D-day minus 39

• Hot on the heels of yesterday’s Galaxy poll of Queensland marginals, Michael McKenna in The Australian tells us the Liberals feel they might even be able to save Moreton, thus limiting the damage to Bonner. Intriguingly, Labor is said to have ‘virtually “written off”’ Mal Brough’s seat of Longman. Dickson is also said to be a bridge too far. Longman was one of the four seats surveyed in the Galaxy poll, suggesting it may have added Liberal ballast to the overall 51-49 result.

• George Megalogenis of The Australian discusses the electoral strategy behind the Coalition’s “three piece” tax cut, which consists of a low-income tax offset, a “fiddle to the threshold for the 30 per cent marginal tax rate” and cuts to the two top tax rates. The first is rated the most significant, being targeted at “the politically sensitive spot on the income ladder where the part-time working mother is most likely to be found” through a measure “not shared by higher income earners”. Megalogenis says no fewer than 18 Liberal-held marginals contain above-average numbers of the policy’s target market.

• Misha Schubert of The Age reports that Corio MP Gavan O’Connor, who has been dumped by Labor in favour of former ACTU assistant secretary Richard Marles, will announce on Thursday whether he plans to run as an independent. He is “tipped” to do so.

• Running through the Tasmanian seats, Matthew Denholm of The Australian reckons the Gunns pulp mill approval might benefit the Liberals not in Bass but in neighbouring Braddon, “Tasmania’s least green seat where many businesses will benefit from the project”.

• Typically bold predictions from Malcolm MacKerras in The Australian (not available online as far as I can see), who tips 89 seats for Labor, 59 for the Coalition and two independents. Bennelong and Wentworth are both on the casualty list.

Author: William Bowe

William Bowe is a Perth-based election analyst and occasional teacher of political science. His blog, The Poll Bludger, has existed in one form or another since 2004, and is one of the most heavily trafficked websites on Australian politics.

648 comments on “D-day minus 39”

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  3. Scorpio writes:

    “Also, someone provided a video link a while back which showed Howard being escorted through a market by a group of EB thugs providing security.

    They were so hard faced they made the “Union thugs” in the Govt Workchoices commercial look like pussycats.”

    They were on a mission from God.

    Wonder if the skinhead who was screaming at the 4 Corners camera crew to get off the EB property on last night’s show was amongst them.

  6. What Labor has been doing for the last three years is irrelevant. All that matters is what they’ve been doing since Rudd became leader. And what they’ve been doing since then is leading by very wide margins in the opinions polls. They’ve achieved this by three simple propositions:
    * Kevin Rudd will at least as good a PM as Howard, and furthermore he will serve a full three-year term;
    * Kevin Rudd will scrap WorkChoices;
    * Kevin Rudd will do something serious about climate change.
    And that, folks, as all Labor needs to do. They will of course do lots more, including have a tax policy, but it will just be icing on the cake. The cake itself is Rudd, WC and Kyoto.

  7. [ #605
    Edward StJohn Says:
    October 16th, 2007 at 11:27 pm

    Paul K,

    You’ve returned suitably chastened after yesterday’s admonishment. That’s the spirit.]
    .
    .
    Sorry Edward, but I get admonished so often I don’t remember what happened yesterday. Did it involve Leather and handcuffs?

  8. Edward (386) Although I mostly disagree with you, your posts are usually interesting and at times thought provoking. Unfortunately the best I can say of this one is that it was a disappointing mish mash of crap.

  9. [There are a few here who give the impression of being Labor supporters then the impression of doubters and Liberal stooges.]

    Aren’t all Labor supporters doubters and pessimists? 3 election wins from opposition since WWII is a pretty terrible record.

    [Kev should stay well away from this debate in a dark corner with the Liberal cheer squad and sycophant tv channel. Ambush.]

    He will be there. There is no way he could turn down the free TV air time.

    And it will be on free to air, if it isn’t everyone will think Howard is scared.

    And 9 should use the worm, if they don’t then they are gutless, and will be accused of pro-government bias.

  11. //The Rodent must be getting to hate A Current Affair. They’ve done him over 2 nights in a row. I think this Exclusive Brethren stuff could give him real heartache.//

    LOL ! and they’ll keep doing him over until he agrees to the worm!!

