Today’s Roy Morgan poll suggests that voters have, er, reacted sympathetically to Kevin Rudd’s tax gaffe. Or perhaps been driven insane by the onslaught of government advertising on television. Either way, they’ve published a headline figure of 54 per cent for Labor’s primary vote, which seems to have been enough to have caused their server to crash. More details as they come to hand.
UPDATE: Crikey email reports a two-party split of 60.5-39.5. The Coalition primary vote is down from 39.5 per cent to 36 per cent (for those interested, the Nationals vote is down from 3 per cent to 2.5 per cent). Labor’s primary vote in the previous survey was 49.5 per cent. This was a face-to-face survey with a sample of 972.
A-C # 816
Newspapers…. well then it must be true. You are talking culture war garbage, and that war, like all wars this government has embarked on, is lost. Water is a problem because we are in a drought, as in a water shortage, are you seriously suggesting Liberal state governments would have done *any* different? What gazed into their crystal ball and realised the drought was coming? The national water scheme is a short term political fix designed to wedge and nothing else. It’s costing is poor and long term efficacy is questionable. Qld Labor has Traveston on the drawing board and it has been opposed by conservatives at every turn. As for your good and evil, Satan and God analogy, being atheist all I can say is that when Howard is burnt at the political stake, I for one will be toasting marshmallows and making merry. The only thing JWH will be dragging down is his beloved Liberal party, a long long way down.
When was the last time a State government proposed to build a dam?
A-C 816
When was the last time a suitable site for a new dam appeared on the river systems of southern Australia? Ain’t exactly a lot of places left to put said dams.
So where are you proposing to put these new dams?
Not to mention an increasing lack of rain to fill them.
And a whole lot of other problems that go with dams.
Adam,
Whilst your point is valid, surely you can see the humour in forcing certain Coalition MPs – such as Abbott and Costello – into donning the brown trousers on election night.
Dams can’t save us. There’s plenty of water falling but it’s falling in all the wrong places. For instance the rainfall in southern Australia over the past 10 years has moved south so that we’re getting plenty of rain falling on the coast and out to sea but none where the Dams are. You can’t build dams and expect that they will fill. It would be better to make everyone on the coastal cities install water tanks so that when the rain falls they at least catch that water. Building Dams is an old idea which doesn’t work anymore.
“… which everybody knows Labor is not going to win.”
Everybody? Perhaps you mean, with respect, that everybody you know hopes that Labor will not win.
Adam at 850
The point of it is to produce an accurate as possible representation of exactly what the last newspoll quarterly results suggested on a seat by seat basis.The results are simply what the last Newspoll quarterly looks like applied to 139 seats in the 5 states involved.
The analysis here is actually underanalysis not over.Its no different to applying a national uniform swing to the national pendulum.We just happen to be using 15 pendulums rather than 1.
These results look bad in absolute seat terms because more people in safe government seats across the country are saying they will vote ALP, and more people in NSW, Victoria and Qld are doing the same thing.
Not much I can do about people giving answers to polling companies I’m afraid.
All those who think that the Liberals are going to get in government in the states any time soon are quite mistaken, at least that is the case in NSW. While I think NSW Labor is atrocious, they are NOT worse than the NSW Liberals who have become a party dominated by fundamentalists and members of the HR Nicholls Society. They would royally screw this state, and as it is, Labor has made a pretty good job of it. It really is a case of the lesser of two evils. I can say with increasing confidence that there is no way on God’s good green Earth that I will EVER vote for either party at the state level.
au contraire, Derek, everyobody I know except my mother wants Labor to win 150 seats – and even she’s wavering. I would love Possum’s calculations to be true. I just don’t believe they are.
Have the Libs found a new ‘champion’ to replace Glen? Running this hoary old line that Labor Governments are necessarily spendthrift. The sheer scale of the Feds advertising spend alone is just obscene.
What great ads they have been, saying things like ‘protected by law’ during the SerfChoices rollout, with a nice big red stamp, designed to fool many trusting non-English speakers and a proportion of Anglo mugs.
