The latest Morgan phone poll has Labor’s two-party lead widening to 63.5-36.5 from 60.5-39.5 last week. I believe this is a record for a Morgan phone poll, while not quite matching face-to-face polls from earlier in the year which put it at 65-35 and 64.5-35.5.
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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steve, maybe the candidate isn’t worried about having Rudd like media attention and he’d be more inclined to be out on the hustings drumming up support as a local candidate who won’t just be a Rudd mouth piece in Canberra!
651 I thought you told us they were ‘going hard’ to win Glen. Then why tie one foot up to the other hand behind his back?
Glen, it sounds like the old trick of just stand a candidate so he will preference the Nats secretly hoping the Nats will fall over the line.
649
Glen
As I expected = another case of cloudy logic from the boy with th eye patch.
Why does preselecting someone whose only community involvement is coaching a kid’s basketball team mean the Liberals are going in hard?
Your candidate – as described – doesn’t sound as if he’d have much of a community profile, which would be absolutely essential in getting rural votes in this seat.
Glen good to see that your poor judgement in politics extends to film. Blanchett is one of the best actors of her generation and if seriously think that the Oscars genuinely reflect talent you are more far gone that I thought!!
True Glen #646, Nationals should become Liberals. It is only a matter of time.
I think Kevin will ask Cate at the 2013 election to stand as a Labor candidate.
As for her film roles I liked her in the Lord of the Rings, before that I didn’t even know who she was.
657
Agree with you there though the Nats may only merge with us if we form a new party, i am open to either idea, seriously if the Nats lose Gippsland to the Liberal Party they’ll hold less than 10 federal seats and 1 Victorian seat.
I suppose i shouldn’t expect people from Hollywood to have an open mind, but Blanchet basically said that Australia is a joke and it kisses the US on the behind and that she thought we had a bad international reputation all things i disagree with but she’s entitled to her opinion.
I’m wondering if people like Glen would write off an actress if she were a right winger. I think not. It’s amazing how being considered left wing makes a person like poison in the eyes of right wingers and completely useless for anything. How simple minded is that?
Gary I don’t think we’re writing off Cate Blanchett, I think we’re amazed how star struck Kevin Rudd is. Where is his love for local talent? Will he be commenting on the loss of Sally from Home and Away?
Glen,
Which of her movies have you seen, and then liked or disliked? Apart from the measure of an Academy Award, how does her perceived political views make her a better or worse actress than Nicole Kidman. By the way, via a friend of a froiend, you would be surprised (or, more likely, disappointed) at how Nicole thinks politically.
I thought Cate was excellent in Notes On A Scandal. Et tu?
The blinkering going on here with Blanchet is just astounding.
How does her acting ability in any way relate to her moderation and mediation skills? Are you people even aware that you can have an ideology that is at odds with your job description?
Simple mindedness doesn’t even come close to explaining it Garry.
660 John – I usually respect your opinion on politics because you come over as a sensible person but that comment was purile or a poor attempt at humour. Besides isn’t Cate Australian?
I’ll tell you this though if this is the only “fault” we have to concentrate on Kev’s doing extremely well. And the pettiness continues.
Lol, Gary 663, True Cate is Australian and yes it was an attempt at humour 🙂
Gary you are correct when you say Kev is doing extremely well for he is. Its only a 5 month government which has yet to make any hard decisions.
666 – Thank heaven’s for that John. I thought we may have lost one of the clearer thinking conservatives here. I agree with you on Kev. Time will tell. It will be a real disappointment if he doesn’t deliver.
John
Care name a successfull hard decision that was made in the last 5 years?
We just need to know what the benchmark is. Otherwise you could be talking apples while others are talking oranges eh?
Gary 🙂 So true, only time will tell.
Onimod you almost got me…. successful you say? I think WorkChoices was one. Yes it did cost Howard his government but he did win the case in the High Court and it appears as though the Rudd Government will keep most of it albeit under contractual agreements. As Deng Zao Ping said, ” it doesn’t matter what colour the cat is as long as it catches the mouse.”
Small business legislation that was brought in by Barnaby Joyce.
Forrests initiative in Indonesia. etc, etc…
Oh yeah and fiscal conservatism, alwas have been and always will be a financial conservative 😉
John
I wasn’t trying to catch you.
I only meant in terms of ‘successful’ that it’s stood the test of the electorate. Dismantled decisions are, for whatever reason, not successful if the population won’t eventually support them.
This round of Workchoices might have been hard, but I think not successful. There might be some elements that remain technically, but overall you’d have to suggest it’s a bust. We’ll know for sure by the end of the term. let’s leaver tht one alone because it’s been done to death.
“Etc etc” doesn’t cut it though.
If you’re going to be technically rationalist with Rudd then you need to have the perspective to do the same with Howard too.
