The Australian reports that Labor’s lead in this fortnight’s Newspoll is down slightly from 57-43 to 56-44. Kevin Rudd is down three points as preferred leader to 65 per cent while Brendan Nelson is up two to 14 per cent.
The latest weekly Essential Research survey shows no change in Labor’s long-standing 58-42 lead. Also featured is a national-level question on state voting intention which suggests collective primary vote support for the state Labor governments is 7 per cent lower than for federal Labor (40 per cent compared with 47 per cent), although Coalition support is only 3 per cent higher (38 per cent compared with 35 per cent). Further questions involve federal Labor’s performance on various individual issues, and attitudes to the balance of power in the Senate.
Cossie is still thinking about the book sales. As Barry Cassidy said, how opportunistic and just plain self serving it will look if Cossie waits till his book launch to announce he is staying? The other question that needs to be asked is why would anyone write a book about his career in the middle of his career? Such books are written at the end.
LOL GB.
I hope that I am wrong with Obama though and the Amreicans do elect him.
Apparently as well Franklin thinks Costello is “media canny”… guess he wasn’t thinking of Costello’s bizarre budget doorstop in May:
He bristled when Sky News political editor David Speers suggested that he knew the speculation was damaging the party.
“Oh, do I? Well you say it is. Why don’t you interview yourselves?” Mr Costello said, putting on a mock deep broadcast voice. “You know, ‘David Speers – it’s damaging.’ ‘Is it?’ ‘I say it is.’ ‘No it’s not.’
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,23691276-2,00.html
502 Centre – so do I, not to see you wrong again but I think Obama would be great for America and the world.
Yet another straw in the wind?
There were reports in the MSM today about the results of an enquiry. In this case it was an enquiry into the citizenship test.
It turns out that Sudanese migrants have difficulty recalling who Walter Lindrum was. It also turns out that Afghan migrants don’t give a toss who Bradman was.
The unanimous findings of the enquiry report were that the the Citizenship test is flawed and discriminatory. It will be overhauled.
There are well over a hundred enquiries in progress. In total they represent the most wide-ranging review of many policy issues for over a decade. They are being carried out in the main by people of tremendous talent.
Those who made easy sport at the hundred plus enquiries might find that at the end of three years the results of the enquiries will have come in and the recommendations acted upon.
If the results of the enquiry into the Citizenship test are anything to go by, then not before time.
I should disclose the fact that my parents, both of whom are migrants and both of whom made a magnificent personal contribution to Australia, would also both have failed the Howard/Costello citizenship test.
History will probably record the Howard/Costello citizenship test as a dog whistle gone wrong.
Centre, it’s not over yet but I’d start polishing up you’re “I was wrong” act if I were you.
http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/story/0,22049,24263164-5001028,00.html
Make “you’re” – “your”
Just had a squiz on the Hansard search: Costello’s contribution in Parliament this year is 4 interjections (and even those are only recorded as “Mr Costello interjecting”). That’s it.
No speech, no petition, no statement nothing. Not one issue either nationally or locally has been worth his rising from his seat.
Yep; he’s a star. Great parliamentary performer. Great local member.
Nice quick pick up GB. Love this line:
“A bashful Mr Costello was appreciative of Mr Abbott’s comments. ”
Bashful??? Makes one wonder who the other 7 dwarfs of the Liberal Party are.
GB 506.
Of course Cossie is going to say he supports the Brenda/Bishop partnership.
But how about “I intend to continue to serve the people of Higgins”.
Cossie will decide to stay because the party needs him and then I reckon before christmas, he is handed the leadership the only way he will take it, on a platter.
Btw, if Cossie does take a position on the front bench initially, it will be as shadow treasurer, and Turnbull will get shafted.
