Morgan: 60.5-39.5

Two polls from Morgan, which as ever moves in mysterious ways. Without question the headline finding is the face-to-face poll of 1832 respondents conducted over the previous two weekends, showing a healthy spike in Labor’s two-party lead to 60.5-39.5 from 57.5-42.5 at the previous such poll. The 574-sample phone poll was probably conducted to get more bang from their buck out of some other survey they were conducting for some other reason. It shows Labor’s lead at a more modest 57-43. Furthermore:

• Northern Territory MP Alison Anderson, on whose whim (along with fellow independent Gerry Wood) hangs the future of Paul Henderson’s floundering government, has advised that Tuesday will be nothing less than “the biggest day in Territory history”, which should alarm survivors of Cyclone Tracy and the 1942 air raids. Tuesday was to be the day Anderson would make known her attitude to the government’s future, but it’s presumably been brought forward a day now that Speaker Jane Aagaard has agreed to a request from Anderson, Wood and the CLP for parliament to resume on Monday. Notice will then be given of a no-confidence motion on Friday, which if successful – and given the pitch of Anderson’s rhetoric, any other outcome would be an enormous anti-climax – will result in either a new election or an immediate transfer of power to the Terry Mills-led CLP. The procedure for such a motion was established late last year in legislation establishing fixed four-year terms, which like similar legislation in New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia provides for an escape clause in the event of no-confidence or blocked supply. As Antony Green explains, it thus marks a test case for the aforementioned states, which have never experienced such a situation in the fixed term era. If the motion passes, the parliament will have eight days to back an alternative government, after which the Administrator will have the authority to issue writs for an election which the Chief Minister will be obliged to advise. The government’s ongoing crisis reached its current pitch on Tuesday when Anderson quit the ALP – not as she foreshadowed due to dissatisfaction with the government’s handling of an indigenous housing program, but because she blamed Henderson for an allegedly racist article about her and other indigenous MPs in Saturday’s edition of the Northern Territory News. The same day saw Arafura MP Marion Scrymgour return to the Labor fold after two months of independence, leaving the numbers at Labor 12, CLP 11, independents two. While Anderson’s tone of certainty might be taken as a clue, Wood’s precise attitude remains unclear: although of presumably conservative sympathies, he has expressed concern at the CLP’s readiness to govern, and was quoted this week saying an election was “certainly an option”. Anderson tells The Australian her gauge of the public mood is that there is “a push for an election so that they can teach Hendo a lesson”.

• Talk of John Della Bosca challenging Nathan Rees for the New South Wales premiership has focused attention on the theoretical prospect of a leader sitting in the upper house. While dismissive of the rumours, Imre Salusinszky of The Australian muses that Della Bosca “could serve a symbolic first 100 days in the Legislative Council and hope to have gained sufficient traction by that point to make the switch feasible”. He also notes that in the current environment, no lower house seat is so safe for Labor that Della Bosca could be guaranteed to win a by-election even if a sitting member agreed to make way. The Sydney Morning Herald reports party operatives hope Della Bosca can assume Bankstown from Tony Stewart by forging a deal in which Stewart receives an apology for his sacking over an incident involving a staff member last year, for which he is suing the government. Another Herald report mentions Riverstone, where John Aquilina has said he will not contest the next election. Della Bosca’s home patch, Gosford, is deemed unsuitable in part due to the lingering local unpopularity of his wife Belinda Neal following the Iguana’s episode, but also because it is too marginal and sitting member Marie Andrews would be unwilling to make way in any case. The Herald reports that a move to Bankstown “could pave the way for a graceful exit from politics for Ms Neal”, who is unlikely to retain preselection in her Gosford-based federal seat of Robertson. It will be recalled that when Barrie Unsworth was parachuted into Rockdale at a 1986 by-election to assume the premiership upon Neville Wran’s retirement, he suffered a 17 per cent dive in the primary vote and came within 54 votes of defeat. In May, Malcolm Mackerras wrote an article in The Australian decrying what he saw as the outdated convention that places leaders in the lower house, complaining that “New South Wales has Nathan Rees as Premier when John Della Bosca should be premier”, and suggesting the federal Liberals “should replace Julie Bishop as its federal deputy leader with Senator Nick Minchin and explicitly not ask Minchin to transfer to the House of Representatives”.