Howard must have read 1984 and Animal Farm many times to come so close to replicating the Ministry of Truth and Snowball. Or is it the Prince he prefers for his bedtime reading? Machiavelli had nothing on the Right Honourable Rodent.
But back to the point….
I’d like to see the figures on Federal Government spending for the last 11 years, especially the expansion in Ministerial staff numbers and the payments made to various classes of consultants, if we want to talk about Government waste and mismanagement.
What about that elephant in the corner known as ‘defence’ spending? Billions of dollars paid for equipment that doesn’t work, including the scandal of the Collins class submarines.
The mining boom proceeds in the form of much higher Federal revenue have basically been p…d up against the wall via tax cuts and selective pork barrelling of outrageous proportions ( and not merely in election campaigns), with things like the $3 billion dollar subsidy for private health insurance to name just one instance of ‘middle class welfare’ being used to shore up votes from particular groups, if not outright buy them!
But fear not, Captain Smirk appears to have discovered some money for the Pacific Highway in particular, just in time for the election!
Private wealth and public squalor, just as JK Galbraith said all those years ago.
All the tax cuts have done is forced the Reserve Bank to maintain almost the highest real interest rates in the Western World, contributing to the housing affordability crisis ( or is this just a mirage?). Higher interest rates have no doubt sent quite a few small businesses to the wall, with increasing bankruptcy rates for personal and business borrowers.
And this is prosperity! I wonder what recession would look like? Can the non-bank financial intermediaries in Australia really stand up to a US recession?
At least A-C seems to acknowledge that the Coalition’s advert spend in this phoney ‘campaign’ period is obscene, or is it only so if it is done by Labor State Governments?
And won’t the world cave in and little children hide under their beds when raging ‘pinkoes’ like Kevvie gain office? Gimme a break, or ‘flog me with a warm lettuce’, as Keating so aptly put it.
Better get out in what’s left of the sunshine, see ya punters!
Possum’s calculations are a bit like my wondering what I could win if red came up on the roulette wheel for every bet for an hour or so. Just a bit of fun. Probably pointless but nevertheless harmless.
Er, what be donning “brown trousers” on election night? Is this an arcane pepys-type reference to some-long forgotten ritual hitherto lost in the mists of time. Sounds embarrassing.
There’s always going to be seats that move with the broader swing in any seat category, but that just means other seats in the same category will have to swing more to take the weight.
Wentworth is a good example – I dont think Turnbull will lose Wentworth (unless the Green vote is high), and the swing in Wentworth will be less than the average marginal seat swing – but that just means other marginals (like Parramatta) will swing more to carry the weight that gives us the “average marginal swing”.
Victoria is the State though where whacky things have been happening over the last 3 months.The ALP primary and TPP keeps growing, not dropping slightly or flattening out, but growing.
Oops, first line should read:
“There’s always going to be seats that move less than the broader swing in any seat category”
Paul K you exactly right regarding dams but i must add that the other alternative is also stupid- desalination plants the use excessive energy and are costly.. They are not a solution and all the state governments are building them, crazy stuff.. Instead as you say water tanks should be installed and the state governments should use the money from building desalination plants and give it to people to install water tanks.. Additionally recycling should be adopted and greater use of stormwater runoff.
But the State Governments are more concerned with ensuring they stay in power and collecting revenue from water instead of the logical and better for all of us solution… Soon governments regarding Climate Change will have to make some hard decisions, as currently we have the Coalition not recognising climate change as a problem and Labor recognising it but just talking about it.
What we must realise is that the Carbon Dioxide that has already been collected will stay in the atmosphere for another eighty years so no matter what changes we do now their will be little impact.. and this is only up to today meaning as we keep pumping it into the atmosphere the worse it will get… We need action now simply and i’m afraid it isn’t happening.
As India is to build 100 new coal fired power stations, and America has plans for over 150, and in Victoria we are the largest emitter of Greenhouse gases on a per capita basis in the world.