‘PM’s words lack lifeblood’
by Christian Kerr The Australian , August 28, 2008
“Spin”:
“His speech is affectless” This week Rudd’s 4 major policy statements affected School Teachers , Schools , Irrigators , truency Parents , Building Unions
“Speech has no emotional content” Above differing groups gave universal emotional public responses
“Rudd’s speeches resemble hyper-realist paintings’
A literary sentence more at home discussing a novelist or poet , but part of th hidden ‘speech’ Agenda of th article
Score , attempt to show Rudd’s speech is unemotionally cold blooded , -7 out of -10
“Imbalance” :
Quotes Christopher Pearson, a former speechwriter to JOHN HOWARD , says Rudd uses speech as a way of staying at one remove from the subject matter and his audience, rather than engaging with them.”
Hardly a non parrtisan viewpoint
Quoting another non partisan source ,
“…but Howard’s speeches look positively Churchillian compared to Rudd’s at the moment”
Even Howard supporters would see Churchillian & Howard as one , as sending imbalance off th reichter scale , So score -8.5 out of -10
“Twist” (subtlety purpose):
“Howard was far more adept than Rudd at getting up there and giving expression to his political philosophy. I think this is the problem at the moment with a lack of narrative. What is the central, binding glue that is holding this Government together “
One purpose of article to show Rudd as lacking any reform agenda (read narrative) , just a cold technocrat , score , cleverly woven in intent -3.5 out of -10 (but other scores result in failure of Article’s general objective
Total “SIT” Score -19 out of -30 , deviance from journalistic excellence -63.3%
Ron @ 512
A reasonable analysis *grin* but I question your scoring methodology. The reason is that it sets the MSM journalists up to fail. Unless they are perfect, they will get a negative score. And let us face it no-one, not we bloggers, and not even Christian Kerr is perfect.
Aren’t you concerned that this will tend to demotivate the journos?
theres only one journo of all that i know that i would ever trust or believe, thats Nigel Hunt from the Adelaide sunday mail. Nigel’s articles are always well researched and i’ve never known him to gild the lily, i’ve known him since he was a cub reporter, he resigned from one paper over ethics, his article coming up this sunday well be a shocker for the Adelaideites, theres something going in tomorrows Advertiser about unsolved murders, the “family” lot amongst them, i dont know who the reporter is but the Advertiser does’nt really have a good record with their journos, still if major crime is overseeing them i guess they’ll have to be fairly factual, the Advertiser has been blowing the trumpet for Martin Hamilton Smith for ages regardless of how stupid his over the top stunt ideas are, rather like the OO –but then they belong to the same stable–nuff said!
Ron.
Nice work. Amazing how after Rudd’s Sorry speech the media was raving about his ability to write a speech.
I can’t remember one speech of Howard’s from his time as PM.
But then perhaps as a former staffer to Vandstone, Hill and Olsen, Kerr gets excited about different things than I do.
[I can’t remember one speech of Howard’s from his time as PM.]
“We will decide who comes here…”
Sums Howard up in one short sentence really.
For all those who want Rudd to do less reviews and just make more decisions, here’s an example of what can happen when you make decisions without stopping to consider the consequences:
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,24261740-421,00.html
“THE Howard Government’s intervention into Northern Territory communities has caused “immediate and lasting harm” to Aborigines and provoked mistrust and anger towards western culture, doctors say.”
‘Journalists’ write nonsense like that and wonder why they get berated.
Howard talking always sent a shiver up my spine and gave me the feeling that there were dark small creatures silently crawling around under my floor boards. A man who could make people ‘think’ he was saying one thing while in reality he was intending the exact opposite. I guess it must take liberal party staffers to think this commendable and Churchillian.
The article in the Telegraph re. Nelson’s views on Costello was accurate, at last.
It even discussed the apparent ambiguity between the original statement and the corrected statement. Good on them. Shame on the rest.
Cozzie is still playing games. With the future of the party and the country at stake (as some would have us believe) this is very poor form.
The man, I think, has gone mad. A quiet nervous breakdown, interpreted as a “Master Class” in politics. He’s so tangled up in his own web of deceit and intrigue, the outsome has been lost in a fog of feint and counter feint.
If he had any concern for the party or his country he’d have spoken up by now.
Either gone mad, or just a plain old-fashioned dickhead.
Come to think of it…
“Journalists , unless they are perfect, they will get a negative score.”