• Christian Kerr of The Australian notes the British Conservatives have “turned a PR disaster into a triumph” by conducting an American-style open primary to choose the successor to one of many MPs disgraced in the country’s expenses scandal. Having done so, the party has given “everyone in the constituency a stake in the success of their candidate”. The New South Wales Nationals have decided to hold such a vote in one yet-to-be-chosen seat for the next state election.

• Antony Green comments on the potential availability of various double dissolution triggers, and on the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme bill in particular, where the Coalition appears to be playing a good hand with its apparent plan to oppose it at the second reading.

• Danna Vale, Liberal member for the southern Sydney seat of Hughes, has announced she will quit at the next election. The margin in Hughes was cut from 8.6 per cent to 2.2 per cent at the 2007 election, and by Antony Green’s reckoning the redistribution proposal unveiled yesterday will further reduce it to 1.1 per cent – less than a sitting member’s personal vote is generally reckoned to be worth. No word yet on who might be up for the tough task of keeping the seat in the Liberal fold.

• The Victorian Parliament’s Electoral Matters Committee has published a report recommending that consideration be given to adopting the weighted inclusive Gregory method for surplus transfers in upper house elections, as opposed to the (non-weighted) inclusive Gregory method currently employed both in Victoria and for the Senate. Under weighted inclusive Gregory, which was introduced in Western Australia at the last election, the system achieves mathematical perfection of a sort with every individual vote cut up and distributed among the final quotas at equal value. The inclusive Gregory method saves time, but it means individual votes which are used in surplus transfers more than once in the count are inflated in value on the second and subsequent occasions. Usually only small handfuls of votes are involved, but like anything these could be decisive in the event of a close result.

• The abolition of Laurie Ferguson’s Sydney seat of Reid threatens an interesting Labor preselection for one of the seats which have moved into its turf: Parramatta, Blaxland and McMahon, as Lowe has been renamed. Antony Green has composed what promises to be a headline-grabbing post noting that the New South Wales, Queensland and Western Australian redistributions (only proposals in the first two cases) have between them given Labor a notional boost of five seats. Those wishing to discuss these matters are asked to do so on the New South Wales redistribution thread.

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.

777 comments on “Morgan: 60.5-39.5”

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  1. Would anyone support changing the ALP back to the English spelling:
    ‘Labour’ ?

    I guess it’s about as unlikely as a merged NZALP

  3. [Accepting the indigene as the indigene with a dualist nature (point 3)

    What on earth does this mean? OK, “I accept the indigene as the indigene with a dualist nature.” Fine. So what? ]

    It means that the indigene can aspire to western values and concepts but also is still deeply rooted in a society that’s values are “alien” to us.

    It is quite a hard concept to grasp if you are rigid in your doctrine or lack the cognisance to see that a person can have a “foot in both realms” and still be “western”

    Your blather about going back to england just demonstrate your complete lack of empathy and I seriously doubt if you understood the significance of the “apology”.

  4. If Ramprakash played he would be the oldest test cricketer playing. Muralitharan is currently the oldest, but he is 37.

  5. [It means that the indigene can aspire to western values and concepts but also is still deeply rooted in a society that’s values are “alien” to us.]

    Immigrants from non-western society do this all the time. And they’ve managed not to descend into a morass of repgunant alcohol and child abuse, poor health and education and terrible living conditions.

    The fact is, Aborigines want to have their cake and eat it too without taking any responsibility.

    We are beyond showing “empathy”. It’s about something was ACTUALLY DONE to solve the problems. The intervention finally got the ball rolling, although it should have been done thirty years ago.

  10. [It means that the indigene can aspire to western values and concepts but also is still deeply rooted in a society that’s values are “alien” to us.]

    I think that’s exactly the problem. The material well-being of white Australians comes from holding western “values” – principally individualism, the nuclear family, the value of regular employment and of sending your kids to school. These values are not compatible with pre-modern communitarianism, which is what I take you to mean by values which are alien to us. So long as indigenous people cling to their pre-modern values system, they will continue to have a pre-modern mode of living. Unfortunately, the pre-1788 mode of living is no longer possible, so what it means in practice is the parasitic and degraded life we now see.

  12. Except in the NT, we must be close to having an indigenous quota in a few states. In the NT, it should be 30%. Vic is only 0.6% and SA 1.7%.

    Strangely enough, Tasmania has one of the highest indigenous % at 3.4%, with WA higher at 3.8% and Qld 3.6%.

