Nobody believed the size of Labor’s lead in last week’s Morgan poll, but it’s now widened further, from 60.5-39.5 to 61-39. Both parties are down fractionally on the primary vote, Labor from 54 per cent to 53.5 per cent and the Coalition from 36 per cent to 35.5 per cent. For what it’s worth, the balance has gone to the Australian Democrats, up from 0.5 per cent to 1.5 per cent. This was a face-to-face poll with 894 respondents.
Why should the ALP give preferences to the Greens their first job is to hold there own seats then to defeat as many Liberals as possible so putting the Greens or Family First in front of an another is mean less, If I was running the ALP my first aim is to maximise the primary vote then go after all minor party votes.
The Greens need to stop blaming others for their failure to win seats, I for one will not vote for silly little children so if you want me to vote for you first you must grow up then I might.
Interesting Morgan poll, while I suspect the numbers are over the top, I do feel since September there has been momentium towards the ALP.
I’m not totally sure what impact the Pulp Mill will have but when you combine this with the Gay slur I suspect the swing in seats like Wentworth will harden towards the ALP.
For all the talk of the swing in the inner city I see no posters up.
Adam: I can see that this is a pointless argument – I’ll just restate my point, and leave it at that.
My argument is not that the ALP shouldn’t try and cut deals to maximise their political advantage. It’s that whoever has done the Victorian preference deals is very, very bad at doing the numbers.(*)
If you genuinely believe that Family First has more in common with the ALP than the Greens, then I’m afraid I really don’t understand your idea of the ALP. Ditto the DLP. Neither are parties of the centre. They’re parties of extremely reactionary conservatism.
Anyway, I’ll leave it here. I just hope that this time around someone who can do sums and cut decent deals is in charge.
(*) The last federal election is a case in point. That they didn’t notice that the Democrat vote had utterly collapsed suggests a poll-reading disorder 🙂
Yulia Timoshenko. I suspect a face lift or two.
You’re right Paul @ 242. Pursuit of the drug is the only reason politics is contested. It’s also the reason both sides march to the beat of the same drum. I fear Rudd’s Government will try to emulate Carr’s NSW Government where he simply tried to be run a better Griener Government than Nick Griener could manage. To quote the last words of Admiral Yamamoto “there is no honour”.
ok put morals and ethics aside.
in the world of real politics, in the current climate we have at this election, why would Labor even entertain FFP?
you may entertain the idea for a day or two, but surely you would come to your senses.
Green issues are big this election. and not all Green thinking voters are rusted on Lefties from old Labor. A lot of Lib and ex Lib voters(there are lots of ex libs this election) are open to voting Green and following the card preference to Labor.
FFP have about 1.5% of the vote if they are lucky this election. No matter what preference deal is made, there is no way more than 1/3 (at most) will put Labor ahead of the Conservatives.
so , what can FFP deliver to Labor???
0.5% tops….whoopdedoo.
Labor would get more 2nd prefs of dallying Green Libs and ex Libs.
Glen, the logic of that position is that you should preference the Greens while we preference FF. Of course you would want a quid pro quo in the form of Green preferences, thus confirming Labor suspicions of a Green-Liberal under-the-table deal.
247- are you suggesting a comb over of the eyebrows.
230
Adam Says:
October 5th, 2007 at 11:23 pm
anthony, I didn’t mean to suggest that Labor supported the mill *solely* for electoral reasons. We support jobs for Tasmanian workers, and if a pulp mill can be operated in an environmentally sound way, of course we support it.
..
I’m with you on this Adam. Much as I love nature, wood pulp will be milled somewhere. Why not in this country, where safeguards can be applied, rather than in Korea or China? Australia uses a lot of timber products. Why not mill them here?
It seems a bit choice to me to export crude timber to, say, Japan, and then agree to buy back the finished products, leaving the energy and waste issues to be sorted out in that country, and exporting jobs in the process.
We have to learn to try harder and not just take the easy reflex all the time.
Thought I’d give you a laugh with Yulia Timoshenko. Then we can depress the conservatives even more with an update on the US politics.
http://www.electoral-vote.com
I shouldn’t be so angry at the Greens winning you many of your seats because we had the good old DLP doing the same thing for us in the 1950s and 1960s it would make me a hypocrite so i wont suffice to say the ALP are lucky and it is easier for them to win Government these days just like it was easier for us to win back in the Menzies era.
