Morgan: 58-42

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.

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.

1,259 comments on “Morgan: 58-42”

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  2. marky marky (59),

    The most interesting thing about today’s beat-up in The Australian was that its main story was not about one of the more militant unions, but about the shop assistants union, a very moderate union without a Marxist bone in its body. That is how absurd The Australian has become with its never-ending scare stories about the big bad unions coming back. It is also fascinating to see the once left-wing Julia Gillard attacked by a right-wing (in ALP terms) union for caving in to employers

  3. [Oh Pegasus, it was painful enough the first time.]
    It’s Time, To have to spend time composing that post was not something I enjoyed or wanted to do. I felt it was necessary because I can’t stand by while verbal intimidation and bullying is deemed acceptable by some.

  4. The Australians’ campaign on Industrial Relations has worked somewhat when the government backs down on penalty rates for hospitality workers and people in the horticulture areas.

  5. briefly (100),

    I remember when the Liberals were anti-communists. I used to think it was because they believed in democracy. I now realise that it was because they believed in capitalism. That’s why they can be so absurd in their attacks on Kevin Rudd, who is admirably standing up for Australia’s interests with China. China behaves badly, and it’s all Kevin Rudd’s fault – for doing what John Howard would probably have done in the same circumstances! Dennis Shanahan called them “Liberabbles”, and that means a lot coming from him.

  6. Geez on Insiders this week is Warren Truss. Seriously. Why bother?

    Oh and Annabel, Malcolm Farr, and some fool who has a blog on the herald sun.

  7. [It seems the honeymoon is over criers (Frank and GG) were wrong for the 2532535423th time. The Greens are still polling well above the 2007 result and pre-2007 election polls.]

    There is still Newspoll, so don’t get your hopes up too high:-)

    And I note thar as predicted, the usual suspects got a couple of new playmates on the other thread to back them up.

    Geez the Space Cadets are SO predictable. 🙂

  9. Pegasus,
    [His comments reveal a pattern of behaviour and thought that make an interesting psychological study imo.]

    Lucky for me that it’s only your opinion otherwise I might have to get myself committed.

    I don’t think it very appropriate for someone to make inferences as to other peoples mental state of mind.

    It could very well be that my state of mind is quite fragile due to severe clinical depression. My wife, four children and family and friends may not appreciate it if I was tipped over the edge by a thoughtless statement by someone wishing to appear a hero to their fellow travellers on a blog site no less!

  10. Pegasus, your monologue was very good. This is what people resort to when you have some facts to present and you write the truth. A bit like Stephen Newmans’ attack on Les Twentyman, a decent human who cares about poor youth and he is attacked for not doing as he is told by a party doing very little for poor western suburbs youths.

  11. Pegasus

    [His comments reveal a pattern of behaviour and thought that make an interesting psychological study imo.]

    As someone who spends a lot of time looking at why people do things, I can’t see anything Scorpio has said that would make an “interesting psychological study”. He/she is quite rational, able to sustain a line of reason, doesn’t like Greens and tells us so.

    Nothing to see there. Move along.

  12. [If liberals and progressives really mean to win on health care — and climate change and net neutrality,]
    Murdoch thinks climate change is a problem.

  13. [As someone who spends a lot of time looking at why people do things, I can’t see anything Scorpio has said that would make an “interesting psychological study”. He/she is quite rational, able to sustain a line of reason, doesn’t like Greens and tells us so. ]

    I think your new avatar should be “lucy” from charlie brown.
    😉

  16. [It is very frustrating, visiting Pollbludger over the past few days. Frustrating and tiresome. I can speak only for myself, but the name calling, pointing, blaming rubbish going on between some who post here from both the Greens and ALP perspective is absurd.]
    Too many baits, too many bites.

  17. scorpio, save your sanity and skip their posts like I do 😉
    It has other advantages, I didn’t have to read the Harpy’s screech,,, opps meant speech that was imposed on us the other day 😀

  18. [That is why he employs Andrew Bolt to tell us about these beliefs.]
    Do you really want News Corp to only employ people that agree with everything Murdoch says?

    That would really be the end of editorial independence.

  21. Gusface

    [I think your new avatar should be “lucy” from charlie brown.
    ;)]

    Finns, on the other hand, seems to be labouring under the delusion that he is an over-sexed dolphin which is highly irregular.

  22. Briefly @ 100,

    [The strains on the China relationship must have looked like a tempting place to get some coverage and maybe put a bit of pressure on the urbane and assured Foreign Minister at the same time. But what a cock-up she has made of it.]

    You’re dead right there. Her latest rantings have done nothing more than reinforce people’s opinions after the flip flop rantings about Rudd being too close to China, not close enough and the manner in which they attacked the previous Defence Minister, Rudd and Rudd’s brother suggesting corrupt and improper dealings.

