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.
its quite sad when experienced journalists like oakes resort to a stacked QandA audience to justify their claims. the polls, dear sirs!!
Keith at 27. The main point from Laurie Oakes’ piece was not that people are bored with OzCar, but that the punters do not like gloating. The big danger for Labor now is overconfidence, so I’m sure Kevin will say on Monday to the troops, now is the time to double the discipline, and to be very careful to not appear to gloat.
Re William’s post @ 37
Although, since C18, a UK PM has had to be able to command a majority in The Commons – The House which has (since before Henry VII’s ascension) had the Power of the Purse – the convention (& that’s all it is) that the head of government must come for the Lower House, developed about the same time as The Parliament Act of 1911 limited The Lords’ roles in the legislative process. Until then, several PMs, even during Victoria’s reign, were from The Lords.
As state legislatures predate the convention, there should, unless constitutions or later amendments specify otherwise, be no reason a Premier cannot come from the Upper House, if one exists, as long as s/he can command a majority in the Lower House.
If anybody wants a good belly laugh click on question time on Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday of this week. What a rabble the Queensland Opposition proved itself to be.
http://www.parliament.qld.gov.au/view/legislativeAssembly/hansard.asp?SubArea=latest
[there should, unless constitutions or later amendments specify otherwise, be no reason a Premier cannot come from the Upper House]
Yes there should. It’s called accountability. The lower house is the house of government, and the leader of the government must be directly and personally accountable to it.
49
Here here
It would be even better if the different houses had elections on different days like Tasmania so that there is more diversity in the upper house and a reduced chance of government control.
Steve
Apac have a repeat of last week’s OLD Parliament on now. A bloke is standing up with photos of that billboad
johncanb @ 51
Not up my way (pretty much Tory Central & further to the Right) the locals aren’t bored of it! Nor does the fact that SA Liberals, then QLD L-NP (the Liberals therein) also had their fake/doctored email stories – three Lib fakes about three months tends not to slip all that many voters’ minds – help electoral amnesia.
The main hope of Laurie O’s & other journos & the Coalition’s “people are bored of OzCar” meme is that people will forget which of them have egg on their face – all over it, their hair, clothes etc, in most cases.
You have to remember that, only a few years ago, the MSM & records like Hansard (which few read) controlled what people knew about anything. Scandals like Children Overboard, Siev X, MRI backdating for a Health minister’s support group etc etc – even Howard’s horror stretch as Treasurer, record high interest rates & the reason he earned “Honest John” (not only for the same reason Aussies call red-heads blue, but because it was a common nickname for scammers) tended to “disappear” because the MSM no longer reported them … or, in some cases, because they were simply never reported.
The blogsphere, RSS feeds Twitter etc changed all that. Stories are reported almost instantaneously. Libraries, Ed institutions, businesses, some blogs save & index them (& often do for different versions as an MSM story is changed without notice), as do some individuals who save them to files where they can be accessed. Now, if the MSM decides a story should be killed, the public, via blogs, twitter etc, may decide otherwise and keep it going & on record. NewsLtd, Fairfax, the ABC etc have lost control of stories, and they don’t like it. Nor do the Liberals, whom so many journos supported.
They do that in Japan and the Czech Republic. But it would be very expensive. Federal elections cost over $100 million, and with three year terms, separate Senate elections would mean an election every 18 months. I don’t think the voters would like that very much.
Thanks Vera, I’ll have a look. Hansard read as though the Opposition were there on their first day ever.
59
We could more to four year term for the HoR without touching the Senate terms which would reduce the number of elections.
Well, I read the biography of William Pitt the Younger written by thingy, you know, the one who used to be the UK’s saviour but then wasn’t, and one of the reasons young William was able to stay PM so long was that he would cunningly make any potential rivals peers of the realm, which meant that they had to sit in the UH and therefore couldn’t put their hand up as PM.
Given that our system (at least in terms of conventions) is based on their system and that this particular convention was obviously up and running in the 1790s, I think there would at least be one of those unwritten conventions that the UH doesn’t supply leaders.
[It would be even better if the different houses had elections on different days like Tasmania ]
I disagree. I think we should vote for local, state, and federal parliaments on the same day every 4 years with the entire upper house up for election each 4 years.
[he would cunningly make any potential rivals peers of the realm, which meant that they had to sit in the UH and therefore couldn’t put their hand up as PM.]
Except that in Pitt’s time they could be PM and frequently were. Pitt’s dad was PM as Earl of Chatham, and so were many others, including Wellington, Grey, Melbourne, Aberdeen, Derby, Beaconsfield and Rosebery, down to Salisbury who retired in 1902. There’s still no constitutional reason why a peer can’t by British PM, it’s just a convention.
