D-day minus 11

• Big round of applause to whoever it is who runs this website, which looks like it will be the place to go for booth-level results on Saturday night. Included are maps of polling booth locations for every single seat.

• A “senior ALP source” tells the Northern Territory News that party polling has their candidate Damian Hale “just ahead” of CLP member Dave Tollner in Solomon. The source further notes that such polls do not factor in the Defence vote at Robertson Barracks, suggesting the race is actually “neck and neck”.

• Independent candidate Danielle Ecuyer continues to capture more than her share of the media coverage from Wentworth. Yesterday she went public with an email from Caroline Overington of The Australian who told her, in what Peter Garrett might describe as a jocular moment, that she should direct preferences away from ex-boyfriend George Newhouse and towards Malcolm Turnbull, as it would be “such a good front page story”. In other Wentworth news, indignant gay rights campaigner Gary Burns has been dumped as a Labor volunteer after physically intimidating Lucy Turnbull and telling her husband he had a “middle-aged well-dressed ‘fag hag’ impersonator of a wife”. According to the Daily Telegraph, Burns reckons George Newhouse does “not know how to run a campaign”.

• The Greens will direct preferences to Labor over the Coalition in every Queensland seat except Wide Bay, where an open card will be issued as a gesture of protest over the Traveston Dam and council amalgamations.

• Hat tip to Sacha Blumen for drawing my attention to the fact that a state redistribution process is under way in Queensland. The deadline for submissions of “suggestions” passed yesterday, so publication of proposed boundaries is presumably still a few months away. A redistribution of Tasmanian Legislative Council boundaries is at a similarly early stage.

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.

486 comments on “D-day minus 11”

Comments Page 1 of 10
1 2 … 10

  2. Poll on Yahoo.com.au this morning. “In light of the Coalitions launch yesterday, could your vote change in the final two weeks?”

    10% could still be swayed
    30% set on the Coalition
    51% set on Labor
    9% set on another party

    Unlike 4 corners last night, I think Yahoo can be trusted not to rig their polls 😉

  5. The most interesting story about the state redistribution so far is that the Libs are in raptures at the prospect of some more SEQ seats. Might help them in their objective of overtaking the Nats. If they can ever win any more than about 10 seats, that is…

  6. Mark, from looking at the enrolment figures at the bottom of my page, my guess is that SEQ will have a net gain of no more than three seats and maybe only two – I think that last redistribution it had a net gain of one seat. At this rate, it’ll only be 50 years before become the senior coalition partner.

  8. What is the ALP’s strategy in Solomon?

    I’ve been travelling in the NT for the last month and have seen plenty of liberal and national ads but no ALP advertising – have they forgot this seat?

    Is there any moitoring of the total amount of advertising spend of each party. Anecdotally is seems the ALP are been massively outspent by the Liberals so far.

    What happened to the ALP huge war chest?

  9. Did anyone hear Chris Ulranga-a-man on AM? He sounded utterly defeated when interviewed about the Liberal campaign launch.

    Albert F – I know YRAW has been working overtime up there.

  13. I think most of us have put out tip for the overall election outcomes.

    What about seats – specifically what will be the “ones that got away” – ie low margin seats that the ALP fails to win. What will be “OMG I never thought that would be an ALP seat.

    My picks (without a great deal of thouht at this point) would be:

    Solomon and Wentworth
    Ryan and Fisher

  14. Kymbos Says: “I missed most of the 4Corners report, and only caught the end. Was it entitled ‘What morons think about politics’?”

    Kymbo, spot on – watching “swinging voters” and “I’m not sure who I’m going to vote for” morons made me want to take a knife to my stomach. Idiots.

  15. You guys read Keating’s article in the SMH this morning?:

    http://www.smh.com.au/news/opinion/a-bitchy-law-that-mauls-the-poorest-workers/2007/11/12/1194766584976.html?page=fullpage#contentSwap1

    Pure gold, as usual.

    “A Prime Minister who wilfully disparages 2 million Australians – 20 per cent of the workforce, those who belong to trade unions – is not a Prime Minister who, in any way, sees his role as keeping the country unified and at peace with itself.”

