Lateline reports tomorrow’s Newspoll has Labor’s two-party lead at 59-41, down from 63-37 a fortnight ago. Kevin Rudd’s lead as preferred prime minister is down from 73-7 to 70-10 (hat tip to Blair S. Fairman).
UPDATE: Graphic here.
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.
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Just like to add my condolences to Harry.
The carers fiasco was Rudd’s own fault for trying to micromanage the whole bloody government, that was why we had all these Ministers of the Crown reciting like schoolboys “Can’t comment on budget measures.” Rudd better learn to delegate and quick!
On Tibet, I think Rudd’s diplomatic experience and close ties with the Chinese will do more than any amount of bluster! Unless we bankrupt our economy and lose our entire defence forces by sending them to Tibet WTF else can we do? We are important to the Chinese and this can and will be done to the hilt.
I was actually Newspolled on Sunday at midday. I gave all the right, or should I say left, answers, but it was obviously not enough to prevent the plunge of support for the ALP of the amazing rise of Nelson in the PP stakes. 10% support! We should all be quaking in our boots. Now to a possibly connected topic…
Like may others on this blog, I am alarmed by the partisan support that the ABC is giving the Opposition. During the previous government’s term, the Opposition was lucky to even have the most cursory camera shot from Parliament on the ABC news. But on Thursday night, there were several comments from Nelson, and the same clip of Bishop (looking credible) was played three times in an hour, on the news and on the 7.30 Report. I have no problem about them being reported, but it somehow gave the impression that they were the government. I can’t recall any positive shots of the real government benches in the same newscast. I add my call to all the others demanding an overhaul of the ABC board. Let the OO maintain its partisan bias, who cares. I’ve joined the ranks of the disillusioned and given up reading it, but the ABC needs more balance. And SBS too, for that matter. They too, gave disproportionate time to Nelson and Bishop.
Just a small note on Tibet.
I think everyone is missing how WE are regarded at present – as far as people outside our continet are concerned we have our own humanitarian problems with refugees and our own indigenous population.
While we’re all quite aware we’ve had a reigime change, the overseas perspective is pretty unaware of our local politics.
humanitarian credibility comes from long term policy and evidence of positive outcomes. I’m not sure Kev has any credibility to spend. The credibility he does have at the moment is largely based on his own persona, not that of the country he’s representing. To that end, as a diplomat, I expect he’ll tread very moderately. We’re isolated enough from the international community as a result of Howard deciding he only needed one good friend (who incedentally never really though that much of us anyway). Like any peer group, no one is going to side with us on any issue until they feel they know and trust us – that’s why he and Smith are out there.
Howard couldn’t even be bothered visiting PNG – how to win friends and influence people?
Fundamentally I agree with many of the above – we can never do enough for the persecuted in many countries. I am very disapointed that we can’t. That I might or might not understand why doesn’t make it any easier.
Our local ABC presenter interrogates anyone who spouts a mildly leftist view to see if they are members of the Labor party, whilst taking direct calls from the local member’s staffers without making it clear who’s talking. I’ve never heard him ask anyone if they’re Liberal or National members.
During the election campaign, he would ring the labor candidate and say something like ‘today we’re going to be talking about election donations, so make sure you’re up to speed on that’ – ask one question on that issue and then jump to something like nuclear power. Happened on more than one occasion, and it was always obvious that the Lib knew exactly what was going to be discussed.
My point is that the ABC as a whole may be balanced, but our local experience is very different – and the ABC is our main source of political information out here.
95 Rates Analyst – my point is that this just didn’t happen when Labor came into government and as such the notion that the Libs are good economic managers is already under a cloud. They were in while this was brewing and did nothing. If the argument against this is, yes they did nothing but they couldn’t control the rest of the world, ah hello, neither can Labor. I’m not convinced the average person will blame Labor.
Just another month or two would have been enough to really drive it home though. Those who were paying attention know that the seeds were well and truly planted before the ALP was in power, but I’m less convinvced about the average voter.
The other problem is that “we ain’t seen nothing yet”.
Gary
What you are writing is logical, but a quick trip to any of the News.com.au comments section reveal a fundamental lack of intelligence, let alone logic.
How else do you explain 59-41 – what are the 41 prepared to vote for? I think they’re voting based almost primarily on past performance. Future ability has very little to do with it. Australians believe there will always be an alternative of the two parties and that’s a huge part of the dynamic.
Only the lunatic fringe will blame the ALP for creating the economic mess – but that’s irrelevant. If Labor does nothing to alleviate the pain they will be punished for that.
Trouble is…there’s not a lot they can do.
[I’ve joined the ranks of the disillusioned and given up reading it, but the ABC needs more balance. And SBS too, for that matter. They too, gave disproportionate time to Nelson and Bishop.]
