A polling bonanza for the Western Australian election, with a 51-49 result in Labor’s favour from Newspoll (UPDATE: Scanned graphic courtesy of James J; Peter Brent at Mumble doesn’t like the look of a mere 51-49 lead to Labor from even primary vote figures) and a comprehensive Westpoll survey in The West Australian. The latter includes a 50.2-49.8 statewide result in Labor’s favour from a sample of 400, plus electorate-level surveys of 400 voters from Scarborough (notional Liberal margin of 2.4 per cent, Liberals lead 52-48), Kingsley (notionally lineball, Liberals lead 54-46), Collie-Preston (notional Labor margin 0.9 per cent, 50-50), Kalamunda (notional Liberal margin 0.2 per cent, Liberals lead 54-46) and Riverton (notional Labor margin 2.1 per cent, Liberals lead 51-49). Full scan here. Other highlights of the past week:
• Nominations closed at noon yesterday, and the Poll Bludger election guide has accordingly been brought up to date with full candidate lists. A key feature is the late withdrawal of a large number of much-touted independent candidates. Two Labor-turned-independent MPs who had earlier planned on running evidently saw the writing on the wall: one-time Health Minister and Yokine MP Bob Kucera, who was earlier deliberating over whether to contest Nollamara or Mount Lawley, and Shelley Archer, the wife of CFMEU heavy Kevin Reynolds who was dumped from the party over dealings with Brian Burke, earlier weighing her options in Kimberley and her existing upper house seat in Mining and Pastoral region. On the other side of politics, former leader Paul Omodei has decided against nominating after most recently suggesting he would run for the South West upper house region. Troy Buswell’s predecessor as member for Vasse, Bernie Masters, has decided not to run against him after very nearly defeating him as an independent in 2005. The only remaining major party renegade still in the hunt is Ballajura MP John D’Orazio, contesting the new seat of Morley.
• Robert Taylor of The West Australian noted the Liberals’ unreadiness for the campaign in an article on Thursday, identifying two reasons for their lack of television advertising thus far: “The first is that they’re simply not ready. When the election was called, the Liberals did not even have advertising concepts in the can for former leader Troy Buswell, let alone a leader who had only been elected the previous day. The second is that they are woefully underfunded and Olympic period television advertising is extremely expensive. Labor is said to have booked significant airspace during the Olympics for about $250,000 … Liberal television advertisements are not expected to hit the airwaves until the Olympics are over, giving them roughly 10 days to establish their message before the media blackout comes into effect at midnight on the Wednesday before the poll.”
• On which subject, eastern states viewers can view the Labor television ad on the ALP site. Western Australian readers will have seen it a million times already. Interesting to note that the front page of the site includes a defence of the early election announcement.
• The Liberals do at least have two radio ads, both negative, which can be heard here. Message common to both: “If you couldn’t make things work with eight years of boom, what’s going to happen now that things are slowing down, prices are rising and interest rates are up?”
• Labor has also chosen the medium of radio to field its first negative ads, which fascinatingly pursue the theme of Liberal Party sexism: not conventional election campaign fodder, but well worth a run under the present extraordinary circumstances. As well as the lingering image problem from Troy Buswell’s tenure as leader, the Liberals can boast just one female candidate in a notionally Liberal lower house seat, and precious few in winnable Labor seats. The message is conveyed by a young girl declaring her aspirations for when she grows up, and the unlikelihood of them being realised through the vehicle of the Liberal Party. If you’re up early this morning (7am Saturday) you might hear me discussing the subject on the ABC’s AM program (UPDATE: Read and hear it here). More on the women candidates issue from Andrea Mayes of the Sunday Times.
• An interesting assessment of the overall situation from Kim Beazley in an article for WAToday, who in tipping a cliffhanger reminds readers that “the blue-collar component of the WA electorate is half that of Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide, and 50 per cent less than Brisbane”, and that “a large non-English speaking background electorate so richly supportive of Labor in the east” is “likewise missing”.
• The Liberals have landed an interesting candidate in the safe Labor southern suburbs seat of Cockburn: Corruption and Crime Commission intelligence analyst Donald Barrett, who has taken leave without pay from his position to stand against Energy Minister Fran Logan. Jessica Strutt of The West Australian reports that “some Labor MPs are simply paranoid about the Barrett factor – more particularly the ‘dirt’ he may have”.
• The Prime Minister was on the campaign trail in the northern outskirts seat of Mindarie on Thursday as Alan Carpenter announced a $147.5 million extension of the northern rail line.
