The latest Reuters Poll Trend weighted average of Newspoll, Morgan and ACNielsen results has federal Labor with a two-party lead of 55.8-44.2, presumably being weighed down a little by recent results from before the weekend.
UPDATE: Roy Morgan has joined in on the action with a small sample (546) phone poll including questions on leadership approval, which Morgan doesn’t normally do. It finds Malcolm Turnbull’s approval rating down to 25 per cent from 43 per cent in May, with his disapproval up a breathtaking 33.5 per cent to 62.5 per cent. Kevin Rudd’s approval rating on 63 per cent, up from 57.5 per cent in May, with his disapproval rating down from 33.5 per cent to 29 per cent. Labor holds leads of 56-44 on two-party preferred and 46 per cent to 39 per cent on the primary vote, which is actually quite mild by Morgan standards. Newspoll has also published its quarterly geographic and demographic breakdowns of recent polling by state, age, sex, and capitals/non-capitals.
Apart from that:
• Robert Taylor of The West Australian reports that Labor preselections for some highly winnable Liberal-held seats in Perth appear to be ”stitched up”. In the only two seats in the country which the Coalition gained from Labor in 2007, Cowan and Swan, those respectively named are Wanneroo mayor Jon Kelly and Slater & Gordon lawyer Tim Hammond. Kelly is interesting, as he ran as an independent against state Labor MP Margaret Quirk in Girrawheen at the 2005 election after a split in the Right faction. In Stirling, where decorated Iraq war veteran Peter Tinley failed to unseat current Shadow Workplace Relations Minister Michael Keenan in 2007, the nod is apparently set to be given to Karen Brown, former deputy editor of The West Australian and current chief-of-staff to Eric Ripper. Brown famously failed to win the new notionally Labor seat of Mount Lawley at the state election last September after suffering an 8 per cent swing, which many blamed on Alan Carpenter’s insistence that local member Bob Kucera make way for Brown. Peter Tinley is said to be holding out for a safe seat or a Senate position, and the unlikelihood of either suggests he will not be a starter at the next election. In Hasluck, which Sharryn Jackson recovered for Labor in 2007 after a term in the wilderness, Liberals are said by Taylor to be “working behind the scenes” to secure the endorsement of Mike Dean, who last week stepped down from his high-profile position as president of the Police Union.
• The ABC reports that Kathryn Hay will seek Labor preselection for Bass at next year’s state election. Hay is a former Miss Tasmania who became Tasmania’s first Aboriginal MP when elected at the age of 27 in 2002. After surprising everybody by dropping out at the 2006 election, Hay ran as an independent against Ivan Dean in the upper house seat of Windermere in May, and did very well to finish within 5 per cent of victory on the final count. With incumbent Jim Cox retiring, Michelle O’Byrne a sure bet for re-election, and Labor looking certain to win a second seat but very unlikely to pick up a third, the battle for the second seat is looking like a tussle between Hay, Beaconsfield mine disaster survivor Brant Webb, CFMEU forests division secretary Scott McLean (who famously came out in support of John Howard at the 2004 federal election) and Winnaleah school principal Brian Wightman, with only the latter looking an obvious also-ran.
• Rick Wallace of The Australian reports that George Seitz, western Melbourne Labor Right potentate and state Keilor MP, proposes to publish a “warts and all” account of his career in politics. Seitz is being forced out after nearly three decades in parliament due to a Victorian Ombudsman’s report which probed into the involvement of various state MPs in goings-on at Brimbank City Council. The aforementioned Wallace article is worth reading for a broader overview of the episode’s far-reaching impact on the Victorian ALP.
• Andrew Landeryou at VexNews reports that the closure of nominations has brought no challenges to sitting federal Liberal MPs in Victoria – including Kevin Andrews in Menzies, who was believed to be under threat from former Peter Reith staffer Ian Hanke.
• Nick in comments informs us that according to a Channel Nine news report, Labor polling has it trailing the Coalition 57-43 on NSW state voting intention.
Scorpio re that Imre Salusinszky story. Notice that in both situations the Coalition was saying something happened and the ALP was saying it’s not true.
Which party was telling the lies? They are the guilty ones, as they where the ones lying.
[Hartigan claimed “deadline pressure” as one of the reasons, in fact the main reason, Rudd’s denails were not printed in those infamous Saturday editions of News rags.]