Are you seriously suggesting that the shining lights of the last 5 years (60 months) of political rule is a bill from a party outsider like Barnaby, and the giving of $30m to the Indonesian government?
Ominmod sorry I was speaking to myself when I wrote you alm ost go me, please discard.
Onimod I agree with you when you say, “If you’re going to be technically rationalist with Rudd then you need to have the perspective to do the same with Howard too.”
That is why I have copied a link to Howard Government Achievements as my answer. 🙂
http://www.liberal.org.au/about/ach.php
John
sorry, 670 is probably ever so slightly aggressive.
My simplified opinion of the conservative side of politics is as follows:
1. no progress will be made until the ‘look at what we did’ approach to relevancy is dropped entirely – it rarely works for anyone.
2. Conservative used to be synonymous with considered; no longer. This shoot from the hip reactionary approach is flawed entirely and just generates further weakness (it’s probably cosying HRC at the moment too). state leadership is the worst at this, though the federal party is catching them fast.
3. The world at large, as a result of world events has turned ever so slightly progressive. If conservative politics wants to remain relevant, and I agree that it has to for our countries sake, then there must be at least some adoption of this.
4. The wedge political, dichotomic view of the world has to stop. It’s a sign of real immaturity. It’s very rare in Australia to find Australian who fundamentally hate other Australians. This is not Northern Ireland in the 70’s. Painting everyday living as a war is just plain silly, and no wonder no-one wants to listen. People like the positive. The only time that pure negativity works is in the later stages of an election campaign, and people are prepared to overlook that.
5. Surely it’s easy to make the argument that a party in Australia could adopt 80% of the ALP policy, improve on the last 20% and they would be eminently electable? Australian politics is like squash or Volleyball – you can’t win a point when you’re not serving.
6. There ‘s an old boardroom saying: “there’s nothing so unwelcome as the right idea from the wrong person” This is old business politics of the psychopath. Again, the adoption of this level of debate and discourse suggest that the conservative side really doesn’t have a handle on business and are only in the game for selfish reasons.
Australians might not ‘know’ these things, but they can feel them. They’ll give all sorts of reasons for not supporting Brendan that are simplistic and rationalist and less than 20 words long.
Conservative politics needs to up the intellectual ante if they really believe in this country moving forward.
After 4 months how can you judge a Government? How much did Howard do after 4 months? Obviuosly Rudd has to be judged finally by what has been achieved by the end of the electoral cycle.
Rudd has started very well and is laying the groundwork. He and his Ministers are planning. They are communicating and consulting. Budget is being prepared behind the scenes.
He is laying groundwork internationally as well as domestically. Because of his visit to China following USA, England and Europe the International community and Australia have an idea on the direction he is heading. Because of “Sorry” to the Aborigines people have an idea of where he/ALP is heading in Indigenous Policy. The High Profile 2020 is about more communication and involvement of the Australian Community through representatives. More ideas and more communication by practical example. Part of the strategy has to be to get the Australian people aware of his visions and to be onside. Read his speech to the Sydey Institute. There is also a genuine attempt to rise above the old ideas of Left and Right so as to join people together for a common purpose.
Howard never reached an agreement with the States on the Murry -Darling. Rudd showed how easy it was if one went about it in the right way.
All I saw of Howard in a positive light was the GST and even that is debatable. Work Choices beat him plus his carelessness with the truth.
Onimod, lol, its true and it cost Hward the election saying look at what we didnot what we’re about to do.
My simplifed view of Conservative politics is: equality in opportunity.
Give people choices and the opportunity (economic well being) to make those choices and they’ll do the rest.
Doug Murray-Darling is a furphy they only agred to agree.
671 John – nice one.
It also presents the problem even more clearly.
Every one of those titles is soft and general.
Any half smart Australian should be able to name at least 2 or 3 achievements, and I’ve got to be honest, I asked you the question without having a clue what you were going to answer (never the way to win an argument…).
Rudd might not have made any hard decisions by your measure, but every Australian can talk about Kyoto and the Aboriginal Apology, whether they agree or not.
Your list reads pretty much like the adequate response of a government, but there’s no icing on top – no positivity that makes Australians feel like they’re living in the best place on earth.
Anyway, as I said above, talking up the past is no way to win in the future. Peoples memories are polarised, and all talking about the past is doing is fixing people to one side of the fence or the other – it’s not shifting people through the open gate. You need to be telling people the grass is greener over there, not just telling people that the grass they’ve chosen is crap.
Cheers Onimid got work smart not hard 🙂
Anybody know anything about the “jurists letter” re the so called Heiner Affair? Someone linked to it and it does not look to me like ‘jurists’ would have written it. Apart from that all the signatories (if genuine) are all retired/old lawyers. About as genuine as a $3 note I reckon.
674
I reckon we’re a bit past that John.
