• There doesn’t appear to be anyone left who expects parliament to sit next week. Dennis Shanahan and Matthew Franklin of The Australian report that the Prime Minister is “set to call a November 24 election tomorrow”. On the other hand, Maria Hawthorne of The Advertiser reckons the trigger might yet be pulled today, and that the date could yet be December 1, while Michelle Grattan and Ben Doherty of The Age think December 1 unlikely and are instead leaving open November 17. Canberra reader John Ryan fancies he can hear “the continuous humming of shredders” from government offices in Barton.
• A summary of the state of play in The Australian contains the surprising assessment that Labor is only an “outside chance” of winning the crucial Darwin-based seat of Solomon, in the view of “party strategists”. The report also points to a mere status quo result in Victoria, and takes a bullish view of the Liberals’ prospects in Western Australia. “Based on published opinion polls”, Coalition sources are said to be “optimistic” about retaining Stirling and Hasluck, and hopeful of gaining Cowan and Swan. There is little reason this should be so, as those polls almost uniformly show a swing to Labor in WA that would win them all four. The one striking exception has been the only electorate-level poll to have emerged, a Westpoll survey from June that had the Liberals narrowly ahead in Stirling, Hasluck and Cowan. This was a considerably worse result for Labor than those that have emerged from Westpoll’s monthly statewide surveys of federal voting intention during the last six months. On the other side of the ledger, the report tells us the Coalition is “expected” to divert resources from a number of seats in the other mainland states which are regarded as lost causes, including Lindsay and Dobell in New South Wales, Bonner in Queensland and Kingston, Makin and Wakefield in South Australia. In Tasmania, Labor is said only to be no more than “confident” of recovering Bass and Braddon.
• Laura Tingle notes some patterns in the Prime Minister’s recent movements in yesterday’s Financial Review:
In the past three months, Howard’s been seen in the vicinity of his barely held South Australian electorates only when he announced (at the state Liberal Party conference, not in the electorates) a $100 million road project. He hasn’t turned up in Ross Vasta’s seat of Bonner since April … the Prime Minister has been a little more active in seats held with margins between 1 and 3 per cent – notably the Tasmanian seats of Braddon and Bass.
• Here’s a thought. At the state election last March, Nick Xenophon stunned everybody when he did well enough to win a seat not only for himself, but also for his No Pokies running mate. Who’s to say he can’t do it again? The vote recorded for Xenophon’s ticket at the state election was 20.5 per cent. Those who say he can’t possibly do that well again might be right – but on the other hand, they might not be. If not, Xenophon will score his quota with 6.2 per cent to spare. That surplus will then go to his second candidate, henceforth to be called Xenophon 2, who would very likely emerge ahead of the Greens (6.4 per cent in 2004) after preferences. If the Greens put Xenophon ahead of the major parties on preferences, as they did at the state election, this should push Xenophon 2 into double figures. This scenario leaves at best 75 per cent of the vote left over for the major parties, and most likely a fair bit less. Unless one of the two major parties gets 43 per cent from that share, the third candidate of the weaker of the two major parties will be eliminated and Xenophon 2 will be elected on their preferences. Another possibility, noted by Penelope Debelle in The Age, is that Xenophon 2 won’t do quite well enough to overhaul the Greens, but could feed them enough preferences to put them in contention for the sixth seat.
• John Wiseman of The Australian points to another possible side-effect of Xenophon’s nomination: that he might “have an impact on House of Representatives marginals should he choose to endorse or support candidates as he did for some at last year’s state election”. Xenophon had a direct bearing on the other big surprise of the state election, Kris Hanna’s success in retaining his seat of Mitchell as an independent after quitting first the ALP and then the Greens. Hanna had closely associated himself with Xenophon, pooling campaign resources in Mitchell and appearing at a press conference with him when he announced he was leaving the Greens.
• Tamar Valley vigneron and anti-pulp mill campaigner Peter Whish-Wilson says he has decided against running as an independent in Bass. Matthew Denholm of The Australian reports that Labor polling has the Greens candidate at 18 per cent, but that the mill is not considered a “vote changer” as far as the major parties are concerned.
Julie @ 376
I was a primary school child in 1972 and still remember (and resent) that my parents wouldn’t let me stay up to hear the election result (the process was slower then). I remember getting up the next morning for breakfast and finding out.
Bipolar (351) Considering all the water I’m surprised there’s only one pee. I’d be up all night.