A load of rubbish of course. If you even thought twice about it the veracity of the purported email seemed very shaky. Given people on here were able to quickly call into question whether such an email likely existed shows that the ‘professionals’ simply weren’t exercising their duties with adequate care and diligence.
Hard to see how Turnbull can bounce back when Rudd will get up every day and say it is now x days since the Opposition Leader based on a fake email alleged I was corrupt and mislead parliament. I now call on the Opposition Leader to stand in this place, apologise and resign!
“Kevin Rudd’s spin puts spell on Canberra press gallery”
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25725994-5013871,00.html
Political wheel borrow pushing aside, isn’t this article from The Australian is a little self indulgent? A media outlet and journalists reporting on…media outlets journalists.
No need to call on him to resign anymore I think… just make it plain that he didn’t when he should have
“media outlets AND journalists”
[Political wheel borrow pushing aside, isn’t this article from The Australian is a little self indulgent? A media outlet and journalists reporting on…media outlets journalists.]
It’s a bit like their polls. Only ‘they’ know them and are qualified to have an opinion on them. Back in your place, PB plebs!
Dario, the number of days very quickly get large and become a running sore for Opposition Leaders who have a day they would rather forget. The trick is to never let them forget.
[I couldn’t understand the recipe section bit. There are great sites for recipes like epicurious. I can’t imagine anyone downloading a recipe from a tabloid.
Yeah, it’s got me flummoxed. But if Hartigan reckons it’s his saviour then News is in a lot more trouble than we thought.]
It’s all about $$$$$ and teh Advertisers.
Hartigan was basically saying news was the fount of all wisdom and us evil bloggses were damming news’s rivers of gold with all our self indulgent crap.
(especially with News’s “special” friend Howie on the sideline)
I feel his pain.
🙁
Scorpio at 20
[Wells believes Rudd has received a softer ride than Howard from the media – ]
Imre’s descrition of John Wells :
“Sydney public relations consultant John Wells”
Actual desription
“In 1987, John Howard recruited John to his personal staff as press secretary and political adviser.’
Itep – the majority of news ltd. journos rarely exercise their duties with adequate care and diligence. I omit people like George M.
The biggest problem for the MSM is that their lack of due care is so often easily exposed within minutes and is all over the web immediately.
They are not used to this and resent it. It hurts that they are no longer the only source of information. It’s good for everyone else tho.
[Imre’s descrition of John Wells :
“Sydney public relations consultant John Wells”
Actual desription
“In 1987, John Howard recruited John to his personal staff as press secretary and political adviser.’]
Kit, only the Government indulges in spin. We know this because News tells us. You are seeing things. Move along.
[Given people on here were able to quickly call into question whether such an email likely existed shows that the ‘professionals’ simply weren’t exercising their duties with adequate care and diligence.]
And then the Telegraph dummied up the text they had been read over the phone to look like a real email by adding genuine-looking headers and so on to give the feeling of verisimilitude to the whole thing… except that they put “Godwin Grant” as the email addressee.
This was clearly intended to reinforce the idea in the minds of slow thinkers that they had a “real” copy, straight off Godwin’s printer. It’s bad enough that they didn’t print the denial, but worse that they deliberately dummied up the fake to look real.
Rudd was furious about this by the way and he made a big deal of the faking of the format in his first speech to the parliament on the Monday. I’d be damn angry too.
Suncorp has changed the pay structure for its new CEO.
[In a move lauded as a step in the right direction to end excessive executive salaries and risk taking, Suncorp has become the first Australian bank to stipulate that its CEO must buy shares in the company.
The Queensland insurer and bank announced on Wednesday it had appointed former British soldier Patrick Snowball as its new chief executive.
Mr Snowball’s base salary will start at $2.1 million, however after starting work on September 1 he will also have to purchase $500,000 worth of Suncorp shares at his own expense.]
http://business.brisbanetimes.com.au/business/suncorp-ceo-forced-to-share-the-wealth-20090702-d6d1.html
I don’t know where the hell they sent Dennis Shanahan but he’s come back quite different to the old Dennis. His articles are actually the best in the OO ATM and he’s lost a lot of weight.
Ltep – Thanks for listing some of the rejected bills. I take your point that these are unlikely to be used a DD trigger – the Safe Work Bill is possible (especially given that it is vaguely IR related), and I’d still suggest that the electoral reform bill is also possible.
