Roy Morgan, which normally goes easy on “beauty contest” questions, has today entered the fray with a phone poll of 527 respondents. It gives Brendan Nelson the same 9 per cent preferred prime minister rating he suffered from Newspoll, with Kevin Rudd on 77 per cent compared with Newspoll’s 70 per cent. That’s not the worst of it though: on the question of preferred Liberal leader, Nelson can only manage equal fourth place behind Malcolm Turnbull (24 per cent), Peter Costello (18 per cent) and Joe Hockey (13 per cent). Nelson and Alexander Downer are both on 9 per cent. Kevin Rudd is favoured as Labor leader by 66 per cent over 15 per cent for Julia Gillard; in the absence of Rudd, 50 per cent would favour Gillard over 8 per cent for Wayne Swan.
Now we have Gridlock Campbell crying crocodile tears over his economic record being questioned. I think this is the weakspot that will hurt him most and he is reacting accordingly. The Libs in my local area the week before last letterboxed the local area with a Lindsay electorate type unsigned smear sheet, so it is hard to have much sympathy for their claims of smears against them.
http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/news/queensland/newman-to-pm-halt-labor-smears/2008/02/23/1203467453101.html
steve @ 216,
Yes, Swan has a good track record at surviving.
My experience in business has been that people who get to the top without any spectularly obvious talent normally have some important attribute in abundance: tenacity, cunning, whatever.
Without entering into the debate about which attribute applies, look at JWH. Not too many people would have picked the 30yo John Howard as a political star compared to {insert any one of many names here}, but he became the 2nd longest-serving PM.
So too early to write off Wayne.
And he’s right too that the budget will be the first real test.
Frank 299 and steve 300,
They’re recognising some of their own internal contradictions.
Not necessarily a bad thing in the long run, but there’s a lot of pain yet to come before things start getting better.
Dyno there’s a couple of good tests coming up for the Libs in Queensland in the next few weeks. Firstly it will be interesting to see how the Liberals most senior man in government survives his economic record in the Brisbane City Council election.
Secondly, the Libs are running an official ‘A’ and an unofficial ‘B’ team in the Gold Coast city Council election. Labor is not running a team there but the current mayor Ron Clarke may well hold his job against the Liberal teams.
What date are the Council elections?
305 March 15 Dyno.
Cheers steve – one to watch out for, for us down south
Brisbane City Council was exempt from amalgamation and the Gold Coast had only minor changes. The Sunshine Coast has three councils (Noosa, Maroochy and Caloundra) blending into one super council. Most of the smaller far Western Councils were not amalgamated.
I believe it is first past the post voting for mayor of undivided councils and optional preferential voting for Mayor if the council is divided into divisions.
Scotty @ 253 – I was referring to The Courier, printed in Mt Barker. Available throughtout the Hills and in a surprising number of Adelaide suburban news agencies.
I agree with Dyno, you can never pick who will be successful, I have seen people in one company be totally pigeon holed, go to another company and be a complete star.
I bad Swan, but that’s more because I really like Tanner, but as long as Swan maintains a healthy Budget without succumbing to over taxing or over regulation then he should go okay.
I recall many ALP supporters dismissed Kevin Rudd as a leader for he was too nerdy.
yes Mr PM with 70%
Cheers for that info mayo.
I really hope downer does go soon and a by election is called.
Give Downer the Kennett treatment! (Burwood 99 ah memories 🙂 )
Here is a list of Queensland Councils showing which have been amalgamated to some degree and those left as before.
http://www.strongercouncils.qld.gov.au/Portals/0/PDFs/Complete%20list%20of%20councils%20as%20at%2015%20March%202008.pdf
I can report that ‘Keating, the musical’ was terrific. Great production, packed to the rafters. Got talking to young woman in the loo queue, who couldn’t figure out why JWH lasted so long and 80 year woman, while waiting for our respective chauffeurs, who knew exactly why. Jeez, I hope Mr. Benetto writes ‘Howard, the requiem’.