I have written a rather lengthy post on the leadership struggle within the NSW Labor Party and the chance of Della Bosca becoming Premier.
http://macquariestreet.wordpress.com/2009/08/08/the-hills-are-alive-with-the-sound-of-della/
I have a lot of respect for Laurie Oakes. I do not know if he is right or wrong on this one but I would not dismiss what he says too lightly.
Keith, I also respect Oakes but if he’s using the kids from Q&A to support his case then he’s mounted a weak argument.
[I do not know if he is right or wrong on this one but I would not dismiss what he says too lightly.]
The public always say that they want politicians to stop bickering, and instead talk about ‘more important issues’.
Politicians know that attacking the credibility of their opponents changes the way the public perceives their opponents when they talk about ‘more important issues’.
Tom the first and best @ 61 Check the Constitution!
Google “Commonwealth of Australia Constitution” to access the pdf which covers it as of 25 July 2003 – and it hasn’t been amended since. While you’re there, check out the record of federal Referenda, those which passed & those which did not.
Psephos @ responded to “there should, unless constitutions or later amendments specify otherwise, be no reason a Premier cannot come from the Upper House”
with
As you are aware, the “should” in #53 is used in the sense that, conditional on there being no part of the [state] constitution to the contrary, “it is constitutionally allowable that ….”
The “should” in your post is used in the sense of “It is my opinion that …” Others – maybe a majority of others – may hold opinions different from yours and one anothers’.
If you want to change the constitutional legality of something, or add something to, or change the wording of, or delete something from the constitution, by all meant start a movement to that end. Until a constitution is altered by the means stated in it, it remains in force, whatever anyone’s opinion is.
BTW: Constitutional accountability is, as it has been (as a convention) for several centuries, of the Minister concerned to the Parliament via Question Time and (except in unicameral QLD) ministers may (unless the constitution states otherwise) come from either House.
[Keith, I also respect Oakes but if he’s using the kids from Q&A to support his case then he’s mounted a weak argument.]
The kids in the Q&A audience appeared to be mostly from private schools.
OzPol – really enjoyed your 2149.
I reckon that Oakes is doing what the others are – covering their own hides for the big stuff up with the Utegate reporting.
They were keen to have a big controversial story about Kev & Swannie but instead they ended up with the Libs and their own patch, the MSM, looking stupid.
Now they have to build Turnbull up so that they can help the Libs get restarted. If the Opposition is ineffectual then the MSM can’t get enough controversy.
Kev & Julia already know they can only go so far and they don’t need Laurie Oakes to tell them that. They’ve been ahead of the game for the past couple of years.
PzPol is right – there are so many other sources out there to keep discussing stuff the MSM want to forget about. Including their stupidity.
Has Rudd “gloated” over Malcolm’s discomfort? He refused to comment during his Pacific Forum presser, I think the only comments he has made have been on AM.
Swan made a brief comment about Turnbull.
Bowen seems to have been the most vocal, although his words could hardly be interpreted as “gloating”.
OzPol, I’m not aware that the Constitution says anything that bears on the question of which house the PM should be a member of, or even which house ministers must have the confidence of to stay in government, although there is an assumption that it is the House of Reps.
“Accountability” doesn’t just mean question time.
Keith is not my real name @ 66
If the ALP isn’t running focus groups on the OzCar affair, I’d be most surprised. I’m also assuming that the Libs haven’t so completely lost the plot as to stop running their own focus groups, also on the same topic.
Given the Q&A audience reactions, I’d say the vocal panelists & the Coalition section of the audience (certainly the most vocal/ applauding/ cheering section) were well briefed to articulate & cheer on /clap the “bored of OzCar” meme, and such reactions are usually the result of focus groups.
So I’d guess that, far from being bored, the Libs & their MSM supporters know the public’s loving it!
Rua – Just more of the usual mistruths the MSM like to put out about Kev & Co.
They even repeat the Libs untrue mantra as fact. Bit sickening but, once again, they are not as effective as they once were.
Kev told them off and made them look silly and hey presto, they need to, and are trying, to get their revenge.
Polyq commented on the Q&^A twitter so I just had a read of some of the comments – quite a lot thought the Lib kid needs his head read.
Must be an oldie posted this tweet . Loved it because it was what I yelled at the time
[Who is going to pay the debt?” he asks.My reply You, you lazy little brat. Your forebears paid for what you have now! Get out & work]
The Labor leadership have managed the OzCar blowup very effectively so far, and they have carefully avoided gloating, which is why they will emphasise to the troops next week the importance of not doing it. And what’s the bet Kelvin Thomson will be chastised for lack of discipline. Kevin has also been careful to show sympathy with regard to Grech’s poor health. They have been targeted in their attacks on Turnbull’s character and they have used Chris Bowen as the hitman to say the most brutal stuff. If Turnbull had copied the Government’s disciplined careful tactics he wouldn’t be in this trouble.