The last DD was in 1987, and was (ostensibly) about the Australia Card. This issue did not feature in the campaign at all (some older PBers might remember a certain Queensland premier hogging the limelight that year) and was not pursued afterwards.
I guess the government would need to be mindful of a backlash in the event of too cynical a run to the polls, though I think the idea that the current Senate is a bit feral is already inculcated in the public mind (and so an early election – on any issue – would be justifiable)
Last night on ABC 702 Tony Delroy’s phone in topic was Afghanastan. A caller ranted about how Rudd was worse than Howard, said it took him 2 yrs to bring the troops home from Iraq, said he was groomed as a CIA spy for the Yanks, was a member of the DLP in his youth, he was a dangerous , dangerous man and Australia couldn’t afford to have him around etc etc.
Delroy let him rant with all the slander and lies he could come up with interjecting with agreeable mmms every so often, the next caller stuck up for the Yanks saying the didn’t have to go to help and go into Europe in WW2 and straight away Delroy flew in saying Oh i have to interrupt you there, what about Pearl Harbour. Incredible. he sat by practically egging the nutter on to slander Rudd, no interruptions then.
can their ABC get any worse?
Sorry if this has been posted but the OO’s editorial today was another diatribe solely devoted to Crikey. Methinks the lady doth protest too much.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25724176-25209,00.html
[and I’d still suggest that the electoral reform bill is also possible.]
Unfortunately it just isn’t. Bills introduced firstly and then rejected in the Senate cannot be the subject of a DD because section 57 of the Constitution relates to bills passed by the House of Representatives.
To create a DD from the electoral reform bill they’d need to re-introduce the bill in the House, have it rejected by the Senate; then reintroduce and pass the bill 3 months later in the House and again have it rejected by the Senate.
Vera – send a complaint to the ABC Delroy does that quite a bit.
what a crock about deadline pressures. Rudd made it clear that his office was contacted on the Friday for comment BEFORE the article was published and he denied it and not only was the denial not published but a copy of said email (with Grech misspelt as Grant) printed alongside the story
From the OO editorial
[In contrast, great newspapers, and their websites, are professional products staffed by men and women who combine deep knowledge of specific subjects with a talent for finding and reporting facts.]
ROTFLOL 😀
[As far as not knowing the famous email was a fake goes. Doug Cameron was telling them at the time Erica was extracting words from Grech that opposition senators “were making things up”.]
The signal lights were flashing brightly from both Grech and his boss as well as from Cameron that by pushing the issue to its preferred conclusion Abetz was being led into a trap.
Because of his determination to have the “damaging” e-mail revealed for all the world to see and his brash-full arrogance and feelings of self importance of his role in the issue, he totally missed it.
If he had picked up on the supple messages, which seemed quite evident and backed off, he could have saved Turnbull and his Party an awful lot of embarrassment and grief.
I am so glad he was too stupid to wake up to it in time!
BH, I noticed that myself 🙂 I don’t usually listen to him, I wish they’d put Trevor Chappell in his time slot.
Frank Devine dies
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25727110-12377,00.html
Steve 62
Its a good start on executive salaries, but nowhere near far enough. I have been reading the draft paper from the Productivity Commission inquiry and it still talks about amendments to current regulation, as though corporate boards and stock exchanges will regulate themselves. They won’t. They make too much money ripping people off, knowing that even on the occaisions they are breaking our numerous but weak laws, half the time nobody will investigate, and most of the time they will not be prosecuted by a regulator that has insufficient resources to prosecute any but the largest cases.
The part of our system that worked best in the GFC was the banking regulation, where a competent regulator (RBA) regularly checks up on banks and made sure teh rules are followed. Its the only solution.
News Ltd had plenty of time to include Rudd’s advices that the email DID NOT exist. Pretty important info. It really appears as though they were intent upon trying to smear Rudd by ignoring extremely important facts available to them early. They do have a case to answer to the public. They won’t though.
Anyway, who are we trying to kid. The murdoch media world wide has a reputation for doing what it can to support conservative political parties. Their is a documentary on it.
Vera – I only hear Delroy if I’m sleepless and waiting for Trevor. Trev’s got the best program on ABC and it’s a pity it is only at night.
Delroy, before the election, was heavily into promoting little Johnnie. Twas a bitter disappointment to him that Rudd won.
Still think radio and TV people should stop anyone making deliberately untrue statements about anyone. They only need to press the button or say ‘I don’t think that is correct” but Delroy never does.
