Happy new year: week two

In the continuing absence of new polling, enjoy the following news snippets:

• Amid lingering rumours of a late February state election in Queensland, Lawrence Springborg has floated the possibility of Mal Brough entering state politics by contesting a Labor-held seat. Such would be the only option available to him given the Liberal National Party merger arrangement which guaranteed all sitting members uncontested preselections. Party sources quoted by Mark Bahnisch in Crikey “rule out any possibility that the Borg has seriously approached Brough. It would appear instead that the LNP’s polling suggests continued weakness and scepticism among urban and outer suburban Liberal voters – whose support the opposition desperately needs to be within even a mile of toppling Bligh.”

• The new Electoral Commissioner, Ed Killesteyn, began his five-year term on Monday. Killesteyn has almost swapped roles with his predecessor Ian Campbell, who is now secretary of the Department of Veterans Affairs – of which Killesteyn was previously a deputy secretary.

• UMR Research has published one of its occasional surveys on attitudes to republicanism, which shows both support and opposition losing ground to “don’t know” over the past six months. Other findings are that “men and younger Australians (are) more in favour of a republic”, and that support for an elected president remains overwhelming.

• Only one week to go until South Australia’s Frome by-election, which you can read about and comment on here. Despite a preference swap between independent Port Pirie mayor Geoff Brock and Nationals candidate Neville Watson, there seems little reason not to think Terry Boylan will easily retain the seat for the Liberals.

• Dig Wikipedia’s animation showing the evolution of Australia’s state and territory borders (hat tip to VexNews).

NOTE: No further discussion on the situation in the Middle East, please. There are plenty of more appropriate places for it elsewhere.

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.

204 comments on “Happy new year: week two”

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  1. Judith the OO would make sure they kept any rumblings at Turnbulls office under wraps. That is unless they could turn it into a positive for Talcum, you know like he found out his staff had been undercover ALP union thugs and Talcum exposed them and kicked them out in the knick of time before they could infiltrate the glorious Liberal party.

  3. “you know like he found out his staff had been undercover ALP union thugs”

    Vera how does Talcum know they arent union thugs?

    Muhahaha 🙂

  4. gusface
    sniffer dogs?

    Judith Obama seems to be saying the same sort of things as Rudd and that can’t be bad. There are similarities in the stimulus packages to create jobs, and repairing infrastructure (Rudd gave money to Mayors for same sorta thing) and more money for health (Rudd extra funds for more nursing training) the building of more fuel efficient cars etc. I wonder if Rudd has been giving obi a few tips?
    [“These made-in-America jobs building solar panels and wind turbines, developing fuel-efficient cars and new energy technologies pay well, and they can’t be outsourced,” Obama said.

    About 400,000 people will be put to work repairing US infrastructure, including crumbling roads, bridges and schools, the advisers estimated.

    And hundreds of thousands of others jobs are to be created through improvements to the nation’s health care system.]

    http://news.smh.com.au/world/obama-touts-stimulus-plan-20090111-7e8q.html

  6. Just saw on BBC the Intelligence2 debate on:

    “Is GWB the worst President for the Last 50 years?”

    GWB was defended by William Kristol and Karl Rove. The opposition was British journalist Simon Jenkins, a columnist for the Guardian and the Sunday Times and Jacob Weisberg, chairman and editor-in-chief of The Slate Group, an online publishing group owned by The Washington Post Co.

    Before the debate it was: Yes – 65% No – 17% and Undecided – 18%
    After the debate it was: Yes – 68% No – 27% and Undecided – 5%

    Audio can be downloaded here at NPR.

    http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=97752303

  7. with at least two heads of state that think alike maybe theres reason for hope, the last two like thinkers {Bush and Howard} managed to screw our countries up thoroughly, with the changing of the guard i’m praying some of those draconian policies will gradually be changed back to more humane treatment of the weakest.
    i know it sounds a bit weird, but Bush and Howard together reminds me of some of the murderous duos in the past, those who egged each other on to even more and more sadistic practices, there was no conciences in the way as they went further and further into their treatment of some helpless people, gitmo bay, children overboard, Haneef, refugees forced back to torture or death, Iraq, work choices used against the lowest paid workers, that just skims the surface, maybe thats a bit overboard but i cant help thinking and comparing

  8. [So joyce IS considering a move to the House.

    Which seat would he contest though?]

    I reckon Truss will be given the Tap on the shoulder”, and to gracefully “retire for the good of the party”.

    I wonder if Barnaby has been influenced by Brendan Grylls success here in WA to make the switch ? Though Rorts For The Wheatbelt is starting to bite him on the bum.

  9. Talking of Guantanamo bay, I caught part of an interview on ABC or SBS the other night with a former guard who was saying that most working there were sadistic types who loved it there as they were able to break all the rules and treat the prisioners however they liked. He said the others guards were slackers who saw the posting as a bit of a bludge.