Whilst the Arctic rapidly melts, sealevels rise and rain decreases.. And our politicians come up with yep we recognise it solutions…
Hate to be alarmist and depress everyone but i think it is to late to reverse our extinction.
I remember the days when the far left stood for revolutionary optimism. Now they stand (like Marky) for apocalyptic pessimism.
Read Tim Flannerys’ book Adam that is if you can read.
Adam. Mine was a cheap shot. Please tell your mum that Derek says you are a good boy and it would be nice if she made you happy.
My mum was solid Country Party, to the last. Godless communists and all that.
I have been reading Possums overview of Newspoll, now I understand Adam questioning the Victorian poll numbers on the grounds that certain areas like Higgins haven voted ALP before.
I believe in Victoria all Govt seats under 10% are at risk of falling except for Higgins and Dunkley.
At the last election several things occurred (Latham, Interest Rates and Citylink saw large swings towards the Liberal Party taking seats well beyond there average margin example between 1984 and 2001 Dunkley had never swung by more than 1.9% yet in 04 swung by 4%.
At this point of time its important to remember a few things about Victoria, it is a Conservative state which doesn’t normally swing to the extent of the NSWs and Queenslanders.
I think we can presume that the ALP will hold all its 20 seats and will see swings towards the ALP, I think I read a poll the other day with the ALP leading in La Trobe with about 56 if this is right then that’s a 12 percent swing, if that is on in La Trobe I see no reason to think a similar swing isn’t on in Aston or Casey they are very similar.
Closer to Melbourne, if Melbourne Ports votes ALP then Goldstein and Higgins which are very similar seats cannot be discounted, I suspect Costello will hold Higgins but Goldstein may swing for in Melbourne there are two very distinct areas the Sand belt and the Clay belt the evidence shows the Clay belt is moving towards the ALP (Aston, Deakin, Lt Trobe & Casey) then maybe so is the sand belt.
People say o discount Goldstein and Kooyong but lets recap what is driving the polls, this Election the Liberal Party is running on a platform that Menzies would never have run, Rudd is the most Small l Liberal leader in a long time, the State ALP government have shown that the ALP can manage an economy and there are many people on $30,000-$60,000 whom are seriously peeved off with Howard on several issues from rental / home affordability, Iraq and add to this Workchoices all up Howard has removed the Liberal Party from its core heartland and just as Keating found in 1996 you can’t do that.
The ALP also have preselected several very candidates and up til now have out campaigned the Liberals.
Marky, there is nothing new under the sun. 35 years ago I read Gordon Rattray Taylor’s book The Doomsday Book: Can the World Survive? which confidently predicted a new ice age within our lifetimes, for reasons I now can’t remember. People have been predicting the end of the world all through human history. Climate change is a serious challenge but not beyond human ingenuity to solve. All it requires is some political will. Vote 1 Rudd for Rain.
I sent this to News.Com, anybody else feel this maybe the reason for media bias?
News com must be asleep on the job, that would be a good explanation, but unfortunately the truth is the media organisation is extremely bias in its political reporting in favour of John Howard, it must be because of the millions of dollars from the advertising gravy train coming from this government.
Because if labour gets into power your revenue and other media organisations revenue from advertising will go down, isn’t this a conflict of interest? your interest over the interests of the general public
To prove the bias newspoll shows 1% swing to Howard and its “Howard claws his way back“, the latest Morgan poll 28/9/07 is released showing a swing to labour of 4% 60.5% Labour to 39.5% LNP 2PP and nothing not even reported in one media organisation?
Please why don’t we have a royal commission into the bias of the media, it will prove it is due to the revenue flowing from the federal government, which will stop if the Liberals lose government.
Derek,
By donning the brown trousers, one cannot see the accident that one has made in ones pants. To put it nicely.
I feel the Herald Sun is bias, if anything it’s being increasly negative toward the Liberals of late.
Come off it, Marky. Argue the point, not the man. (Sums up this election, to an extent).