I still dont like Family First…
Many Australians may want to get rid of Howard because they feel uncomfortable to where he has bought them but they can’t just put their finger on what or where it is. They just know it is a lot different than where they used to be. Many may also now believe that Australians are not Howard’s primary concern, it instead maintaining power, serving Bush and big business and, pushing through his personal ideology.
Everyone holding to pure self interest is not a paradigm that will work in any community, even an animal community – it is against the nature of social animals.
240
Paul Kavanagh Says:
October 5th, 2007 at 11:32 pm
The thrilling news coming from this poll is that it converts in (Antony’s calculator) to a narrow loss for His Imperial Highness, Lord Alexander Downer-Tweedle Rowbotham of Mayo and Springfield (aka ‘Billi Bunter’).
Too good to hope for ….?
….
Devoutly wished for, Paul, devoutly…
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. The left is it’s own worst enemy. In America Al Gore could have won the Presidency if the left hadn’t have taken votes away from him with Ralph Nader. They lefties remained politically pure but Bush became President. A lot of good that did their cause. If you go into politics you have to be pragmatic and leave the purity rubbish at home.
At present the Greens go 80-20 towards the ALP, while Family First go 60-40 towards the Liberals, if Rudd could change that 50-50 or win this vote remembering he will get 80% from the Greens then those poll numbers of the past 9 months will be coming out of Anthony’s computer on Election night
On the senate, I’m just glad I don’t have to number every square! And I do pine for a Labor majority one day: what works, I’ll be in that…
bmwofoz: Moving FF’s 1.5% of the voters from 60-40 to 50-50 is a swing of 0.15%. I don’t see that as a particularly useful market to be chasing. Particularly when in NSW there’s got to be a much larger number of disaffected Liberals available – the ones turned off by the screaming idealogues Clark, Hawke &c.
Dave @ 103 says:
“Even with this outrageous swing Indi and Farrer still wouldn’t change hands. What’s in the drinking water down here?”
We’re moving down to the Beechworth area (from Sydney) in December to see if we’d like to make it a permanent arrangement. I have to admit that the rock solid support for a member like Sophie Mirabella is disquieting to say the least. (I’ll miss you Tanya! 🙁 )
I tell you what Dave – I’ll conduct a little experiment on the unsuspecting husband. I’ll stick to the bottled stuff and let him drink that nice mountain water. I’ll report back if he starts spouting wacky market fundamentalist cruft or starts ranting about union bosses and the influx of ‘brown people’.
[In America Al Gore could have won the Presidency if the left hadn’t have taken votes away from him with Ralph Nader.]
He would’ve won easily if he endorsed Clinton’s economic legacy, rather than shifting himself to the left. He forced some centrist / independent voters over to Bush by making his policies of huge debt creating tax cuts seem more reasonable.
I know people is the US, good liberal Democrats, who spit every time the word “Green” is mentioned, such is their continuing anger at Nader’s selfishness and vanity in 2000, which allowed Bush to get “elected.” The sad part is the damage done to environmental issues by the crude way the Greens politicise them and link them to the whole baggage of discredited far left policies, which they picked up from the leftovers of the CPA and the Trots.
Always be wary of men with high principles. They’re always the ones who start wars and lead crusades. Better to be pragmatic and willing to compromise.
I thought Jed Bush fixed the 2000 US election. Problem is, I’m listening for some kind of social justice commitment dog whistle from the Rudd camp, but I’m not hearing it. Pragmatism 07! Yeah!
Gore wouldn’t have needed to carry Florida if he had carried New Hampshire, and it was Nader who took just enough votes in NH to give it to Bush.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=a9wAw2KQqEQo&refer=home
good news in the us economy…..good news for Rudd
My personal sympathies are (in order) Labor, Democrats, Greens. I wouldn’t dream of voting above the line, as I don’t even support the ALP’s order of candidates in Senate and Victorian Legislative Council elections. Equally, there is intense competition for my lowest preference.