Well said Johncanb on all counts.
[OzPol, I’m not aware that the Constitution says anything that bears on the question of which house the PM should be a member of]
Of course not, because the constitution doesn’t even mention “Prime Minister”.
[“Accountability” doesn’t just mean question time.]
Why aren’t Senators accountable to the parliament?
[I’d say the vocal panelists & the Coalition section of the audience (certainly the most vocal/ applauding/ cheering section) were well briefed to articulate & cheer on /clap the “bored of OzCar” meme,]
It is extremely common for voters to say they want politicians to concentrate on “serious issues”, and to cooperate with each other rather than arguing.
The thing is, when politicians argue in order to build broader critiques of their opponents.
So even when voters say they don’t like seeing or hearing politicians argue, it is on those occasions that they actually formulate their opinions about a politician, whether they are willing to admit it or not.
Psephos @ 73 I understanding what you’re saying. But I was in QLD, on the streets, in public fora & writing letters to editors during the years when we learned the hard way the differences between Constitutions “as we’d assumed they were & ought to be” and “as they were legally” (ie in ways that win High Court judgments/ appeals)
You can have great fun as a political tragic, comparing Oz 11/11/1975 with the crisis it mirror imaged – Tiberius Gracchus (Tribune of the Plebs) Rome 133 BC and the Senate’s assumption that his office was covered by curial magistracies’ rule that no one could seek two consecutive terms in an office. It wasn’t. Rome’s Senate had to stab him in the back – literally!
63
Elections should be separate so that they are differentiated between by more voters. Totally fixed elections are not a good idea with parliamentary systems because if there is a deadlock then it makes them harder to break. All elections at once is a recipe for overcrowding of electoral contests. It probably one of the reasons that American elections are so expensive to campaign in because the number of candidates needing advertising drives up the price.
PS Sorry for structural errors & omissions.
[Elections should be separate so that they are differentiated between by more voters. ]
How do you know voters won’t differentiate between the different levels of government?
If they don’t, why would that be bad? Voters can vote however they like, if that means some voters don’t know who or what they are voting for, then that is one of the ‘risks’ of living in a democracy. I’m sure at federal elections that there are a small minority of voters that have no idea why they vote on two different ballot papers.
[Totally fixed elections are not a good idea with parliamentary systems because if there is a deadlock then it makes them harder to break.]
There can be extraordinary elections if necessary to break deadlocks, but the 4 year general election shouldn’t be changeable.
64
The British constitution is made up of lots of acts and conventions. It is a convention that the Queen only uses her executive powers on the advice of ministers. Another convention is that the ministers must have the confidence of the Commons. There are many more examples of conventions that are integral to the Westminster System. All the examples I have given can all be overruled by the Queen unless it is ruled that these conventions are now Common Law (probably unlikely) in which case they would need parliamentary approval.
When it comes to utegate it’s now the labor parties turn to suffer a rush of blood to the head and overplay their hand
83
This is shown by where the elections are separate the voters vote differently. In Tasmania the difference is starkest. The experience of the the separate elections during the Menzies to McMahon period there is also evidence of the same. Most voters will still vote the same but there would be more differentiators. Simultaneous state and federal elections would increase the chance of an very unpopular government effecting a less popular government because they have the same party label.
If there are extraordinary elections then there are either shorter terms to bring them back into line with the the other elections or they stay out of whack. Shorther terms because the previous parliament was unstable are silly.
Poor old Rupe, no body likes his pay for online access idea.
http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/technology/biz-tech/not-happy-rupert-readers-say-they-wont-pay-for-online-news-20090807-eco0.html
Lets hope that some rationalisation of titles happen and the OO which is now a husk and loss making paper is put to sleep. Maybe Melcom T. will buy it and run it when he finishes his current gig!
OzPol, I’m always puzzled when people speak of the glories of the Roman Republic and of the Roman talent for government. The republican constitution was incapable of allowing reform, opposition or the expression of the popular will (unlike the Athenian constitution, which allowed for all three). As you say, when the Gracchi tried to secure justice for the people by constitutional means, the conservatives simply murdered them. Then when Roman territory became too big for direct control, the Republic collapsed into civil war and dictatorship by generals. Finally Augustus established a hereditary dictatorship which soon degenerated into despotism by his bizarre relatives such as Caligula and Nero. Once the line of Augustus became extinct, the empire was ruled for the rest of its history as a thinly disguised military dictatorship. It wasn’t until the American Revolution that the model of the Greek democracies was rediscovered.