I meant the Herald Sun isn’t bias
As was shown on the insiders this morning, statistically it rains a lot more when Labor are in office federally.
So the answer to the drought is easy, vote Labor. This argument is just as valid as interest rates being lower under the libs. 🙂
I don’t disagree with you that Labor would be better on the environment than the current dills… but climate change is totally different than all other challenges.. it is about whining people away from current lifestyles that they are living.. .and for some reason you seem to think that we suddenly will invent i dream of jeannie stuff and poof and its gone.. i am afraid with carbon dioxide it is not the case, this gas stays in the atmosphere and does not magically dissappear but of course i am some hard left lunatic who talks nonsense… The usual line of people who don’t like seeing Economic growth threatened, but of course what does come first the economy or the planet… and yep 35 years ago.. the arctic wasn’t melting and sea levels weren,t rising and rain was occurring in Australia every couple of years in inland australia…but now El nino seems to happening every year…
i for one thinking back twenty years when winters here in Victoria were cold and wet.. and over the last ten years this has massively changed.. but of course scientists will suddenly solve our problems and i am talking bull because i am a hard lefty doomsdayer fair dinkum…
I like Rugby League but this is just ridiculous
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/09/30/2047244.htm?section=justin
I am not sure if I am more worried by the profligate waste of money or that this is an example of the desperate and petty nature of the current pre-election campaign. I think you Mexicans should really be upset.
I do not understand how the huge swing in vic is being calculated
Is it really the case that the vic swing is so huge……..
eg it predicts Wannon to be won……. last won by labor in 1954
the year before I was born……. can possum pls explain
I understand if 8% across the board occurred then 12% is possible
in the right circs….but this magnification in vic does not make sense
Oakshott spot on..
But must say i loved Tandberg’s cartoon in yesterdays Age newspaper.. As the Geelong team went by crowds clapped but as Howard and Rudd passed not a sole was present…
This is how people here think i am afraid, sport comes before everything else…
With swings this big on, some ‘unthinkable’ coalition seats will fall.
I want to know where I can get good odds on 100 seats for the ALP. Id whack $10 on.
Think they’ll be about 5-10 short, but worth a Mary Gilmore.
Machiavelli had nothing on the Right Honourable Rodent.
Bazthespaz 859
Machiavelli is a much and unfairly maligned political philosopher. If you read his work he explicitly and repeatedly states that, while he recognises the necessity of hard choices for political leaders, his main aim was to minimise the amount of ‘evil’ that these leaders need to do in order to maximise the general good. He was actually a utilitarian long before Bentham.
Comparing Machiavelli to Howard is an insult to Machiavelli and his ideas.
The Herald-Sun is biased but it, like Rupert, goes for winners. If its readers want Rudd, back Rudd. It likes to cover its read end. It has to keep some sort of faith with its readers after misleading them for the past 11 years or so.
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865
Adam Says:
September 30th, 2007 at 4:33 pm
I remember the days when the far left stood for revolutionary optimism. Now they stand (like Marky) for apocalyptic pessimism.
Adam i still stand for revolutionary optimism. A grass roots revolution that has already started in the community. Be very interesting what the major parties do about it.
Well I hope you are right, Bill. If you are, then the parties, or at least one of them, will respond accordingly. It is the nature of democracy that politicians and parties respond to the will of the people in order to secure their support. If the people want radical change, the parties will give it to them.
Um, shouldn’t we be making AC Nielsen predictions about now?
I’ll go with 56 / 44.
Has anyone noticed any movement on betting markets today, suggesting the result has been leaked?
I HOPE Newspoll is another rogue, forcing the ALP to print Kevin 08 t-shirts. 😛
Mike at 877.
The average swing in Victoria is 11% according to Newspoll.The average national swing in safe government seats is 11.6% according to Newspoll.