    The Mr Hu issue showed a total backflip from the Chinese/Australian business woman that they tried to paint as some sort of spy but Mr Hu is an Austrlaian/Chinese business man and Rudd should intervene immediately.

    Bishop is proving a class act but her supporting actors are less than third rate also!

  23. You mean to tell me that Murdoch is an independent free thinker you allows edtioral freedom.
    What next. Maybe you could explain to me why Kevin Rudd had to go to America before the last election and wipe his shoes in New York. Oh no it was just a friendly chat. Yeh sure.
    Murdoch a free thinker tell Whitlam in 1975 and Kirner in 1992.

  24. ShowsOn
    Posted Friday, August 21, 2009 at 8:02 pm | Permalink

    “And here I thought when Bishop moved from Treasury to Foreign Affairs, she’d have nothing to give the ALP……..We now know she knows as little about international relations as about economics.”

    Exactly right, SO. The Opposition are being revealed as hopelessly inept. An matters of substance, they have demonstrated they either do not have policies or have taken the wrong stance in a range of policy areas, including the touchstone issues of the economy, climate change and health. Now foreign affairs – and by association, possibly defense and security policy – can be added to the list.

    Not only are they out of their depth on policy, they have also demonstrated they lack basic political capabilities. By their own hand, they have shown they lack judgment, cohesion, unity and strategy. They truly are starting to look like one of the worst Oppositions in memory.

  25. [save your sanity and skip their posts like I do]

    Amigo, i just give ’em smile, even for humans like those

    x x x :kiss: :kiss: :kiss:

  28. [You mean to tell me that Murdoch is an independent free thinker you allows edtioral freedom.]
    Re-read what you wrote. You seem to think that News Corp. employees should all share the same views as Murdoch. I disagree with this.

  29. It’s completely off-topic at the moment, and some will have seen this already. But in the debate about indigenous disadvantage that went on here a few threads back, there were a few comments that the majority of indigenous Australians were urban, and did not live in remote regions such as the Top End.

    Over at the Crikey blog Croaky there is a post on a new book by the anthropologist Gillian Cowlishaw, which deals with the experience of the Aboriginal population of Western Sydney.
    http://blogs.crikey.com.au/croakey/2009/08/19/exploring-the-citys-outback/

    There is also a hard-to-see link to an extract of the book, most of which deals with an interview with a Mt Druitt woman who has had a hard life. It shows the city and country experiences of indigenous people are intimately intertwined.
    http://inside.org.au/we-know-each-other/

  33. [Rewi Lyall
    Posted Friday, August 21, 2009 at 7:49 pm | Permalink
    […reveal nothing of what you actually think about scorpio’s comments, or his protestations of misrepresentation. Your copying and pasting doesn’t do much to add to what we might generously (perhaps in a genuine act of misrepresentation) term a debate.]
    What I did here was to present opinions expressed by Scorpio so that individuals could then make up their own minds. What I think about him is immaterial. What protestations of misrepresentation are you talking about?
    [To be accused of verballing, though, you would have had to actually say something, anything, about scorpio’s statements]
    I take your point here and retract this but I said that in the context of an exchange I had with Centre who accused me of verballing.
    [This would appear out of keeping for someone who has in the past entreated posters to rise above these kinds of shenanigans.]
    What kinds of shenanigans are you talking about? What do you think drove me to it?
    I have had my say, that’s it.

  35. [As someone who spends a lot of time looking at why people do things, I can’t see anything Scorpio has said that would make an “interesting psychological study”. He/she is quite rational, able to sustain a line of reason, doesn’t like Greens and tells us so.]
    It was just tongue in cheek but apologies to anyone who was offended by my flippant comment.
    [Nothing to see there. Move along.]
    Good advice. I have moved along. 🙂

  36. You mentioned editorial freedom, what the editors state. And they must toe the line.
    Employees can do as they please, under the guidance of course of the editior. But their is no doubt more much more right wing fruit cakes writing for his papers than any other major newspaper in this country.
    And continually Murdochs’ papers go on about either crime or workers rights. I have seen very little in his papers about climate change and how we need to do something about it.
    If he really believed in it maybe he would tell his editors who he no doubt tells them what to do to state writing something about it affects.
    Murdoch cares about one thing and that is himself and his profits. I personally think he is perhaps dangerous as he can tell us how to think.

  37. 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:

    Once again, if these primary votes were replicated in a DD on a uniform basis across the country, Labor would emerge with not less than 50% of the Senate members. The G’s would likely have 6 Senators, X would be re-elected and the LNP would be down to 32. One seat would be left to contest….maybe Green preferences would help elect a National in Queensland……:)

  38. [Employees can do as they please, under the guidance of course of the editior. ]
    Oh OK, so citing Andrew Bolt was just nonsense.

