Four observations that grabbed me from Insiders this morning. One from Barrie Cassidy:
• “Paul Keating described his win in 1993 as one for the true believers. Last night’s was not. Kevin Rudd promised to govern for all Australians. His appeal within the Labor Party itself is tempered because of his conservative cautious stance on so many issues. He will be seen as the leader the party had to have to beat John Howard. Julia Gillard will be the light on the hill.”
Three from George Megalogenis:
• “I suspect Jackie Kelly tipped (Bennelong) over the line for Maxine McKew. Her performance that Thursday morning on AM radio – my understanding of the tracking polls, a few of them went mad on Thursday night. There was actually swings back to Labor in marginals where there were previously narrowings through the week.”
• “Going into this election, 12 out of the top 30 seats for single mothers were held by the Coalition. They’ve lost eight straight off the bat, another three are doubtful, they’ll be left with one out of 30. (Cassidy: Why?) Welfare to work. Mal Brough. May have been popular in the intervention into Aboriginal affairs, but you know, he wanted single mums to go to work. And if they didn’t go to work they were going to lose their benefits. If you think that this didn’t shift votes where the government didn’t expect them … I think it did.”
• “The Liberal Party needs to have a good hard look at its membership base. This wasn’t just Lindsay, we saw a breakout at the Press Club on Thursday where Liberal Party members were heckling female journalists including Michelle Grattan, I think there was a meanness of spirit in the Liberal Party this year that came from its grass roots. I don’t know what it’s about, but Peter Costello (sic) needs to have a good look at it.”
To elaborate on the second point. I don’t have figures on single mothers specifically, but Megalogenis’s demographic tables include data for single parents which shows 11 previously Coalition-held seats in the top 30: Wakefield, Cowper, Lindsay, Leichhardt, Dunkley, Dobell, Solomon, Page, Robertson, Kingston, Bass, with Macarthur, Hasluck, Blair, Herbert and Longman not far out. The only definite survivor out of these is Dunkley, with Labor narrowly ahead in Solomon, Robertson and Herbert, just trailing in Cowper and Macarthur, and victorious in the other nine.
“Howard’s hubris saw him finally dare the voters to dispatch him. They obliged, ultimately convinced it was the only way to get rid of him. ”
Yep, that bit is true Mr Milne.
[739: By refusing to acknowledge that two different senates didn’t want to pass the six bills originally proposed in 1974, then calling a joint sitting to get them through (refusing to respect the senate’s right to reject/review bills independently of the HOR). This set the precedent for ignoring conventions with regards to the upper house, which in turn cause Fraser to block supply.]
No.
PL
A) She’s a woman (never been a female leader of a federal major political party)
B) She’s a lawyer (thus would fit in well with previous leaders)
C) She’s got ministerial experience (4 years) – Ageing (2003), Minister for Education, Science and Training as well as Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for Women’s Issues since 2006.
D) She’s made inroads in her portfolio and left a mark (in particular the $5,000,000,000 “endowment fund” for higher education) and other grant schemes for public schools.
E) Been an MP for almost 10 years.
F) She’s easy on the eyes.
G) She can stand up for herself in Parliament like when Tanner when nuts at her, she stood her ground.
[The way he speaks about them will matter less then. Besides, I imagine after 6 weeks of going 7 days a week, criss-crossing the country and being under intense scrutiny he was just plain buggered!]
I agree. I think he is going to be presidential in parliament. He’ll talk up all the good things that the government is doing / has done, and let people like Albanese / Swan / Tanner / Crean do all the yelling.
VoterBoy of Over the Water 742
‘Only Peter Costello could think of such a selfish act of bastardry.
And people call Howard selfish…’
Shellfish.
“Seven selfish shellfish.”
I feel sorry for the bloke/shela who has to be Foreign Affairs Minister, Rudd will run the whole deal lol!
“Word leaked out to Labor that it was Janette Howard who was in fact running the campaign.”
Ma and Pa Kettle ran the Liberal party campaign? Just goes to show how whimpy the Cabinet and advisers had become. Don’t tell me she was also running the country?
To be honest I have no great expectations of Rudd. I was happy to see Howard beaten, rather than in Labor winning. Over the years I have had fewer and fewer reasons to vote Labor. In the 80’s it was to introduce and bed down Medicare and to save the Franklin. But now, it’s more about preventing the damage being done by the Tories. I’m hoping that some of Labor’s front bench will give this unreconstructed democratic socialist something to vote FOR!