My suggestion the other day was to split the ABC into Entertainment and News/Current Affair arms. Leave the neocon thought police with their tenures to look after playschool and the like and, appoint a new group to oversee the News arm.
If bludgers are upset with the ABC then write the newspapers. I have been writing the SMH but with no luck yet. Im sure if they get enough of them they will have to start printing some.
Rates, Ferny
I agree – it’s going to get a whole lot worse. I can see fringe small business hurting, but that capacity could be absorbed by big business who are screaming for talent. I fully expect the value of assets to be radically reassessed, but I can’t see major job losses because the demand for resources and housing won’t really slow down. Anyone who has substantial debt will pay very dearly as the cost of their asset is ‘corrected’. There are so many people in or community now who survived the last recession and will know how to profit from this one – a la JP Morgan this week. I beleive the real estate of Bear Stearns was worth substantially more than the paid price.
I’m no economist, but I could easily see a bank per month collapsing over the next 6 months. The other thing I think is that the sub-prime stuff isn’t the only piece of dirty laundry that need washing. it’s just indicative of a whole range of poor risk assessment.
and yes – the lack of spellcheck when I write from work is just killing me….
The head office of Bear Stearns is apparently worth more than they paid for the company.
Don’t get too cute though, JPMorgan also bought the liabilities of Bear Stearns too. And they could be massive.
Which assets do you see being “corrected”?
It’s less clear to me. Are you predicted widespread collapse in housing prices? We’ve already had that.The share market is already on 18 month lows.
Fundamentally, the Australian economy is still fine.
Did you notice Rudd just broke Howard’s record for the lowest unemployment rate? Down from 4.3% to only 4.0%.
Tibet from the European perspective:
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,541976,00.html
The relevant data for Australia as published in various places is that private borrowings have since 1996 increased from about 80% of GDP to 157% of GDP and and when it had reached 100% of GDP Howard cut capital gains tax on investment in residential property just to fuel it along a bit.
Value of property has increased 250% but borrowings for that housing increased 500% and, 90% of has been on existing housing. So much of that increased borrowing hasn’t created anything much and instead seems to have resulted from competition for existing assets.
Not hard to see then why some are predicting a crash, if it happens, to be greater than that of 1890s 1929 and 1987 given that our figures are actually worse than at those times. Though China’s growth maybe our savior.
Assets – anything that’s substantially debt held. Only 35% or thereabouts, of homes in Australia are owned outright. The clearance rates, as an indicator of sales, are massively down. Now people can talk all they like about credit, but if you can’t sell a house, then you’re asking too much. This could get a lot worse if banks start tightening the lending criteria at the same time.
I do agree that the Oz economy is fundamentally fine. I do think there’s a posibility of disaster in the outer suburbs, where I think the McMansions are massively overpriced. Your point about employment might be the key for us though. So long as those with mortgages can service them then then they’ll be okay probably, but it might become apparent that compared to prices 24 months from now, they paid way too much.
I’m no economist though, so these are all just opinions. Now normally as the share market drops the investment in bricks and mortar rises. I’m not sure that’s happening. I think there’s a lot of paper oney being exposed as pretty much worthless?
No 102
The ABC is fair and balanced. It gives equal time to government and opposition members, which is fair.
GP
Would it be fair for the ‘intelligent design’ theory to be given equal time with evolutionary science?
twat
Lift your game please, Ominod.
Mr “1 in 10” thinks your message has more clout if you yell!
Anyone watching Nelson’s national press club address? Why does he sound so angry during his speech? My guess is he’s trying to portray sound passionate but he comes across as shrill
Woops…that should be “My guess is he’s trying to sound passionate but he comes across as shrill”
No omnimod, but we are not discussing scientific theories you irksome mosquito!
The ABC is not a government mouthpiece. It should be equally reporting the views of both political parties.
What you are essentially implying is that one party is right and one is wrong. We don’t live under an authoritarian dictatorship.
Sorry WB
but that’s just typical of GP – the beginning of another neo-con circular argument where he/she makes the most minimal and calculated contribution to drive the level of intelligent discussion lower.
I agree with and applaud your desire for a balance of views, but lowering the level of debate below a certain point makes the discussion irrelevant.
and yes – I realise I did just that.
I wonder how man evolved the concept of fairness before we could count seconds?
Haha
Annabelle Crabb’s question to Dr Fluff at the Press Club was brilliant.
asking why he has stated that he barracks for both StKilda and Sydney Swans and can he explain that?..ie: you just talk out of both sides of your mouth while sitting on the fence.
brilliant question, and it went straight over the couiffered bonce of Dr Fluff.
lol
Need I mention you’re virulent marxist circumlocution? Try a different customer omnimod. You’re as partisan as the rest of us.
*your not you’re in the first sentence.
