. We all know that negative campaigns generally work, but this year it is almost as if the electorate isn’t in the mood for it. Labor has been personalising this assault against JH for months, and yet he still holds a damn high approval rating for a government which is on the nose. If he successfully softens his image, which I think is the general plan, and moves away from presidential type politics, then I think the more negative Labor gets, the more likely it’s going to backfire.
I agree that Labor’s new ad is dull and trite. Unfortunately, these things often seem to work. Certainly, they work for fast food advertisers, and dare I mention it in the same breath as the Chaser, persian rug merchants.
Stairway to Kevin is more ‘devastating’ in the satirical sense, but I don’t know that it will hurt him publicly. An attack ad making the same points in a similar manner to the ALP Howard-Costello one would cut thru more. For starters, Stairway to Kevin goes for 2.05 minutes.
I tend to agree with Max. I think a better idea for the ALP would be to ignore Howard, paint him as irrelevent to the future of Australia and focus on putting forward their plan for the future.
The sad fact is that negative advertising works, and the professionals on both sides know it. We ain’t seen nothing yet.
On the ALP ad targeting Howard and Costello I don’t think Labor needs to do that kind of advertising.
In a court of law, if a ‘witness’ for the other side is doing serious damage to their case you don’t raise an ‘objection’, you remain silent and thank them later for saving you the trouble of destroying their credibility with the jury.
I would prefer they stuck to the factual advertisements that attacked WorkChoices, for example, with hard indisputable facts, not political commentary which the media are {again} doing for Labor with great enthusiasm and at absolutely no cost to Labor in either election funds or potential political damage.
Standing over a fallen contestant with a smug smile on your face is not a good look-it is more likely to put off more voters than it will attract.
Dirt politics, personal smears and other distasteful tactics will be present during the election campaign- I just see the need for Rudd’s side to revert to this kind of advertising when they could do much more damage to the Coalition brand by simply presenting the facts about Coalition policy over recent years and the significant damage it has done to the prospects of many Australian people.
But then again, I never did have the stomach for smear campaigns or sticking the boot in when the opponent is in a comatose state and gasping for air.
Adam @104, sadly you are probably absolutely right.
Well I’ll stick to my view that the Labor ad is quite a good move. Just that it’s fresh, and topical. And I think it puts the boot into the team approach, by depicting Howard and Costello as rivals, not a team.
And on the Chaser…I thought it was very funny…and so did my 17-y-o daughter, and so, presumably, did 2.4 million other people. It’s political satire, in the great Australian tradition, and while it has its faults, the nation would be worse off without it. I liked Stairway to Kevin too, not just because Led Zeppelin shaped my teenage years. I did feel it was included for ABC balance reasons, but was good nonetheless.
Adam is right – we ain’t seen nuthin’ yet. I reckon the coalition will make personal attacks on Rudd, to give them time to formulate some policies. Labor might even rip into the Liberal “team” – Downer is always ripe for a bit of send-up (as in the musical “Keating”).
And I don’t think nearly enough people make fun of the Greens or Family First. Hopefully the Chaser will.
CTEP @ 103
Holy hell. We agree?
Adam @ 104
I agree, and I really wish it wasn’t the case. It’s depressing. But… how well have the negative attacks been working so far this year? The libs have had a success rate of approximately 0%, and Labor probably about 50% – maybe higher. But after the events of the past few days, I don’t think the ‘mean and tricky’ tag will work as effectively from hereon in. It will be much harder to keep that mantra going when he’s finally being seen to be frank and upfront.
Given this phoney campaign has been going on for so long, I don’t know if people will react all that favourably to negative campaigns for the next 8 weeks or so. People expect there will be some negativity, however so far Rudd has stayed above it all, which is why his rating is so high. Eventually people will tie the ‘labor smear’ to kevin rudd and Labor really doesn’t want the public to start scrutinising their angel at this point of the campaign.
Although it would probably be about time.
Hey Stephen Hill, if the candidate you refer to as the mysterious Mr Robinson hasn’t been seen or heard of, perhaps that silly Julie Owens might even make some inroads into that North Carlingford booth you dribbled on about in a post a month ago?
You might be in heaven? Socialism, coming to the Hills District near you!
Max I doubt people think Rudd is an angel. He’s just preferred to what we’ve got now by the people who’ve been polled. I’ve seen my fair share of “Rudd haters” wafting around.
Did I miss something How was Stairway to Kevin negative! I though it was very funny.
Albert (#100), there was review done by the ALP at the end of the last election in 2004 and one of the outcomes was the need for more ‘fast response’ type ads. I would say that these ads are a manifestation of that strategy – hammer an issue hard and fast when it first happens.
