The past fortnight’s face-to-face Morgan polling has Labor’s two-party lead down from 60.5-39.5 to 58-42. Labor is down three points on the primary vote to 47.5 per cent, the Coalition is up 0.5 per cent to 34.5 per cent and the Greens are up one to 9.5 per cent. Apart from that:
• Phillip Coorey of the Sydney Morning Herald reports on the state of play after the redistribution proposal abolishing Laurie Ferguson’s Sydney seat of Reid:
There was a rumour he was eyeing Parramatta under a plan which would see the incumbent in that seat, Julie Owens, move to Greenway, a Liberal seat which is assuredly Labor thanks to the redistribution. For various reasons, that scenario is not going to fly. More solid is a plan, backed by Ferguson and his support group in the Left, for him to move to the western suburbs seat of Fowler. It is held by Julia Irwin but it is anticipated she will retire at the election. Irwin belongs to the Right but the Left controls the branches in Fowler and wants the seat back. Ferguson, however, faces resistance to getting any seat at all, and that includes from elements of his own faction. “How do you think we would look in terms of renewal?” said one powerbroker. Left kingmakers are leaning towards the Liverpool Mayor, Wendy Waller, for Fowler. The Right is pushing Ed Husic, who ran for Greenway in 2004 but was the victim of a race-hate letterbox campaign … Ultimately Rudd has the final say, a power the Opposition Leader, Malcolm Turnbull, could only dream of given the looming preselection fights among NSW Liberals. But it is a power that needs to be used wisely, sparingly and sensitively. “Kevin should not be unfavourable to Laurie,” warned a Ferguson friend, claiming Ferguson had helped Rudd win the leadership.
• Very soon after the previous report appeared, it emerged the NSW Liberal Party was changing its rules to allow, as Imre Salusinszky of The Australian describes it, a three-quarter majority of the state executive to “rapidly endorse a candidate on the recommendation of the state director and with the go-ahead of the state president and the party’s state and federal parliamentary leaders”. The rules are ostensibly designed for by-elections or snap double dissolutions, but can essentially be used at the leaders’ pleasure. This places the party on a similar footing to Labor, whose national executive granted sweeping federal preselection powers to Kevin Rudd and five party powerbrokers earlier this year. The most obvious interpretation of the Liberal move is that it’s an attempt to stymie the influence of the hard right in party branches, and Salusinszky indeed reports the reform is expected to be opposed by “a large part of the Right faction”. However, the Labor parallel demonstrates it can equally be seen as part of a broader trend to centralisation necessitated by the ongoing decline in membership and resulting opportunities for branch-stacking.
• From the previously cited Phillip Coorey article, Nathan Rees’s chief-of-staff Graeme Wedderburn is said to be assured of a winnable position on the Senate ticket at the next election: second if Steve Hutchins retires, third at the expense of incumbent Michael Forshaw if he doesn’t. “Unless, of course, he can be persuaded to enter state politics, which is another option being floated.”
• Phillip Coorey of the Sydney Morning Herald (again) notes that South Australian Senator Cory Bernardi is causing angst by agreeing to appear at a hard-right fundraiser in Cook, where federal member Scott Morrison continues to battle the forces that initially delivered preselection to factional operative Michael Towke before the 2007 election.
• The ABC reports that Tony Crook, Goldfields pastoralist and candidate for Kalgoorlie at the 2008 state election, has been “recruited” to stand as Nationals candidate against Wilson Tuckey in O’Connor. In response to a reader’s email, I recently had occasion to transpose the state election booth results on the new federal boundaries. In O’Connor, the Nationals would have polled 38.0 per cent to the Liberals’ 25.3 per cent and Labor’s 20.7 per cent. In Durack (successor to Barry Haase’s seat of Kalgoorlie), it was Labor 29.2 per cent, Liberal 29.7 per cent and Nationals 28.5 per cent. It should be noted that these numbers are heavily distorted by the presence of sitting Nationals members at state level, as well as the impact of state issues like Royalties for Regions and one-vote, one-value. The Nationals’ federal campaign in Western Australia will be bankrolled by litigious Queensland mining billionaire Clive Palmer, with the stated objective of gaining a Senate seat.
