Morgan has released two sets of federal poll results: a mid-week phone poll of 765 respondents, and a face-to-face poll of 897 respondents conducted last weekened. Morgan has gone against normal practice by using “preferences distributed by how electors say they will vote” for the headline two-party measure for the phone poll, which puts Labor’s lead at 64-36. The more reliable “preferences distributed by how electors voted at the 2007 election” has it at 62.5-37.5, down from 63.5-36.5 last week. The face-to-face poll has it at 62-38, the same as the previous such poll conducted a fortnight ago.
Other news:
• The main starters are in place for the Gippsland by-election. The Nationals have nominated Darren Chester, staffer to state party leader Peter Ryan; Labor has nominated Wellington Shire mayor Darren McCubbin; and the Liberal candidate is Central Gippsland Health Service bureaucrat Rohan Fitzgerald. Gerard McManus of the Herald Sun reports Labor internal polling has them on 36 per cent to the Nationals’ 32 per cent and the Liberals’ 19 per cent, which after preferences would mean a comfortable win for the Nationals.
• On Monday, The West Australian published a Westpoll survey of 406 voters concerning federal voting intention in Western Australia, which had Labor leading 62-38 – a 16 per cent turn-around from the federal election. A question on preferred Liberal leader had Peter Costello on 19 per cent, Malcolm Turnbull on 18 per cent, local hero Julie Bishop on 17 per cent, Brendan Nelson on 12 per cent and Joe Hockey on 11 per cent. The survey also gauged support on a republic, finding 51 per cent support against 33 per cent outright opposition, with 70 per cent supporting a referendum on the matter to coincide with the next election (leaving aside the small matter of the model being proposed).
• Norm Kelly, member of the Australian National University’s Democratic Audit and former Western Australian Democrats state MP, peruses the government’s recently announced package of electoral reforms and finds fault with the move to tie public campaign funding to verified expenditure (clearly introduced to prevent a repeat of Pauline Hanson’s $200,000-plus windfalls from her recent Senate campaigns), which he says will disadvantage minor parties in its proposed form.
• Radio National’s The National Interest program had an interesting item recently on campaign funding laws in New York City and Canada. The practice of the former makes it very hard to understand why donations for last year’s federal election won’t be disclosed until February next year (to the extent that they still need to be disclosed at all, following the Howard government’s disgraceful 2006 “reforms”).
• The Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters is inviting submissions for its inquiry into the 2007 federal election, which will be received until Friday, May 16.
• I have just had to cough up $400 for annual site hosting, so now would be a good time for those who like to make the occasional donation.
UPDATE: Victorian Greens upper house MP Greg Barber drops by in comments to plug a parliamentary inquiry into the state’s donation disclosure laws. Reader ShowsOn tells us he has been Newspoll-ed, and that we can expect Tuesday’s poll to feature responses on who would make the best Liberal leader out of Brendan Nelson, Julie Bishop, Peter Costello and Malcolm Turnbull; who would make the best leadership team out of Nelson/Bishop, Costello/Turnbull and Turnbull/Andrew Robb; and who out of Turnbull and Wayne Swan would be best at handling the economy.
Glen Says: @ 194 meant to say, “Hardly i am only experiencing grief at the fact Rudd’s personality cult has completely overridden “any chance for Brendan Nelson to climb back into double figures in the polls.
“….once sharp political nous”?? Do you think I’ve lost my nous? You could be right. I know I left it somewhere. With my eye patch, perhaps. I had it when I came in. Perhaps it’s fallen down the back of the couch. I’ll have to get a new one when I go to the chemist…
But what about you, Glen. You seem so cranky, lately. I could get you a new nous too, if you like.
And what about Rudd’s own Parliamentary Sec advancing the idea of KPIs? If a Howard acolyte had done something like this when he was PM, the average PBer would have been apoplectic.
Just appalling.
It’s not just me – this is what Annabel Crabb thought:
“PICTURE Vatican II, with Kevin Rudd playing the role of God.
That’ll give you a fair idea of what this weekend was like.