The only thing most ratepayers see from a Council is their rubbish removed and an increasing annual rate bill. The rest of their work is largely unknown except childcare.
I there an argument for Amalgamations as down South they have lead to increased rates
yes Harry, saw ‘Keating’ …brilliant
314 Ron we must be doubly blessed in Brisbane, under Gridlock Campbell we have rate rises above the inflation rate he promised to peg them to in a council that was amalgamated donkeys years ago.
Some Mayors are just brilliant at being ‘good economic managers’ apparently. I think they could extract money from an ATM without a card, with their eyes closed and while whistling ‘Happy Days are here again’.
You don’t happen to want to buy a tunnel by any chance do you Ron? I know just the boy…
no Steve , we got our excess ones in storage
The poisoned dwarf just doesn’t get it. Noone gives a damn about Brian Burke. Rudd’s answered all questions on this in parliament and released the e-mails. For heaven sake move on Glen. Everyone else has.
Ron @ #314 shows the difference between a city voter and one from the bush. City voters in local govt elections think of rubbish removals etc. In the bush it is all about roads and culverts. It is not unknown to deliberately vote for the candidate who lives “further out” in order to get the road graded etc more frequently and more effectively.
Milne… has he been on the sauce again?
What to do about him and his obsessions?
Consider this piece of brilliant fact-digging from the Poison Dwarf:
“Everybody… knew.”
Forced to say in early in his column that Rudd’s behavior was all above board (what else could it be… having lunch is not yet a crime, neither is being invited to lunch), Milne sinks to a new low by implying that we should just ignore the facts… “Everybody… knew”.
Journalism has reached something of a nadir with Milne. When all else fails just write “everybody… knew” anyway.
Interestingly this supposedly “factual” story is included in the Telegraph’s “Opinion” pages.
Only because they don’t have a “Fantasy” column.
MESSAGE for bloger “Classified” :
Reading todays Blogs ,
Scaper accused you of ‘stalking’ him from other blogs.
Then there was personal exchanges between the 2 of you…no big deal
But then you overstepped the mark by implying personal info about Scaper here.
This is over the line. Blogers here are entitled to their privacy if THEY wish.
But when Jen tried to get you to cut the whole personal thing off ,
you got stuck into our good friend Jen.
IF everyone ignores a particular Bloger , he has failed & cann’t do anything about it. But we will all know that Bloger is frustrated without any recourse !!!!!
Should you repeat an attempt to divulge a Blogers personal privacy or personally attack Jen , it just may be coincidence that no one ever again acknowledges your existence here. Life is full of choices.
Whatever it is that’s going on between Classified, Scaper and others, can we please have no more of it on the site. I personally have no idea what this is about. Send me an email if there’s anything about this you’d like to discuss.
“Gary Bruce Says: 318”
I still remember when the ‘story’ first broke last year, the Murdoch press were going to town predicting it was the end of Rudd in triumphant tones. Then bewilderment as the polls came out.
They simply don’t get it – this type of journalism doesn’t cut it anymore. No body was interested back then when it was all new and fresh and even less so now.
The very disturbing thing for me is the total lack of indignation by the media over Liberals trashing and degrading of Parliament – a very serious thing that should be beyond partisan politics. It just shows how much damage Howard has done to the thinking and attitude of the media – partisan politics comes before health and respect for democracy and parliament. They should have been castigating Nelson and co in no uncertain terms.
Missed all the fun, was overseas at a conference, but saw the reportage on the absolutely disgraceful behaviour in Parliament by the ‘born to rule’ morons. They have really hoisted their colours for all to see, and prove just how right we were to kick them out.
On a separate note, NSW seems to be proving the adage that oppositions don’t win elections, governments lose them. The high level of odour emanating from the Iemma crowd is absolutely disgraceful. Not that I think the Libs have any credible alternatives, but they will win by default.