• There is increasing talk that former NSW Opposition Leader Peter Debnam will vacate his seat of Vaucluse at the next election. He faces multiple preselection challenges in any case, the apparent front-runner being University of NSW deputy chancellor Gabrielle Upton. Local paper the Wentworth Courier has taken aim at Debnam with an article and accompanying vox pop on his parliamentary inactivity during the current term.
• Sonia Byrnes of the Cooma-Monaro Express reports that Queanbeyan councillor John Barilaro will nominate for Nationals preselection in the state seat of Monaro, which the party has won the right to contest without challenge from the Liberals. Labor’s Steve Whan holds the seat by 6.3 per cent.
• Commenter Hamish Coffee relates that a local newspaper has Clover Moore dismissing rumours she won’t seek another term as state member for Sydney.
• Ben Raue at The Tally Room reports that the South Australian Greens are conducting their preselection for the Legislative Council ticket at next year’s state election. The candidates are Carol Vincent, who as SA Farmers Federation chief executive offers an unusual pedigree for a Greens candidate; Tammy Jennings, one-time Democrat and current convenor of the state party; former convenor and unsuccessful 1997 lead candidate Paul Petit; and the apparently little-known Mark Andrew. At stake is a very likely seat for the first candidate, and an outside chance for the second.
• The Sydney Morning Herald has carried a piece from NSW Liberal leader Barry O’Farrell outlining the party’s position on campaign finance reform: caps on spending extending to third parties, caps on donations and bans on donations from other than individual citizens, tighter regulation of lobbyists and extension of Independent Commission Against Corruption powers to cover the nexus between donations and government decisions.
• Mumble man Peter Brent gives the once-over to the recent Essential Research survey on which leader is best equipped to handle “issues of national importance”, noting how much these questions are influenced by incumbency.
Courtesy of the latest Democratic Audit of Australia update:
• Last month’s Audit seminar on campaign finance, Dollars and Democracy: How Best to Regulate Money in Australian Politics, will be the subject of tonight’s episode of The National Interest on Radio National from 6pm. A fortnight ago, Electoral Commissioner Ed Killesteyn appeared on the program discussing enrolment procedures and electoral boundaries.
• The Audit’s submission to the Victorian Electoral Matters Committee inquiry into the Kororoit by-election gets it right on proposals to tighten laws on misleading campaign advertising, namely that the cure would be worse than the disease.
• Brian Costar discusses campaign finance reform on Meet the Press.
• The Queensland Government has published its green paper on “a range of topics including political donations and fundraising, lobbying, whistleblowing and pecuniary interest registers”.
• Norm Kelly argues the merits of a ban on overseas donations in Australian Policy Online.
[Is there really a serious suggestion of Tuckey being Liberal Leader. well that would make an Abbott leadership look electable.]
Maybe the plan is to make Tuckey leader so that Abbott can later position himself as a moderate. 😀
From Crikey.
[Fairfax print earnings slump 66% – While it’s known that media industry conditions have been tough, with the likes of Ten Network and APN News and Media, revealing falls in revenues and earnings for their latest period, did anyone seriously think that Australia’s leading media group would experience a near life-threatening 25% plunge in second-half revenues?
That is just over $400 million in total, or about $15 million a week, or more than $2 million a day. No wonder Fairfax has cut, then suspended dividends to shareholders, no wonder it is cutting staff and costs where it can, no wonder it raised new capital earlier in the year: the company must have been very, very close to collapse if that money hadn’t arrived.
Remember most of this happened after Fairfax raised a life-saving $600 million or so in fresh capital at the start of 2009, which kept the banks at bay.