Have to go out now but hope our team does better this week. Juliem will be thinking the opposite.
[Sorry if this has been posted but the OO’s editorial today was another diatribe solely devoted to Crikey]
News Ltd are nutty. They promote the very thing they attack. If they ignored Crikey and the blogs many wouldn’t know they existed.
The best thing that can happen to alternative on-line news and discussion forums is to be attacked by the MSM.
The MSM do have a point about the lack of stories being broken by Crikey et al. Given that Kevvie and Jules are bucketing News so much at the moment, it’s about time they sent a few stories to the blogosphere to break to underline their point.
From the OO Editorial, a veiled threat?
[And too often it escapes the laws on defamation and the scrutiny of the Press Council.]
There certainly seems to be a huge disconnect between the OO’s vision of itself and reality. The editorial talks about “rants”, but what was Kerr’s article yesterday? Balanced, sober, thought-provoking journalism of the highest class? Similarly Saluzinsky’s piece today. I suppose he had an arguable proposition, but his sources were pretty crook (and their bona fides somewhat obscured).
Then we come to the doozy: the faked emails, made up to appear superficially genuine with a bit of creative Photoshopping. Not only was that a fake upon a fake, but they even screwed up the fakery! If these are the standards that OO editorial is talking about, the disconnect is complete.
Diogenes @ 66 wrote
There is no such thing as bad publicity except your own obituary. (Brendan Behan)
Pretty inclusive, don’t you agree, Hartigan?
Vera @ 65 wrote:
What are AM & FM talk-back radio’s demographics? How many phoners are Gens X & Y? Or are most GenBlue and Boomers with giant kauri logs where chips should be? Wouldn’t most X&Yers be twittering, texting, blogging and Intertubing? Aren’t most Boomers & GenBlues set in their voting ways?
Isn’t that exactly why Hartigan etc are so shit#y?
I wonder what percentage of readers read the editorial of a newspaper and what percentage read the OO? Combine those to bits of data and I’m thinking very few people will be aware of the OO editorial let alone what it is saying.
There’s a great comment on the Pure Poison site about the old vs new media war.
[What was it that Gandhi might have said? First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win. I think we are definitely seeing the “fight” stage between old and new media.]
“BH Posted Friday, July 3, 2009 at 12:22 pm | Permalink
Vera – I only hear Delroy if I’m sleepless and waiting for Trevor.”
Hubba, hubba!
[The MSM do have a point about the lack of stories being broken by Crikey et al. Given that Kevvie and Jules are bucketing News so much at the moment, it’s about time they sent a few stories to the blogosphere to break to underline their point.]
I’ve yet to read a Crikey article and don’t plan to anytime soon.
[… it’s about time they sent a few stories to the blogosphere to break to underline their point.]
Brilliant idea Diogenes. Let’s mark this as the start of the Bloggers’ Coming Of Age.
I’ll go one further… a “Bloggers-only” press conference? No MSM allowed.
God, that’d nark Harto. He couldn’t rant about blogs not mainstream if they’re sipping Prime Ministerial tea and munching on the Iced Vo-Vos.
I wonder whether New outlets would print any major stories that came out of it? Or whether they’d follow their own advice and ignore it?
Bob 1234,
[Do you think they’re the only news outlets?]
Mate, you have NO understanding of the media coverage in QLD and trying to take Steve to task on something that he is more than well informed on, only demonstrates either your ignorance or you are back on your usual trick of baiting every other poster here to get a reaction.
Just for you, I will give you a run-down on the QLD media. News Ltd publishes the “only” daily and Sunday news paper in Brisbane which feeds throughout the State outlets.
Every single Regional Newspaper is owned by the same operator and they feed off News Ltd primarily, which means that you read the same National & State “news” articles (slightly adapted sometimes) in every newspaper in the State except a handful of “free’ ones.
If that is not “control” of information and opinion, I don’t know what else it could be!
The Commercial TV networks with the exception of Channel 10 sometimes, present QLD centric News and Current Affairs Programs which means that they omit material that southern viewers get exposed to.
This was very evident after the e-mail was exposed as a fake and 7 & 9 virtually ignored the dust-up that followed with at best, a light air-brushing. Thanks to posters on PB for keeping Queenslanders up to date with what was being aired further south.