Too right BF. The right wing of the NSW Labor has had it sweet for so long that its got a “toothache” so to speak. May a challenge for the leadership may be in the offering or will the decay set in?
325 Kina – Couldn’t agree more. The antics of the opposition inparliament was a disgrace and we had some journalists, like Laurie Oakes almost justifying it. Shameful. Pyne gets on “Press the Meat” this morning and blames the speaker and acting speaker for THEIR own bad behaviour. Amazing stuff.
325, 326, 328
Agree with you about Opposition behaviour being a disgrace.
However the rules for Friday sittings are a joke (Division-free day etc) and the Government really ought to re-consider them.
William,
It was looking like you might have to join the “Referees Association”, yesterday.
One good thing though, most of your regular bloggers know how to look after themselves and their colleagues fairly well.
There has been a bit of niggle and agro recently though.
A bit reflective of recent going-ons in the National House. It’s a bit tough suddenly being on the other side as a number of people are finding out.
Let’s hope all settle down to friendly banter and informative discussion again.
This is the best political, blog site on the net in Australia and we ALL should determine to keep it that way.
Just my thoughts for the day. Have a good one everyone.
Cheers, Scorpio.
328 Gary the Laws of contempt of Parliament are as stringent as the Contempt of court laws. Maybe the Speaker apart from reading them the riot act needs to set a few examples to allow them to learn that parliament is just not the place for rabble rousing and bad behaviour.
If Hockeys comments yesterday about continuing to riot till he gets his way is not a contempt of Parliament then it is very close.
332 Seems there is nothing that can be done to stop the bad behaviour. Looks like the Liberals have might, right and the law on their side. We had better just get used to contempt for parliament becoming the norm.
“Shortly before the 1987 Act was passed, the House of Representatives had in fact punished one of its members for criticism, made outside the House, of the Speaker (HR Debates, 24 February 1987, pp 580-7). It appears that it is no longer possible to deal with such conduct, however gross the defamation.”
http://www.aph.gov.au/Senate/pubs/odgers/chap0232.htm
It looks like the opposition don’t want their dirty washing aired in public…wonder why?
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,23267172-29277,00.html
Bring on the by-elections.
That way there will be even fewer of those morons on that side of the house and it will be easier to ignore them.
As well as sending them another message (they didn’t seem to get it the first time), that We, the Australian people, don’t want them around anymore.
I’m struggling to understand why a day in parliament dedicated to the backbenchers speaking and bringing up issues important to them and their constituents is a bad thing. The only thing that makes the parliament unworkable on Friday is not the lack of divisions etc, it’s the lack of cooperation and a determination on the part of the oposition to make the parliament a rabble. If there was goodwill on both sides to make this work for the purposes as stated by the government, it would work.
GB,
If you’re interested, refer my post at 153 – I probably don’t need to reiterate it in full.
Backbenchers had their own time anyway under the old rules, but it wasn’t on a day when votes were banned (in Parliament of all places!) and Ministers had signalled their intention not to even be in the same city.
I think the Friday rules are very sub-optimal, they further instutionalise Ministerial contempt for Parliament in my view.
I also have no doubt Rudd’s motives for this are dubious – the change gives him a day to big-note himself all over the country, whilst the plebs are stuck in Parliament.
And the Speaker did a poor job earlier in the week of reining in Gillard’s use of props.
Which makes the Liberals even bigger dummies for what they did on Friday, their reasonable points have been totally obscured by their own bizarre behaviour.
Dyno, 337, bizarre is not the term I would choose, deluded, grandiose, arrogant certainly spring to mind! They really haven’t yet woken up, it was not a bad dream, they have indeed lost power. We are used to such childish moronic behaviour in the Queensland Parliament, please not in the Federal House.
335 Jen, yes indeed, a cold shower of a few by-elections is the prescribed therapy, or better still, a double dissolution!
BF @338,
No problem with your terminology. I think I called their antics disgraceful earlier in this thread.
Shame their behaviour obscured the points they should have been trying to make.
