The latest Essential Research survey was conducted during the worst period for Labor of the “utegate” saga, from June 17 to 21, but it shows Labor’s two-party lead steady on 57-43. Further questions: would respondents support tax increases to improve spending on services and infrastructure (mostly not); which taxes would you most and least care to have increased (alcohol and cigarettes okay, GST and petrol big no); whether the government’s emissions trading scheme is tough enough (leaning towards no, but with a high don’t know response); who should or will be Labor’s next prime minister (big win for Julia Gillard on both counts); whether Peter Costello’s departure will be good or bad for the Liberal Party (split decision).
UPDATE: Essential Research have been in touch to point out that their results are composites of two weeks’ polling, and each survey is mostly completed by the weekend, so the impact of the OzCar issue should not be overstated.
Two news nuggets to go:
• State upper house member Lee Rhiannon has been confirmed as the Greens’ lead Senate candidate for New South Wales. The Greens have only previously won a Senate seat in the state in 2001, when they benefited from the one-off of One Nation preferences, but it’s conceivable that a rise in the Labor vote at the next election (assuming it’s a half-Senate rather than a double dissolution) could deliver them enough preferences to secure a seat at the expense of the Liberals. Rhiannon will quit her state seat when the election is called, at which point the Greens will choose her replacement.
• The Australian Parliamentary Library has published a newly updated elections timetable, laying out what might happen and when at federal, state and territory level.
Finally, a reminder that I’m on semi-holiday so apologies if comment moderation isn’t being dealt with promptly.
Hey Glen: how about Bruce Bilson for Liberal leader? He’s actually got some decency, unlike the rest of your front bench.
QT today at 2pm will be a corker. Here is the link for those interested.
http://webcast.aph.gov.au/livebroadcasting/
Hockey trying to contact Grech after the Senate hearing is bizarre and again shows a complete lack of political judgement on his part. It weems that Hockey wants to deal himself into the controversy and become the centre of attention.Sure the guy worked for him 10 years ago for two weeks. But, the Opposition have been hollering about arcane definitons of special dealings by Rudd and Swan. It can only lead to questions of Hockey’s motive and in the hot house of Parliamentary politics is bound to make him look shabby.
If Turnbull resigned then Bruce should get a senior shadow portfolio, i can see him as a future leader but if Turnbull went id give Julie Bishop a shot then after 2010 then Hunt or Bilson, about time a Victorian lead the Libs…
Peter Hartcher on ‘Utegate’ – http://www.smh.com.au/national/leader-who-cried-wolf-gets-caught-by-the-crowd-20090622-cu08.html
One of the many things that annoy me about this affair, is that the media will get off without any scrutiny. While Turnbull started the ute issue, the media fell for it. As Hartcher still does, they bang on about the naivety of Rudd accepting the ute. A $5000 ute was never going to get Mr Grant any favourable treatment – Mr Grant knew it, Rudd knew it and the media should have known it.
What frustrates me is that Mr Grant could have contributed to Rudd $10,000 in cash no questions asked but instead gave him a $5000 ute. Instead of the media realising that, if indeed there was any favouritism, a $5000 ute would clearly garner less favour than $10,000 cash they continue to assert that Rudd is politically inexperienced.
Clearly, the only thing Rudd is naive about is that he overestimated the intelligence of the media. If a $5000 ute will get favours from a Minister then every political donation in the country should be stopped.
[Why would Joe Hockey phone Grech on the weekend if, as he contends, the man only worked in his office for 2 weeks 10 years ago??]
Yes, since when did the Liberal Work”Choices” Party become concerned for the welfare of employees?
Don’t mind Bilson some of the time but then has a complete loser as a staffer so I question his judgement.
Sloppy Joe is truly an idiot
G’day womble @ 27. If the Libs have any sense, they’ll drop this whole deal, expecting that the whole deal will fade fast in the polled public’s mind.
If they do, the ALP will go back to what precipitated this whole attack at the time it did: Good economic news, and start sticking it to the Opposition where it will hurt more than a few polled Jo Publics who might have been swayed by a Turnbull victory – rolling the legislation guaranteeing construction companies’ line of credit.
This one really has lead-ballooned, as Turnbull knew when he decided to go with the faked email scam … and it’s lead ballooned in the Liberal heartland the bill tried to protect – the construction industry, from the developers, engineers & major suppliers … all the way down the food chain to subbies & tradies, their families & the flow-on effect to suppliers & community services when companies collapse, subbies go bankrupt & jobs are lost.
Rudd’s government has bent over backwards to be even-handed, ensuring that no “pork-barreling” claims would survive scrutiny. In a way, it might prove to be the best wedge ever, and I’m sure, given when utegate started, the Coalition realise this.
May your Oz Lotto ticket be a winner!
If the Liberals had anything to do with the origin of this illegal material, with which they tried to bring down an elected government to seize power for themselves, this will be the political scandal of the decade! This story is yet far from unfinished. Turnbully should get out right now. And maybe not him alone either.