  12. No Labor will be modifying WorkChoices with WorkChoices Lite ie Forward with fairness. That deal was done 3 months ago.

    The other two points are guff “do something serious about climate change” – Exactly how much is the carbon tax going to be? “at least as good as”

    That manifesto is really on a par with “Its time” isnt it ?

  14. In the Geelong ‘Advertiser’ (R.Murdock) today, a column was devoted to Gavin O’Connors intentions. This was alongside a large photo of Richard Marles (Corio) and Darren Cheeseman (Corangamite) with Nicola Roxon. The page also included a para on that 70 year old from down the highway, who knits his time away on back bench committees. Marles has been active with leaflets, phone calls and I know has shifted some staunch liberal voters. O’Connor’s support from the rusted on variety could follow him as an Independent but their preferences would surely come back to Labor, perhaps after Green. We’ll know more next Thursday. Some local governance issues which O’Connor has spoken up about have won him more support. It’s not quite as simple as Adam suggested in earlier post.
    The same page also carried a competition …..fill in the word balloons….photo of Cheeseman and Roxon. I have not seen a comp for the g’t members yet, but rarely buy the paper.

    On 774 ABC Melb Prof Patricia Asp Sydney Uni pointed out that tax cuts were effective for the very low and the very highly paid. This ‘plan for the future’ shifted burden to the working families. She pointed out that the published tables were untrue. Worth a listen on podcast (Jon Faine early today) Cazan 401 in previous thread touched on the issues especially for the working woman in the family.

    I hope Rudd bides his time, plays with ‘his’ mind, releases tax policies at best time, debates perhaps…..Adam’s suggestion of a Bennelong ’72 type occasion sounds splendid. A yearning for vast halls of past campaigns! Where libertarians even from Montana could be heard, or heckle, or be put down.

  15. [ #610
    Mark Says:
    October 16th, 2007 at 11:31 pm

    I’m gunna miss “Kerri from the workplace authority”. She’s a babe.]
    .
    .
    Now I’d like to admonish her. What about it Edward. Can you ask Johnnie H for her phone number?

  19. When I was a kid we had bonfire night. It was beaut. Guy Fawlkes or someone, anyway the elders of the shire built this huge pile of combustible material and we had crackers that exploded and other ones that lit the sky wonderously and then the bonfire was lit and burnt everything nicely. Jeez it was good. I reckon the Bennelong Barby should be something like that – a big fire to cleanse the air.

  20. [No Labor will be modifying WorkChoices with WorkChoices Lite ie Forward with fairness. That deal was done 3 months ago.]

    The detail doesn’t matter. Voters know that Labor will scrap workchoices, and thus their children won’t be forced to accept an AWA, or not have a job.

    Howard even revealed yesterday that WorkChoices was designed to stop wages from growing, which negates his own tax cuts.

    Meanwhile, Howard now calls WorkChoices “pro small business rules”. He can’t even bring himself to say the name of his own policy.

    [Exactly how much is the carbon tax going to be? ]

    It’s the government’s policy to have a carbon credit scheme as well. So you just attacked the government’s policy.

  22. Read it ShowsOn – the details are very clear. Labor doesnt have AWA’s it has a non AWA AWA instead.

    Darn- Will try to be more concise. I aim to please.

    Paul K – What happened ? I was enjoying the more bellicose Paul K of yesterday and now you have gone back into the yes man posture after being berated by Adam. Come back Paul K – fear not the truth.

  23. Kina @601
    There are two troll types,the “common troll”,who just tries to derail the thread. Then their is the “concern troll” who would like to support the nice Mr Rudd but those union bullys etc,or if only he would keep the IR laws etc.
    Try not to feed trolls it only encourages them.

  24. workchoices and climate change are real pluses for Labor and are vote changers.

    but i believe the vote changer that is under commented on is the disgust that “wet” Libs have for what Howard and his zealots have done to “their” Party.

    i think we will see unprecedented swings in the Lib strongholds because of where Howard has taken the Lib Party, and because Rudd Conservative Labor is an acceptable place to park their protest vote.

    i really think these 2 dynamics, Howard on the Liberal Party and Rudd on the Labor Party, will deliver the Coalition a crushing defeat.