The reality from the company’s release and the accounts issued today, is that Fairfax fell into a black hole in the six months and (like News Ltd and the free-to-air TV networks), remains there, with no clue how to escape, except to sit and wait for “things to get better”.]
Be afraid, very very afraid. No wonder all the big media companies are getting into bed with Rupe to try to come up with a business model that can keep them afloat. That’s the basis of an emerging cartel if I ever see one.
They want us to pay, are you stupid enough?
Age shouldn’t stop the Liberal Party having Wilson Tuckey as Leader. He’s a spring chicken compared to Billy Hughes who was 83 when he led the UAP to the 1943 election. The bigger concern would be whether he could lead the party to a worse result than Hughes in 1943.
Amigo, would this help?
[Is there really a serious suggestion of Tuckey being Liberal Leader.]
No.
1053
One can only hope.
1055
Noooooooooo
Well, you’ve had a b…..r of a weekend with the ballgames so thought I’d cheer you up.
Hope the Swannies decide to play next week or I’ll have to hop the fence and help out.
Trip to Syd has put paid to lunch tomorrow at Pt Macq with some of the Community Cabinet – was dying to go but the undying love for the Swannies and Mickey O outweighed it.
We’re a marginal now so will see more of them before the election I guess.
LOL Finns, that must have been when I came for a visit at your place 😀 looks like we had fun leaping over the waves!
Antony or Psephos if in 2010 we saw a result somewhat similar to the 1943 result how many seats would the Liberals and Nationals be reduced too?
BH, I’ll be watching the sidelines for when you run on the field, you’ll be the one hip & shouldering the opposition, taking a screamer of a mark and kicking a 50mt goal to win on the siren 🙂
From Crikey.
[No, Turnbull is now starting to resemble, OK, has resembled for some time, John Howard 1.0, whose stint as Opposition Leader was severely damaged by the Queensland Nationals.
The Joh-for-PM push was marked by extraordinary arrogance and astonishing political stupidity. The media encouraged it, partly for good fun, but partly because they bought the absurd claims of the Joh crowd that they were in tune with the real feelings of voters.
It’s happening all over again. And the de facto Nationals leader Barnaby Joyce demonstrated the same stupidity and arrogance on the weekend at the Nationals’ Federal Council meeting.
First there was Joyce on leadership, declaring Turnbull wasn’t his leader. The Senator is undoubtedly a busy man but perhaps he should take five minutes and read his own constitution. He’s a member of the Liberal National Party, not the National Party. The LNP is affiliated with the Liberal Party, not the National Party. Which makes Turnbull his leader.
Admittedly, the issue is made more difficult by the fact that Warren Truss is the invisible man of Federal politics and can hardly claim to be Nats leader when Joyce is running the show.
Joyce also shows a remarkable and self-destructive ignorance of history.]
Poor Malcolm, being hit from the Left, Centre and the Right. Where else can poor man go?
Vera – yep, except it will be a 70m. kick.
Just like the kicks Malcolm has been getting. BB’s right. The bloke has to get out just to preserve whatever he’s got left.
[Antony or Psephos if in 2010 we saw a result somewhat similar to the 1943 result how many seats would the Liberals and Nationals be reduced too?]
About 40.
[Antony or Psephos if in 2010 we saw a result somewhat similar to the 1943 result how many seats would the Liberals and Nationals be reduced too?]
Malcolm Mackerras has produced a Labor 2PP estimate at the 1943 election of 58.2 per cent (which is an imprecise exercise because not every party contested every seat, and we don’t have final two-candidate counts in some seats). Plug that into Antony’s House of Reps calculator and you get Labor 111, Coalition 36, independents three.