Kit at 55.
Rudd’s problem is that a lot of the media do not like him. This is widely known and was mentioned by Shaun Carney in The Age recently.
Therefore when these allegations surfaced, many in the media were very happy to believe Rudd was corrupt.
If they liked him, they would have been more circumspect. They wouldn’t have had such a clouded judgement.
They assumed Rudd was lying and Rudd was corrupt. Over what? Nothing but a rusty ute as a basis for corruption? The absurdity of it underlines how much some of them dislike Rudd.
Glen @54 “but if Turnbull went id give Julie Bishop a shot then”
O please, o please any god who might be listening MAKE IT HAPPEN! Even die-hard Tories (male & female) say they’d vote informal rather than put her in power!
Annabel Crabb reduces the atack against the Government to it’s core.
“After all, when you strip away the sizzle from this sausage, when you get to the matters which are – as the Prime Minister actually put it yesterday – “core and foundational”, the real-world corruption equation against the Government is kind of thin.
Prime Minister receives rusty ute from Queensland car dealer, who in return gets diddly-squat.
The technical point on which the Opposition is probably right turns on something far more cerebral; whether Grant got a warmer degree of hand-holding and nicer biscuits in the waiting room than his professional brethren, and whether Wayne Swan misled the Parliament on this point”.
http://www.smh.com.au/national/shock-car-salesman-gives-pm-a-reference-20090622-cu0t.html
Chris Uhllman and Barry Cassidy dislike Rudd, the ABC was doing its best last night to dent the attacks on Turnball’s credibility.
GG, yes, Annabel nailed it, but, in typical media style, she does it now (when the attack fails) rather than identify the attack’s shaky grounds from the start.
My view is Rudd has taken advantage of modern media and basically sidelined the press Gallery, this was a chance for them to prove they still had power and he had better dam well take them seriously.
I haven’t seen an Antony Green post since Sunday, I’m curious if he still holds Steve Lewis in high regard.
Kay Hull: she’s far more competent than Julie Bishop. Why not Kay for Deputy Leader?
Many in the media would have been being fed false info by Turnbull and other sources in the weeks leading up to this explosion. They would have been backgrounded on what was to be a big story/scoop, and in their cloistered Canberra world, would have put themselves in this mindset. That being the case it took some of the…less cerebral (paging Mr. Uhllman) members of the gallery a couple of days for their analysis to catch up with events. But the way they have oscillated wildly has made for a very Shakespearean couple of days. And still we don’t know who is Othello and who Iago.
[My view is Rudd has taken advantage of modern media and basically sidelined the press Gallery, this was a chance for them to prove they still had power and he had better dam well take them seriously.
I haven’t seen an Antony Green post since Sunday, I’m curious if he still holds Steve Lewis in high regard.]
The press gallery don’t like it that Rudd appears on SUNRISE and FM radio regularly.
[TP – it is the only time he turns right around in the chair so if footage can be found shouldnt be hard to fast forward and pick the moment. Unfortunately I didn’t record proceedings (wish I had as would be fascinating to revisit as events unfold).]
When people are in pressure situations like this, about to do something wrong under heavy scrutiny, they will seek out a mentor or co conspirator if they happen to be nearby. If Grech did do that then the person he was looking to may have been someone with more knowledge than just an email.
As I said yesterday, the way Hockey carried on yesterday, I think he is in it up to his neck.
Tom.
To be fair, Annabel Crabb not only gets it right now, but I don’t recall her being one of those to most vigorously pursue this on Saturday either. Some people just held judgement till more facts came out, which was the correct approach IMO.
Glen if Turnbull goes ( which I don’t think he will) it needs to be Hunt that gets the nod and the rest of the front bench has to resign. Time to start afresh. But that isn’t going to start until after the next election, and even then the Liberals future depends on getting good candidates. And why would anyone in there right mind bother when they have to fight back right wing nutters.
I have only just come on board and was replaying AM on another tab and got quite a surprise.
Hockey said that he hadn’t spoken to Grech for at least a couple of years and yet I just read that he rang Grech over the weekend.
Something smells about this. I said last night that Hockey may be involved.
Hockey wants to get Swan
Turnbull wants to get Rudd
This e-mail scam would have given them “both” and probably brought down the Government in the process. They have been playing for high stakes.
Only supposition, mind and may be hard to prove but looking more and more likely by the hour. If someone spills the beans and the whole facard comes crumbling down, then this could prove the biggest political story ever.
The media are so blinded in their quest to prop up the Opposition that they caren’t see the wood for the trees or are deliberately ignoring it.
Where is the smart, investigative journalist that really could get their name up in lights over this. Lewis thought he had it but has been so compromised in his dealings with the Libs that he missed it. He thought he had it but did it the typical lazy way, blinded by his enduring love for all things Liberal.