ThAT IS th objective surely No journalist is perfect or has reely has “journalistic excellence” (although some may think they do)
Therefore negative scoring is appropriate in that it reflects “deviance” from such impossible to achieve “Journalistic excellence”
In this case , my particular asessment of that Article was -63.3% deviance from ” journalistic excellence”
Others may hav been more ‘gentile’ , or more harsh Would be happy anyone throwing an assessment at anytime , with Bushfire’s scoring maybe adding some added “fire” as well
.
tanks Dario earlier , and Grog
Ron
Sounds like Hillary, Bill and Obama could not have done better with their speeches. The praise has been near universal for Obama’s. Electoral-vote said “By all accounts he gave one of the best political speeches in decades. It soared, but it was also full of policy details.”
Something weird has happened with the odds for McCains running mate. Romney had been 2/1 on and now he’s blown out to 4/1. Pawlenty is 2/1 on and Sarah Palin has come from nowhere to be second favourite at 25/10.
I’ve said it before, but it’s worth repeating, I didn’t have any time for Malcolm Fraser when he was PM, but these days he’d make a good Labor leader. His article in the Age today – America has lost its way in the world – is spot on, IMHO, on all points. Specially liked that he calls the Iraq invasion what it is, an illegal war, and makes it clear that quite a few in the U.S. government and legal system have a case to answer for “serious war crimes.” Of course so does his former Treasurer!
And I see that Cossie has bestowed the kiss of death on Nelson tonight:
for whenever a politician, especially a Coalition one, gives their leader “total and utter support,” you know the bugger is totally and utterly stuffed.
Well once again a wekend starts with some good news for believers in justice: the AFP has finally announced that Dr Haneef is not a suspect and his lawyer has now announced he will file for compensation.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/08/29/2350523.htm
Knowing how much embarrasement some figures could face in this case you can bet London to a John Howard promise it will be settled out of court. Even so, wouldn’t it be wonderful if it went to court? Haneef’s lawyer could call Keelty and Andrews as witnesses and ask them under oath all the questions they preferred to avoid in the official inquiry. I doubt either’s career would survive that.
“for whenever a politician, especially a Coalition one, gives their leader “total and utter support,” you know the bugger is totally and utterly stuffed.” When it comes from Cossie’s mouth though you know he won’t be the one doing the stuffing. He truly is all tip.
I watched the whole 42 minute Obama talk on-line. Very impressive.
He certainly crafted it well and had a a few places set aside for the ‘i have dream…’ type moments. It had some pretty hard edges in places, some simple ‘honest’ descriptions and some pretty good cut through phrases about not turning back and so on and he really hit on some sensitive nerves – ie removing tax breaks from companies exporting American jobs overseas.
Only thing it was short on was how he was going to pay for some of the promises. He gave some sources but it didn’t seem enough to match the depth of the promises, then again some were long term goals. Be nice to have the trillion dollars spent on Iraq back (as well as the lives).
Would be interested to see some more details about his oil independence and renewable energy goals.
Certainly worth watching simply to observe the design and craftsmanship and of course the deft delivery.
Diogenes , assuming you read my #171 link (of just one example) you probably have had access to seeing massive data I & others highlighted elsewhere (although not all I have)
Objectively whatever your view now is final , rather than my “informal vote” approach Notwitstanding you may consider picking as examples only , poor’s status , taxation scales , economic index’s , pollution levels , universal healthcare , gun ownership levels , US foreign debt now about 4 trillion , trade deficits of tens of billions monthly , crime stats , genuine Kyoto , nuclar disarment , effctive UN Security Council operations , World Bank effectiveness (US financed) , Undevloped Countries terrible debt burden , Iraq , Palestine , Rwanda , Dafur , Burma , Georgia ,Tibet , Afghanistan…as some reality benchmarks to measure against in 4 years time Not talking ‘miracles’ , simply suggesting some benchmarks
Seeing I’m convinced that a failure in all would still see th dazzling narrative of speechs , warm personality & spin with fuzzy feel good words trumpeted by many media as an outstanding success
MayoFeral
#521
“Malcolm Fraser when he was PM, but these days he’d make a good Labor leader”
Agree , in thoughts a remarkable transformation vs his views as PM which is why hav difficulty with his credibility (plus 11/11/75 actions) IF omeone else had written that I’d agree with 1/2 of his points fully including particulaly Iraq and Palestine , some disagree with partly , couple fully as he’s been too simplisticly anti amarican forgetting other side were worse not innocents
Overall it does highlight dificulty with moral authority if one has nott been reasonably consistent & transparent & shown less self interest , but fails to weigh in balance USA has been still a ‘force’ for good LESS those issues of gross ‘error’ vs tha lternative in world Despots & th alternative Empire who hav never had a history of same , ie i think there’s been good and bad
509
Grog Says:
“A bashful Mr Costello was appreciative of Mr Abbott’s comments. ”
Bashful??? Makes one wonder who the other 7 dwarfs of the Liberal Party are.