No GP – now you’re mis-representing me.
Please explain how you think time is an adequate measure of balance or fairness in a social or political sense rather than the purely chronological sense?
Sure you can measure it, but there’s no evidence it means what you think it does.
Yep, I think one party is more right than wrong at the moment – so do you.
The scientific theories is a perfect illustration – just because there are two at the table, it doesn’t mean they deserve equal time does it?
All I’m pointing out, is that you’ve made a big assumption which I believe is wrong, wrong, wrong, and lacks the level of intelligence you display in other ways, which really brings into question why you said it here and what you hoped it would do.
I apologise if you came here with better intentions this time around, but you’ve got form on the board. i’ll wait for the max. two line response.
I think the equal time requirement only come in during elections. Outside of elections, the various ABC outlets are less controlled. For example Jon faine in Melbourne conducts a quite pleasant interview with Brendan Nelson every fortnight yet only interviews the PM occasionally and they are quite blunt, hostile affairs.
Minutes of the Reserve Bank’s March meeting were released today. It seems that their acknowledgment of substantial increases might see them wait and see for a while now.
http://www.rba.gov.au/MonetaryPolicy/RBABoardMinutes/2008/rba_board_min_04032008.html
The ALP is in trouble
at this rate of decline the support for ALP will be 0 in 15 months time
Split the ABC and isolate the ABC Pimps into Entertainment…see how they can manage to give a negative image of the government through play school.
Noocat@93 said
“But I can’t help thinking that maybe Australians are less ignorant of global conditions and the effect these have here than they did when we were last in recession.”
I agree and last recession there wasn’t the internet and a computer in every home. People are much more knowledgable now that we have the web. MSM and it’s lies doesn’t have to clout it once had
should be “the clout”
I support the argument Australians had doubts about the economy credentials of the Howard government. When comes down to the majority of battlers, we may not know a lot about financial markets but have a instinctive pulse of what’s going on – interest rates on the rise, work choices legislation, groceries rising sharply, public hospitals, education etc etc a mess, ie. the stuff affecting day to day living and pockets. I
Unfortunately, electoral perception is almost as important as honesty – the old adage applies – The wife of the Caesar not only has to be honest but appear honest.
Australians wanted fundamental change. The first hit to that trust has been the carers fiasco – I agree Rudd’s micromanagement behavior can be his Achilles heel. He either addresses it or it’d be fully exploited by the opposition with the MSM support.
As to China and Tibet, I prefer quiet diplomacy to grand gestures for a couple of reasons. As another poster mentioned, Australia’s international standing on human rights is not precisely the best – treatment of refugees and Aboriginal living conditions are well documented overseas. Secondly and as much as it pains me, China is financially important to us and vice versa.
Apologies if my first post seems all over the place.
The ALP will also be able to make a credible comaprison to the rest of the world and say “we’re doing it so much better than them (US) and them (UK) and them (Europe)…” May have to avoid China when we maket that list. And, depending on dairy prices, NZ.
[The scientific theories is a perfect illustration – just because there are two at the table, it doesn’t mean they deserve equal time does it?]
One is religiously-based whilst the other is based on proper scientific investigation, hence this is different to the discussion of political ideologies.
Just because the ABC happens to show the opposition members in parliament to the same degree as Government members doesn’t necessarily indicate an ingrained bias. It is not up to journalists to decide who is right and who is wrong, they simply commentate on the implications of the view from either side and in an equal manner.
What you really want is for the opposition to be silenced in ABC reporting. That is what is wrong, wrong, wrong. This is nothing to do with your hysterical rants about “circular neo-con” arguments.
Just saw a “honeymoon is over” headline in Courier mail, how predicable
and the good ole ABC screams out “Howard Australia’s greatest PM: Nelson”
Lord have mercy… when will they’re greiving period end!
Nelson gives his big speech at the Press club and that is the headline to come out of it LOL the rest of his speech musta been crap!
should be “their” excuse my bad spelling please
“For example Jon faine in Melbourne conducts a quite pleasant interview with Brendan Nelson every fortnight yet only interviews the PM occasionally and they are quite blunt, hostile affairs.”
My God, the stupid drivel about the ABC continues.
Could it not be that Jon Faine’s staff request an interview with Rudd EVERY day, and continually get refused, whereas Nelson agrees to interviews more often? The PMs office gets many more interview requests that the opposition’s, and agrees to fewer of them. Exactly the same thing happened when Howard was PM.
Honestly, there are people here who see bias and conspiracy everywhere.
Many criticisms of the ABC are valid, but the claim that it’s some tool of the Liberal Party is not.
And if the media is presenting such a “negative image” of the government, home come it is so popular in the polls?