[I feel sorry for the bloke/shela who has to be Foreign Affairs Minister, Rudd will run the whole deal lol!]
My guess is Crean, with McMullan in trade.
Brendon Nelson tipped to be Liberals leader per Neil Evans
(Centrebet media manager)
Bookies sources are usually sound
Julia has just about the credentials, then, Glen.
Apart from the Hey, Big Spenders.
Soon to be Queensland opposition leader, Springborg, wants the Nationals and Liberals to merge.
THE push to amalgamate the Liberal and National parties into a single conservative force is set to gather momentum with the demise of the federal Coalition government.
Former state Nationals leader Lawrence Springborg, one of the chief proponents of last year’s ill-fated merger proposal, yesterday said he remained committed to amalgamating the parties.
Mr Springborg said the state and federal election losses inflicted on the Liberals and Nationals could have been reversed if a united conservative force was presented to voters.
“Eminently sensible ideas ultimately come to pass – it is just a matter of time for obstacles to be removed and ultimately you get a realisation,” Mr Springborg said.
http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,%2022819828-5013650,00.html
Is it just me, or is there something Gnomish about Nelson? He has this huge head on a tiny body. Looks rather unfortunate in my view. A bit like John Button.
[Brendon Nelson tipped to be Liberals leader per Neil Evans
(Centrebet media manager)
Bookies sources are usually sound]
With Turnbull to take him out Peacock V Howard style in 12 months time?
I love this quote from Nick Bryant’s (BBC’s Sydney Correspondent) blog, regarding the Liberal Party’s wake.
Completely broke? I thought the economy was going so well, surely they should be awash with cash. 😉
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/nickbryant/2007/11/no_resurrection_for_lazarus_1.html
[Soon to be Queensland opposition leader, Springborg, wants the Nationals and Liberals to merge.
THE push to amalgamate the Liberal and National parties into a single conservative force is set to gather momentum with the demise of the federal Coalition government.]
This isn’t very surprising. They wanted to do this before the last QLD election but Howard stopped them, now Howard is road kill it is logical that it will go ahead.
You can’t ‘sell’ Julia you could ‘sell’ Julie, that’s not being mean or anything im talking politically here, that’s just a fact.
Julia has never been a minister, Julia has only had her hands on labors IR policy (a joke and nobody knows what it is) and (medicare gold) two flops.
Nelson has been in Parliament since 1996, he’s got backbencher support especially in NSW (not many seats left there but hey). Chances are he’ll win, though you never know the Party might back Turnbull.
I still think regardless Julie Bishop will be deputy.
“755
Crikey Whitey Says:
November 26th, 2007 at 1:06 am
VoterBoy of Over the Water 742
‘Only Peter Costello could think of such a selfish act of bastardry.
And people call Howard selfish…’
Shellfish.
“Seven selfish shellfish.” ”
Well, he was certainly crabby throughout the campaign.
De-Anne Kelly reckons the Nationals were punished for complacency. This is the core and noncore promises coming home to roost. why would a political party promise the world deliver nothing and hand the savings back to people as inflationary taxcuts?
labor now holds large tracts of regional and rural queensland which once would never have even considered voting Labor as the National Party becomes more irrelevant with every passing year.
OUSTED Nationals MP De-Anne Kelly has lashed out at her own party, claiming it didn’t do enough for regional areas.
Ms Kelly – who lost her Mackay-based seat of Dawson with a 13.6 per cent swing to Labor – accused advisers to party leader Mark Vaile of blocking proposals from Nationals MPs.
Warning the Coalition could now languish in opposition for a decade, Ms Kelly said the Nationals had lost support through complacency.
She said the party had not pushed hard enough to deliver on much needed infrastructure projects.
“We were far too complacent in not pushing polices that were stronger for rural and regional areas,” Ms Kelly said.
http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,22820318-5013650,00.html
steve we need to get rid of the Nationals, had the ALP won 100 seats and the Nats below 10 we may have seen the conservative parties combine as they should.
Adam. I haven’t seen Tony Abbott, but his car is parked near the Gap.
Mike you are a prick IMHO.
So nice to see all the experts come out and twist the knife in howards back after the fact. Why weren’t they saying what needed to be said 6 years ago?
Kina. Not only was Janette Campaign Manager, long time.
My eye, as it does, noted her pastel wattle coloured clothing on her Last Big Night Out.
Sprig, though, seemed to be missing, as did the tiara.