Much like God at Vatican II, the Prime Minister was not – technically – a participant at the 2020 Summit. But to pretend that the event was not all about him would be absurd.”
http://www.smh.com.au/news/opinion/annabel-crabb/2008/04/20/1208629730745.html
Tchh, Dyno.
Scorpio, I had thought of suggesting the Adelaide option, and that was somewhat before we became aware of the ever so remarkable coincidence. But being a bit of a shy type, I didn’t.
Could still work though, if the system there fails.
Dyno Says: @ 200,
[I just can’t believe that so many of you think 2020 was a triumph.
Glen has exaggerated 2020’s ills, but even so, this weekend was a low point in my view.]
Dyno, I cant remember seeing to many comments about 2020 being a triumph as such.
One thing it has achieved though is it has stimulated people’s imaginations from without a broad cross section of the population and I think you will see ideas being canvassed for some considerable time yet.
This, to my mind is a good thing, because it takes us back to a time when the imagination and resourcefulness of the average person in this country has led to a considerable number of extraordinary achievements in a wide variety of fields.
It is no bad thing to fertilise and cultivate this resourcefulness to further advance us as a modern and caring society.
Crikey, I will keep that in mind and may take it up further with you down the track. Thanks for your thoughts.
“God he even stole ideas from Tony Blair and a State Labor Government…how’s that being a success he was a copy cat as opposition leader and he’s a copy cat as PM!” What’s this insistance that every idea has to be original or new otherwise it is no good. That’s just plain nit picky. Julie Bishop admits she also suggested an education idea last year straight from the same book ie companies sponsoring schools. So what?
Annabel Crabb is not a Rudd supporter and never has been. She almost says the name Kevin Rudd through gritted teeth. I wouldn’t have expected anything else from her. Have you noticed how those who opposed the summit in the first place are now finding ways to criticise it, to put it down, when in fact it worked very well.
Dyno, journalists and commentators are going to be sifting through the wash up of the summit for quite a while yet.
They are going to come up with a wide range of opinions, especially any that they consider personally as a negative, even if the majority of the population disagree.
It’s all to do with selling newspapers etc and encouraging people to web sites to support advertisers. Their opinions in the main, mean stuff all really.
What is important is how the person out on the street perceives the summit results and a constant slant on perceived negatives by commentators (or bloggers), won’t change people’s basic opinion of the worth or otherwise of the summit.
I observe the failure of contrition or even observation, Glen and Colin. Typical. The exact type of thing that had your kind chucked out of office.
Catchya, Scorpio. Going to sleep.
Dyno, I think many of us, being honest, would admit they did not have great expectations of this conference.
I was bemused when I heard of it, and doubted that on a practical level it would achieve any results.
But on a political level I came to the conclusion that it was a master stroke. It divided the opposition, made what passes for their leader look like a dithering fool, and drove the Liberal apparatchiks into a lathered frenzy, one from which they will not stop ranting illogically for weeks, and with each day that passes will make them look more desperate and irrelevant.
On a practical level this conference did no harm, gave the semblance, if not the actuality, of public involvement in decision making, and came up with at least a few ideas which were popularly acclaimed and bear investigation.
The cream on top of the cake for our Prime Minister however, was the photo of him sitting on the floor, free of pretention, and with an obvious air of humility and humanity. And this from the man perceived to have just returned from a triumphant diplomatic mission, in which he mixed and more than matched it with the leaders of the modern world.
I am no sycophantic supporter, but can recognize a pit of quicksand set up to trap the enemy when I see one, and this was a beauty, perfectly planned and executed.
No wonder ther is so much wailing and gnashing of teeth from Liberal Headquarters. What a bunch of ineffectual dunderheads. Just like the last three years of the previous Administration.
Fulvio Sammut,
Spot on! You have absolutely nailed it. Great post.
Another master stroke was ensuring that at least 200 or so delegates were of opposing political persuasion.
The fact that many of them have given glowing public, appraisal of the summit (Heather Ridout from the AIG etc), only gives it more credibility and shoots down any criticism from the far right.