The new leadership team should be:
Brownyn Bishop and Wilson Tuckey, a sort of Ma and Pa Kettle homely look.
It wasn’t that the media journos were willing to believe Rudd was corrupt or anything like that, in fact I think they all know that Rudd is much straighter and down the line than his predecessors.
It was the media’s personal dislike of Rudd that makes them more than willing to take any opportunity to smear him, regardless of the flimsiness of their case. So they recklessly and negligently smeared him to the max, even when he had alerted them to the fact that an email didn’t exist. These guys know Rudd isn’t in any way corrupt, probably why they take even the tiniest opportunity and blow it up.
The corruptness is within the media.
This is big. The government must leave no stone unturned.
The AFP likewise.
Yes, Thomas Paine, but will thh media learn its lesson? No.
Let’s hope that Media Watch will have a good go.
Turnbull will only resign if someone challenges him, he’s not the type to give something up without a fight…
One thing for sure, Mr Turnbull’s approval rating reached its zenith in the last Newspoll. It’s only downhill from here.
I’m afraid you may be right, TP, the corruption is in the (mainstream) media. I think we are witnessing the death-throes of the MSM in the face of sites like this one, where a range of views is accessible, in real time, instead of one “expert’s”/”insider’s” one-sided analysis. The old media just can’t keep up with the blogosphere when it comes to fast-moving stories like Fakemail.
TP
Agreed. I said on Friday that given the implausibility of what was being said about Rudd, this thing would expose who his enemies were. Simple solution: no more interviews for any of them.
[They would have been backgrounded on what was to be a big story/scoop, ]
And heres the crux of the matter.
The media so in bed with politicians and particularly a vexed Liberal Party that they make themselves part of the game and rather than be analysts and journalists — they joined in with Turnbull, agreeing to help prosecute his campaign rather than look at merits. And in so doing they missed the biggest scoop of all, a faked email, a prearranged job, a scam and possible further corruption elsewhere.
Some in the media have been as ‘exposed’ by this as Turnbull. Their colors are well and truly revealed, as Liberal Party campaign agents and sabateurs and not journalists.
The fact that Steve Lewis’s wife works for Hockey is surely important. The AFP should go after the lying Liberal stooges that run The Australian. They’re in this pit of slime up to their eyeballs.
Who was the staffer whose name has been mentioned who once worked for Costello?
On the plus side for Rudd, regardless of whether the media likes him, he is sure to gain sympathy popularity from the public. He has been attacked unfairly, and had his integrity questioned on the basis of a fraud. As long as he doesn’t get too bitter in the counter attacks (just stick to correct process) he will come out well ahead.
I still believe that Rudd needs to go on tv at some stage and make a statement to the nation, since the office of PM has been sevrely slandered.
I think he should do it from the back of his ute
i have often wondered why the American Presedent always sends out his press secretary to do the interviews. i think this is a very good idea.
But i have heard Mr. Obama uses his phone and the internet widely.
We dont buy papers any more because the news they print is often over by the next morning.
[
The fact that Steve Lewis’s wife works for Hockey is surely important.
]
Do you mean Steve Price? Or does Joe run a doss-house for media spouses?
Skynews’ rubbish online poll (which never even reveals the number of votes) has changed to calling this the “OZ car-fake email issue”. Not surprisingly, Skynews’ conservative-skewed demographic has voted 54% that they are “over it”!. Wishful thinking on their part, I’d surmise.
If they just took electoral rejection with grace, humility and acceptance they wouldn’t get into such a mess. But no, WE made the mistake in voting them out because they’re Born To Rule.
Oh Joe!
“Our smear campaign is based on fact”
85 Psephos
[The fact that Steve Lewis’s wife works for Hockey is surely important. ]
Blood hell. That’s explosive information. Plus Hockey calling Grech on Saturday.
How do you think Labor should handle this in QT? Avoid mentioning either issue or fire both barrels?
[ The fact that Steve Lewis’s wife works for Hockey is surely important. The AFP should go after the lying Liberal stooges that run The Australian. They’re in this pit of slime up to their eyeballs. ]
Didn’t know that.
Imagine if it was the other way around, a reporter whose spouse worked for a senior labor frontbencher, was attacking the libs – there would be the hell to pay.
I don’t think the media are personally hate Rudd, at least not initially. Its just that the Rise of Rudd sold stories, and then so did Most Popular PM, and now the Fall of Rudd would be an even better scoop. I do think they have been a bit annoyed that he has refused to Fall though. He just isn’t playing fair.
So Steve Price’s wife works for Hockey and Steve Lewis’s wife also works for Sloppy Joe? That explains a lot. Price was boasting yesterday that the Libs had told him weeks ago they had the smoking gun to bring down Rudd.
Um, maybe I have my Steves mixed up. If so I withdraw, Mr Speaker.
[I don’t think the media are personally hate Rudd, at least not initially.]
The bosses of The Australian hate him, because they are Liberal stooges.