Just further evidence of control of information in order to try and shape public opinion in a manner favourable to the Coalition or conversely, to limit damaging fall-out from adverse issues.
By the way, it looks like the IT people at The OZ have downloaded another cookie into my computer.
This time it automatically switched from an open tab of the Australian Home Page to “Video Game Downloads”.
I clicked the “back” button a couple of times and it went back to the OZ web page but before it could download fully it switched back to the “Video Game Downloads” site.
There must be some way that they can be taken to task over this blatant high-jacking.
http://www.filefront.com/
[Mate, you have NO understanding of the media coverage in QLD and trying to take Steve to task on something that he is more than well informed on, only demonstrates either your ignorance or you are back on your usual trick of baiting every other poster here to get a reaction.]
I’m sorry but i’m not going to reply to such venomous posts.
[Let’s mark this as the start of the Bloggers’ Coming Of Age.]
talkingpointsmemo won a Polk Award in the US for its journalism. They get their posters to do some of their work for them on any given topic, eg finding out what the evidence is for alcohol being a problem in indigenous communities and what possible solutions there are.
I think Crikey should cultivate that kind of journalism which would attract Ministers to give them interviews and stories. You just need a critical mass of interested posters on any topic to prepare the groundwork to get it off the ground.
If ‘breaking’ a story is simply the act of publishing a leak (which, in so many of the political stories, it appears to be), then I suspect increasingly polllies will leak to the more well known bloggeratti and Crikey et al will ‘break’ a lot more stories (maybe we can look forward to Bilbo and Poss breaking some big ones). There is still of course the breaking of stories that comes with hard graft investigative journalism, and that typically requires resources the alt media don’t yet have, but hopefully may acquire in the future.
[I think Crikey should cultivate that kind of journalism which would attract Ministers to give them interviews and stories.]
Actually, a blog here actually tried to do an article on the NT intervention and the Minister’s office knocked them back for comment saying they don’t talk to gossip websites.
They just don’t get it, do they?
[Ms Bishop says she is very disappointed by Kevin Rudd’s response.
“He said these results are devastating and that is right. He said we need to take decisive action, well that’s what he said before the last election, and it seems that nothing has been achieved. ]
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/07/03/2616033.htm?section=justin
The most up-to-date data in the report is 2006 and 2007. Who was in government then, Julie?
http://www.pc.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0013/90130/overview-booklet.pdf
[Federal Opposition Leader Malcolm Turnbull says the Coalition can win the next election, despite the latest bad opinion polls.
“If Australians … want to see Australia’s economy managed responsibly, then they should vote for us.”]
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/07/03/2615892.htm?section=justin
Malcolm, for your info, here are two bits of data out today.
[Federal stimulus prompts car sale surge]
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/07/03/2616043.htm
[The cash handouts from the Federal Government appear to have helped Australia’s services industry, with activity expanding for the first time in more than a year.]
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/07/03/2615955.htm
[I’m sorry but i’m not going to reply to such venomous posts]
Chicken
What happens if News Ltd breaks a story in July or August that Springborg on behalf of the dominant National faction of the LNP challenges Langbroek as the passive Liberal faction of the LNP for Leadership of the party? Do we then get excited about news Ltd being the first with the story that one would never read on a Crikey blog?
[I’m sorry but i’m not going to reply to such venomous posts.]
You don’t like to get “sprung” very much do you, but you sure can dish it out.
Back in your box, Bob!
Hugo @ 64
[The last DD was in 1987, and was (ostensibly) about the Australia Card. This issue did not feature in the campaign at all (some older PBers might remember a certain Queensland premier hogging the limelight that year) and was not pursued afterwards.]
It was pursued afterwards. The Government announced its intention to make the Australia Card Bill a priority and the necessary step of reintroducing it to Parliament was taken despite mounting opposition. It was only abandoned after John Stone dropped Ewart Smith’s bombshell in the Senate on 23 September.
http://preview.tinyurl.com/kl7662
The Editorial in today’s OZ mentioned before, has a perfect description of that Newspaper and its on-line version in its last sentence.
[a small-circulation propaganda sheet, read by people less interested in news and debate than having their prejudices confirmed.
Story.]
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25724176-25209,00.html
What was omitted was, “Published exclusively for the benefit of rusted-on, Conservative, Coalition supporters”.
The gloves are off, News Ltd has declared war and are opening up with a barrage of “cream puffs” instead of howitzers.