I think another outcome of the review was to have a more realistic approach to negative attack ads. Latham and his strategic team tried to push this namby pamby positive approach (not talking about the past) yet in the end they were defeated by a campaign that did little else but focus on the past, in particular, the cash rate in 1989. Thankfully, I think that sort of utopian rubbish has been put out to pasture. People respond to negative ads, they are very powerful.
People, please try to understand that the ads are not intended for you. They are intended for the ignorant fools that were duped by the ‘Who do you trust to keep interest rates at record lows’ at the last election. Australian elections are decided by people with no interest in politics, and no ability to understand subtleties of any argument. Howards real problem is that there are a large number of intelligent, perceptive former liberal voters who are sickened by the lurch to the far right of the party that they thought represented their outlook on life, and who now find that Kevin Rudd is far closer to their ideal of a Prime Minister than Howard, or (you must be joking) Costello. I put forward this view on Ozpolitics on the day after KR was installed, and I think that it has been shown to be the case. Hence Possum’s findings about swings in ‘safe’ coalition seats. This is the double whammy. The ‘battlers’ have realised that they have been screwed big time, and the ‘true liberals’ have found a new home. Johnny’s stuffed, had it, swinging in the breeze, parrot’s droppings, a sad little failure, gone. Thank Dog.
cheers,
Alan H
I thought The Chasers ‘Stairway to Kevin’ was genius, very accurate and bloody funny.
Who is on Lateline tonight. Is it worth staying up ?
CTEP – Yep, it was an exaggeration on my part, but you catch what I mean, Rudd still looks like he is ‘above it all’ which only helps his image.
wofoz –
Hilariously funny 🙂
There’s a country that knows,
that Howard’s on the nose,
so they’re climbing a stairway to Kevin.
We’ll all back this new twerp,
with his smug nerdy smirk,
who needs facebook and myspace, to find friends
He’ll win you’re hearts with tacky t-shirts – join the team now
It’s A.L.P U.S.A style
He’ll distance himself from the unions – he don’t like boys clubs
He only likes clubs with strippers
When he gets drunk on rum and gin,
he can’t recall a single thing,
and though he speaks good mandarin,
he’s much more fluent speaking spin.
He’s got no economic plan,
but he can dance with Kerry-Anne,
and fake the dawn in Vietnam,
and (indecipherable) Latham,
but he’s more (undecipherable) Gough Whitlam,
And we’re climbing a stairway to Kev-an…
Grabbed from http://www.deadroo.com/index.php/stairway-to-kevin-made-me-stop-and-think-god-i-dont-want-kevin-rudd-as-pm/
It depends on what we mean by “people”. 80% of the electorate despise most electoral advertising, finding it shallow, obvious, negative and demeaning. But those are the 80% who already know who they are going to vote for, so it doesn’t matter what they think. What matters is what the 20% at the bottom of the barrel think, because they are the ones who decide all elections – here even more than in the US, because we have compulsory voting, so even complete morons vote. All these ads are aimed at those people, which is why everyone here hates them. Hint: if you want to be spared all this, don’t watch TV. I haven’t watched TV all year and it’s very liberating. All the things you might want to see you can get as podcasts or on Youtube.
The word ‘are’ in my post was meant to be ‘have been’.
cheers,
Alan H
Adam I’ve barely watched tv all year, one day I turned it on for about 10 minutes and was bombarded with Barbara Bennet. Never went back.
Wow,
I get on a flight to London and 24 hours later, everything seems to have changed!!!
Getting back on point, someone mentioned that there had been no changes on Portlandbet since Howard’s announcement. With greatest respect, that’s a load of crap.
Already, both Deakin and La Trobe have “fallen” to Labor, while Bennelong is extremely close to going. Labor in Canning has now fallen to $1.95 – unbelievable for a seat with a margin of over 9%
Also, if you look at the odds on the federal election, Labor has shortened massively – it’s $1.30/$3.60 on Sportingbet, $1.28/$3.55 on Portlandbet and $1.32/$3.40 on Centrebet.
Unfortunately, didn’t get to see the Chaser, but I hear it got a record TV audience – 2.24million???
The shoddiest thing about the shenanigans of the last few days, is that it (and media disinterest) buried a real story.
ACIRRT, the Sydney Uni research centre on IR, released hard data on non-union COLLECTIVE agreements, showing what a rip-off they’ve been in retailing and hospitality. Both sides of politics need to address this. Labor has a somewhat higher floor of rights, but still essentiallly an ’employer goes’ bargaining system outside the relatively few sectors with strong union presence.
On the candidates {or lack of } issue, there is a grace period after the election is called for the Coalition to get a candidate sorted out and put up for candidacy, but I don’t remember how long that grace period goes for. Anyone know ?
when the politics is presidential, you have to highlight weaknesses in the opposing leadership. it’s essential.
the alp ad is not mean or acidic: it focusses on the way howard’s story changes to suit the needs of the moment (he is capricious); it puts the two liberal players in frame and tags them both with the essential weakness of howard’s pitch – the “please help me out” call for support.
it’s a good ad, considering it’s target is people who are detaching themselves from howard and have not yet re-attached themselves to costello.
