Morgan has simultaneously released results of face-to-face polling conducted over the previous two weekends, and a phone poll conducted on Wednesday and Thursday. The former has Labor leading 49 per cent to 36 per cent on the primary vote and 59-41 on two-party preferred, compared with 61.5-38.5 at the previous such poll a fortnight earlier; the latter has Labor’s leads at 50 per cent to 34.5 per cent and 60-40, compared with 63-37 last week. In other news, political parties’ financial disclosure returns for 2006/07 have been published by the Australian Electoral Commission: Steven Mayne sifts through the evidence at Crikey (subscriber only).
Yes i totally agree with consultation and talking to groups beforehand, agree. But please explain to me what else Hawkie’s love fest in the 1980’s came up instead of a range of inquiries, money for policy writers like yourself and little action. Fed up with leaders who cannot see the obvious major problems in regards to certain wealthy groups doing very well for themselves from government handouts.
And guess who is to chair this thing Glyn Davis the same man who is bringing forth a american style education system at Melbourne University. Sorry i see another t bone without meat coming.
Fonzie lives!
Picture of Brendan Nelson on P.6 of todays Australian, blue jeans white T shirt, hair slicked back.
Nelson also has his black leather jacket and used to love riding his motorbike.
Wonder if he ever moonlighted at ozpolitics?
Hey Diogenes,
I just saw an interview with Studs Terkel, his thoughts were coherent (even though his speech was not) he was slouched in his chair and he had a box of tissues in his hand. I would say unless the cold develops into pneumonia he is right to see in 2009 and his 97th year.
Marky mark, I’m an UNPAID policy writer (in fact, it costs me money).
ESJ- Castro is well enough to endorse the Clinton/Obama “Dream Team”. They must be so pleased!!
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/08/28/wcastro128.xml
I don’t think the Rudd talkfest is a bad idea in theory.
The problem is that (by the look of it so far) it’s way too big, and not nearly focussed enough.
The Hawke Summits worked reasonably well (some would say very well) because they were pretty narrowly focussed – “how can we get business, unions and government to work together to create economic growth and share the benefits fairly” was the question (approximately).
Whereas this one looks like it’s trying to solve all our problems at once.
I wish KR well with it, though.
Rudd talkfest_- heard on news that Labor intends to go away and look at ideas than by early next year come up with a policy statement or list of views and than aim to formulate some policies, simple message do nothing. It is a gimic built around spin. A consultants boom, bet you KPMG and other groups are licking their lips… at taxpayers expense.
Interest rates and housing prices continue to increase why?
Handouts regarding first home owner grants, tax cuts and negative gearing fuelling demand and prices but Labor intends to come up with some bulldust superannuation scheme which costs 600 million whilst negative gearing costs billions… Whats the bet first home owners will continue to be priced out and prices will continue to rise.
What we have in this country is a seven liberal governments and seven conservative governments, simple.
Marky Marky reminds me of the Khruschev Nixon debate.
Nixon said to K you are not democratic you can only vote for a communist, K replied to N so you only have capitalists to choose from.
Let a 1,000 flowers bloom as someone else once said.
Wayne Swan carping and criticising and blaming the previous government. Wayne soon your policies will be the focus because they will do very little regarding inflation, best to start being serious instead of looking at others.
Why Wayne promise tax cuts, why allow the rich continue to get their handouts because they are the people fuelling inflation and a boom.
So Esj lets play simon says. That is the game most people play and let our governments get away with doing nothing about this countries problems.
ESJ,
Which one is Marky Marky? He seems to move around a bit.
very droll GG,
Have you abandoned the American thread too? 30% of comments from one poster too much for you?
Christian Kerr on Philip tonight. Christian is, in four weeks time, doing it for the Oz.
Informed on our PM clearing the Government ranks of the spinners. Sounds like a good deal of reform is being undertaken.
Stables, yes. Herculean task. Yes, we can.
I have made my comments about that little coterie of circle jerkers. I just don’t want to be provocative and say any more.
Fair enough GG.
Crikey Whitey – believe it when i see it.
Perhaps they will, the cricket team lacks spinners at the moment.
Already its spin evolves around blaming the previous government, bet you if Mitsubishi closes tomorrow it will be someone elses fault.
Crikey where is the vision, what is this governments vision?