Though she still played the part of crowd controller.
Telling, to me, her evident disdain for her husband, as she looked anywhere but at he.
And the children. Crushed.
Oh, well.
773 slackboy.
WE WERE!!
There’s always the next election Glen where Labor will still be a chance of picking up a few more Nationals seats in Queensland. With both state coalition parties due to roll their leaders and replace them with Springborg and Nicholls they could yet be wiped out totally up here before much longer.
Maybe the few remaining Tory Queenslanders could merge with the Western Australian Tories to make up the numbers.
Mike, you are a legend IMHO.
[ “We were far too complacent in not pushing polices that were stronger for rural and regional areas,” Ms Kelly said.
http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,22820318-5013650,00.html%5D
WHAT? They want MORE pork? The sooner the agrarian socialists get killed off like the Democrats the better.
[So nice to see all the experts come out and twist the knife in howards back after the fact. Why weren’t they saying what needed to be said 6 years ago?]
They love jumping on a bandwagon after the fact.
Steve considering this is a landslide and we’ll have a new leader i don’t think we can do worse next time.
All the Nats and Libs need to do is called themselves The Queensland Party, like the provincial tory parties in Canada called the Yukon Party.
Anyway we’ve got a good chance to get back these voters as Howie is no longer the leader and we’ll have a new team.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/liberals-implode/2007/11/25/1195975870395.html?page=2
“Mr Howard, who almost certainly has lost his seat of Bennelong, said nothing publicly yesterday. His only duty was a private function for staff at Kirribilli House. As the Liberals drowned their sorrows on Saturday night, one former senior Liberal adviser blamed the result on “the f—ing Chinese”, an apparent reference to Asian voters in Bennelong turning against Mr Howard.”
So Robb has nominated for DEPUTY leader!
I think his plan is to bore everyone to death, thus stopping people re-electing Rudd in 3 years.
All you who are already passing judgement on Rudd’s premiership should really wait for a bit of hard evidence to accumulate.
Sheesh.
771 Mike Cusack Says:
‘Adam. I haven’t seen Tony Abbott, but his car is parked near the Gap’.
Mike.
New security measures were put in place a couple of weeks before the election, at the Gap. Fences, cameras, goodness knows what else.
Another curb on Liberal rights.
Said I then, drastic, but likely essential. Given the polls.
Anyway, enough from me. All good, good, good.
Bedtime. Night all.
779[ Anyway we’ve got a good chance to get back these voters as Howie is no longer the leader and we’ll have a new team.]
I thought you had a smaller, less stable, old team many of whom will be due for retirement at the next couple of elections. Labor will continue to eat into National Party seats in Queensland for a long time yet at both state and Federal level.
Renewal is not what the Libs or Nats are good at. Infighting, now there is an area to ‘Go for growth’.
Glen @ 770
You need to abandon the national country party and their old world economics and populist social paradigms. There was nothing ‘liberal’ about the howard regime. The sad fact is howard was a borderline crazy reactionary and his attempts at holding onto power have turned Australia into an intolerant and bigoted welfare state. This turd of a man who would hold up Menzies as his hero must have only learned how to run scare campaigns from the Liberal patriarch and idol. This is why we got a re-run of the reds-under-the-bed drill with his pathetic union-boogeyman drivel this campaign.
Maybe this has been discussed earlier, but where can the Libs hope for any renewal in the short term? Qld & NSW branches are shambolic. WA?
Get over it. The arrogance of some of the bloggers criticizing Rudd. Why the bloody hell aren’t you Prime minister. I will tell you why because you have not got the capacity or talent or intellectual acumen. What a bunch of artless whingers. I respect both Hawk and Keating however Kevin Rudd is his own man and he won the election hands down. You are a bunch of petty try hards who should shut up if you have nothing worthwhile to say. What matters is being a good person not a great orator. One of the greatest victories of all time and you bunch of know it alls are pontificating like naughty spoilt children. Contemplate your own stupidity before you play holier than though. Get over it and get a life.
[This is why we got a re-run of the reds-under-the-bed drill with his pathetic union-boogeyman drivel this campaign.]
It will be for the last time. There will be nothing mentioned about unions in the 2010 campaign. It is dead, Howard gave it one last go around, and it didn’t work at all.
ShowsOn @ 788
I’m not so sure. Many in the Liberal party truly have been raised to believe that unions are evil. They truly misunderstand what unions mean to the common worker and their interaction in the labour market.