  26. ESJ, you seem to have become more muscular in your assertions since the campaign got rolling. It must be a relief to you to at least feel like you’re in the fight at last.

    I wonder what the polls will reveal: Is The Grump of Kirribilli on the way back? Or has he blundered, betting everything on tax promises that will likely be heavily discounted by the long-suffering voters? As far as tax is concerned, the waiting eyes of the voters will be on Labor now: that has to be good for Rudd/Labor. They will have endless opportunities to talk public finance, the economy and social policy while they’re at it. While the coalition will have rather little of anything more to say, it seems….

  28. L.Duce

    How can one spot a troll? What are the distinguishing markings? Is Derek Corbett considered a troll here? If so, it will hide in the undergrowth.

  29. 625
    Edward StJohn Says:
    October 16th, 2007 at 11:56 pm
    and then there is the “party-line” troll which cant think for itself.
    …..
    do you speak from personal experience, ESJ…?

  31. [ #622
    Edward StJohn Says:
    October 16th, 2007 at 11:43 pm

    Paul K – What happened ? I was enjoying the more bellicose Paul K of yesterday and now you have gone back into the yes man posture after being berated by Adam. Come back Paul K – fear not the truth. ]
    .
    .
    Edward,

    Playing psychoanalyst now? Am I meant to be emotionally devastated by that? Guess you’ve got to try anything when you know your hero is going to obliterated in the coming election. Nice try. Now run away and let the grown ups play.

  32. Paul K says: ” What has the Labor party been doing for the last 3 years?….They haven’t been doing much. Just convincing hundreds of thousands of Australians to vote Labor, that’s all.

    Actually, Paul I reckon the Government has done most of the convincing for them.

    The polling suggests that the Libs own heartlands are abandoning them in droves and that a whole bunch of hitherto safe Liberal seats on 5%-10% margins are going to fall.

    This is not a result of some sort of upsurge in middle-class Bolsehvism in places like Kooyong and Goldstein. It’s the result of the small “l” component of the Liberal Party jumping ship en masse. And it’s happened because these hitherto rusted-on Liberal supporters are fed-up with the Neo-Con Fundamentalist agenda of the mob currently running what was once their party.

    Every half-baked racist wedge and dog whistle Howard comes-up with drives them further away. And they’re going Labour on first preferences because Rudd doesn’t scare them.

    The latest reconciliation mea-culpa from Howard was a belated attempt to woo some of them back. Too little, far too late, I reckon. They made their minds-up months ago (thus the consistency in the polls).

    What’s going to happen to the Libs after the fall is the only relevant issue to them. They want their party back, and it won’t happen until Howard and his extreme right faction is utterly destroyed.

    Tonight’s examination on Lateline of the consquences of a Liberal loss was the real issue. There’s going to be some gruesome blood-letting come a Labor victory, when the Libs finally clean house.

  35. Everytime Rudd says he is going to have a press conference / policy release they will all be focussing – is it the tax policy? No, not this time, but they get better exposure for their policy releases. hehe

    i wonder if this works :mrblue:

  36. I am far fom convinced tat the release of the tax policy is a winner. It is hard to see how momentum can be maintained over six weeks after that.

    A different perspective that could be advanced is that the release of the tax policy was in fact a defensive move to take attention away from negatives in the MYEFO release. Without the attention grabbing of the tax cuts, the media may hv focussed on the dentification of the over $60 million spent on Work Chices ads, and the act that once again the overnment has not got a clue about how much revenue they will receive. There may well be other choice pieces in MYEFO but time has not permitted a detailed review.

    Of course they had to release MYEFO this week because that allows the Government to establish the assumptions the Budget figuring. Otherwise the heads of Treasury and Finance wouldbe free to make their own assumptions about CPI increases, the cost of the Northern Territory intervention and other factors that may have an affect on how the Budget is looking.

    With the MYEFO released this week the PEFO documet required by the Charter of Budget Honesty becomes more a formality when it is released 10 days after the writs are issued. It would be a brave Secretary of the Treasury or Finance who deviaed from the Treasurers assumptions so soon after MYEFO.