However, at the organisational level, Labor (like all other parties) needs to do whatever deals will maximise its votes in both Houses. With Rudd as leader, there is a possibility of weaning some FF voters in the Reps from their natural inclination for the present Government. That suggests in places that a 45-55 (or even a 50-50) preference split might be feasible. However irritated Greens activists are at this, it is unlikely to change the typical Greens’ preference which sees Labor is the lesser of two evils. Over time, the Greens might become sufficiently aggrieved to really damage Labor with preferences, that’s a risk that Labor seems to consider worth taking.
Labor’s position in the Victorian Legislative Council is strengthened by the DLP rep, as on any given issue, Labor can contrive a majority either with Green support, or DLP + Nationals support (the latter not as improbable in Victoria, as it would be in NSW or Queensland). The only time Labor’s lack of a majority counts is when the disparate elements of all the other parties cobble an agreement.
judging by Adam’s comments and Labor’s latest pref deals, the Real enemy for them are no longer the Conservatives (not even the religious Conservatives)…no…the real enemy of the Labor Party is the Left.
The ones that should be upset by Nader’s run in 2000 are the (US) Green Party. After getting their nomination, he totally spat in the face of the party that had nominated him – refusing to help their other candidates in any way, shape or form.
You will have to pardon my bluntness of this subject. I’ve been having this argument with people on the un-righteous right for decades.
For what purpose[s] do people or parties seek government/power?
If in the process they compromise and lose the very principles for which they obstensibly stand what is the value of the ‘game’?
The means becomes the end, the pursuit of power itself becomes the aim and the policies and ethics are continually shunted into the ‘too hard’ basket.
Change beliefs, be all things to all people?
Why should a voter vote for an empty vessel. a chameleon whose only aim is to get a bum on the seat?
And then do what, repeat the process to stay there?
Where are ideals [oh how naive] that seek to serve and lead if so-called pragmatism is brought into play to beg, steal, sneak votes at the cost of policy and principle?
It’s this fear and short sightedness of the Labor party that has caused them to be in the wilderness for so long.
Have a bit of courage, the courage of conviction, don’t sway in the breeze whichever way Murdoch blows or Howard whistles.
Stand for something positive!
It is so easy to assume the role of pragmatic hard-nosed practical realist.
Just copy howard.
Real political parties make and create political reality, they don’t wallow in that which their opponents set for them.
Unless they are their opponents.
It is much harder to actually stand for something.
Rant over, righties can have the last word.
ps I joined the ALP almost exactly 32 years ago.
Paul k…what like Neville Chamberlain…compromise is one thing but selling out your ideologies to win is worse than a big election give away…which can be justified so long as you maintain a healthy economy…but to sell out your core beliefs in order to win…is no way to win in my books…but Mr Rudd is prepared to do anything to beat Howard…
The Left make me laugh, they were in the city protesting again the Burma Junta which is a good thing but I though the Junta were commos.
Adam all Gore had to do is win his home State of Tennessee…he lost his home State to W and he lost the election…if you can’t win your home State you are really in a bit of bother…
adam 268, even in Australia we have good cause to rue Nader’s decision. And to my sorrow I can’t take Michael Moore seriously any more. But I would honestly prefer a Green to a DLP or FFP. I think I’m nearly as far right as you, And I yearn for the days of strategists who could count, like Robert Ray, & not wanabes like Conroy.
Glen,
England went to war to defend Poland and ended up handing Poland over to Stalin on a silver platter so spare me your simplistic arguments. Go and ask the Poles what they thought about being abandoned to Stalin.
bmwofoz@278: I sincerely hope you’re joking here.
They’re not communist, capitalist, or otherwise. They’re a bunch of greedy, awful thugs. I’d have thought both sides of politics could agree on that. There’s absolutely nothing to support for anyone aside from the drug-dealers and resource smugglers that they supply. They’re North Korea-level evil.
282@anthony baxter
Thanks for reply I thought the Burma Junta were Commos,
Peter,
yes, but do you think Labor + FFP will be a majority in this Senate?
whether by this election or a double dissolution?
if the answer is no, and if FFP(in this election) can deliver you neglible,if any, gain in the HoR…then why not keep a cordial relationship with the Party who you WILL have to deal with in the Senate.