Victoria has 13 marginals, 14 safe government seats and 10 safe ALP seats.Because the safe government seats make up a fairly high proportion of total Victorian seats, there has to be a fairly large swing in those Victorian safe seats.If there wasnt, or at least if there wasnt a *big* swing among a good proportion of them, that would leave the marginals swinging by 15% or more (especially since you rarely get electorates where the TPP gets beyond 73/27 which cuts out a number of the safe ALP seats taking up then weight of the 11% Victorian swing).
So Victoria is simply swinging because 1000 odd Victorians (I think, although stand to be corrected) have told newspoll over the last quarter that they will vote for the ALP in such numbers that would produce an 11% swing.
I cant tell you why, and the mechanics of it (beyond the simple pendulum) are confusing me as well.That’s why I’ve been prattling on about Victoria for the last 6 weeks when I first realised what was happening down there.Swings are on, we just cant exactly pinpoint where, but we know that some government safe seats in Victoria have to be swinging by large margins greater than 12%, other less so with margins maybe only 7 or 8%, perhaps a handful with less.If that isnt actually happening, hundreds of Victorians have been telling Newspoll and other pollsters lies.
Sorry to say Bill, even though my sentiments agree with you regarding a better world.. it can only happen through either owning the media and portraying thus constantly highlighting how we should think because the media now does this.. One only has to look at the constant marketing of sport ie: Grand Final and how people actually became brain washed by it…
Or by joining one of the main parties and trying to get change within.. Of course you need a number of people to be of the same thinking… and then it comes down to trusting your fellow person…
Bill i like the approach of Hugo Chavez… Get power and then actually bring forth real change.. to the media, and the major resources that the country has.. like Oil… and then set up your own economic organisation that being get out of the clutches of the IMF and world bank who are fundamentally about economic rationalism and rich getting richer…
But i am afraid to say Bill you can only try these days and not become brain washed like most have.
marky marky says Says:
September 30th, 2007 at 4:29 pm
“Hate to be alarmist and depress everyone but i think it is to late to reverse our extinction.”
It’s not about extinction,it’s about our economic system collapsing, an economic system that gives most in the western world a very nice living thank you very much.
Global warming or not our only problem we are going to run out of oil ( Hydrocarbons to burn).
We have 4 options
1) Carbon
2) Nuclear
3) Renewables
4) Or reduced living standards.
Option 4 is not a vote winner, leaving option 1,2 and 3 and things would move a lot faster to option 3 if the Greens stopped opposing any change for change sake.
We need to build dams for hydro power, we need to build windmill, solar, geo thermal stations and wave power stations in the the north.
Go to the Greens web page, you find a picture of a wind mill. Did we hear a peep out of them when the yellow bellied parrot was being used to stop an installation in Victoria.
Lake Pedder, loverly lake, stopping the dam was one of Bob Browns claim to fame. Net result Tasmania will not be a net exporter of power.
If handled properly renewables will be profitable ( or if you want to look at it from a socialist point of, will give excess labor something to do).
It’s a big opportunity for the greens, but I bet they don’t seize it.
The German greens came out of the clouds and are pushing their economy down a sustainable path, why can’t the Australian Greens do the same.
Instead we get them banging on about old growth forests, stopping dams, stopping windmill farms and anything else that represents doing something in another way. To top is all off they start pushing extreme positions on social issues ( things that have nothing to do with government anyway).
Marky @ 876
I do agree that we need to do more wining and dining to move people away from their present lifestyle. Like driving 4-wheel tanks in surburban areas to collect a litre of milk or deliver the off-spring to holding centres.
Charles could not agree with you more regarding your options but what i was stating is having the political will or courage to put such policies in place.
Dams i am sorry is the wrong option, they can be counter productive as they can threaten river systems and wetlands… (thus the Yangtze in China and the Euphrates in the Middle East are in the process of doing such) and if doesn’t rain how can you use hydro power…
Well said Just Me
Shorter Howard utilitarian theory: What’s good for moi is good for Australia.