Youthful idealism lives. Good to see.
http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=215997017
Watch his Youtube clip, it’s quite funny.
Graeme, I would expect Labor (or the ACTU, or both) will trot out lots of “true story” ads about individuals who’ve suffered under WorkChoices. I do note that the research was funded by state Labor governments. I’m not saying it’s untrue, I don’t know, but if the survey had found that people were better off under WorkChoices it may have been buried. I suspect business has been funding its own studies on the effects of WorkChoices, and when they finally get a favourable one, they’ll release it.
Alan H, I agree with your analysis wholeheartedly. I also think that most ads, whether political or not, are aimed at morons. My father worked in advertising for a while. He reckoned the cleverest ad was for Toilet Duck. They invented a product to solve a problem nobody had ever heard of before…the “germs” lurking beneath the top rim of the toilet. It still sells. In a weird way, Labor is selling a similar product. It’s trying to create a problem from the howard-Costello handover pledge, when the Libs actually proposed it as a solution.
The Chaser guys are all Labor supporters: Andrew Hansen is one of Rudd’s 15,000 My Space friends. It was an affectionate parody last night: I doubt it will do the Ruddster any damage.
Any new polls out tomorrow? Morgan?
Minister Abbott, channelling a Truly False Spirit:
‘What’s now absolutely crystal clear is that at some point towards the end of the next term of Parliament, there will be a transition from a government led by John Howard to a government that will be true to the spirit of John Howard, really true to the spirit of John Howard, not falsely true to the spirit of John Howard’
The Liberal ads will be very predictable: Union bosses pulling Rudd’s strings, personal attacks on Julia Gillard, Kevin Rudd with the “L” plates,
Labor can’t be trusted to manage the economy etc.
Or they’ll use the concept from a N.S.W Liberal party ad used during the state election campaign: “If you vote for Kevin Rudd, you get Wayne Swan, Julia Gillard and Peter Garrett as well”, with unflattering black & white pics in the background.
“Can I get the blubber and double chin please”
“Oh, let me get the thunder thighs”
“Charter boat, what charter boat”
TV advertising is not very enlightening.
When Australian Idol dominates the canteen chit chat you have to target your advertising to the lowest common [concept/language/world view] demoninator, Adam’s “moron”.
Realistic, but I think Ill stick to watching the 7.30 Report, Lateline and Spicks and Specks ocassionally.
Antonio, the point is not to be cynical about motives, but to address the study’s methodology. ACIRRT is a very reputable centre. Yes it’s chief researcher is collectively-minded, but they also regularly hock themselves to run expensive, business centred IR conferences.
ACIRRT doesn’t ‘bury’ its studies: to do so would cruel an academic’s career.
The study was ‘buried’ under an avalanche of pap media.
Econotech and business sponsored studies deliberately rely on speculative modelling, not like-with-like comparisons.
Howard lost the WorkChoices debate the minute he tried to sell it for something other than what it is: a push to solidify profits against wages, in part to insulate employment/output when downturns occur. Not an easy sell I know: future macro-economics versus lived-experiences. (even second hand ones). Since then, he’s been playing catch-up.
Adam #125, loved Sandy Biar, but what the hell has he got growing under his bottom lip? The people of Adelaide will not stand for it!
Graeme, the study wasn’t completely buried. For example, I read about it in the paper and heard it on ABC Radio.
And it was an interesting study, and one that I’d accept as accurate. There’s no doubt the retail and hospitality sectors are cutting penalty rates – I have teenage children who are living proof of this. But an even bigger problem is where there’s no agreement at all – where the workforce is completely casualised, and employers can call in and lay off staff at their whim. Not only does it exploit the staff, but it leaves young people with an attitude of never feeling the need to be loyal to an employer, and pissing off to another job whenever it suits.
I just think studies can be discredited in the public mind when they’re funded by a body (ie Labor Governments) with a vested interest in the outcome. And I acknowledge that universities get so little funding these days that they have to beg for a sponsor when they want to study anything. It’s a catch-22 really. I don’t mean to discredit the good work that these researchers do.
on people detaching themselves from howard – howard is inviting people to free themsleves from his embrace (“i’ll be gone one day”) and look to the steady hands of the treasurer (“be good enough to do this: he’ll take good care of you – i know him well”). this is pretty weak: it is howard as the mc and costello as the encore: what will main act consist of? a rehash of abbott, downer and turnbull saying how great they all are?
but it is an interesting ploy. it pitches the 2 most prominent liberals against the singular rudd. it is probably just making a virtue of necessity, but it gives labor something to think about. it does invite attack – costello has made few attempts to conceal his disdain for howard and howard has done plenty to earn it.
it is risky stuff, but howard is a risk-taker. he will see this as his kind of gig, really.
i wonder how it will play. i suspect it will depend on whether the schism between howard and costello can be squeezed shut – or whether it can be kept ajar.
i think labor has to keep the focus on rudd – the singular kevin and his novel style, alloyed with his place as the champion of “working families”. he is miles in front and the liberals are still rummaging around for a political strategy. maybe this is the rabbit – or is it a bunny?