• Deidre Willmott, who stood aside in Cottesloe to allow Colin Barnett to rescind his retirement plans, has been appointed Barnett’s chief-of-staff. There seems little doubt she will realise her claim to Cottesloe at a by-election if the Liberals fail to win government.
• State political editor Peter Kennedy told ABC Radio on Monday that a Labor source had revealed polling in Swan Hills showing 69 per cent believed the Liberals were not ready to govern, but clammed up when probed about voting intention or figures from other seats. However, Labor has been openly trumpeting polling from Jandakot showing them leading 56-44.
• Former Labor MP and lobbying kingpin MP John Halden made the eyebrow-raising claim in an article in Monday’s West Australian that Ben Wyatt, who replaced Geoff Gallop as member for Victoria Park in March 2006, would succeed Alan Carpenter as Premier before the next election. The following day he told the paper it was “no secret” in Labor ranks he was being groomed for the job.
• Crikey subscribers can read me having two bob each way on the relevance of the Northern Territory precedent.
Maybe I’m a Barbarian , but re those serial killing tapes shaby Barnett Presss conference , Carpenter should call an immediate Press Conference with only one subject to discuss , Barrnett is a hypocrit upsetting those poor family survivors when he damn well knows Liberals were in power then and for following 4 years thereafter and there lack of public disclose then was a disgrace
AND Barnett’s ” tricky”support for th Liberals COVERUP disgrace should not be tolerated by voters
Yep, how ironic that this all happened under Richard Court’s watch 🙂
And the Police Minister at the time was Bob Wiese in 1996, and by the current Liberal Candidate for Kalamunda John Day in 1997.
The Merde is about to hit the cooling device once this is pointed out.
Fulvio,
I note all online stories on this don’t mention Barnett saying it was Labor’s fault – was it only on the TV Bulletins ?
Frank, I did not hear anyone say specifically it was Labor’s fault but the underlying implication was quite clear to me, and I think to every one hearing it, the implication being: why did the police under Labor’s watch not release the tape?
Why else would Barnett and the other braying hyena, Johnson, the shadow police minister and also I think Buswell, go public on it and attack the police during an election campaign? An election campaign in which they have again fixated on the non existent (in terms of an objectively identified spiralling out of control issue) law and order and police numbers?
Good question, and it should be pointed out that the head of the Macro Task Force David Caporn is also embroiled in the upcoming CCC inquiry into Andrew Mallard which the Libs were hoping to use to discredit John Quigley, but it’s also ironic that also took place within a similar time frame of the elusive security tapes, so they’d be VERY unwise to use that report as it may just come back and bite the Libs in the bum.
Hmm, while trying to look up Court Ministry stuff re the latest security tape scandal, I found this media release from Richard Court calling an Early Election in December 1996 🙂
http://www.slp.wa.gov.au/cabinet/mediast/dg96-47/preelect.html
Good question, and it should be pointed out that the then head of the Macro Task Force is also embroiled in the upcoming CCC inquiry into Andrew Mallard which the Libs were hoping to use to discredit John Quigley, but it’s also ironic that also took place within a similar time frame of the elusive security tapes, so they’d be VERY unwise to use that report as it may just come back and bite the Libs in the bum.
So Frank, effectively in 1996, the Libs gave four weeks notice of an early election!
They have set the precedent, twice refused to agree to fixed terms when offered, and now have the gall to bleat about being hard done by!
Yep, what Hypocrites they are 🙂
And even more hypocritical, Colin Barnett was the Minister for RESOURCES DEVELOPMENT; ENERGY; EDUCATION; LEADER OF THE HOUSE IN THE LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY when that Poll was called 🙂
Swannie on Insiders today was decent but dull and repeated several times that the Government was ‘not apologising’ for something or other. Bad look. No-one is asking for an apology and it looks very defensive. He needs retraining and/or a new spin doctor badly.
Belinda Neale got a mention, with a suggestion that she may be in breach of the Crimes Act with the content of one of her letters to a witness of something or other. Has she actually contributed anything at all useful to Australia?
The WA labour negative radio ad on the lib boy’s club was played on Insiders. Noted only one lib woman candidate vs 13 women candidates for labour in held seats and made mention of Buswell’s bra snapping, seat sniffing antics. I trust that WA voters will do the right thing by Mr Buswell in particular and that parties will realize that sexual harassment by people in power is no longer something to be treated with a nudge, a wink and a spell in the backbenches. Misogyny by public humiliation is simply not acceptable from parliamentarians.