Shorter shorter “Louis” Howard: L’etat C’est Moi
888
charles Says:
September 30th, 2007 at 5:34 pm
To top is all off they start pushing extreme positions on social issues ( things that have nothing to do with government anyway).
Like what? Are you going down the same line as the ALP member for Reynell that the community or government is not ready to tackle child obesity by removing junk food from tuck shops then having to change that view when the community showed it was more than ready?
Oaksshott? @ 877
This was spotted earlier here. It is bloody outrageous! Howard is really scraping the bottom of the barrel. Deserves full-on odium and contempt.
Did anyone dare plough through the GG Magazine’s ode to Howard, or were they put off by Dear Leader’s grinning visage on the front cover?
I managed the last page of the article, which essentially recycled GG talking points of the last week:
– Sol’s “don’t trust the polls” mantra – although he did concede that Howard has never been this far behind. Sol had a longer column in the dead tree version of the news proper, not sure if it made it online.
– Howard’s been energized from the last week of parliament, and is never better than when his back is against the wall.
– Breakout quotes of him saying that he knows some people despise him and that they transfer disagreement of his policies to him personally.
– Comparisons with George Bush, another misunderestimated underdog who got re-elected with an increased vote twice, along with glowing endorsement by Dubya made at APEC. Kackie Jelly reckoning that Howard will retain Bennelong and win, and that she quit because she just couldn’t see Howard losing at the time
Looks like a combination of “rallying the base” dog whistles (e.g. reference to Howard haters) and the in-house GG sycophancy we’ve come to love.
I acknowledge it’s irritating to comment on stuff I haven’t actually read in full, but I just can’t bear to deeply read political commentary in this paper anymore – even though I’m only 35 I can feel it doing bad things to my blood pressure.
I wonder if the GG’s inner sanctum has the scoop on the date being announced next weekend, and they’ve gotten an early puff piece in with exclusive access to the man himself?
The Greens will have a massive increase in votes in coming elections as the Major parties try to grapple with climate change while pandering to the capitalist system. This system is the cause of climate change with the push of consumerism to the point that most products are obsolete within 12 months. People will have to change how they live and that is not popular but like i said before the mood of small parts of the community is that we need a new direction and this will grow as the major parties fail to stop or slow down climate change. I dont think it doomsday yet but if it is not done right then we will get to the point of no return with such things as positive feedback mechanisms coming into play that will be never ending.
Bill ask yourself who has the power in this country…
It is the media and the media quite simply supports capitalism and the two major parties and this will not change… Climate Change will make some people vote Greens but i am afraid people are apathetic and stupid and will go with how groups like the media think.. .Bill whilst i hope you are right somewhat i for one don’t see it…
And Bill our political parties are not just going to introduce fundamental changes.. quite simply they have not got the guts… Water illustrates my point desalination plants… a quick fix… If anything affects us all Bill it will be debt because this is out of control in Australia at the moment and when a downturn happens if that is because the resources boom will last a while yet it will be very bad…
Climate Change i agree is the one issue but so to is economics and this is what the greens should concentrate on also.
Bill
I doubt very much that the Greens vote will increase for the lower house, in fact they will probably get less. This will be a polarised election between King John and Emperor Kevin.
The Greens will get a higher senate vote at the expense of the coalition as people try to put balance back.
A “massive increase” is off with the pixies stuff.
I think you may be right Bill.I have 5 elderly aunts who are usually strong Howard voters,but at a family BBQ all five of’em are solid in their votes for the greens.The Greens may well poll very well in the Senate as an alternative to the major parties.
[ i like the approach of Hugo Chavez ]
Venezuela: a socialist worker’s paradise with an economy which would disintegrate if it didn’t have oil to sell to the Great Satan USA. Your hero Chavez talks a lot but that’s about all he does.
I think the Greens’ best hope is for Rudd to win this election, but face a hostile Senate. The Greens could then make some serious progress in the event of a DD election. Also, it’s worth the Greens persisting in their attempts to win lower house seats (at a State level) where the Coalition can’t be bothered providing any opposition candidates.