  13. Rumours of a reshuffle in NSW next week. What a joke.

    If Rees tries to take out Della’s backers, he’ll just accelerate the move to get rid of him.

  16. [Rees is doomed anyway. Biggest dill to ever disgrace the parliament.]

    I thought thar honour went to Malcolm Turnbull ? 🙂

  17. [Mark forgets that resources constitute a massive part of our overall income from exports, and since the ETS will impinge on their international competitiveness by increasing costs, it seems very appropriate that resources representatives are at the table!]

    You’re forgetting that the whole point is to shift to renewable energies. So it doesn’t make sense that they were consulted far less than the fossil fuel industries, or in some cases, not consulted at all.

  19. [Unfortunately, the pre-1788 mode of living is no longer possible, so what it means in practice is the parasitic and degraded life we now see.]

    A treaty would “draw a line in the sand’ , and allow much of what the kiwis have achieved.(IT’s NEVER TO LATE)

    The issue is not us V them, but saying fairs fairand giving rights and recognition along with obligation and responsibilities.

    But of course if you doctrinairre view is so “narrowband” then the concept of inuit,maori and other ‘first nationers’ is redundant.

  20. No 669

    The apology was supposed to draw the line, Gus. Yet here you are asking for a treaty, more taxpayer dollars and yet even more recognition.

  22. No 667

    To be honest, Rudd should be negotiating nuclear power with the fossil fuel industry, but we’ve had that long and arduous debate too many times here.

  23. [A treaty would “draw a line in the sand’ , and allow much of what the kiwis have achieved.(IT’s NEVER TO LATE)]

    That can only mean returning all or part of Australia to indigenous control. Is that what you’re advocating? If it doesn’t mean that, what does it mean?

    [The issue is not us V them, but saying fairs fair and giving rights and recognition along with obligation and responsibilities.]

    What “rights and recognition” do indigneous Australians not now have?

    All I get from you is meaningless cliches. None of this waffle addresses the actual circumstances we are trying to deal with. How do we stop indigneous Australians living as degraded parasites? Nothing you have said offers the smallest clue of how propose doing this.

  25. Public and proud baby! At the posh private places you don’t learn the most important lesson of all: how to talk to people! Also they’re just spoon fed the facts that the markers want to see in year 12 exams. This may be okay for maths and science but in art, the social sciences and humanities you’ve actually got to learn how to think for yourself. I’m studying at Uni these days and though public school educated students are a minority, from a small sample size I get the impression that we tend to be the top of the class (obviously I can’t see marks but when it comes to things like class presentations etc we appear to be more confident and worldly).

  26. [This may be okay for maths and science but in art, the social sciences and humanities you’ve actually got to learn how to think for yourself.]
    Scientists and mathematicians don’t need to know how to think for themselves? I don’t think so.

  27. GP – your reference to the outcomes achieved by immigrants as opposed to internal national minorities is so shallow it must based on a lack of thought, rather than ideology. Surely you realise that there are different moral premises and issues at stake when looking at higly motivated people who have moved from one state to another and accepted the rules and structures of their new home (immigrants) as opposed to cultural groupings indigenous to a place who have had powerful aliens structures superimposed onto their world?

  29. THM,

    The most important thing is to learn how to listen. (Two ears and one mouth. Maybe God had a message there).

  31. GP
    I’ll throw you a curly hypo.

    I’ll give up opposition to Nuclear power if you agree to a treaty and full rights ala waitangi.

    😉

  32. No 677

    Pancho, come up with some solutions that don’t involve treaties, racial quotas in parliament or more apologies. You know, practical solutions that solve the bloody problem.

    As for “alien” structures, may have been true in 1788. No longer true now.

  33. I should say that my view is that indigenous Australians, as the original occupants of the country, who were dispossessed without their consent, have a perfect right to live in any way they please. If they chose to reject “white” values and ways of life, that is their absolute right. If they want us to pay them reparations, in the form of the dole, forever, I would accept that as a fair demand. But if they do that, they cannot then complain that they are being deprived of the benefits of white civilisation, in terms of health, life expectancy etc. Those benefits cannot be handed out by government, they can only be attained by adopting the fundamentals of “white” values and ways of life. That is the basic choice that indigenous Australians have to make. They are not being helped to face this basic fact by the fatuous cliches which people on the left (like Gusface here) put forward as “solutions.” Indigenous Australians do not need more guilt-politics, blame-politics, symbolism and platitudes. They need someone to tell them the truth.