Make no mistake Glen. These people are tarred with the same brush and it’s all about perception. Do you not find it ironic that Phillip Ruddock wore an Amnesty International pin on his laapel the whole time he was Immigration Minister? Not much of a view from that moral high ground.
OK, one last time: the calculations that lay behind the ALP/FF preference swap were perfectly sound, and would have elected a third ALP Senator had not L*th*m so monumentally stuffed up the election overall. Conroy did not vote for L*tha*m in Caucus. Those who did vote for him bear the real responsibility for the loss of that Senate seat and much else besides.
Here’s a list of them:
http://www.mumble.com.au/federal/lemmings.htm
Take it up with them, OK?
That’s all I’m saying on this subject for tonight.
Adam, since being defeated what has become of Jacinta Collins
Winston Churchill said to a young politician, ” Be wary of the enemy” to which the young man asked, “You mean the Labor Party?”. Churchill replied, ” No damn it, I do not. They’re just the Opposition. I mean the real enemy. Those buggers in your own party who will stab you in back the first chance they get”.
Mick Quinlivan asked about my electorate Menzies some time back.
I’ve always assumed that Kev the Rev was Member for life, because of the seriously rusted on conservative character of the electorate.
The potential size of the swing in Melbourne, in safe seats makes it a remote chance of what would be a dramatic upset. I don’t pretend to any detailed knowledge beyond just being an interested local yokel. However, there is a sizable Chinese and a small Muslim population. I don’t know how assiduously they enrol. I would guess that KA’s higher profile since he became Minister for Work Choices, and now Minister for Immigration would be likely to hinder rather than help him, as he hasn’t been conspicuously successful in either role (to err by understatement).
Overall, I expect there will be substantial damage done to Andrew’s margin, but that he will survive. However, I am of the view that unless there is a dramatic change in the polls’ consistent figures, there will be at least one shock Liberal loss in Victoria – from among Higgins, Kooyong, Goldstein, Menzies, Casey.
Rooster Conroy didn’t vote for Rudd either.
his judgement isn’t getting any better
“Those buggers in your own party who will stab you in back the first chance they getâ€.
Interesting quote by someone who defected from the Liberals to the Conservatives so he could become P.M.
Having said that, at the rate Conservatives are currently defecting to Labour in the U.K. it must seem pretty normal.
Neither did Swan for that matter HarryH lol!
ShowsOn ,
Churchill always said that the Party was just a platform to provide support. When asked about which Party to join he used to say, ” You need a good horse under you when you ride into battle”.
Jacinta is No 1 on the ALP Senate ticket this year. The Left’s Gavin Marshall is No 2, the Right’s strategic genius David Feeney (“my Eisenhower” as Mike Rann called him) is No 3. We will certainly win three spots this year, disposing of Lyn Allison. The real question is whether we can win four (57% after preferences). I doubt it, but Andres Puig may yet be a very surprised candidate.
Heard a rumour that there will be a WestPoll published in the morning showing 53% ALP – 47% Coalition.
A 8.5% swing since 2004 election!
Hmm, this is interesting.
[JOHN HOWARD and nine of his ministers would be among the 44 Coalition MPs to lose their seats at this year’s election under a worst-case scenario based on the latest six-month average of the Herald/Nielsen Poll.
In NSW alone, the Coalition would lose 12 seats while in Queensland it could lose 16, the exact number of seats Labor needs to win to govern in its own right.
The assessment, which boldly assumes the national and state-based swings would be uniform, will be further grist for the Prime Minister as he spends the weekend contemplating when to call the election.
Next weekend has firmed as the favourite among Liberals for when Mr Howard would fire the gun for a November 24 poll.
Ministers are already clearing the decks, yesterday releasing six announcements regarding routine appointments and reappointments to statutory authorities and government bodies.]
http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/10-ministers-face-oblivion–polls/2007/10/05/1191091364601.html?page=fullpage#contentSwap1
This from Laurie Oakes on Big Business and Rudd:
Lobbying firms have produced the first guide for business on how to work with a possible Rudd government.