{To those who were actually here and followed it closely, are there any real differences to 1996, or are we seeing history repeating itself, only with the parties switched?}
Scotty, my experience then was that the Keating Government was under some pressure from Howard but no one involved in the campaign on the Labor side in my electorate expected the route that took place on election night.
Faces were pale, people were in shock as the results of the booths and electorates came up on screen. We knew very early that our own candidate was history and it was with a sense of disbelief that we watched as other Labor electorates with previously fairly healthy margins, crashed.
I still believe that the greatest factor in Howard’s victory in 1996, was that the Murdoch and Packer media outlets spent the best part of 3 years portraying Keating as some sort of demonic entity which Howard cashed on big time.
Keating’s Media Policy was his undoing mainly. Packer wanted Fairfax and Murdoch wanted to branch out into Broadcasting and Keating blocked it.
Three years of the “Debt Truck” in the headlines everyday and the Coalition Front benchers making a big issue of it at every opportunity (and there were many of them courtesy of a friendly media) took it’s toll on the Labor vote also.
Day after day, I watched on in amazement at this blanket coverage of the DT and wondered when Labor were going to counter and try and neutralise it’s effects. They never did. It was a major factor and should have been right at the forefront of Labor’s strategy this time. I bet Howard and Co can’t believe that they are being let off the hook with it this time, given the way it has blown out so much since 1996.
Possum (392)
Thanks for that. Preferences are always the ALP’s refuge, and even in 2004 when the PV for the ALP was low, I always hoped that the preferences would carry them in enough seats. Of course, it didn’t.
Obviously in 1996, even 100% of preferences wouldn’t have helped the ALP.
So what you’re essentially saying is that 2007 is going to be an even bigger landslide than 1996 was. Scary.
#391 – Menzies is a wealthy seat, but much more of a ‘new money’ seat than Kooyong or Higgins are. I worked on a booth there at the state election and the number of BMWs being driven into the carpark became a standing joke after a while. I don’t see it as a classic DW seat – in Sydney terms, it has more in common with Mitchell than it does with Bennelong or North Sydney. Despite its local member, it also doesn’t really stand out as a religious stronghold.
The Italians and Greeks are clustered at the Bulleen end of the seat, the Chinese further east (a lot are Hong Kong Chinese who migrated in the run-up to the 1997 handover). Not sure what proportion of the latter would be citizens; I didn’t see as many Chinese as I would have expected at the polling booth.
The Liberals threw a lot of resources at the area in the state election (more than was really sensible for seats which were always going to be safe for them if they got any sort of swing). The local ALP organisation is limited – they’ve often had to find candidates at the last moment from anywhere they can (although not this time).
I think Kooyong will go before Menzies does, but the area did produce double-digit swings in the 2002 state election so anything is possible. We’ll know something is definitely up if resources start getting switched across the river from Jagajaga (haven’t seen any sign of this yet).
Sky News is talking about some sun herald poll out tomorow which shows Labor ahead on a two party basis 59 -41 in victoria and NSW.
Paul K said
It depends whether you have a left-wing computer (linux/apple) or right-wing (microsoft) .
I like the new food & politics forum. Makes people seem a bit more human…
Can someone tell this pollsters not to publish the polls until after Howard sees the G-G? Because after he has the GG dissolve parliament, it will be too late to do anything.
I agree that new money suburbs are less DWish than old money suburbs, so Bulleen is less vulnerable than Kew in that regard. The figures I quoted on birthplace of course don’t tell us how many of those people are citizens. Still if I was Andrews I’d stop deporting people for a while and do some doorknocking.
#362:Possum Comitatus Says:
“Tomorrow, theres a Sun Herald/Taverner poll on Victoria and NSW showing 59-41% to the ALP, and usual demographic breakdown with the young deserting the Coalition by massive amounts as per every other poll of the same type over the last 6 months.
Likewise, a Galaxy out tomorrow apparently isn’t good for the Coalition in the marginals either.”
Many thanks for sharing that mate. I laughed at your comment to the “certain Liberal staffer”!!!
If there is a bad poll for the Libs out tomorrow, and another out Monday, then Rattus hrattus will be sweating buckets hoping that Newspoll on Tuesday is better. If not, then he has fluffed the timing of calling the election (assuming its on tomorrow), and he cant afford to fluff anything in this campaign.