Keelty has Opposition’s full support:
Mr Pyne said AFP commissioner Mick Keelty had his full support, although he felt Mr Keelty had “overstepped the mark” in a recent speech in which he called for media reporting of terrorism cases to be curtailed.
“Other than that, Mick Keelty’s done a fantastic job as the head of the AFP and he has the Opposition’s complete support,” he said.
Jeez that should make Mick nervous! 🙂
Dyno@337
The Backbenchers may have had their own time under the old rules, but now that time Mon-Thurs is available for Government business.
Votes on Parliament-lite days are not banned, simply deferred. This can be workable simply because a day dedicated to the introduction of private members bills would not need any divisions in the normal course of business.
I fail to see how a Minister can hear a backbencher any better sitting in an office or in another city.
Actually Rudd has the same opportunity to “big note himself” around the country as the last PM had. The only difference is that backbenchers now also have an opportunity to “big note themselves” in Parliament. No-one is “stuck” in Parliament: attendance is not compulsory and the deferred vote enables this.
My nominations for the Friday Dream Team:
Fully laid back on the beach: Steve Ciobo
Waiting on the right wing: Abbott
Waiting on the left wing: Nairu Turnbull
Look at me centre: Fluffy Bishop
Child care centre: Uncle Joe Hockey
Offensive five eighth: Luke Hartsuyker
Half: Nelson
Loose head prop: WorkChoices
Tight head prop: Kevin Rudd
Muckraker: Christopher Pyne
Second class rowers: Downer and Costello
Binding the pack: no one
On the bench: Bishop (B), Robb, Hunt, Dutton
Left right out: JWH
337 Dyno – but the opposition front bench doesn’t have to be there either. They too can “swan around” big noting themselves. I still make the point that if the opposition cooperates in an orderly manner and exercises self control this will work well. What you believe are Rudd’s motives are neither here nor there.
I notice Bolt has an answer for everything Rudd does now, “It’s a stunt!” Where was Bolt last term when Howard was producing one stunt after another to get re-elected?
Ron, I’m happy to see the cooalition behave in that manner every Friday sitting up to the next election. It’s a shocking look for them. Fancy electing a bunch of rabble like that to government.
Yes Gary, too true, perhaps we can encourage them to behave like the elected ones in Taiwan or Russia, fisticuffs, nay full-blown brawling in the House. Should see them in opposition for at least two centuries. Good idea!
Musrum @ 342,
I stress again that I am not defending the Opposition’s behaviour on Friday.
However your own description for Fridays (“Parliament-lite”) says it all in my view.
GB @ 344,
What I believe are Rudd’s motives is “neither here nor there” – this is fair enough, but the same comment could be applied to practically everything that is posted on this site!
I am sure that Labor’s PR machine is carefully filing away the video footage of the clowns ready for the next campaign, my god these were the people who sold themselves as experienced leaders. Joe Hockey really should have used some head protection in the scrums, one too many knocks I fear.
346
Gary Bruce
There’s now a new button on TV remote controls, it’s called the “Bolter”, and when switched on, it automatically mutes Andrew Bolt, allowing the viewer to actually hear what other commentators on Insiders are actually saying.
Since he’s only ever saying the same thing ie everything is a stunt, including, but not exclusively: climate change, anything said by the government, anything said by other guests on Insiders, it’s no longer necessary to hear anything he says and is easily filtered without losing anything of worth.
(Just think of the wonderful home videos his children and grandchildren will have! Oh look, there’s granddad way back in the naughties, when everyone had realised, finally, how bad greenhouses were, denying its existence. God, what a prat he was, eh? yeah, it’s been 49 degrees for how many days this month. Warm for this time of year in Tasmania, eh?)
350 Dyno – I only meant in regard to this issue as to whether the parliament should operate like this or not. No offence meant.
KR – I must find and use that button. I’ve given up reading anything Bolt writes – he’s a lost cause I’m afraid.