In 1943 Labor won 49 of 74 seats, or 66.2%. 66.2% of 150 is 99.3. So the result would be Labor 99, Coalition 48, Ind 3
1060
A result somewhat similar to 34-44.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_federal_election,_1943
Possum reckons on current polling Labor would win 100 seats:
Hard to measure. The 1943 election saw the disintegration of the non-Labor parties, with the UAP being only a nominal banner for essentially separate state parties, and in some states competing state parties. It has no parallel today. It is always to the credit of Menzies that he managed to pull all the bits together as the Liberal Party by the 1946 election.
William, Malcolm Mackerras has also quotes 2PP estimate for the 1950s Queensland elections which were conducted under first past the post. Some elections just don’t make sense if you try and use 2PP, and the 1943 Federal election is one.
Tony doesn’t like being left out does he?
[Opposition frontbencher Tony Abbott says he was once “quite interested” in joining the Labor Party.]
http://news.theage.com.au/breaking-news-national/i-was-interested-in-joining-alp-abbott-20090824-eves.html
BH thanks for reminding me of Kev’s C/Cabinet, I’d forgotten and would have missed watching it on APac
The result on the New Zealand citizen initiated referenda with the question “Should a smack as part of good parental correction be a criminal offence in New Zealand?” was yes: 11.81%; no: 87.6%.
No surprises there.
I, who by the way am also a non-human animal in case you are not sure,
had a lovely walk on the weekend in a large property owned by the
Australian Wildlife Conservancy. Feral animals had been removed,
a large fence erected and native vegetation had been restored after the
AWC purchased it about 10 years ago from sheep farmers. It also had
wonderful scenery of rivers and valleys.
In fact it was all rather wonderful except for a plaque on
a platform on an escarpment
reached after walking for several hours through the bush. The plaque
announced that the property was opened for the AWC
by the honourable Wilson Tuckey, minister for Conservation (and Forestry).
1065&1066
How dare you beat me to it. For 1065 we shall have to organise a thousand nusance posts and for 1066 a van with a amplification of a continuous recording of Senator Milne talking economics on it outside you house or flat.
1066
The 74 seats in 1944 were only state seats so the territories should be excluded especially as the Coalition would not win any in such an election.
[No surprises there.]
The NZ Government isn’t repealing the law though.
[The NZ Government isn’t repealing the law though.]
Sense triumphs over populism (for now).
[“Should a smack as part of good parental correction be a criminal offence in New Zealand?” ]
Talk about loaded questions! What would the result have been if the question had been: “Should a parent assaulting their child be a criminal offence in New Zealand?”
Tom you may notice according to Psephos’ website that in the 1943 election the seat that covers your part of Melbourne had the third placed candidate scoring about 22%
[“Should a parent assaulting their child be a criminal offence in New Zealand?”]
Yeah, and a follow up question asking if children should be allowed to smack their parents.
Psephos should have been a pollster. He would have provided his clients with any answer they wanted.
Does anyone have a subscription to AFR with which they might give greater insights than the summary for this article:
‘Rudd sees tough budget as road to glory’
http://www.afr.com/home/login.aspx?EDP://20090824000031481305§ion=news
Apparently the suggestion is that the Government is turning away from an early election.
Realistically, though, as we enter the budget cycle for 2010-2011 it’s impossible for the Government not to start laying the groundwork for next year. What do they do, essentially tip-off the nation by not allocating tasks to the public service related to budget preparations?
And, in any case, wouldn’t they need to be prepared for a tough budget upon re-election? When would those preparations start, if not now, after an early election?
Certainly the Government needs to be clear that the important business of government is continuing, and it may well be true that they don’t want an early election. Maybe there’s evidence in this article that conclusively shows this to be the case?
Rewi
The Liberal crud about Rudd wanting an election before a horror budget is bunkum. There will be a pre-election budget, showing St Wayne’s economic wisdom. 😉
[Psephos should have been a pollster. He would have provided his clients with any answer they wanted.]
It’s very easy to write poll questions to get the answers you want, particularly on social issues:
* Does a woman have a right to control her own body? Of course!
* Is it right to kill unborn babies? Eww, no!