Be interesting to see more polls provided they are of reasonable sample size and especially of they give regional / state breakdowns.
Be a bugger if they are all as small as Westpols though.
Have been playing with The ABC’s calculator and it looks like to get a hung parliament (which would mean Rudd as PM with the independents backing him), the ALP need a 4% swing in NSW and Vic with 3% or less everywhere else. Correct me if i’m wrong, but that is well within all the polls published to date isnt it??
Re 394,
“hmmm i wonder how early the GG gets up for breakfast, any chance of the dear leader calling in for an early morning visit on his power walk!”
Judy, I am routinely up @ 6am +/- a bit and if it comes down that early, I will be ready for it 😉
Adam, while you’re still online, would you mind giving your opinion on the last two paragraphs of my post at 403, please.
Winston (378) Totally agree with your comments on work choices.
Also two other important aspects of WC which never get a mention are:
1. It was the catalyst that started the ALP’s return from the polical wilderness. and
2. It galvanised the whole Labor movement in a way no other issue had done for years. Suddenly everyone knew exactly who the real enemy was.
While we’re in the northeastern suburbs of Melbourne, Jagajaga (although it’s highly unlikely to be in play at this election) is a nice case study of the voting behaviour of ‘DW’ and ‘HB’ suburbs because it has both, meaning one can look at the difference without complicating factors such as quality of candidates, how hard parties are trying in different seats etc. The southern end of the electorate (Ivanhoe/Eaglemont) has swung to the ALP by 6% over the last two elections; the north end (Watsonia) has swung against the ALP by the same amount.
You’ve nailed it Imacca,
3 bad polls in the first 3 days of the election campaign will completely destroy any faux momentum that Howard reckons he had with his Reconciliation backflip.But worse, the narrative of the first week will be set – “Howard made a mistake waiting to call the election so late”. That will be the very first thing that ordinary, non-politically engaged people hear aboutn the election and that’s, frankly, devastating.
So not only will Howard have to turn the polls around, but because of the momentum of the media narrative, he’ll need to pull a stunt to try and get clear air as well.
If it really is true that Textor is getting marginalised from the campaign (which would certainly explain that episode of idiocy that was the reconciliation thing), the COalition election campaign could disintegrate by week 2.
Thanks Scorpio (403) – very interesting observations. The real difference here, then, is that the impending landslide is fairly obvious and has been for some time, whereas in 1996 it appears that wasn’t the case?
Makes you wonder if we’ll see:
1. A closer election than the polls currently show,
2. About the same, or
3. Worse
It all comes down to that magical “narrowing” that is supposed to occur.
The coming Newspoll is certainly going to be interesting one.
Forgot something Imacca – the polls are all well above 3 and 4% swings everywhere but WA.
Minimum 6, maximum 13 is the order of the day, depending on the State.
Here’s the swing graphs from the last quarterly newspoll to get a gist of them all:
http://possumcomitatus.wordpress.com/newspoll-quarterly-breakdown/
Rob @ 407 – I have a Mac, a Linux box and a Windows machine (which is work). So does one right-wing balance out one of the left, or does it mean I’m totally confused, or just a geek that has too many computers. hehe.
Blair, yes that pattern can be seen in many urban seats. Look at Dunkley and Kingston last time. The HB suburbs will go into reverse with a vengeance this time, and it’s the double HB/DW swing that is so toxic for Howard.
Scorpio, economics is not my field, and I’ve never understood why debt is so bad provided you can repay it. I will leave that to others. I agree that politically it did Keating more harm than it seems to be doing Howard. maybe that’s because Labor is concentrating on WC as the vote-flipper. More importantly, you have incorrectly apostrophised “its” twice.
Possum, Howard would have had to ring and make an appointment with the GG for tomorrow wouldnt he? if thats the case he wouldnt be able to weasel out because of tomorrows poll— would he?
Scotty, the one constant between 1996 and 2007 is the role the Media played then and are doing now.
The difference being is that in 1996, the electorate were more susceptible to the negative messages the media put out because of the previous “recession we had to have”, the IR reforms and Interest rates.
This time those issues either don’t exist in the current climate or have become a plus for Rudd. therefore, it probably won’t matter how feral the media become now, the public are just ignoring the negative messages.
Only the rusted on Coalition supporters are taking any notice and the ones who have swung across to Labor are clearly not being taken in by it at all, hence the consistency in the polling figures.
