Essential Research: 60-40

The latest weekly Essential Research survey has Labor’s lead up from 58-42 to 60-40. The survey also shows opinion is evenly divided on whether the Liberal and National parties should stay in coalition (39 per cent each way); that most believe Malcolm Turnbull doesn’t have enough control of the Liberal Party; that perceptions of job security continue to steadily improve; and that 59 per cent believe Ricky Ponting should stay on as captain. Also included are some slightly obscure questions on the recent LNG deal with China.

Couple of other things:

• Sandringham MP Murray Thompson has easily seen off the only preselection challenge against a Victorian state Liberal MP. According to Andrew Landeryou at VexNews, Thompson defeated “Baillieu faction hopeful” Margaret Fitzherbert by forty-five votes to seven.

• The Camden Advertiser reports that the seat-warming federal Liberal member for Macarthur, Pat Farmer, has his eyes on Labor-held state seats of Camden (held by Geoff Corrigan on a margin of 4.0 per cent) and Wollondilly (Phil Costa, 3.1 per cent). Locally powerful state Liberal MLC Charlie Lynn seems amused by this, suggesting Camden mayor Chris Patterson and Campbelltown councillor Jai Rowell have the respected nominations all but wrapped up, although the former says he is not sure he will run.

• The Age reports that John Brumby says US-style primaries would “enliven the democratic process”, and are ”something the party should look at”.

• The latest Reuters Poll Trend aggregate has Labor’s lead at 57.2-42.8.

• Follow the Bradfield by-election action and contribute your thoughts at the progressively updated dedicated post.

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.

1,807 comments on “Essential Research: 60-40”

Comments Page 32 of 37
1 … 31 32 33 … 37

  4. [I’ve just watched the Leigh Sales/Wayne Swan interview.]

    Me too. What a shocker of an interview. Sales seems to hope that the signs issue will turn otherwise sober, serious (and grateful) voters away from Labor at literally the last moment: as they walk in to the school hall built with federal money they’ll see the sign and gruffly demand a Liberal How-To-Vote card and vote for the party that not only attempted to defeat the stimulus in Parliament, but who have since (from a position of increasing isolation) tried to deny that it worked. In this she is not alone. Glen Milne, for example, has sniffed “something in the air” lately, a sort of advance indicator that the polls are wrong and Rudd’s doom is imminent. From Milne we go onto the crazies still on about Heiner and Long Tan. We’ve seen all this before, just prior to the 2007 election, when the “we’ll win despite everything” bravado reached alarming proportions. I suspect the results will be about the same this time, perhaps even worse, if George Megalogenis’ polling analysis is anything to go by.

    [The point that is important re signs is not that ‘everyone has done it in the past’ but that it was done on the understanding of what the rules are and have always been.

    I think the point is that the AEC has suddenly, prompted by the COALition, shifted the goalposts on Government signage. Everyone is going to regret this.
    I’ve never been a fan of Sales, and assumed that the Sales fan club on PB was based on something other than talent. After that performance, I’m sure I was right.]

    What business is it of the AEC’s to start ruling at this particular time on whether signs are legal or not? There are no elections or by-elections in train. There was no such ruling with Howard’s signs, flagpoles or the like. This seems to be another case of going too far. As with implicitly arguing that political donations should be means-tested based on the politician’s wealth (Utegate), that anyone who’s even met the likes of people such as Brian Burke should resign (Eric Campbell copped it after Costello talked that one up), we now have the proposition that any sign near a school is in contravention of the Electoral Act, a contravention that has apparently been just discovered last week after a century of Federation, and when no elections are in the offing anyway.

    I always thought, especially after the AEC refused to investigate the Exclusive Bretheren’s connection with Howard’s Bennelong campaigns, that the AEC had been nobbled by the Liberals. The suspicion is starting to turn into a certainty.

  5. [lol @ scorpio’s massive over-reaction.]

    I’ll have you know that that was a very restrained reply to your offensive post and that I found it extremely difficult to avoid really speaking my mind in relation to the standard of your posts and the appalling manner in which you continually refer to other commenters!!!!!!!!

  6. A political hack is a negative term ascribed to a person who is part of the political party apparatus, but whose intentions are more aligned with victory than personal conviction. The term “hired gun” is often used in tandem to further describe the moral bankruptcy of the “hack”.
    Political hack may also be used by a political opponent in order to erode confidence or credentials of an opponent or his hired campaign help. Often used to demean well credentialed individuals for political purposes.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_hack

    Well, going by that definition…

  8. You all have a chance to stop this tiresome, repetitive, boring, useless and idiotic “Who’s a hack?” argument Version #103779.2 right now. Please do so.