So far it is talkfests and cutting spending what kind of vision is this? And the talkfest will some results next year, what will occur is a view that big business accepts and the murdoch press and then their will be senate inquiries and by then another election.. So in reality it will be a waste of time.
Sorry to be cynical but currently here in Victoria we have a government that is spinning so much bull day after day over dredging, desalination and Gm crops and than hiding everything because it is commerical in confidence, accountability and good governance has gone out the window.
GG and ESJ are the serious bloggers who provide us with the talk in the playground.
Marky Marky I will break my policy of treating you with disdain because you are basically a concern troll. Over many preceding months you have professed your undying devotion to the values of the Labor Party which apparently existed in land far away. You then continuously bag Labor Governments and individuals for not living up to your mythical expectations.
Get Real. Rudd was elected on a series of policies that were cleary articulated prior to the election. From what I can observe he and his team are actually implementing said policies.
If you are shocked, disappointed or unsatisfied I can only advise you to read the label before you buy in future.
ESJ-We stuffed up big missing Gordon Hinckley, the president of the Mormon Church. The guys at Deathlist are spewing they didnt put him on. He was 98 after all. And to the bludgers who think the deathlist is not relevant to politics, Romney is keeping a bit quiet about it to avoid the Mormon tag. And when Romney gets wiped tomorrow, he’s now got a great job vacancy.
At least when i go to the grave GG i will have been true to my principles and have had a view which actually cares about the little people. Instead what we have are people who want to be a part of the powerful and let the powerful rule and have no idea what they believe, actually to weak to be vocal about anything.
With all due respect, Marky Marky, your little people constituency has all the indications of being located at the bottom of the garden…
Well Marky Marky you will be as happy as you are ever going to be when you die.
Sure, marky marky. I do happen to wonder, if not necessarily agree, about Victoria.
Brumby may not have what it takes. Baillieu, according to media accounts, is repositioned, and possibly may be able to cut it.
Should you happened to have read any of my posts, you will be aware that I am hardly happy about the Rann Government. My especial grievance, the water.
I happen to think, indeed know, that if a Government fails the population, that the price will be paid.
This fate may easily befall a few Labor State Governments in the foreseeable future.
None of these thoughts apply to the Rudd Federal Government. Sure, after the horrendous decade of cynicism, winner takes all politics, vision was simply no longer allowed. In fact, any notion of ‘vision’ seems to have been far too dramatic an idea for countenance. The media embraced and promoted this idea.
The idea of a future beyond the Howard regime was thoroughly trashed.
However, I and anyone who voted Labor is nurturing hope. Our hope. But just as it is hard to repress a tremor when the ‘PM’ is mentioned, followed by relief, the apprehension cultivated so assiduously is not so easily thrown off.
It is already and amazingly expressed by the Opposition, critiquing Rudd. Even Kerry O’Brien, tonight, right into the dire warnings.
Howard went into the ‘relaxed and comfortable’ nonsense, which has failed us.
Rudd knows we are anything but. As he said tonight, turning around a ‘Queen Mary’ takes time.
So, it will take time. And I give that time. We have evidence of intention.
We will see how it goes. Feel free to criticise. I do and will. We have more than a few weeks left before the next election.
The urgency is there, but what did the former Government intend? There, indeed was no vision, at all.
Crikey agree with your assessment, but i look at all Labor Governments even the previous Hawke- Keating Governments which believed very much about economic conservatism tax cuts, privatisation and the like.
Government is about action and owning things because it is the cheapest form of debt and is good for working people and public, can do things and make for a better country. Instead i fear that Rudd and his team are market economic believers and will do very little about middle and upper class welfare, climate change, housing and policies surrounding social welfare. Agree totally Howard and his team were pathetic.
Want to see some real action in regards to our problems instead of touching the sides like this superannuation scheme for first home buyers will be, spin that is why it is come out today to deflect interest rate rise but will not work.
GG and Fulvio, sorry guys but it is time you put the murdoch papers and started reading something that was intelligent. Time to stop being in denial.
Good then, marky marky. Write to Kev.