Called ‘Lobbying Kevin 07’, the handbook covers everything from Rudd himself and the way he would operate to the policies he would implement.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,22539477-601,00.html
IR critic exposed as a campaigner
THE academic who authored a report being used to attack Work Choices is a self-declared socialist who issued an extraordinary call to arms against the Howard Government’s “neo-conservative agenda” in 2005.
John Buchanan’s speech revealed he was so traumatised by Mark Latham’s defeat at the 2004 federal election that he did not read a newspaper for two months and “could hardly talk to my friends”.
In an address to a Politics in the Pub forum held in the Sydney suburb of Surry Hills in February 2005 — uncovered by The Australian’s columnist Janet Albrechtsen — the University of Sydney academic sets out what he believes “socialists and the Left” should do in response to the Howard Government.
“Call me old-fashioned but I am inspired by the Romans, they took the view, attack is the best means of defence.”
In a sustained attack on the the workplace laws, he said the Howard Government was proposing detailed legislation prescribing exactly where unions and workers fit in the world, “and if you don’t fit in that world you are going to be locked up or you are going to be crushed”.
“And it’s a very important thing to grasp because neo-liberalism is there in the background but it’s a neo-conservative agenda that’s coming through,” he said.
“We’ve seen it in foreign policy, its now coming through in domestic policy. The outcomes are going to be essentially the same — it’s capitalist power inscribed in a different ideological guise so we are going to see deepening inequality.
“We are going to see wages get more and more unequal, we are going to see hours become more fragmented and we are going to see more casualisation and contractors.”
Dr Buchanan had been at the centre of a political dispute this week after he was attacked by Howard government ministers following the release of a report he co-authored, Australia@ Work.
Federal Labor and the union movement seized on the report’s finding that low-skilled workers on Australian Workplace Agreements earned on average $106 a week less than those on collective agreements.
Dr Buchanan and fellow report author Brigid Van Wanrooy are considering legal action after Workplace Relations Minister Joe Hockey described them as “former trade union officials who are parading as academics”.
Peter Costello said the study was “contaminated” because it was half-funded by Unions NSW. It was also funded by the Government’s own Australian Research Council.
Dr Buchanan said last night his comments to the 2005 forum were made as a private citizen and his views had no impact on his research.
“The views I expressed at Politics in the Pub were made as a private citizen and using this against me in my professional life is an attack on the freedom of speech,” he said.
“The methodology and draft report of the Australia at Work research project were scrutinised by a panel of academics with different viewpoints to ensure the methods and analysis were valid and reliable.
“I look forward to a time when attention is devoted to the substance of research; not the personal views of researchers.”
Mr Buchanan told the ABC’s Lateline on Tuesday that he wanted Howard government ministers to retract their attacks on his research.
“I want them to retract very harsh statements, saying that we have concocted information, saying that we are guns for hire for anyone who pays us money,” Mr Buchanan said. “These are the lowest claims you can make about a researcher, and we think the Government is quite recklessly going out to destroy our reputations, and we would hope they see the error of their ways and shut this matter down quickly.”
In his speech, he described himself as a “workplace delegate”, and said the fundamental strength of the union movement was determined by its militants.
The Weekend Australian understands Dr Buchanan was a Canberra-based delegate for the Community and Public Sector Union between 1985 and 1990.
While saying in the speech that he was not a Maoist, he said the union movement had to take inspiration from Mao’s tactics in the 1920s and early 1930s when he gave up strategic ground to his enemies but consolidated around “red bases”. “It might be old-fashioned, it might be idealistic but, for me, the reason I am a socialist is because I want to live in a world where its easier to have friends,” he said. The current situation was “just another stage in the steady winding-down of the Left”.
“So don’t think it’s all about to end,” he said. “We have been losing it for a long time anyway.”
Looks like Hockey was right!
Adam, you’re overstating the case.
In your hypothetical no Latham case, the result in Victoria would have been 3 Labor 3 Coalition.
But all the ALP/FF deal meant was that Family First preferenced the ALP ahead of Coalition. What value would that have been? There was no prospect of a fourth Coalition senator being elected. Nor was there any chance Family First would have preferenced their mortal enemy, the Greens, ahead of Labor.
So even in the event a third Labor senator being elected, the ALP/FF deal would have achieved diddly squat.