  9. Me too, Briefly, as partisan as they come and proud of it. No more Howard type Govt.’s for me.

    Will miss your contributions when your health is sparking and you’re back to work

  11. I think the media are having trouble getting used to the idea that the Labor government are on top of nearly everything nearly all the time, including them. Think of a policy area – the economy, foreign affairs, defense & security, health, education, climate change….there are so many – and the Government are both doing what they said the would do and are perceived to be doing a good job.

    Given the media run on the public’s appetite for sensation, it must bug the crap out of all of them that things are running smoothly. This is becoming a no-news Government. You have to go back many years to find a Government that enjoyed front pages in which they did not feature – right back to Menzies, who preferred it when the public hardly noticed there was a government at all.

  13. Bob’s just GP without the charm, intelligence and well argued narrative.

    As unkind a bite as I’ve ever seen! Like the dog in that movie “There’s Something About Mary”!

  14. [right back to Menzies, who preferred it when the public hardly noticed there was a government at all.]

    Except my grandfather at budget time each year when his pouch of tobacco went up again. Apart from that you’re right there was ‘hardly notice’.

    I need’cheers’ at the moment thanks, briefly. Updating stuff going haywire and I’m trying to put a booklet together with Publisher and the darn page numbers are not working out.

    The distraction is PB – or the excuse to give the other stuff away more likely!!

  15. GG @ 1536

    “Finns,

    The lies will always be bigger under the Greens.”

    The pathological hatred toward the Greens by some non conservative PBs here is truly getting beyond the pale. I’ve tried to calm matters down by posting (in the past) of the natural synergy between Labor & the Greens and we that should be devoting our energies against our natural enemy the COALition. As a member of the Australian Labor Party, this treatment of an ally is sickening. Are there any realist ALP supporters here or is PB dominated by the Alternate Liberal Party?

  16. The AEC isn’t banning the ads. All they’re doing is saying they have to be labelled the same as all other government ads, which is entirely appropriate.

    Why is there a problem with that? They ruled on it because Pyne made a complaint which was upheld. Presumably Labor didn’t make a complaint about the Highway ads.

    [Government sources said last night the authorisation would say, “Authorised by the Australian government, Capital Hill, Canberra” – the same message affixed to all government advertising, including non-political messages such as health campaigns.]

    http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,26023955-5013871,00.html

  17. Kersebleptes

    [The term “hired gun” is often used in tandem to further describe the moral bankruptcy of the “hack”.]

    I think most people would prefer to be referred to as a “hack” than a “hired gun” at the moment! 😉

  18. [The government’s proclivity for spin and half-smart political strategy is re-emerging.

    The Australian Electoral Commission yesterday confirmed what is blindingly obvious despite the government’s efforts to disguise it: sticking up signs in front of schools announcing that the government paid for new buildings is advertising. Possibly they brought Blind Freddie in to provide that opinion.

    The commission thereby handed Christopher Pyne a nice little victory over Julia Gillard, although in truth Pyne can thank the government’s stupidity and proclivity for spin.

    Sticking up school signs boasting of being responsible for new classrooms and libraries and playground facilities is exactly the sort of half-smart caper this government was indulging in before the economic crisis gave it some real work to do. Like the war on binge drinking, or the “tough decisions” that weren’t, or pretence of bipartisanship, it’s the sort of idea that goes down well in Cabinet and strategy sessions, but doesn’t fly in the real world. And yes, the Coalition did it when they were in government, but that hardly justifies it.]

    From Crikey. Very true.

  19. [The pathological hatred toward the Greens by some non conservative PBs here is truly getting beyond the pale. I’ve tried to calm matters down by posting (in the past) of the natural synergy between Labor & the Greens and we that should be devoting our energies against our natural enemy the COALition. As a member of the Australian Labor Party, this treatment of an ally is sickening. Are there any realist ALP supporters here or is PB dominated by the Alternate Liberal Party?]

    PB is dominated by the Alternate Liberal Party. They’d follow Labor off a cliff and love the fact they have policies that were the Liberals’ 20 years ago. They are just Liberals in sheeps clothing.

    You’d think they would appreciate the Greens as the alternative for passing legislation in the Senate after the next election, but nope. They’d rather hate the coalition and the Greens, yet expect their help in passing Labor government legislation.

    HYPOCRISY WRIT LARGE.

    Talk about not being pragmatic.

  21. [As unkind a bite as I’ve ever seen! Like the dog in that movie “There’s Something About Mary”!]

    You know GG is getting desperate when he refers to GP as charming and intelligent to win a point.

    😀

  22. [vote1maxine, we love the Greens, is just that they dont love us]

    What a pile of crap! I can’t even begin to explain the many things wrong with this statement 😛

  27. Diogenes,

    Well, I’m in NSW.
    Even Turnbull could probably get himself a lift in the polls here if he started calling himself a merchant banker again, instead of a politico of any sort!