Justin says
“Whitlam ignored conventions by calling a joint sitting to pass 6 bills that were previously rejected, so Fraser then ignored conventions & blocked Supply”
Like Howard , you liberals never let the facts stand in your way of twisting them
FACTS
The liberal controlled Senate 6 bills TWICE rejected that Labor believed it had a mandate to implement.
Whitlam under the CONSTITUTION had 2 choices:
wear the bills being rejected OR
decide on a ‘Double dissiolution’ which puts the whole Senate and House of Reps to the voters to decide
Under the CONSTITUTION , after a ‘double dissolution’ the bills that caused the ‘double dissolution’ MUST BE put to a joint sitting of both houses
This Whitlam did as per the Constitution
To suggest his actions broke ‘conventions’ shows how little you know about how the Senate & Reps operate persuant to a ‘double dissolution’
Fraser’s act of blocking Supply was achieved because a Labor Senator died & Q’ld Premier Belke Peterson BROKE convention by not appointing the Labor nominee but instead appointed a ‘liberal hack’ called Albert Fields
WHOSE VOTE WAS NEEDED TO ENABLE FRASER TO BLOCK SUPPLY
Justine will not respond , because like Howard when caught out on a 1/2 truth , he just moves onto the next issue to do a 1/2 truth on !
Are their any labor blogers familiar with the above history ??
My polling booth. I was there for 14 hours, from sticking up Kevin and Stephen’s pic all over the place to watching these very numbers come together. Nice to be a witness to a teensy tiny part of history.
Note the 15 votes for the Socialist Alliance? We had this one poor guy get terrible sunburn for those 15 votes. Dedicated, but deluded.
http://vtr.aec.gov.au/HousePollingPlaceFirstPrefs-13745-8140.htm
Sorry, 14.
Ron Brown @ 790
I have mixed opinions on the blocked supply and subsequent dismissal.
I would agree with Fraser that the Whitlam government needed to be held accountable for trying to get loans without the authority of parliament. The way he and Kerr (and Joh) did it was however grossly wrong.
Gee what about the clown who only got 5 votes! What a putdown. I wonder if there was any candidate out there who got less than that.
[ShowsOn @ 788
I’m not so sure. Many in the Liberal party truly have been raised to believe that unions are evil. They truly misunderstand what unions mean to the common worker and their interaction in the labour market.]
It just won’t get off the ground.
Rudd won’t be biased for or against unions. He will certainly consult with them, but he will also consult with business and other organisations, just not the Exclusive Brethren.
So if the Liberals want to attack unions they will never be in government again. Labor will just say “here we go, same old story, no ideas, no policy”
“Mr Howard, who almost certainly has lost his seat of Bennelong, said nothing publicly yesterday. His only duty was a private function for staff at Kirribilli House. As the Liberals drowned their sorrows on Saturday night, one former senior Liberal adviser blamed the result on “the f—ing Chinese”, an apparent reference to Asian voters in Bennelong turning against Mr Howard.”
Labor will keep this one for the next campaign.
If Rudd actually manages to successfully complete his stated agenda then you would have to put him up there with other Labor leaders. Big ask though.
They need Turbull now, he is the only one with money. 🙂
Slackboy # 793
Agree with you on both of your points
The Loan was not going to happen because of the Liberal’s proper pressure in
the House of Reps disclosing Connor had breached Whitlam’s instructions NOT to proceed with looking for funds
Is not it ironic that the $4 billion Loan was to build a pipeline to supply cheap CLEAN gas from the Northwest gas field to Sydney & Melbourne
instead we supply the CLEAN gas to Tokyo consumers
whilst we use less clean electricity
One writer has made a point ALL of us have missed re Howard’s concession speech
ie. Howard took FULL responsibility for the campaign & the loss but NOT
either for the policys (read work choices) NOR concede those policys were rejected
so the Party could move on
ie. Howard was not absolving Costello from work choices and therefore was leaving Costello with the losing baggage of always having to defend them
Bloggers was this policy self denial of the voters by Howard or leaving his “friend”
with a ‘poison pill’ or both ??
And it would be a decent gesture, as the last ever days of Kirribilli in its current desecration approach, that Howard make breakfast for the servants.
(i know i said i was going to bed, but i suddenly felt i must eat again, or for once. loving the callers on 891, talk about exit polls, condemning howard for ethics, laws etc).
Not a blue ragger calling, for once. Maybe one. Glen and co asleep?
And dear old Tom of Toowoomba. Onya!!