The fundamentals of a free market economy are accepted and entrenched in both parties now. Neither party agrees fundamentally with complete deregulation either. At it’s most basic the economic divide between the parties is about how many lever and who controls them. The idea that there’s some deep chasm between the parties is long gone. There’s certainly been no wholesale change of personnel at Treasury.
I think the idea that people will fundamentally organise themselves given the opportunity is fundamentally false.
Ever read ‘Lord of the Flies’?
Is that what you really mean, or is it just simplistic idealistic jargon?
I thought that was the tag you’d apply to a Lefty? Hahaha 😉
Onimod, no never read it.
Thomarse, I don’t know exactly what you are referring to, but it may be you have a misunderstanding.
“Jurists” usually refers to people expert in jurisprudence and the law, as distinct from “jury” or “member of a jury”.
Hope that helps, or at least doesn’t offend.
John 680
It’s a fable about what happens when you give humans free reign.
the wikipaedia entry is short and to the point:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lord_of_the_Flies
The reason we’ve evolved to have leaders it that we’re not really good at it without them. We actually need regulation/leaders – it’s hard-wired. It also means we’re hard-wired to accept poor leadership, and partially explains the advantage of encumbancy.
Anyone know if there are any animal (not bird or fish) species that have no leadership/regulation structure?
681 Fulvio
Yeah, the language of the ‘Heiner Watchers’ (and Pies) is jurists. Some old legal farts are supposed to have signed this letter about the “Heiner Affair” Just thought someone may have known more about it.
Been having fun disparaging ‘Heiner Watchers’ and hopefully save one or two entering that conspiracy theory
659
Gary Bruce
That’s why I latched on to Glen’s comment that Blanchett is a second rate actress. I expected Glen to reply that he didn’t actually mean that she was second rate but that he was simply tipping a bucket on her politics when his emotions took over and he wrongly bucketed on her talent as well. No, not Glen. He then tries to justify why she is second rate by comparing her with one other Aussie actress who has won an academy award. That is why I referred to Glen’s eye patch a few posts later. His view of politics is through just one eye.
“Equality in opportunity” = Conservatism?
Sorry, John, but I don’t know of any conservative party which has stood for that.
There is no equality in opportunity in favouring private schools over public ones or private health over public hospitals – and yet that has been a clear divide between Liberal and Labor policies over many, many years.
The inherent belief in sending one’s children in private schools is that you are offering them better opportunities than they would get in a public school.
True conservatism (look up the meaning of the word!) is about preserving entrenched traditions. That’s not necessarily bad – indeed, in many situations, quite the opposite – but preserving entrenched traditions basically shuts down social mobility.
A true conservative is thus anti equality, believing that people are in the places where they’ve ended up because they deserve to be there, not because they had different opportunities to others.
Have I misunderstood what you mean by ‘equality in opportunity’ or have you misunderstood what ‘conservative’ is?
zoom # 685.
I refer you to the second paragraph: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberalism
re: Private schools vs Public schools its all about choice.
zoom
I think you’ve nicely highlighted the problem with ‘conservatism’ being the mainstay of a party that titles itself “liberal”. Can they really not see the irony I wonder?
Of course, when they work this out, there will be an unnamed contributor who will post-rationalise what they meant by ‘conservative’ to match the current definition – an amazing feat with just one eye…….
Now if I could just find possum’s whinge about ‘lefty-righty namey-whamey’ labelling…..
Political enthsiasts have been banging on about the concept for plenty long enough, and yet I reckon the public understanding of the concepts is actually waning. It’s just too simple to summarise current political thinking.
686 yeah but John, please compare and contrast with the current Liberal Party play book!
There’s a job for you as the future leader of this country if you could get the Liberal Party to follow that link.
Maybe I’m unfairly tying you to the LP – let me know?
BTW – I happen to believe anyone who is great in a particular field has a particular gift – the perspective to conduct rational self criticism. I’m not saying the ALP is any better, but the LP certainly can’t (as a party).
Onimod #688, JWH may have been more a conservative then a liberal but Kevin adopted winning Coalition policies to get into office as did Howard adopt winning Keating policies.
My point is the pebdulum swings sometimes too far to the right or left so they are then brought back to the centre by the electorate.
689 John
I don’t disagree with the pendulum, but is the whole population of Australia, state and federal, swinging left at the moment, or is the LP standing at the wrong bus stop?
The idea that any party claims a policy as a way to exclude the other is intellectually disgusting, and the idea that something is good, just because it’s better than something that is bad is not far behind. I’m not having a go at you specifically, but surely we can get beyond that here?
A good policy is a good policy. Full stop.
We live in a peaceful and prosperous country. There should be a lot of policies that are common to both parties. If a liberal parliamentarian has a really good policy, he should be down the corridor to the ALP minister to raise it ASAP – that’s what I expect (but rarely get) from my representatives. That the whole country has to wait until a change of government for that idea to get raised is daft.