Thinking about it, even if Newspoll is heading Rattus’s way (how much doesn’t matter, with Dennis, Janet and Piers to do the spinning), two bad ones on Sunday and Monday (with one being the Libs favorite, Galaxy) will make next week a hell for the Rodent crew.
Looking at the Newspoll TPP Liberal graph on the Oz Politics site, its flat at 45%, the moving average is uninspiring and the most recent outlier was in the ALP’s favor. In fact, all the outliers since April have been in the ALP’s favor?? So what? Is the man thinking that tuesday they will get an outlier in the Libs favor. This is the kind of behavior you would expect from a pokie addict??
59-41 in Victoria = 7% swing (I think) more than consistent with all the polling of the past 6 months.
I never have brought the claim that Howard could be belted in his heartland of Queensland and NSW without some swing in Victoria considering Howard and Victoria have never been close.
Based on the past election trend lines Newspoll from this point of the cycle seem to have moved toward the ALP therefore next newspoll 56-44
I was a taken aback by Howard’s new reconciliation policy, for I felt he got the policy wrong in the first place.
I see Possum’s poll average is 56-43 I don’t see this changing much between now and election day.
I’m expecting big swings toward the ALP in seats like Lt Trobe, Casey, Aston etc and some nice swings toward the ALP in Dunkley but with poll numbers like we have been seeing anything is possible.
1996 was my first federal election and while I hated Keating and knew many who loathed him, but I was blown away by those massive swings in western Sydney and elsewhere.
I remember Costello was on Channel 9 and Senator Richo called it at about 6:43 while over at the ABC Anthony’s computer nearly crashed.
One thing I recall from the 1996 Election was the talk about the first time voters whom bolted to Howard, I suspect these now 30 years old are about to swing back.
I’ve written this many times before but there something strange about the poll numbers for there consistently 55+ TPP for the ALP, they are rather scary.
I have the hope that Election night isn’t taken up with losing MP’s claiming “a protest vote” that phase ticks me off.
{you have incorrectly apostrophised “its†twice}
Sincere apologies, Adam. “It’s” probably something to do with fact that all my schooling was undertaken under a Conservative Government both Federal and State.
What’s the bet Howard has some pork for Eden-Monaro while he is in Canberra? It would be a nice way for him to start the official campaign.
Apologise to posterity, Scorpio, not to me. These blogs are being archived somewhere, and historians will be reading them centuries from now.
“I will not go down to posterity talking bad grammar”: Disraeli, asked why he was correcting Hansard proofs on his deathbed.
Judy – one would think that at the very least the GG would have been informed to make himself available on Sunday.
Well, one would think!
Howard has cornered himself with the election now, the best he can probably do to postpone it a bit is to announce the election tomorrow, and then not have the writs issued until Friday, so that lets him have a few days of Parliament to sit, for yet another attempt to gain some traction.
“426@Adam Says:
October 13th, 2007 at 9:53 pm
Apologise to posterity, Scorpio, not to me. These blogs are being archived somewhere, and historians will be reading them centuries from now”
9 months of thread after thread of comment foreseeing the Govt being on the nose, I shall remember that for I reckon we have all covered the same old ground without moving a great deal.
Now can someone pass me a pencil LOL
gees… that’s a scary way of looking at it, Adam – I’ll be a lot more careful about my contributions to posterity from now on – I’ll even start using my real name (just so my entries can be credited to me!)
Posterity, I sincerely apologise for my unforgivable sin of putting an apostrophe in its when it was inappropriate to do so.
Adam, the reason I asked for your comment on that post was because I thought that you had had an intimate involvement through that campaign and was hoping that you could shed some light on why it wasn’t countered.
It certainly left a strong impact on those who witnessed the unfolding of those three years because I see it brought up constantly on various blog sites. Clearly others have the same opinion as I do that it became an increasingly major determining factor through that 3 year period.
phew! i had visions of him calling it off, postponing the writs would only snooker himself by giving the unenrolled time to get their enrolments in, after he’s bought in legislation to disenfranchise them that would be a bit stupid– mind it is Howard 2007 we’re thinking of.
Possum, I think Howard has now wedged himself totally now.
If he stalls it, he will be hammered mercilessly by the media and surely in the Parliament if it sits and sustain further damage.
And if he does call it tomorrow, he is certainly going to be off to a diabolical start to the campaign and lose any perceived advantage both he and the MSM consider he picked up this week.