Psephos! That comment reminds me of Yes Minister
With how the economy is looking the Government will want to hand down another budget, i image that it will be an interesting budget for while the Government will boast that it avoided recession yet the budget will contain some nasties but based on the economy the Government will have no problem selling it to the voters again potentially wedging the Liberals
ruawake, personally I’m happy either way, and I’m also happy for the Government to be dissembling on the question.
Dr Good
[In fact it was all rather wonderful except for a plaque on
a platform on an escarpment
reached after walking for several hours through the bush. The plaque
announced that the property was opened for the AWC
by the honourable Wilson Tuckey, minister for Conservation (and Forestry).]
Good planning by the AWC to provide a urinal splash plate at that spot.
It kept getting hotter in Brisbane this afternoon. The temperature hit 35C at 4pm, easily breaking the previous record for August.
http://www.bom.gov.au/products/IDQ60900.shtml
Global warming is a lie, just like claims of Labor victory in 2010. In both weather and polling, these “statistics” are merely a few abberrant results happening now. Things are not getting hotter, and Malcolm Turnbull is both credible and popular.
1083
Would you support a referendum that included changing the constitution to allow the Federal Government to make laws about the aboriginal race of any one state?
If the 1967 referendum on Aborigines was held today would you support it?
Alex Mitchell has an article out on the al-Megrahi imbroglio, with a rather different viewpoint to many written in West over the past few days:
http://newmatilda.com/2009/08/24/oil-talks-and-dying-scapegoat-walks
What about the lion. That makes 4 animals.
I know I don’t post much but have been here for years.
[Abandoning the appeal was critical because it means that Megrahi’s original conviction stands. It has saved Britain’s criminal justice system of yet another massive embarrassment if the appeal judges found that Megrahi had been wrongfully convicted.]
This is just stupid. If he appealed and had his conviction over turned, then that’s fine. That’s how justice works, people have rights and can exercise them. It wouldn’t be “embarrassing” at all, it would demonstrate that democracies have justice systems that allow innocent people to prove their innocence, if that is the case.
What is not right is the Scottish justice minister giving this guy a get out of jail free card simply because he was dying.
“Should it be legal to inflict vigilante corporal punishment on small children”?
‘beemer
Swan will stick to his “return to trend growth” line. The budget will be sold as tough. Means tests will be increased on more stuff.
Whoever is leader of the Rabble will waffle on. Peter Costello’s tax cuts will be raised as the great way forward, Rudd will be condemned for imposing taxes on everything.
The Labor will win another 8-10 seats.
ShowsOn,
That quote was a tiny part of the article, which ranges over a fair bit of ground. Skim through it, at least, if you haven’t yet…
1092
Compassion is not always a bad thing. I believe that medical release has been around in one form or another since the Suffragette hanger strikes.
[What is not right is the Scottish justice minister giving this guy a get out of jail free card simply because he was dying.]
Shows
The guy is terminal, he will be dead very soon. What is the point of keeping him in jail? Vengence?
Hi all, long-time listener first-time caller here. Initially just want to say thanks for all the great information, the entertaining debate and the generous doses of humour. I look forward to making contributions as appropriate, or even as inappropriate, but might have to apply some of that skin thickening cream before I jump in!
i read in one of the UK papers that in 2004 he claimed he was dying.
[That quote was a tiny part of the article, which ranges over a fair bit of ground. ]
I’m sure it does, but that’s part of the article that I strongly disagree with.
What’s embarrassing is letting a terrorist out of jail. How could letting the justice system play its course be “embarrassing”. Why would it be embarrassing for him to be found innocent if that is the facts of the case?
[Compassion is not always a bad thing. ]
I never claimed that compassion as always bad, but in this case it is.
As far as we will ever know, that guy played a part in hiding a bomb in a radio, which was placed in a suit case, which was put aboard a plane, which was blown up, which killed 270 people. Let’s have some compassion for all of those people.