136 GP
I asked a senior ABC journo about just this point, ie is it reverse discrimination to give 50/50 coverage no matter the relative merit’s of the arguments (at the time Labor was up 55/45 so I said you could argue that 55/45 would be more representative of current opinion).
She strongly denied this and said that although there was equal time allocated (VERY strictly), if one side put up crappy arguments they suffer as a result of their 50% or if it wasn’t very interesting, they could always be put as a lower item rather than leading a bulletin. The 50/50 rule at least ensures an equal voice but is flexible enough for journos to still do their job properly.
http://business.smh.com.au/china-locks-out-bhp-and-rio-ore/20080317-1zzz.html
“The conflict threatens to escalate into a diplomatic row. BHP Billiton and Rio Tinto are urging Kevin Rudd to intervene when he arrives in Beijing for his first prime ministerial visit next month.
The visit is looming as a stiff test of Mr Rudd’s foreign policy finesse. He will also be expected to explain his views on surging Chinese investment in Australia and the bloody conflict in Tibet – while cementing ties with China’s leaders.”
Shanninigans has done it again!!
http://tinyurl.com/36go9l
“This may be as good as it gets for Rudd”
Yet Nelson and the Coalition may have bottomed. When the Opposition Leader went below double digits as preferred prime minister in a Newspoll survey it was said it couldn’t get any worse.
It did: he went from 9per cent to a new record low of 7 per cent.
Last weekend he got back to 10 as preferred PM and his satisfaction rating jumped to 35 per cent. Nelson’s still in the unenviable position of being where no leader of the Opposition has been before but it did get better, not worse. He might be bumping along the bottom but he’s looking up.
———————————————————-
But But… what about the margin of error Shanninigans?!?! If you take the 3% margin of error into account, Nelson hasn’t moved from 7%!!!
Or does that theory only work when your hero is going backwards?
112#Rates Analyst
Yes Unemployment is down to 4% but I can clearly see a job’s slowdown, I’m been watching one or two of the larger recruitment agencies and looking at a narrow band of positions and from wehat I can tell the slow down is happening.
I feel the RBA while justified in raising rates may have cooked the job market.
I aso note several of our larger financial companies are reducing their recruitment to next to nothing.
114#Kina 1890s 1929 and 1987
out of those three crashes I think the 1890’s is the most similar for it happened on the back of a specultive housing boom throwing on from a mining boom (Victorian gold rush), I believe it took the Victorian economy well over a decade to recover, some could argue that it changed the nature of Victoria politically and culturally.
Whenh we talk about the U.S Economy one thing which seems to be ignored is the very large budget debt which at some point will need attention either by increased taxes or cuts to spending.
A few years ago Peter Costello advised the House that the U.S Government budget was running a debt which if transated to Australian conditions (side of budget & economy) something like 13 Billion which I image has worstened.
I think the RBA may have gone one cut to many, it seems that apart from Soros and Buffet most American policy-markers and money men seem to be in denial about our bad things appear.
Dr Nelson = Dr Death!
Sometimes I reckon Shanninigans at the Oz just writes up his daily column just to so he can poke his “icky stick” at us pollbludgers. He just a troll!
Re MB’s “the RBA may have cooked the jobs market”..
They don’t like to admit but that might be exactly what they intended to do…. What do you think a labour capacity constraint is? It’s that not enough people are unemployed….
Unpalatable, but true.
146#Rates Analyst,
Yes I accept your point about the RBA cooking the job market on purpose, but their are two issues with that.
1) I would have though the last thing the Government wanted was a blow out in the welfare budget when it’s trying to cut spending to each its target.
2) Is the unemployment rate really that low!
While you continue to represent me and assume you know what I then yes, GP you are right.
For the record it, was a discussion about bias, to which I contended your view that there was no bias on the contention that time devoted was equal, was wrong. I asked you to justify why you think time is the primary or only measure of bias? Instead of answering you have painted me as an extremist.
Sounds like the ‘if-you’re-not-with-us-you’re-against-us Iraq argument to me.
Again, your treatment of journalists as single data-in-data-out units of operation is simplistic in the extreme and shows either a lack of understanding, or willful misrepresentation. Your assumption that the journalist ‘just reports’ without bias is just laughable. We all have a bias, whether it be ignorant, informed, intelligent or otherwise.
For you information I’m actually an advocate of a multi (more than two) party system. I also believe in journalistic process. You stated there’s no bias because the ABC process was being followed. I think the process is wrong.
Question time in the Reps is such a hoot!
Swan is improving each day. He’s just referred to Allbull’s speech yesterday where Allbull declared that in relation to a particular economic measure it was “Mission accomplished.”
Swan’s response: “All that was missing was a banner, a jump suit and an aircraft carrier.” A very good line that had Allbull squirming in his seat.
Also is it wise to be upping rates just as the U.S appears on the brink of a major economy crisis