BH@76:
[Who is going to pay the debt?” he asks.My reply You, you lazy little brat. Your forebears paid for what you have now! Get out & work]
Love it!
@80 “You can have great fun as a political tragic, comparing Oz 11/11/1975 with the crisis it mirror imaged – Tiberius Gracchus (Tribune of the Plebs) Rome 133 BC and the Senate’s assumption that his office was covered by curial magistracies’ rule that no one could seek two consecutive terms in an office. It wasn’t. Rome’s Senate had to stab him in the back – literally!”
Hmm… I don’t think we can really be sure whether or not the no-consecutive-magistracies rule extended to the tribunes of the plebs. Because the office developed in a rather ad hoc manner and no real attempt was ever made to properly integrate it into the rest of the system, there was never any clarity about the extent to which it differed from the standard magistracies. So the Senate was probably justified in arguing that there was no particular reason that the tribunate should differ from the other magistracies in this regard, and that the convention had always been that tribunes shouldn’t serve consecutive terms; while T.G. was equally justified in arguing, from the opposite viewpoint, that there was no actual rule which explicitly forbade him from standing again. But I think the Senatorial side of the debate burnt through any sympathy that modern observers might have had for their position when they decided that a good way to solve the problem would be to bash Tiberius to death.
Iggles beat Dogs. How surprisment II for the weekend.
What can Rupert’s “newspapers” use to convince people to pay?
The only answer can be unique, quality content. This content must be true, non-partisan and verifiable.
This rules out “opinion” pieces and regurgitated AAP or other news wire stories.
If there was a news source with quality investigative journalism, I would subscribe, but I guess that means “boning” the entire News Ltd editorial staff. 🙂
[This is shown by where the elections are separate the voters vote differently.]
The voters can vote however way they want. If they choose to vote the same across all levels of government, that’s fine. If they want to vote differently, that’s fine too.
[Simultaneous state and federal elections would increase the chance of an very unpopular government effecting a less popular government because they have the same party label.]
And so be it. If people want to let the performance of their state government effect their vote for the federal government, that’s a matter for them.
There will be a federal election before their is a NSW election, it is possible that some NSW voters will vote against the Rudd government just because they want to have a go at Labor. That is for them to decide.
By having simultaneous elections then people can make a distinction between their state and federal vote all on the same day. Or they can vote all the same, it is up to them.
[What can Rupert’s “newspapers” use to convince people to pay? ]
Get some writers other than Megalogenis who are worth reading?
Hi bludgers, been off to England and Ireland for a spell.
Phew. No wonder life in Oz looks good.
London – had no trouble counting 200+ ‘for sale’ and ‘for lease’ signs in the central area. Hundreds of thousands of square feet available in some buildings. Reports talking about England heading for 10 million unemployed. About 19,000 shops and branches of large chains reported to have closed in 2009.
Didn’t see a sparrow in five days – so something strange happening there as well.
Ireland – the economic situation is abysmal and getting worse. They are getting ready to cut lots and lots of Government spending by about 30%. But every time they think that this would about fix their Government debt type situation the tax take plummets again. Plus they have had their wettest July in about half a century. The poteen is getting a hammering.
Now News Ltd itself has been dropped into the pay to meet lobbyist beatup.
[Mr Hawker said the dinners were not just for Hawker-Britton clients but were also for selected guests, including past and present opinion page editors from The Australian, such as Tom Switzer, who is now in the running for a Liberal seat in Sydney, and Rebecca Weisser, who replaced him.]
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25899354-601,00.html
93
Democracy works better when voters consider their votes more. Separate elections cause more voters to consider their votes more.
You still have not rebutted my argument about simultaneous elections driving up the cost of campaigning. Spending taxpayer money on non-simultaneous elections is more democratic than all these pay for contact fund-raisers.
Are the Irish going to vote Yes to Lisbon this time?
I hope we never see the day when it is revealed that News Ltd staff from the Courier Mail have been in meetings with paid lobbyists, that would be just too funny to contemplate.
[Democracy works better when voters consider their votes more.]
Voters are free to consider or not consider their votes as much as they like.
[Separate elections cause more voters to consider their votes more. ]
I don’t think this is the case. At federal elections, most people only engage and think about their vote in the last week. That’s just how it is.
[You still have not rebutted my argument about simultaneous elections driving up the cost of campaigning.]
Curbing expenditure on elections is an important issue, but I don’t see how it relates directly to simultaneous elections. We need to do something about that now even with elections that aren’t simultaneous.