  37. So far I have declined the temptation to make up some
    small swings, type them into Antony’s calculator
    and post the result here.

    But, hey, why not have a turn. This result may be interesting to some.

    This is a good one. Let us suppose that there are reasonable swings in NSW and SA and a small one in WA. These are all way below the actual swings polled. Type in the following as state swings:

    NSW 5.7%
    VIC 0.9%
    QLD 0.7%
    WA 2.2%
    SA 5.5%
    TAS 1.4%
    ACT 0.0%
    NT 2.9%
    Overall swing 2.5%

    or just click to
    http://www.abc.net.au/elections/federal/2007/calculator/?swing=state&national=0&nsw=5.7&vic=-0.9&qld=0.7&wa=2.2&sa=5.5&tas=1.4&act=0&nt=2.9&retiringfactor=0

    So what do we get with an overall swing to ALP of only 2.5% distributed in this possible way.

    We get an ALP victory.

    And we still get Mr Howard having more than 50% TPP.

    And Qld isn’t needed particularly.

    So that’s fun.

  38. Derek Corbett @ 628

    Please post, I am interested at least.

    Troll is just a word that the cool kids like to throw at people they disagree with.

    If you want trolling go check out the news.com.au discussion pages.

  41. ruawake @ # 424 said :

    “The 17% interest rates are a load of crud, existing variable loans were capped at 13%.
    Most people were on fixed interest rate mortgages.
    Interest rates are much more of an issue now, than under Keating.”

    This is not strictly correct.

    To have a capped rate on a housing loan of 13% you had to have an approved loan. I know this because I had one. There were a number of conditions to be satisfied one of which was that the loan had to be through an approved lender. Banks were approved (Building Societies were not) however just because your loan was through a bank did not automatically make the loan an approved loan.

    I forget the other conditions but I think that one was that you had to have a reasonable high deposit. This would mean that all the no and low deposit loans of today would not have qualified. Even then, if I remember correctly, the minimum deposit was not good enough to get an approved loan.

    You are correct to suggest that a lot of people had the caped loans however there were a considerable number who were not that fortunate.

  43. Too bad we just had a poll that said exactly the opposite – the WorkChoices was a major concern among voters. AND Howard’s poll on IR returned to pre-workchoices level? Really? Not even just a little bit off?
    Not credible in the least.

    More spin for Howard in the MSM campaign on his behalf.

  46. ROTFL ………..

    “WHEN I read the headline “Howard will debate Rudd without the worm”, I thought: “So what if Tony Abbott won’t be there? That’s not worth a headline. Maybe there’s a Cold-Hearted Bastard meeting on that night and it’s his turn to host.” Then I realised that if there was a CHB meeting on, that would mean Philip Ruddock and Kevin Andrews wouldn’t be around either. Which would mean Howard would be short three worms. At least he’d still have Peter Costello, and that would be a comfort to him.”

    http://www.theage.com.au/news/opinion/the-worm-must-return/2007/10/16/1192300763663.html?page=fullpage#contentSwap1

  47. Jen @ 613

    Actually Lexxie will be missed overseas, he is always jolly good fun at the playups after the conference dinners, gets dressed up, sings, dances, tellls jokes.

    Also really ticklish, roll him on his back and tickle his tum tum and he can’t stop giggling and kicking his legs in the air like a little puppy.

  48. Dr Good @ 637

    You need to try harder mate. Using Green I can get Labor home (assuming a 75 seat Labor and Windsor in the big seat up front) with a L/NP TPP of 50.9% (1.8% swing).

    Granted I’ve got the Act swinging to Team Rodent by 9.9% and Vic heading to the dark side by .9%, so they artificially deflate the number, but NSW @ 4.2% and SA @ 5.4% are the only two states over 3% required to deliver the seats needed.

    Rudd would take that in a flash and pick up Benelong at the by-election.

    http://www.abc.net.au/elections/federal/2007/calculator/?swing=state&national=0&nsw=5.7&vic=-0.9&qld=0.7&wa=2.2&sa=5.5&tas=1.4&act=0&nt=2.9&retiringfactor=0

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