  37. Look the fact of the matter is many Aborigines dont want to live with or amongst ‘white’ australia. They’ve always wanted to be left alone, hell Arthur Phillip had to wrangle some just to learn their language and customs!

    Until they understand that their living conditions affect their health and that living in remote communities is detrimental to their physical health then the sooner their health/wellbeing will be better.

    NZ Maoris have come to terms with their current situation and are fully part of NZ society I wonder about whether this is fully the case with our Indigenous people.

  39. [That can only mean returning all or part of Australia to indigenous control. Is that what you’re advocating? If it doesn’t mean that, what does it mean?]
    pseph

    read about ‘tangi , then come back with your bullstein.

    [All I get from you is meaningless cliches. None of this waffle addresses the actual circumstances we are trying to deal with. How do we stop indigneous Australians living as degraded parasites? Nothing you have said offers the smallest clue of how propose doing this]

    1st point. Stop playing the man,play the issue.
    2nd point I have proposed just SOME ideas , which you were comprehensively shot down on,when you tried to rebutt them.
    3rd point Have some damper.
    (BTW keep up Oz , we are now onto ‘bush tucker’)

  40. [Two ears and one mouth. Maybe God had a message there]
    The message is that being able to hear in stereo helps animals, including primates, survive.

    The author of the message is Charles Darwin.

  41. Actually having been to a Catholic school myself I can assure you that any form of selectivity or culling is not part of their values or culture and is not practised.

    Yes the Eels were pretty impressive today and the Roosters went half way to doing the right thing (for me anyway) to get within 7.

  42. Hmm, have been unable to respond to you polyq, back at the 240ish area.
    I suppose I thought that most folk would assume this to be complex territory. Let me just pose you some questions.
    What would you recommend to a surgical registrar practising their micro surgery skills, wanting your opinion on the reversal of a tubal ligation, meaning no more babies, for a woman who’d found new found passion for a bloke recently released after a too brief stint for, you guessed it, child sexual assault.
    I kid you not.
    I said no.
    For goodness sake, do you really think I think the kids putting out for smokes are the ones to blame? You are crazed if you think that, polyq.
    Of course the problem of child sexual abuse occurs across class and so on. I’ve done a fair bit academically and skilling up of other sectors, on this subject. Some of the Family Court Judges and Magistrates have proved a bit thick.

  45. GP, Adam – stamping your feet and demanding ‘solutions’ – apart from being unreasonable and superficial on a forum such as this – does not mean that the status quo is acceptable, or the populism you are offering is the best way forward.

    GP – it is pretty widely accepted that many indigenous groups (eg in Australia, the US, Canada) have a special political status as ‘internal national minorities’ because they were involuntarily incorporated into the national structure through colonisation or conquest, then dealt with apart from it for generations. (Kymlicka, 1999 for a start). I don’t see how that fact changes.

  46. *gives up on Gusface*

    Anyone else from the left have something to say about this? I’d hate to conclude that the left has succumbed totally to intellectual bankruptcy on this issue.

  47. No 695

    Pancho, it’s not unreasonable. The time for symbolic gestures is quite over because thirty years of failure have demonstrated their failure in achieving good outcomes for indigenous people.

  48. There is no such thing as ‘white’ Australia. There is no uniform Australian culture. You cannot expect anyone in Australia to conform to some culture that does not exist.

    The only thing the rest of Australia can do is offer opportunity to Australians who for whatever reason (indigenous or not) have missed out. If they are incapable of taking those opportunities, then we can’t help them.

  49. [NZ Maoris have come to terms with their current situation and are fully part of NZ society I wonder about whether this is fully the case with our Indigenous people.]

    Whilst a tad sweeping, in the main YES.

    Why, because of ‘tangi.

    Did it give away NZ to the maori, NO.

    Glen , statements like yours, keep alive the glimmer of faith that some libs ahve a humanitarian and “world” view.

    I dips me lid

  50. [GP, Adam – stamping your feet and demanding ’solutions’ – apart from being unreasonable and superficial on a forum such as this]

    I don’t think there’s anything unreasonable or superficial about asking people who put themselves forward as advocates of social change what exactly they propose doing about one of Australia’s l;ongest-running and most vexatious social issues

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