One Bashfull and a thousand Dopeys
STRONGLY retact ‘agree’ from #526 , typo hell , agree meant SOME of his comments in that Age artivcle would be a Labor leaders stanse eg anti Iraq War which was Beasley’s stanse
Abbott & Costello in black & white threatre we ar seeing , Abbott is leader of Vera’s thousand dopeys as th Trojan horse to set th scene and Costello is play acting as th reluctant bride …bashful even Costello’s quote above is almost sais in sadness
The longer this Costello farce goes on the more barbs and lines of derision the Liberals are supplying for Labor to use against them, and against the Sphinx personally, should he ever stir from his hammock and “be persuaded” to enter the race.
Labor will be rubbing their hands together at the prospect of using attack lines such as “no balls”, “this tickerless ditherer is the best the Liberals have got”, “the man who took 10 months to make a single decision”, etc.
However, it’s likely it will come to an anti-climax for the Liberals, making them worse off than they were before. Destabilised from the months of Costello “speculation” (thanks, Dennis and Co.), they will enter a new world of pain as Turnbull makes his move against the faltering Nelson, to be met by the resistance of the anyone-but-Turnbull element.
And so the Liberal leadership woes will continue …
Off-topic, but …
http://news.smh.com.au/world/mccain-names-palin-as-running-mate-campaign-source-20080830-45sc.html
Similar report is on NY Times (for one).
Betfair confirms the story (not surprisingly). They haven’t actually suspended betting but no-one is offering a price on Palin.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarah_palin
Here is her Wikipedia entry. From a Republican viewpoint she is so much from left field that it isn’t funny.
Obama is screwed, considering Palin’s age she is in the box seat to be the first Female President of the USA and she’s an outsider from Washington something Biden is not. Also if Biden goes ape at her in a Debate it wont look good for team Obama and considering she’s a mother of 5 a hunter, keen angler and owns a seaplane who else but her can stick it to Joe.
For those attacking her experience from the Obama camp would only make you out to be hypocrites given Obama’s lack of experience and he’s got the Presidential spot. At least Sarah Palin has had some executive experience and her latest approval ratings are in the 80s.
McCain has shown why he’s still in the race come November and why he actually has a better shot at winning it than most pundits think, why because he’s a maverick and he’s chosen a maverick as his running mate…in one word genius.
Glen,
It’s either a stroke of genius or complete madness – I am not sure yet which. That, I suspect, will depend on how she does.
That is true Dyno i agree, but lets face facts politics is about exceeding expectations, and she’s starting from a low base so anything she does well will look awesome. How can Biden exceed expectations…he can’t? If McCain was going to have any chance he needed to A, firm up his ticket with a conservative, B pick someone who just may appeal to women voters and C someone with executive experience and D someone young. Palin fits the ticket perfectly and i think its a stroke of genius, hell to upstage Obama’s nomination it had to be!
and Condi instead ?
Well I certainly agree he will have taken a lot of the publicity away from Obama’s speech.
But that’s only going to be worth it if it turns out that Palin has the goods.
Ron,
Whilst I have no doubt most successful politicians have unusual personalities, I reckon they probably thought Condi came across as a bit too unusual.