Very hard for the neocon Libs to critisise their own.
A friend said that watching daytime “soap operas” was akin to believing that life was negative = depression. Watching “insiders” since Kevin decided against appearing during the election campaign is now so negative = depression. Not an early riser on Sundays, so have always taped Insiders. After this Sunday’s negative “claptrap” will no longer be recording. Such a shame as we require a positive and intelligent outlook from political commentators as to what’s happening in the Federal political sphere.
JC #215, agree with you about Insiders.
I am so sick of the smirking, smug, “we know better”, “everything is spin” style of that show.
They should rename it “Outsiders”. If ever there was a glaringingly obvious bunch of political losers bristling at their own irrelevance, it is them.
Yesterday’s episode was one of the worst I have seen, despite the once respectable Cassidy’s feeble attempts to inject some sort of rationality.
That poor bloke, he must be feeling awful lonely there at 9am on a Sunday holding his clipboard with the likes of Pies, Bolt and Milne for company, foisted on him by Janet and her cronies on the Board.
They will have a long wait for relevance. No wonder Rudd doesn’t want to be tainted by their negativity. I wouldn’t appear on any program that had Pies for a friend either. doing so would give it a legitimacy that it does not deserve.
175
Glen Says:
April 21st, 2008 at 12:52 am
Ah Andrew how typical, when you cannot get your head around the fact the 20/20 Summit was for all intent and purposes an ALP controlled Junket of left wing, ego centric, chest thumping elitists who like Rudd loves to get the attention of celebrities. The fact that this waste of money had at one point Hugh Jackman going around with a mic and singing songs with people just shows how much of a farce this thing really was.
chilli_sauce if you want a President who is elected by the people you support a US model, which i for one don’t.
HM did the Summit actually cost? The attendees paid own travel and accomodation so hardly a junket. I think the picture of 1000 people sitting down and discussing IDEAS was so great, such a light after the darkness of the dreadful Howard years that that alone made it worthwhile!
this elected Pres=USA model is a false argument since the US Pres is the head of the executive and NO ONE is suggesting that here. In fact, why not agree to continue to call the office ‘Governor General’
Please Glen, facts not crap please.
Yes, but wasn’t Julia great on Outsiders?
Re the blogs, reckon I have blown the ‘Heiner Affair’ apart on Pies blog, got called a bloody ignorant fool which I took as a great compliment.
Am thinking of contacting all the supposed signatories of the ‘jurists letter’ and asking:
did you write it?
Did you actually sign it?
Did you know the main fact (fraud) presented, that Heiner’s investigation was into sexual abuse claims was false, that it was strictly to be an investigation into a staff-management dispute
That it was NOT Rudd who ordered the shredding on one copy of the report?
For all of you calling the summit a favour, please, you need to go back and read the links on ‘cultural change’. If you don’t like the internet then buy some books.
It might be a failure in your eyes, and it might not have achieved all the aims of the cultural change team (and yes – I’d like to know who they actually are), but the basic slanging going on shows a poorly educated understating of what ‘cultural change’ is.
After you’ve done some reading, please reassess the weekend’s gathering and come up with a critique against the criterion of an initial cultural change meeting.
Several people posting are making themselves look, from a partially educated perspective, as very uneducated. You have to critique against what was actually attempted, not what you wish was attempted.
A large majority of Australia’s top 100 companies either are now, have or will undertake this very same process. One of the obvious ones is the company that donated a large chunk of change for the homeless. It was the NAB They themselves are the direct beneficiaries of this very same process and the donation can very much be seen as a vote of confidence in the government attempting the process.
I am disappointed with the practical success of this country in a daily basis. We need to be putting in processes in place that incrementally increase the daily practical achievements that this country. The weekend didn’t stop that, and might have helped long term.
Action is a process, not an outcome.
Also as Glynn Davis pointed out – ‘conversation is the essence of democracy’.
Please converse, but surely we can drive the debate in places like this up, not down.