  10. Is Harry “the boofhead” the new Princess Diana? that will keep the tabloids and hot goss magazines forever happy.

    [Prince Harry has apologised for using offensive language to describe a member of his army platoon. The News of the World has published video in which the prince calls one of his Sandhurst colleagues a “Paki” in commentary he made over filming. ]

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/7822574.stm

  12. Finns

    GWB is easily going to win the “Worst President Since WWII Medal of Freedom”. Nixon doesn’t even come close. He did a few good things. Look back at GWB and name a few decent things he’s done in 8 years (apart from destroying the Republican Party and diminishing the US’s potential to affect the world). AIDS funding in Africa gets a mention. It’s almost Howardesque how he’s just pissed a lot of money and goodwill up against the wall.

    I found a ranking of our PMs. I really can’t comment pre-Fraser but I’ll list them in order for those who know more than me.

    1. Curtin
    2. Menzies
    3. Hawke
    4. Chifley
    5. Howard
    6. Whitlam
    7. Keating
    8. Fraser
    9. Gorton
    10. Holt
    11. McMahon

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_ranking_of_Australian_Prime_Ministers

  16. Dio
    nearly finished curtins autobio, and I must say that menzies does not seem to be as impressive as I previously thought.Curtin was a rare quantity indeed and his legacy is sadly understated in our nations history .

    gough at 6 is a surprise as I thought he would be in the top 3

  17. gusface as a strong labor man myself i could cop criticism but you cant get sacked and only be in for three years and be one of the best, my best since ww2 would be as follows not including holt, gorton, mcwen and mcmahon
    1. hawke easily loved him
    2. Menzies by default really longest serving pm, big immigration intake good economy
    3. howard 2 of his terms weren’t bad 2 awful (first and last)
    4.Whitman best socially worst economically
    5. keating great treasurer prick of a person good at reconcillation though
    6. fraser absoltely hopeless along with treasurer
    atm Rudd would probably sit 2 for me. I would describe my self as centrist.
    p.s yes bush is easily the worst in 50 years don’t actuelly mind Nixon if it wasn’t for his ending he wouldn’t be to bad.

  19. I was a bit surprised to see Curtin as number 1, not because of anything I know about him but because of what I DON’T know about him. He hardly ever gets mentioned except by political historians.

    The US absolutely deify their great President’s. Lincoln has had more biographies written about him than any person in history. FDR, Washington and Jefferson are practically saints. We don’t seem to do that in Australia. I suppose it’s our cultural cringe or something like that.

  20. 2. Menzies by default really longest serving pm, big immigration intake good economy

    But it was Curtin who started planning for that big post-war immigration intake and the Snowy scheme etc

  21. Except for winning elections I cant remember anything Menzies’ governments did for Australia. At the time from the mid 50s till Gough W the ALP were split and a rabble. He also gave us conscription.

  22. jovial i didn’t rate curtin but for the record i completely agree with him being number 1 I’m not talking anything away from curtin, i agree Menzies didn’t do much for 17 years but he started the liberal party when they where halve decent he did preside over a good economy whether that was him or not doesn’t entirely matter and he did handle foreign affairs well so good there where rumored he might get Churchill’s job plus the people mustn’t of minded him keeping him for 17 years, though negatives where vietnam war, contripton, reasonably do nothing govement and like howard used fear tactics him and howard where quite similer

  25. So Roxanne, you are happy for the 3rd in line for the Pommy throne to:

    1. Wear Nazi uniform
    2. Call “our little Paki friend”
    3. Mock gays: “How do you feel? Gay? Queer on the side?”
    4. Mock his own Grandmother: “Harry is filmed pretending to finish a call to the Queen. “I’ve got to go, got to go. Send my love to the corgis. Send my love to the corgis and Grandpa. God Save You… yeah, that’s great.”
    5. had a punch up with photographer

    It’s just a lad thing, la di la, a ha ha ha. It’s another meeja beatup.

    http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/jan/11/monarchy-race

  28. William

    ar you banning any discusion or post here on th current gaza hostilities ? and

    ar you banning any discusion or post here on th Israel/palestinien dispute completely ?

  30. William

    #1

    “No further discussion on the SITUATION in the Middle East, please”

    Thaks for your reply William , obviously discusion or post here on th current gaza hostilities is th current “SITUATION” and is obviously now banned

    However your #1 William does not specify banning any post here on th overall Israel/palestinien dispute completely , just th cureent ” situation”

    So can you clarify whether th overall Israel/palestinien dispute is completely banned from posting from now on please because they ar entirely separate matters ?

  33. Did anyone happen to watch the situation in Victoria this evening?

    A nice 62 run win for the Aussies and how about that young batsman from NSW eh?

  35. William

    Thank you for replying in #134 , your answer in #134 is unambigous to my #133 overall Israel/palestinien dispute query

    Ar you aware of any Sites that discuss th gazza situation please

  36. With hindsight, the last three Galaxy Polls have also shown the Liberal National Party struggling on a 2PP basis.

    Aug 3 2008, ALP 53,LNP 47

    Sep 30 2008, ALP 52, LNP 48

    Dec1 2008, ALP 51, LNP 49

    While the gap superficially narrows from 6 to 4 to 1. It is just a treading of water rather than a sign of any real progress being made.