Also, choosing Condi would have really played into the “four more years of Bush” theme.
On the other hand, Condi wouldn’t have been a major risk in a VP debate, whereas Palin … who knows?
Dyno
agree , Condi did hav experience , and wonder if some of those marginal ‘blue’ states with norml 90% + afro american voters making them ‘blue’ , may hav made them doubtful
Palin announced 30 minutes ago on CCN
So if McCain wins and then drops dead, the US will have a First Gentleman who’s proficient in huntin’, fishin’, and workin’ on an oil rig. Not quite Barbara Bush (or Laura Bush), eh?
It will make the McCain team look weaker. McCain is a bit doddering, he needed someone well known and respected to strengthen his team. Also makes it harder for McCain to attack Obama for lack of experience as well.
If some voters were reluctant to vote Obama because of fear of too much change then the contrast between him and the McCain team just got a little smaller.
When Obama picked Biden he got someone well known respected and to make people feel more comfortable with choosing an Obama team.
Obama/Biden -v- McCain/Palin
Wonder if Powell was available for VP?
Will have to wait and see how it plays out and how Palin presents.
TP @ 543,
Unless Palin turns out to be a national media star I can’t help but agree with you that this makes the McCain team weaker.
She may turn out to be a star, but it’s like dropping someone from District cricket straight into the Test team, even if they are talented enough, very few people could make the adjustment without making stuff-ups along the way. The McCain team can’t afford too many stuff-ups with 9 weeks to go.
“he needed someone well known and respected ”
Actualy Thomas all th polls show he easily defeats Obama in th above , and history suggests an inexperienced VP is not a factor 9and with Reagan they’re happy to elect aged pollies)
She berings both youth & female demographics which is a plus Question is if she fails to measure up under larg Media pressure it becomes a big negative , but if she does handle it then its a plus , its a gamble
Actualy all th polls show he easily defeats Obama in th above , and history suggests an inexperienced VP is not a factor (and with Reagan they’re happy to elect aged pollies)
She brings both youth & female demographics which is a plus Question is if she fails to measure up under larg Media pressure it becomes a massive negative , but if she does handle it very well then its a plus , but this part is a big gamble
sorry changed order & pasted twice
There is no fundamental reform for the US without it shedding a vast amount of its military spending, both in peace, and in war. Think of what $3trillion spent on Iraq could have accomplished. Applied to the overseas debt it alone would have underpinned the strength of the US dollar. Applied to domestic programs, the opportunity cost is staggering.
Palin announced in breathless tones that she has a soldier son due to be deployed to Iraq in a month or so.
She sacrifices her son on the altar of her ambition.
Palin is a warmongering militaristic mate for the warmongering militaristic McCain.
Alot of double counting in cost of th Iraq war , budget costs not 3 trillion but many estimates at approx $500 billion , then there ar all those economic & growth & jobs benefits to USA in Iraq’s “renconsruction” by private USA business’s , then there’s all that oil replacement values benefits vs alternative higher oil costs otherwise , then then there’s th unchanged reel cost of troops & equipment most of which would hav been getting paid anyway
reel net cost of Iraq war would not solve USA financial problems , th problems ar in th economic fundamentals & system
Biden for Obama……..emphasises Obama’s inexperience
McCain for McCain ….emphasises McCain’s age
VP’s rarely add much to a vote , but its all perseption vs reality , if one removed all names & looked at resumes , for most powerful position on earth:
inexperienced one term Senator , with an assistant very experienced politcan
vs
very experienced politcan , with an assistant inexperienced one term Governor
Rx @ 531 –
“the man [Costello] who took 10 months to make a single decision”</i.
Labor could borrow Hillary’s 3AM ringing phone ad! 😉
clarify wording , above items ar what should be deducted from gross cost to get approx net cost
Cossie getting all th headlines today , with any of Brenda’s ones he could do without This leadership ‘issue has gone from a Greek tragedy , us awaiting for th inevitablle execution to thinking th execution will be well , just a sigh , now thleadership issue has almost moved into th comedy company show