    Onya Paul – a democracy should be about building a concensus, not f*cking over groups of the electorate.

  18. You know that there is death in the air when Keating is allowed out of the box. Can we have him at election night come up and say it’s the sweetest victory with the crowd chanting of ‘We want Paul’?

  19. Albert F @ 6.

    The “massive huge ALP war chest” was a spin-myth invented by the Libs and soaked up by the MSM as part of the ridiculous 70% Unions reductionist scare campaign.

    The truth is the Coalition have heaps of money put aside and will outspend Labor in the campaign as they have been using the trappings of Government (such as access) to fundraise for 3 years. All Lib MPs are set ambitious fund raising targets each year only after which they can keep for themselves apparently.

    Also the Libs have been deliberately holding back funding from State campaigns for years as they recognise (correctly) that they need to hold on to the Federal Government to survive the years to come.

    But as they say – you can fool some of the people….

    When the swing is on, it’s on.

  21. I love the first news item on the Sunrise’s news break, ‘Economist warn that the Coalitions campaign launch promises could lead to increase in inflation’. This is definitely a crash-through or crash campaign for the Coalition.

  22. Will @ 16. You must be having the same dream as I am.

    You know the one where its Kevin 11 and the ALP has crushed the Libs again and the Nationals have lost their last House of Reps seat to a rural Independent and 2 days later Rudd is resworn in by President PJK of the Republic of Australia.

  23. Does anyone have the details for the Gillard/Downer debate today? Laurie Oakes is hosting and the venue is somewhere here in Sydney. I will be out until about 2pm so hopefully someone can come up with the specific before I get back? 🙂 🙂 If it is bloody middle of the day, I will miss is 🙁 🙁

  24. Howard and Andrews, another stuff up, they may well as kiss the Korean and any other immigrant vote goodbye.

    “Mr Tran had been in Australia for seven years when he applied for a spousal visa for his South Korean wife in December 1999. He was led away into detention in the belief that he was an unlawful non-citizen. “I didn’t expect to get locked up like that, so I never got to say goodbye and I never got to kiss my son,” he told the program”

    “IN A damaging bungle by the Department of Immigration and Citizenship, a former refugee who lived in Australia for many years was wrongfully locked up in immigration detention for over five years, while immigration officials tried to deport his five-year-old son.”

    http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2007/11/13/1194766598550.html

  25. Anthony L

    Thanks that sounds like a realistic assesement. Let hope the conservatives don’t give up hope and burn the entire kitty trying to stay afloat.

    Is the “keeping their power dry” line another myth on ALP spending or are have they held a lot of the budget back for the last two weeks?

  26. The ALP will spend big this week and over the weekend in an all out last push.

    At some stage there is the electronic media black-out at which stage expect the advertising to switch to a massive online push as per last NSW election.

  27. Julie @ 2

    Check this “scientific” Skynews poll on their website this morning for a laugh:

    Following the campaign launch, are you more likely to vote for the Coalition?
    Yes 51%
    No 49%

    Now add this 51% to the 60% who in dozens of previous Skynews polls have responded that they were definitely, absolutely, indubitably voting for the Coalition. If my calculations are correct, the Coalition will have a final vote of 111% or, using Antony Greens swingometer, that’s 165 House seats out of the 150 available.

    Hey, not too shabby an outcome from The Great Launch, which was simply another $10 Billion of welfare bribes after the PM declared in is opening lines that he was finishing off the Welfare State.

  31. We are off to vote at the consulate in LA. Have details for labor in our seat of La Trobe, but are leaning greens in the senate. Who are the greens giving their perferences to in the senate (we are Victoria)?

  33. [Did anyone hear Chris Ulranga-a-man on AM? He sounded utterly defeated when interviewed about the Liberal campaign launch.]

    But according to Ulmana-gone-insana, the election is the ALP’s to lose and “there’s only 1 to 3 % in it”.

    It’s apparently “their” ABC now!

  35. #29

    The Greens vote has collapsed because they have lost Nimbin to Richmond, The Greens polled about 70% in that booth (of about 1500) in the last election.