@215
As an overseas viewer, I find the Insiders website adequate in terms of video replay. I still enjoy the “Rudd-haters” having to grit their teeth over Kevin’s ascension and Nelson’s failure to gain traction.
BB (216), well said. Especially like this phrase
glaringingly obvious bunch of political losers bristling at their own irrelevance,….
He he. They just can’t get over the fact that Rudd spurned their Royal command to appear on their show, bringing down their scorn and wrath, and yet he still won the election comfortably.
Newspoll tonight: Anyone willing to have a guess at the result?
Re B.F.Fairman @ 222: Newspoll prediction is 62-38 ALP
I’d be surprised if Brendan gets above single digits as preferred PM.
Does anyone know when the results/outcome of the 202 summit will be released? Or will we see no more than soundbites from this example of “binge thinking”?
Jeez boys, you really got poor old Glen cranked up last night, what a hoot! I wager he was frothing at the mouth
On a separate note copied this from Janet Allbitchsen’s site, does anyone know how long ABC Board members are appointed for, she must be up for renewal soon:
“Janet Albrechtsen writes a weekly column for The Australian. She is a member of the Foreign Affairs Council. In 2005, she was appointed a member of the Board of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.”
And please lay off Annabel Crabb, she is uber cute 😉
I’ve been listening to Mitchell this morning on 3AW. They are doing their best to discredit the summit. Mitchell interviewed a person AW had chosen to go to the summit. Her concern was hospital waiting lists. She was rapt. She had spoken to the PM and Murdoch. Mitchell asked her questions looking for a negative so he asked her how the summit had changed anything in health. He quickly added “will it change anything in health in the future.” One day after the summit he is asking for results. These people are just desperate to nail Rudd to the wall.
Must say I like the sound of this from 2020, to my mind there is far too much duplication and waste in our current federalist system, time for the states to move out of the way in so many areas:
“New Federation Commission to completely review the roles and responsibilities of the three levels of government. The independent body would have the power to pursue constitutional and economic reform.”
My Newspoll tip:
TPP 61-39
PPM 75-8
Thomarse,
I think at least three of the “so-called” eminent jurists are “deceased” and the rest are Lib supporters who wouldn’t have been able to review all the available material relating to the Heiner affair anyway.
Their whole “Review” was nothing more than a stunt which reflects very poorly on any limited amount of credibility they had anyway.
Pies is nothing but a dangerous fool who may pay dearly for his obsessive campaign which has, at it’s core, the sole objective of the destruction and reputation of Kevin Rudd.
My Newspoll tip:
TPP 64-36
PPM 76-6
Socrates Says: @ 224,
[Does anyone know when the results/outcome of the 202 summit will be released?}
Interim Report is available Here.
http://australia2020.gov.au/report/index.cfm
228 Scorpio
That is what struck me about the list of ‘signatories’
They are all old, retired and may have been conned into signing the letter.
But the letter states in bold that Heiner was investigating allegations of rape etc when he clearly and definitely was not–not a shred of proof or argument offered to support this bald statement. This is the main reason I doubt any of this was written by these dodderers. Also, the language of the letter was not lawyerlike/legalistic/jurisprudential in any way.
Be nice if I can expose this and blow Pies out the water,
The jurnos could smell a Rudd Junket a mile away and that’s what it was a Left Wing Junket purely created to meet the desired ends of Rudd himself.
This was not only a waste of money but a waste of time. And Nelson could have scored brownie points for not going and telling the rest of middle Australia what an elitist out of touch group of left wingers the delegates to the Summit were for the most part!
Newspoll…bah who cares!
I want a Gippsland specific poll done…
How was it a junket Glen when the participants paid their own expenses?
I used to have some respect for you, the humor displayed despite your party losing but christ man you are getting surly!
Must say I think 2020 was overall a great idea. I see absolutely nothing wrong in the government bringing together a group of interested people who after all paid their own way to attend (at least that was my understanding). Sure there may be some symbolism involved, but hey, symbolism is important too you know. I am sure that any extremist positions will be quietly obliterated by the hard-heads inside the Labor Party and we will see some very worthwhile innovations to come out of this.