  38. “One day I might learn to count.”

    well with my literacy and counting skills you hav a template to aim for Would love to agree with you on q’ld situataion , however unless you ar relying on our MOE , it doesn’t loom like treading water , more heading to close electon IF reliant solely on Gallaxy

    BTW Scorpio , feel NSW youngster Phil hughes will be future absolute star , timing from bat is amazing

  41. Agree Steve , although there record is fairly good , certainly better than Morgan

    Only problam I hav with Newspoll 57/43 i saw was it was a quarterly Oct to Dec , possibly taking th queensland figures cum out of th national Newspolls , so trends ar hard to find

  42. George W Bush has taken his last ride in Airforce 1 and brought his daddy along for the ride so that he could name a ship after him. He’s apparently tidying up his last minute favours before he rides off into the Texas desert.

    [US President George W Bush has taken his last official Air Force One flight to Virginia for a ceremony to place a warship named after his father into active duty.

    Mr Bush, who leaves office on January 20 when President-elect Barack Obama enters the White House, attended the commissioning of the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, the USS George HW Bush, with close family members and senior officials.

    Mr Bush, a wartime President who hands over conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan to his successor, called the Nimitz-class carrier “an awesome ship” that honoured “an awesome man.”

    The President’s helicopter, Marine One, landed on the flight deck and Mr Bush emerged with his father, the former president, who was walking with a cane. Their wives followed.]

    http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/01/11/2463225.htm

  43. William Bowe
    Posted Monday, January 12, 2009 at 12:35 am | Permalink

    #143

    “Ron, here is a good site on the Gazza situation.”

    Your affection for me knows no bounds ….now you flick pass me to a pommie socer player to debate …like how would he understand reel english , I’d win in a canter

  44. Hal Colebatch in today’s Australian attempts to mount an exceedingly high horse over Katherine Wilson’s expose of Quadrant as the standard bearer of right wing lunacy.

    Hal is a big wheel in Arty circles, and by his own revelation is a perennial contributor to Quadrant, the value of whose contributions I am sure is tremendously significant. Significant enough, apparently ,for him to leap to Windschuttle’s defence.

    Anyway, in Hal’s view, Wilson’s expose was “squalid and nasty in a Smeagol like way” (whoever Smeagol was, but you get the drift, obscure references make you more superior to your reader) and that Quadrant should be forgiven its transgression because is small, depends on trust, cannot employ fact checkers, and its submitted articles are not subject to “peer review” before publication.

    Curiously, Hal makes no reference to Windschuttle’s political bigotry, his refusal to publish anything remotely critical of the far right of politics, and that Quadrant is a political, substantially publicly funded, rag, masquerading as a literary publication to give itself an importance and stature which is belied by most of what is published within.

    The very fact that Wilson’s article was published at all is of itself a testament to Quadrant’s shoddy and perverse editorial standards.

    It has nothing to do with the size of the publication, its pious naivety, its inability to access Wikipedia or the Internet, its unwillingness to admit it is too stupid to recognise nonsense when it is rammed up its backside with a barge pole, or its refusal seek a qualified opinion before publication when it is out of its depth.

    The fact demonstrably is, fact checker or not, that Quadrant will publish anything, without the most cursory of content verification, so long as it supports the bias of its editorial policy.

    For Windshuttle, Colebach, et al to cry foul and seek to shift blame to others who merely played Quadrant by its own rules and won, is humbug and hypocrisy of the most obvious kind

  45. [Hal is a big wheel in Arty circles, and by his own revelation is a perennial contributor to Quadrant, the value of whose contributions I am sure is tremendously significant. Significant enough, apparently ,for him to leap to Windschuttle’s defence.]

    And Hal of course once stood for the Libs in Federal Seat of Perth against Ric Charlesworth in the 80’s, and lost 🙂

    Sums it up really 🙂

  47. I do not think th alleged hoax was either clever or proved anything According to th Age’s detailed investigation most of th names & organizations were generaly valid , and alot of th alleged hoax listed ‘research’ had been/was being carried out So i didn’t find its publication all that surprising or inconsistent with supposed quatrant publishers views

    Principal non facts was th CSDIRO itself hadn’t done so , and reasons giving for not doing , and person didn’t exist , as opposed to most of actual data Thats shoddy verifications of sourse nad allegd user of that ‘research’ BUT had that been true , it still wuld hav been published consistent with there views , so big deel , th elelged hoxer is skiting over nothing , a informed people know that NON hoax stuff gets published by Quadrant with that slant anyway and contrary data does not

    What wuld hav been a hoax is had contrary stuff , fully verified had been consistently sent to quadrant and proved sent to quadrant , andf they refused to publish it , that wuld be then MORE of a story of selective publishing , than them publishing what you’d expect them to publish if it had been authenic Regarding influensing th non rusted on people’s views of Quadrant , think hoaxer hoaxed themselves with delusion…seeing quadrant readers will still believe th data itself was generaly fine anyway for there selectiv minds

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