  36. I think a lot of the media barracking will eventually work against the LNP.

    It creates a frame of reference where people think he’s not that far behind – but the votes on polling day aren’t spun, they’re counted.

  37. Re: The launch. Before PB self imolated yesterday I was going to ask how many other people noticed the repeated crowd shot of a bunch of guys in orange high visibility polo shirts? What a pathetic effort, I think that WorkChoices has made it pretty clear that the illiberals don’t give a damn about regular workers.

  38. A great article in the age on housing affordability, which I think is a serious problem. The Coalition has created this with the moronic tax changes in 1999 but Labor will need to find a solution to it whether they are responsible or not. Howard’s last great spend would actualy make this worse.

    http://www.theage.com.au/news/federal-election-2007-news/a-generations-home-dream-vanishes/2007/11/12/1194766590346.html

    For perspective, two countries faced this problem in the past two decades (Japan in late 80s; Holland in 90s) and both went into recession, so this problem matters.

  40. A quick round of the news websites shows that the Coalition’s launch was lead item on only one site – the Australian, of course. Even the other News dailies didn’t have it as lead. Several have mentioned the obvious risk of inflation from it as well. Accurate reporting of the launch – surely not what the Coalition wanted.

  42. Dave – they were ‘the workers’ – on display, much like tarzan when he was taken back paraded in front of the estabishment in london. No doubt very satisfied with the non inflationary 96% pay rise awarded under their AWAs.

  43. 35 Socrates
    I have no idea how to deal with this one.
    It seems a basic lack of common sense has pervaded the entire country this last decade.
    How is it that a 1960’s suburban house has ‘appreciated’ at a phenomenal rate? It seems that replacement of housing stock has been completely ignored from the equation. That 1960’s house will have to be replaced in the future, yet the land owner is completely ignoring this fact and has no way to deal with this future cost.
    I think the replacement and renovation issue will hit harder and earlier than expected because the quality of housing stock has been falling like a stone this last decade. Poor planning and design is another contributor.
    A decent heat wave combined with power cuts will see an awful lot of people in massive trouble and our hospital system won’t cope.
    Lots of problems, and there aren’t any remotely easy solutions.

  45. Seems kind of boring around here today, so here is a pic for the caption of the day.

    ‘A little bit more to the right and I will have Howard where I want him’.

  46. 29 – Howard Hater. That poll doesn’t fill me with confidence. At the bottom of the article it says “The poll of 300 people across the electorate is not intended to be scientifically accurate, but does provide a general snapshot of voters moods last week and into the early part of this week.” Hmm.

  48. hi scrubbers its good to be back,thanks for the emails,wellwishes and its full steam ahead.

    Couldn’t agree more onimod!

    have been banging on for yonks about this mob of pretenders and horsethieves

    soon we will have a result – and let me say this:

    most of the commentariat are now claiming that they new all along that this result would probably happen-well put your shoulder to the wheel and your principles on the line (i have) and make sure the canadian style wipeout and subsequent social conscience change happens.

    The battle has truly only begun and those hanging off the tailcoats of others persistence and tenacity have now got to draw that line in the sand and motivate others to ensure a complete wipeout of this rancid regime of selfservers.

    nothing less will leave a stain our society will never erase!

  49. @ 37 Soc said:

    Socrates Says:
    November 13th, 2007 at 9:01 am

    A quick round of the news websites shows that the Coalition’s launch was lead item on only one site – the Australian, of course. Even the other News dailies didn’t have it as lead. Several have mentioned the obvious risk of inflation from it as well. Accurate reporting of the launch – surely not what the Coalition wanted.

    Soc, a fine piece of research. My contribution is that yesterday the 6 pm Nine Network News, which I assume has good ratings, placed Team Howard’s launch 4th or 5th down the order. By that time, it was 10 minutes into the program before they bothered with it, and no Laurie Oakes analysis.

    I was extremely surprised, but perhaps this was done in protest that Team Howard would not allow The Great Launch to be evaluated by the Nine Network Worm!

Comments are closed.

Comments Page 1 of 10
1 2 … 10