    Thank you for that clarification.

  39. Pegasus, you have in the past encouraged those whose views you agree with to ignore other posters and concentrate on the ‘silent readers’.

    What do you think those silent readers would think of your effort? Surely they will have already read all that stuff and hardly need it repeated. Your post seems a little inconsistent with your prior exhortations.

    Again, to have had your say you would have to actually say something. Perhaps your vague assertions might count, yet you have both conceded that you made no substantial contribution and say:

    [What I think about him is immaterial.]

    If that was the case, you would have refrained from the ‘psychological study’ jibe.

    You seem to want it both ways: to occupy the posting higher moral ground and sink to grubby insults as the mood suits you. It’s a little disappointing, that’s all.

  40. scorpio

    I actually went into medicine because I wanted to be a psychiatrist. And then I wanted to do neurosurgery.

    They both looked an awful lot more interesting and challenging in theory than in real life. So I sold out.

  41. [“Cetaceans seem to spend an inordinate amount of time in sexual activity. This may be generated by boredom in captivity, but observers in the wild tend to confirm it. Dolphins engage in love-play with almost every creature in sight – with mothers, brothers, fathers, daughters, cousins or aunts. There is even one record of a Bottlenose Dolphin masturbating with a herring”.

    R. Brown, The Lure of the Dolphin, Avon: New York, 1979, quoted in Heathcote Williams, “Whale Nation”, Jonathan Cape ltd.,1988. ]

  43. sina.com is like the yahoo of China dotcom. They have a blog going at the moment about the Gas deal between China and Australia. So far, there are 325 posts. Some are for and some are against.

    One of them posted: “Gutless Govt, still doing business with those Aussies” or “we should just buy Australia and then dump it in the sea”.

    You see, they are just like us. 😆

    http://comment4.news.sina.com.cn/comment/skin/default.html?channel=cj&newsid=31-46-6509&style=1

    I bet this is compulsory reading for the Ruddster.

  45. [“The black right whale has four kilos of brains and 1,000 kilos of testicles. If it thinks at all, we know what it is thinking about.”

    Jon Lien, “Whale Professor” at St. John’s University, Newfoundland, speaking to the Norwegian Telegram Agency (spring 1995). ]

  46. The economic outlook is gradually clearing too, suggesting that by the time the next election falls due, the sun will be shining again. Rudd will get due credit for steering the country through a crisis, in contrast to the Opposition who would have elected to do several contradictory things if in fact they’d done anything at all…..

    http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=a.afLJ63HKCY

    “……U.S. Economy Stops Shrinking, Heads for Expansion, Index Shows

    Aug. 21 (Bloomberg) — In another sign the worst of the U.S. recession is over, a gauge of current conditions showed the economy steadied last month.

    The Conference Board’s coincident index was unchanged in July after falling in 17 of the 19 months since the contraction started in December 2007, figures from the New York-based private research group showed yesterday. The more closely watched gauge of leading indicators, which shows the outlook for the next three to six months, climbed for a fourth month.

    “Not only is there light at the end of the tunnel, but we can see the end of the tunnel from here,” Ken Goldstein, a Conference Board economist, said in a telephone interview. “It’s entirely possible that July was the trough month,” marking the end of the recession.

    The coincident index tracks payrolls, incomes, sales and production, which — combined with gross domestic product –are the same measures used by the Cambridge, Massachusetts-based National Bureau of Economic Research to determine when contractions begin and end. The NBER announced the current recession, the deepest since the 1930s, had started one year after the fact.”

  48. [scorpio, save your sanity and skip their posts like I do]

    Vera, I know you’re right. I have a habit of reading every single post on the open threads and have done so since I first came across this site.

    I have had quite serious health problems for over three years now as you are probably aware from my exchanges with CW and Dio and it has led to severe Clinical Depression.

    Reading and posting on this site has been quite theraputic for me but comments such as those a bit earlier and having people gang up on you just for their own personal enjoyment are I think more than uncalled for.

    When you just try and point out what you see as wrong in their position and those people join in a campaign to silence you by misleading and humiliating comments it really gets me going.

    But your point is well taken and I shall definately follow your kind advice although I do resent it when people attack you and other posters who I know have health issues and enjoy the outlet kindly provided by William and now through Crikey.

  49. Come on people, we’re all consenting adults here (with the possible exception of some Lib supporters). Let’s forgo the personal insults and psychoanalysis and argue the issues and political performances, not the man (or woman, who can tell?). Otherwise it’s just a self-indulgent paypen.

  50. [The economic outlook is gradually clearing too, suggesting that by the time the next election falls due, the sun will be shining again.]
    Yeah, but the idiot Liberals will be saying that interest rates returning to 4.5% or so is caused by the debt.

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