When confronted with 57:43 by Cassidy, Walsh and Hendo, without batting an eyelid, opined that Gippsland, NT and now the WA polls showed there seemed to be a change of mood in the electorate.
Swannie seemed to think that Tiptoe was likely to return. Swannie was unconvincing about ‘bring it on’. If Tiptoe does bring it on, he will cook Swannie’s goose, but Tanner would do Tiptoe.
Hendo thought that Tiptoe (aka the elusive Pimpernel?) had shown ‘courage’ in confronting Howard twice. LOl, good old sourpus Hendo made my day. He seemed to think that Tiptoe would take Rudd on, on ‘policy’ like Turnbull would, except that his colleagues don’t like him, but unlike Nelson, so in went two knives right there.
They were all pretty annoyed with Tiptoe’s silence. They thought that Tiptoe has not been stirring the pot, but failed to pick up on the ‘orchestration’ of the timing of that job offer. They also did not mention a certain private meeting between Tiptoe and Nelson.
BTW, is Nelson still alive?
Interesting tactic by the Libs not to bury Buswell, but to have him out front, attacking Carpenter (and Logan) over the gas pipeline explosion. On one level the Libs are saying ‘we are a strong, united team’. But on another, the message is ‘Troy is one of us, and when he grows up he will be our leader again.’ Obviously, this angle is exploitable by the ALP. Coupled with the woeful level of female representation among Liberal candidates, the Buswell issue can be shown to underscore a general misogyny in the party. Even Peter van Onselen castigates the Libs for their “blokiness” in the Sunday Times.
Those Labor negative radio ads are pathetic. Conservative parties will never be supported by the militant feminazi filth, which is the only group the ad will appeal to. They should be focusing on policy and character, not gender. These ads are a shameful low in terms of playing crass divisive politics.
“They should be focusing on policy and character, not gender.”
How’s this for character – the Liberal party is effectively saying that as a representation of the WA community, we could only find 6 women that are fit to serve as members of the parliament. Isn’t that something?!
“Conservative parties will never be supported by the militant feminazi filth, which is the only group the ad will appeal to.”
Um, in case you didn’t realise, the year is 2008 – the “militant feminazi filth” tend now to be successful women of all ages, equal to men in all respects, from every wing of the political spectrum.
“Conservative parties will never be supported by the militant feminazi filth,”
I agree Swordfish, women just do not know their place today.
That woman who had her bra unfastened by Buswell should have been rightly honoured that Buswell chose her bra to unfasten, likewise with Buswell’s female libs collegaue. Buswell just does not sniff any seat that has been sat upon by a female, well I’m pretty sure he doesn’t.
Same with Noel Crichton-Brown, when he said to that female journo he was going to screw her tits off. Does she say “Oh Mr Crichton-Brown, I’d be honoured to have you do that”. No, she complains, probably one of herhairy armpitted femo nazis.
But lets elect Buswell and co and bring back the old values, the true values, what say pip pip.
Swordfish @ 114
I would be curious to know how you would justify Buswell being still in the party and a candidate. Is it that what he did wasn’t wrong. Or that it was wrong, but not really important? Or that you think that he has already paid an appropriate price?
117 Boerwar – I’m getting the impression you’re not a Swannie fan. I think Costello will fail if he becomes leader and Swan will be one of the reasons why.
Can we please direct the Wayne Swan discussion to the other thread.
Labor should be pleased that the Libs have chosen to run on a bogus law-n-order scare. It’s what conservatives always do when they’ve got nothing better to run with. If the Libs have gone straight to the bottom of the policy barrel that’s a good sign for Labor. (Also, historically it never works. Conservatives do best when they stick to promising to put money in people’s pockets.)
OK William, going over to 57:43 on Swan.
Bishop says Independents are useless, unless it’s Liz Constable of course 🙂
http://www.postnewspapers.com.au/20080816/news/010.shtml
Barnett stands by his Man.
It sound like it’s only a matter of time before the Libs implode over there.
And Barnett goes for the Vigilante Vote, in a move which even the Police Commisioner opposes.
http://www.thewest.com.au/aapstory.aspx?StoryName=506934
And from the original Sunday Times article, the Opposition Attorney General appears to have reservations over such a move.
http://www.news.com.au/perthnow/story/0,21598,24191498-948,00.html
Do these people talk to one another?