I posted this the other night for ESJ. But tonight it it is for you Marky marky.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cU_9-uuKz0I
Greensborough not to be personal myself but i don’t know why i read your blogs because you never have anything to say which means anything, it is generally personal talk, inane rubbish, and talk which goes no where. You kind of remind me of some of freaks which are apart of local council or whom are members of the right wing faction, people who go to lengths to dig up dirt on opponents or whom tell lies about others or get on community and destroy their real intentions by having their own bulldust agendas which go nowhere. Greensborough you seem like right wing faction boy who is lost for ideas and vision, who is in it just to upset people.
I luv youse, Greeensborough.
“right wing faction boy”, does that come with a cape and utility belt?
No, but a white hood over the head with two holes in it.
Marky,
Glad you don’t want to get personal!
All I can say is to re read 219 and suck it in.
Hear, Hear GG.
I invite you, marky marky to:
Participate. It is available.
Find out when a Cabinet meeting will be held, in your area. Attend.
Write about issues to your local member. Phone. Email. Express your opinion, your views. You are invited. Feel free to be cynical. Just let them know.
Make it your business to learn in due course who is your ‘ideas’ person. Offer. Ventilate. Want participation? There are ways to do so.
Any pretence is easily perceived. But go along. We are not unnerved.
Repeat- member of a local council or faction who needs others to do the talking for him or develop policies and ideas. A member of the faction who allows his colleagues to get him a job or position in a union and then eventually a seat in parliament, or council and then with the factions help letters in the newspaper or position on a committee or community group and then help with their stacked numbers a nice, perhaps safe seat and then a plum posting in cabinet and all they have done is say yes when the faction requires it. The factional system looking after todays nobrainers for the benefit of the nobrainers in cabinet and computers of tomorrow. Greensborough you are so much fun.
Do something! marky marky.
Crikey i do particapite and do write to members of parliament and our State Mps’ . I know how our democratic system works. And those cabinet meetings yep love to ask our federal Mps’ what they attend to do about media policy and the monopoly murdoch has regarding newspapers in your state and Brisbane, what do they attend to do about murdoch owning some 70 per cent of our communcation levels? Watch them say nothing. Their is the problem straight out the lack of a diversified media.
Marky, I admire your ideals, your courage and your tenacity, but your impatience is, to be blunt, exasperating. Criticise by all means, but all I, and I think most others here, are saying is give Rudd & Co a decent opportunity to implement whatever they have promised and then allow a window to assess its success or failure. Then feel free to damn or praise.
This government has been in office barely two months. I know that God took only seven days to make the universe, but even I don’t make that comparison.
You want to correct some of the injustices of this world as you perceive them and in the priority that you give them. You say act now and to hell with the political consequences and the political backlash. It was such thinking that doomed the Whitlam administration and in my view led to Keating’s undoing. It is what gave us the eleven years of Purgatory that is the Howard Legacy.
Changing the public mindset and introducing acceptable reform is not done with a sledgehammer but with gentle abrasion like running water, slowly, imperceptibly, but inexhorably.
Without intending to be patronising Marky, (which I probably am) I think you presume too much in believing every one who does not support you is against you. Most of us want the same things. Most of us are prepared to wait a reasonable while to see if they come about.
Sorry for this final metaphor Marky, it must be an ethnic thing, but you can’t carry water home if you smash your urn on the way to the well.
Marky says,
“Greensborough you are so much fun”.
Thanks for the compliment. The first from you to anyone I have noticed in many months. So the therapy is working. (Don’t stop taking the pills though).
Unfortunately, I have better offer from CW @ 229.
Good luck on your next space mission.
Fine, marky marky.
Did you, for example, put out by physical effort in the Federal election? You will know that many of us actively did so.
Let me know your progress. As I have already suggested, there are ways.
It matters a great deal to be out there. When you attend something, let me know where that was, about what you questioned and what were the answers.
In the interim, I am going to bed.
I expect to hear of some real activity from you, in the future.
Marky marky I understand your frustration with the political process epecially when we ALL see what we think are social injustices that seem simple to fix
But Graham richardson probably spoke for most major party pollies when he said Politics is the art of compromise & of numbers
its difficult we you care but run into political reality
Falvio, i agree somewhat in regards to your comments, but this government will i am afraid be a nothing.