The whole thing seems to have all the right wing fascist whackos out screaming for blood on some of the other blogs, seems they only like things that their ‘elites’ get invited to, and god knows we saw enough of that 1996-2007. Anything that enrages them gets my vote!
And like some others here, I do not have the republic high on my importance list, a new flag would be great though.
Kevin should keep the republic issue on ice till Turnbull is leader and an election is looming. Conservatives love good wedging…
“A junket a day keeps the tax man away”. The tory moto I believe. Been to any openings of envelopes lately Glen?
Like many conservatives Glen is becoming more and more shrill as Rudd becomes more and more popular.
Yes Rx, agree, what a nice little wedge that would be too, I am sure the Ruddster has that one prepackaged for delivery.
Another conservative government bites the dust. The worlds longest running conservative government is being thrown out in Paraguay, after being in power since 1947. Since George Bush has been in power the right wing dictatorships have been comprehensibly routed in South America. The only one still standing is Columbia. Most of the right wing death squads have disappeared. They have thrown out the world bank and set up there own South American bank. They have also stopped the strip mining of their resources. We must thank George Bush for tying up the Americans in Iraq so that democracy could come to South America.
http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSN2032953620080421
Regarding the 2020 summit, the negative reaction by the conservatives just shows how they cannot think outside the square. This is why the are in opposition in every state in Australia. Most good businesses are successful because they can think outside the square.
Looks like the Bolter has fallen in love. With a Scottish Chef who swears like a bullocky.
[And being a dad and upright citizen I agree that – tut tut – swearing is bad, children, and shame on those who pipe such bad words into your ears. Shame on Ramsay, who, I saw, can control himself well enough to accept his OBE from the Queen at a ceremony in Holyrood House without dropping even a “bloody”.
Being a conservative columnist in need of material for yet another article on the decline of civilisation, I decided to watch this menace, with a grim pen in hand and stern notebook on lap. But sorry, Cory, I’ve fallen for the bloke. My kind of guy completely. More of him and civilisation is safe. ]
To see just how irrelevant this clown and his colleagues such as JA have become since the demise of the Rodent & Co., have a quick squiz at this verbal garbage.
http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/column_baking_with_blue_passion
Gordon brown in the UK is under pressure on his leadership but told a journalist
“I am going nowhere”
Sure I’ve heard that before somewhere else.
The media over there is very anti labor at the moment but they deserve it, I think on the whole the media here are giving labor a fair go, I’ve seen A. Crabb write ba;anced articles that criticise both sides, she appears on the whole quite balanced and writes well.
There will always be those that do not change their spots, but I don’t think you can bag a journo just for criticising labor. We had enough of the “careful he might hear you” years.
Scorpio, always thought Bolt was a bit sus!
One thing about Janet A’s blog. She brings in Mark Latham to help her condemnation of the Summit. Pies has long had to rely on Latham, whose diary must be really irrelevant now, 6 months into the Rudd govt?
Guess they are running out of ideas in Rudd-hating reactionary bloglandia?
I seriously doubt Newspoll is going to be 64/36 (or similar).
It’s not that Rudd hasn’t been performing well – it’s just that the Coalition has a base level of support which will never move.
Remember that last year, the best Rudd got from Newspoll was 61/39 (correct me if I’m wrong). Since he was on 59/41 last time, I’m tipping a statistically insignificant movement to 60/40.
As for PPM – who knows? Could Brendan07 fall to within the MOE of not registering at all (i.e, less than 3.5%)? Surely not…
235
Basil Fawlty – over my dead body! It’s bad enough that we may become a Republic but to change our flag would be a complete and utter disgrace throwing away all our history so that elitists like you can have the Union Jack off our flag….
Might i remind you that Fiji is a Republic and they’ve still kept the Union Jack on their flag!
Yay Glen, let’s take all our cues from Fiji shall we.
And who are these elites you are talking about, count the Queen as one would you?
Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II of Australia is above elitism Timbo.
Of course she is Glen, so who are these elites? please enlighten us.