Antonio: agreed. This was hard news, so the media couldn’t ignore it. But only the attentive would have noticed it. Yes, Hockey’s response was the inevitable ‘But LABOR states funded the study’ – and contrast how Labor doesn’t respond in such a manly fashion to business funded modelling.
That Hockey couldn’t be bothered looking at the report, let alone tackling its methodology or findings, should be the issue.
So Kevin07 isn’t happy about the rising price of food? He’s not alone…
“Italians stage pasta strike
Thursday Sep 13 22:49 AEST
AP – Consumer groups organised nationwide protests to draw attention to the burden placed on families by the rising cost of food – especially on Italians’ beloved staple, pasta.
The price of basic commodities are being driven up by middlemen, while farmers and producers earnings remain flat, activists said at protests in Rome, Milan and Palermo.
In the case of pasta, Italians will soon be paying up to 20 per cent more for their daily serving, be it fettuccine, linguine or spaghetti.
Thursday’s one-day strike was not against eating it, but against buying it.”
Holy macaroni, Batman!
ps Antonio. There’s an even bigger problem, that my students only recently brought to my attention.
Under ‘WorkChoices’. we’ve been led to believe that at least there’s a minimum wage for people employed by companies.
Wrong.
If an industry lacked unionisation such that there was no underlying award, and employers set wages freely whether by AWAs, common law or non-union agreements, WorkChoices continues that happy state for employers for 5 years.
So pizza makers and delivery drivers, for one large franchise, remain on wages last raised at end of 2003! Wages well below the ostensible current minimum of $13.74 ph… And they may well remain there for the next 4 years as part of the ‘transition’ arrangement. “Know where you stand” “Protected by law” “Safety Net”
Loved the look on Costello’s face in that ad – precious.
Quite a simple ad with a little bit of humor the way they timed Costello’s expression with ‘confused’.
I reckon they should do one with a two headed monster. ;}
Costello and Howard in the one body or ‘Push me Pull me’ figure facing opposite directions.
Graeme: Not to disagree with you main point in #138, but when I worked for a large pizza chain, the union was the SDA. I don’t remember very many employees being members, but we were informed of our right to join etc. etc. My point being I’m surprised there isn’t an award rate for those workers.
I remember pizza drivers got screwed royally before WorkChoices, so I pity the poor guys now.
I don’t know if this has been posted but Portlandbet has the following figures for Bennelong:
Howard $1.80
McKew $1.85
Can’t get much closer than that.
@128 Graeme Says:
Clearly he is just parroting what Pell texted him.
Anywho what is the go with Markus the incumbent in Greenway still getting the run of the race “one out, one back” in question time. Greenway on the redistributed boundaries is supposed to be safe Liberal but there she is each question time bobbin around and nodding away. You’d imagine that they would have put an MP from a marginal there by now. What gives?
Is it worth staying up for the Morgan?
Mark #133 re Sandy: I think it’s a 21yo version of facial hair. Give the kid a break.
[Is it worth staying up for the Morgan?]
Morgan won’t be out until 1 PM tomorrow
Thank you simon, and good night. see you at 1 pm
sorry, not to nitpick, but Prospect does have a liberal candidate, Ms Lily Arthur. Ms Arthur was a previous member of the ALP, ran against Mr Bowen (the incumbent) in 2004 as a democrat and is now running as a liberal against him this year.
And if memory does serve me correctly, fowler does have a candidate too.
Re Eden Monaro. I spoke to a friend today who is a (minor) official in the local ACT ALP. He says the whisper in ALP circles is that the Morgan Polling probably slightly overstates the outcome compared to their own polling.
In Canberra the polling is about 66% 2pp, and Queanbeyan is pretty similar. As you would expect, the Coalition vote gets better the further you get from Canberra in the electorate.
He agreed that the Greens stood a good chance of taking the second ACT senate seat, as the candidate, Kerry Nettles is well known and respected from her time in the Leg. Assembly.
I am not sure just how much access to inside info he has, nor how accurate the ALP gossip might be.
Big votes for the ALP are not unusual in the ACT. In 1983 only the Duntroon booth gave a majority to the Coalition!
Nathan, thanks. I will check them out. These candidacies are well-kept secrets.
Mike
Kerry Nettle is the Green Senator for NSW
You mean Kerrie Tucker – see http://act.greens.org.au/