However i will praise it for closing down the Nauru detention centre, signing Kyoto, and putting in place a means to bring troops home from Iraq, however during the election it put forward a view which stated that it would have tax cuts, continue middle class welfare on rich schools and private health handouts and these policies are not labor ideals, and todays’ promise on superannuation savings accounts for first home owners is a drop in the ocean and a waste regarding home ownership for first home owners. Perhaps this policy would be okay if it intended to slowly reduce negative gearing handouts for homeowners, then you will actually begin tackling the real problem causing housing unaffordability but they will not. Will wait and see what the Budget cuts will be. Nonetheless why is defence being quarantined, what role does play towards economic growth?
But his summit is virtually again just a gimiciky ideal, which will allow certain groups to control policy. Don’t hold out any hope Falvio, the Victorian Labor Government has been in power here for eight years and done very little other than spending on health and education, and at present it is allowing the wealthy to have their roads, channels in the bay, major developments and a grand prix which is not making money.
Crikey if your still awake i will just mention that i have been a member of the ALP for some fifteen years, and have asked so many questions at meetings that i give up. Time to put the noose around my head i know Greensborough will dearly like to help me do it.
It goes around your neck Marky, if you put it around your head you could end up with a hairdo like Nelson’s.
marky marky, did the Whitlam years not teach you anything? That government had lots of ideas which it continued to implement even when economic circumstances made it unwise to do so and it was thrown out after effectivelly one turn. What survived of its grand plan? Medicare and little if anything else.
The art of governing is not scaring the horses. If Rudd legislated everything you advocate, and I’m not saying you’re necessarily wrong, then he’d be lucky to survive until June 30.
As much as you may disagree with middle/upper class welfare, the fact is the middle class/rich vote, have come to regard that welfare as their right and built their financial lives on the expectation they’ll get it. Take it away in one fell swoop and it’ll be goodnight nurse. Same goes with negative gearing. Yes, it is bad, but a lot of, not necessarily rich, folk have invested their life savings in houses because of it and the consequences of removing it suddenly would be disasterous in the short term, and not just for the landlords.
As for quarantining the defence force, what are you suggesting, we do without?
Crazybrave IR from the Libs.
http://www.newmatilda.com/2008/02/04/%E2%80%98crazybrave%E2%80%99-strategy
Marky MArky honestly mate, feel free to have your say and rail against whatever for all I care. But labeling GG as a Klansman? thats way over the line. You should retract and apologise
Marky mark, I too have been a member of the Vic ALP for over fifteen years.
I don’t belong to a faction and hold no paid position, but because I have worked hard with and for my local community and the Labor Party I have the ability to have my views heard and have contributed significantly to policy development (and do my best to make sure these policies are implemented).
It’s hard work, of course it is. There are people who are paid by government to do policy work every day of their lives. Doing it as a volunteer means I have to look at things in ways that they can’t and come up with ideas which are practical and meet real needs.
And yes, it’s also frustrating. Every now and then an idea I know is good is rolled by the boys. I simply put it on the backburner for a year or so and then try again.
I attend State Conferences and the like, and spend my whole time there getting Ministers into dark corners and telling them what they need to do.
The key is to never ask for something for yourself, have your facts right and keep plugging.
You will never get all you want, but you’ll achieve far more than sitting there and whining.
I thought I would come in this blog for a look, my god, it’s handbags at 50 paces here as well.
One of the earlier comments aroused my interest, concerning tax exemption for churches. In this age of corporatisation of religion, isn’t it time for a rethink? I see no valid reason why they should be exempt. Fine, allow them a deduction for their charitable works, but tax them at company tax rates on the balance. They have seen fit to take part in the affairs of men, lobby and connive, play politics, let them join the rest of us in our fiscal obligations also.
Nelson flogging the new horses on the 7.30 Report.
Attempting to talk up the fantastic state of the economy as they left it, which one could be led to believe went into freefall on 25 November. And unionists rampaging over the countryside! Lies about the financial support given by the government to institutions, such as education, over the last decade.
Roll on Parliament! The mad myths need to be deconstructed, coolly, calmly, incisively.
attempting to evade responsibility for the a flogging from Kerry.
Just saw Nelson on 7:30 Report: Nelson: “Australian’s won’t be happy if this government continues to blame the past government. Oh, and by the way, interest rates were 17% under Hawke and Keating – and lock your doors cos unions are taking over the world.”
I think poor Horatio was reading the 07 election campaign script and hasn’t yet realised that he lost.