Not normally, they’re too busy infighting 🙂
“Liberals’ justice spokesman Christian Porter said his party would consider a public register for sex offenders,”
Does that include undoing womens underwear, sniffing their backsides, threatening to screw their tits off, or is that behaviour called just being a “lad”
But according to the Libs, that’s just good natured fun 🙂
But using that logic Messers Buswell and Crichton-Browne should be at the top of the list 🙂
Frank,
Perhaps you should ask the soon-to-be former member for Swan Hills about this question. Her opinion of our current Premier and his activities seems fairly plain. If she was not trying to get a federal seat I would think she would be a lot less inhibited.
That is a totally different scenario, as Buswell’s indiscretions took place at Parliament House during sitting hours, while the other took place at a private function.
Imagine the confusion the Opposition Environment spokesman would cause when Nelson brings in his ETS in 2012, 2013 or2020.
”Dr Thomas told the South West Times in November 2006 a new environmental contamination law would be an “impost” on Cable Sands and two other mining companies. South West Minister Mark McGowan says Dr Thomas, as a potential environment minister, should have been more scrupulous. ”
http://www.thewest.com.au/default.aspx?MenuID=2&ContentID=92039
Steve @ 133
Are the libnats in WA giving Brian Burke a bit of run or is that now regarded as old hat?
There is already a brochure being distributed which mentions “The Crime an Corruption Commision’s (CCC) report into dealings with disgraced former Premier Brian Burke “and has a Silhouette of Brian Burke.
Frank Calabrese @ 135
Thank you. Do you think it will stick, or do you think Carpenter sufficiently distanced himself from Burke in voters minds?
I hope so Boerwar, it will add a bit of colour to the campaign. Nothing’s old hat when it comes to desperate tories.
So, Frank, it is OK in your book to lift up an unwilling woman’s shirt, exposing her bra, if this is done out of hours? You have an interesting view of OK (IMHO). It is still highly questionable behaviour, possibly amounting to assault.
One party leader had the honesty to admit to it and apologise for it. The other one did not. Is that OK as well?
Andrew Reynolds @ 138
I would appreciate knowing the background to this. Is there a link?
Look at Swan Hills on this very site:
http://blogs.crikey.com.au/pollbludger/wa2008/swanhills.htm
You sir are a Hypocrite, it was a private function where there was no offence caused,Even Jaye said as much. I’d rather trust Senator Elect Louise Pratt’s account of the event, than gossip and Hearsay from The West.
Oh – and cowardly. Relying on the person concerned to keep silent. Buswell might have been an idiot to do what he did (and there is no real excuse for it) but at least he admitted and apologised. Carpenter did not even have the guts and honesty to do that.
I would suggest you leave this topic at this point, Frank. I am happy to do it if you are.
Frank,
I am not the hypocrite trying to launch attacks on people’s honesty and integrity while ignoring it in my own back yard. The fact that neither of the parties concerned will speak of it speaks volumes more than anyone else’s denials.
I would suggest you leave this topic at this point, Frank. I am happy to do it if you are.
Why ? Because you’ve been exposed as being wrong ?
You’re the one who raised it, so in effect YOU are the coward.
Andrew @ 140
Thank you.
With respect to possible comparisons:
1. Buswell only ‘fessed up’ when cornered like the rat he was.
2. He was a serial offender.
3. He humiliated women in public.
4. He was only dropped by his party when it was realized that it couldn’t possibly win with the serial offender, and also after the NT exponent of this sort of behaviour lost his seat.
None of Buswell’s wrongs make any similar wrong by Carpenter right.
I am still curious and would appreciate your views on three questions:
1. Is the Carpenter story validated in any way?
2. Is it known whether it was really ‘unwilling’?
3. What does it mean when the word ‘private’ is used.
No more name-calling, please.
Frank – with respect, you are the one who was more than happy to whittle on about Buswell’s idiocy, while ignoring what Carpenter is alleged to have done. Even our good host here repeats the story – and either of the people concerned could have killed it stone dead with an outright denial, which neither have done.
No – the suggestion to you was merely to allow you to save some face. If you choose not to, I am happy to continue. I am likely to enjoy the experience.
See William at Post 147 – I will respect his request.
Andrew & Boerwar,
Employing the old Liberal smear technique. Seen it a thousand times. Moral relativism is us. Find an alleged incident, then beat it up ferociously. Try and convince everyone that this means all politicians are the same.
Crap politics from crap people.
So a “refusal to deny” is an admission of impropriety? I don’t think so.
Carpenter denied it.