Why should our parliament be governed by only half the available brain power?
John, you are moving the goal posts.
You were not talking about ‘choice’ but about ‘equality in opportunity’.
These are not synonyms.
I’ve talked to people who genuinely believe that (for example) if a child is born with a certain inherent genius – violin playing, for example – they will ‘find their way’ regardless of their social and economic circumstances.
Yet, strangely, we have no violin virtuosos emerging from Broadmeadows (apologies to any Broadsmeadowian vvs out there whose dramatic rise to stardom has escaped me) or from the slums of Africa or remote Aboriginal communities – they all come from well off families of a certain cultural bent.
IF ‘equality in opportunity’ was a reality, we would have ‘elite’ professions such as the law, medicine, stockbroking, merchant banking etc reflecting in their educational/family background the same demographics as society as a whole.
Yet, strangely, not only is this not the case but they don’t even have the same sex demographics as the rest of society.
If ‘equality in opportunity’ was even vaguely adhered to by conservatives, I would have a good chance of finding Toorak born, Melbourne Grammar educated tradies or check out chicks.
Never met one.
From the evidence, one would have to conclude that either:
(i) richer families carry within them genetic advantages which are passed on to to their children, and the affluent circumstances into which these children are born are irrelevancies;
OR
(ii) richer families spend a lot of time and money ensuring that their children are able to enter elite professions and actively dissuade them from considering other paths.
My experience of life, JofM, has been that there are opportunities that are not available to me -will never be available to me – because I didn’t grow up in the right area, go to the right school or know the right people.
Under a Labor government, I was able to overcome some of these advantages because I was given opportunities NEVER available to my parents under previous conservative governments.
I know I’m not more intelligent than my parents, or more capable. I simply had opportunities given to me (ta, Gough) that were not available to them.
Conservative governments, however, in my experience, have actively worked to try and ensure that these opportunities are not available to people like myself.
Thus I see ‘equality in opportunity’ as inherently of Labor and the left, as Labor recognises that not all people have the same opportunities in life and seeks to overcome this bias in the system.
Liberal and Labor candidates announced for Gippsland.
http://andrewlanderyou.blogspot.com/2008/04/let-games-begin-three-candidates-ready.html
Onimod I agree a good policy is a good policy. Let he who adopts a policy tell people where he adopts it from. Competition enables better policies.
Zoom I understand your point and I don’t know what life was like before Gough so I do not make comment.
I believe you can do anything in this life if you’re willing to accept the consequences. Australia is a great place and he who wishes to succeed has every opportunity to succeed. Having said that I feel that the path towards success for those disadvantaged should be made shorter.
692
so, without any significant policy expected Gippsland is a ‘brand’ and ‘man’ fight.
2 of the 3 brands don’t know whether they’re Arthur of Martha, and yet there’s no doubt plenty of rusted on support. Can the LP afford to spend time and money on this?
Nearly 5.6% swing or around net 5,200 people need to have changed their mind since November. I think it’s probably a bridge too far (though Brendan seems to be keen to help out in the building the bridge :)).
693 John
“I believe you can do anything in this life if you’re willing to accept the consequences. Australia is a great place and he who wishes to succeed has every opportunity to succeed. Having said that I feel that the path towards success for those disadvantaged should be made shorter.”
So you believe in “equal opportunity” but not a system that delivers it, even though you recognise it’s required?
J of M, with great respect, you can’t do anything in this life, whether you accept the consequences or not.
I, for example, will never be, however hard I try, however much I believe, a top basketballer because I’m at least a metre too short.
Similarly, my inherited and inherent clumsiness meant that I was never going to be any good at sport in general (again, no matter how hard I tried).
Just as there are inbuilt physical differences between people, there are inbuilt cultural and social ones as well.
A kid from Broadmeadows SHOULD have just as much chance of being a violin virtuoso (why it’s desirable is another matter) as one from Toorak but the cultural, social and economic circumstances make it very unlikely – as unlikely as my overcoming my lack of physical coordination to star sports wise.
Similarly, a kid from Toorak shouldn’t find themselves doing Law or Medicine without at least understanding there are other opportunities (and many of those I went to Uni with had as little choice in their careers as Prince Charles did).
As I hope I’ve already made clear, to believe that people will naturally end up realising their potential is lovely – but it isn’t true.
Zoom, I do understand your point and may I say very well illustrated. If I may though… I think the quote was refferring to ones positon in life. We are born equal but we were not created equal.
697
John of Melbourne
But there is neither equality of birth or universal equality of opportunity even in a country as great as ours.
Who was it that pointed out Nelson was being quizzed about mercanaries being hired in Iraq? Channel Seven just had a story about the “Unity Resources Group” that Australia has hired and is being sued in the UK for an unlawful death. I think the two things might have been linked.
B.S.F.
I think this is the one:
431
steve