The great double self-wedge: a delightful prospect.
Scorpio, the 1996 campaign? No I didn’t have an intimate involvement in it. I was a humble letterboxer and card hander-outer. The member here then was Holding, of whom I had a very low opinion, and who should have retired then.
Scorpio, Howard has developed a habit of finding new and exciting ways to wedge himself lately.
Some electoral information for those who have been asking:
!. Senate – Voting below the line – as long as there is a number 1 and 90% of the squares are filled out, with no more than three errors made, the vote is valid.
2. All people enrolling for the first time must do so on the day the writs are issued – and they now need to provide suitable identification.
3. People updating their enrolment have three days to do so – no additional ID required. (if the writs are issued on Monday they will have until close of rolls on Wednesday).
4. The time of close of rolls is 8.00pm (or it has been up to now – I don’t think that is amongst the changes that have been made, but I’m not certain).
Possum Comitatus Says:
October 13th, 2007 at 10:21 pm
Scorpio, Howard has developed a habit of finding new and exciting ways to wedge himself lately.
Don’t you just love him to bits for it though.
Every day brings new surprises.
431
Possum Comitatus Says:
October 13th, 2007 at 10:21 pm
Scorpio, Howard has developed a habit of finding new and exciting ways to wedge himself lately.
Howard has decided to obtain as much pleasure as possible from the pain.
Does anyone know any good Right leaning blogs around?? Just looking for an alternative viewpoint since Tabitha doesn’t seem to have shown up tonight.
Tabitha has jagged the graveyard at Macca’s.
Yeah, I was thinking about that the other day… about a right wing blog/chat room… go and hit it with all my crazy left wing views (“yes, yes, I do support welfare for young, single mothers! and no – Muslims do not deserve to be put in concentration camps purely because of their religion!” it would be good… get abuse – get called a troll. Why should Glen/Edward/Tabitha have all the fun?!
So it seems it will be called tomorrow. I’d tipped it for today based on information recieved. Got it wrong. I doubt Howard will be dropping in on the GG tonight. My impression of him (the GG) is that he will probably have the jammies and dressingown on and sipping his mug of Milo in his armchair.
But what I want to flag now is that if Howard wins the election I’m calling for an inquiry. Not an inquiry into the polls (as in UK some years ago – forget when). An inquiry – no, a Royal Commission – into the Australian voting public.
I want all those people who told the pollsters they’d vote Labor and then changed their mind to stand up an explain themselves.
We will need to know why they got it wrong. Public humiliation should be required.
Tim Blair’s blog seems fun. He is much the most entertaining right-winger on line I know of.
http://timblair.net/
OMG! So many Workplace Infoline ads on the Sci-Fi channel tonight. It used to be able to avoid political ads on Pay TV, now it’s being flooded. Thing is, there have been so many Workplace Infoline ads that it seems to be doing a big final push of advertising.
He’s a “Major General” so i would say he is more into latex.
imacca #435
Some right-leaning blogs (well, discussion boards actually):
http://cracker.com.au/threads.aspx?categoryid=11121
newstalkback.com
You’ll have to give Ackerman’s a miss.
Absolutely no comments on it so far.
Probably blocked by Management considering the contents of his blog over the past 3 months.
The truck load of writs that I have been expecting Piers, many of his posters and the Newspaper to receive have probably been served.
The tool has been well and truly used by the loonies this time and could pay a heavy price for his foolishness and misguided loyalty to his lord and master, Howard.
He should have had more consideration to his family and his employer than to be taken for such a ride over the Heiner incident.
He was warned though, but just continued to spew out abuse towards those who had a better handle on the issue and sought to bring its shortcomings to his attention.
I won’t have any sympathy for him if he is financially destroyed over it, but I will be sorry for his family. His hatred for Rudd has totally clouded his already poor judgement.
I left him quite a mild comment, nothing to do with Heiner – obviously Piers is above criticism.
I’m surprised no-one has commented on the fact that the Labor candidate for Mitchell is obviously an alien. Should we tell Kevin Andrews?
http://www.alp.org.au/people/nsw/gould_nigel.php
Holy Smokes Batman! Look at that noggin!
Given the way Andrews takes to his fellow human beings, surely he would be apoplectic about taking on a challenger from another world?
Looks a bit like some kid got to a soccer ball with their textas and stuck on eyes and a mouth.