  28. to follow on from #1568…

    [It’s also based on faulty logic. Parents know perfectly well why there are new facilities being built in schools across the country. And they won’t forget by the next election. Sticking up a sign won’t produce a single extra vote. The signs will just sit there. The government should pray no signs fall down and injure a pupil. Then there’ll be hell to pay.

    The same sort of half-smart thinking was behind the quite deliberate strategy on Gillard’s part of repeatedly guaranteeing that no one would be worse off as a consequence of the award modernisation process.

    Like the schools component of the stimulus package, the award modernisation process is good policy that doesn’t need Labor spin. Reducing several thousand different awards into a not much more than a 100 was, barring some sort of changes in the laws of mathematics, going to lead to some workers getting less or more pay or better or worse conditions.

    Instead of acknowledging that and committing to get the best balance possible, Gillard tried to keep the issue off the radar by pre-emptively declaring no one — employer or worker — would be worse off.

    Ever since then, bit by bit, the issue has taken on a life of its own as the mathematical realities of consolidating awards have become apparent. And once the government caved in to the hospitality industry’s demands that it be protected from wage rises, employer groups and unions started coming in for their chop on the issue. Rent seekers and special interest pleaders need little encouragement to hop on a plane to Canberra.

    This issue is one to watch, not so much for the predictable whingeing from unions and employers groups, as for whether the government sticks to its commitment to achieve a reform that was beyond even the Howard government’s true IR believers. The Rudd government was right to take it on, but as always with this mob, they can’t settle for pursuing good policy and selling the political case for it — there’s got to be some spin and half-smart “messaging” to go along with it.

    If they just stuck to what they claim so often to do — just getting on with the business of governing — they might find voters are smart enough to give them credit where it’s due.]

    You’ve gotta wonder why Labor doesn’t get it. It’s very simple really.

    And I know the Labor hacks on here won’t bother to defend Labor on the above Crikey charges. Because they know it to be true.

  31. [They ruled on it because Pyne made a complaint which was upheld. ]

    Maybe so, but my question was related to the haste with which the signs were classified as potentially political. There is no election or by-election ready to go, and then only in Bradfield at a time to be yet determined.

    I contrast this with the pretty clear cut dirty tricks campaign by the Exclusive Bretheren during the 2004 and 2007 elections, a case against which was brought by several complainants, but which was buried in a bottom drawer at the AEC and forgotten. Their leaflets played pretty loose with attributions too. There were allegations that, by using the same artwork as bona fide Liberal advertising the EB material was, de facto, Liberal advertising, especially considering the documented links between the Howard campaign and the EB (most pointedly in his own electorate of Bennelong). I can remember a 4 Corners program that went right into the phoney addresses in North Rocks in Sydney (which I visited to have a look at myself… they were derelict houses) and the links between Howard and the Bretheren. A whole lot of data to go on and investigate, compared to a simple letter of complaint from Pyne.

    The Schools stimulus signs have not been subject ot any complaint by a voter voting at any election yet have been instantly ruled as being inappropriate without the authorisation. I can understand that perhaps such signs need to carry an authorisation declaration per se, but the haste with which the decision was made appears to be unusual.

    The silver lining in the dark cloud is that, just in case anyone didn’t realise, the signs will now be specifically attributed to the Federal Government. Leigh Sales’ question last night to Swan about how much the conversion (the addition of sticky decals) will cost was pathetic. All the signs in total will cost $3.4 million, about 0.007% – that is, seven thousandths of one per cent – of the total value of the stimulus package. The cost of the add-on decals must be about an order of magnitude or two lower than that amount. Swan’s point about these signs being about confidence as much as bragging rights, as well as his pointing out that this is perfectly normal, routine behavior were good ones.

    It’s just that Sales is running a “make them answer the question” campaign right now on Lateline, a campaign which she seems to apply harder to Labor than to the likes of Joe Hockey, who got away with murder the other night.

  32. 1565….vote1maxine

    “…..this treatment of an ally is sickening…..”

    Well, v1m, the G’s don’t treat Labor as if they are an ally. On the contrary, they never miss a chance to condemn Labor from the left, hoping to peel voters away from Labor’s store of conscience-voters.

    For mine, while this tends to shave some votes away from Labor, there are benefits. First, because the G’s consciously adopt a holy-radical accent on every issue, Labor is free to move to the centre. This has helped drive the coalition into a rightist political no-man’s land and build massive popular dominance for federal Labor. At the same time, the G’s serve as a repository for left-preferences. So that is a win-win for Labor.

    But on the other hand, we all have to endure the sanctimony of the G Senators. In reinforcing a lefter-than-thou identity, the G’s spare no effort to attack their best friends, the ALP. If Wilson Tuckey is the mad uncle of conservative politics, the G’s are the cranky cousins of the centre-left…to be tolerated, but seldom invited over for a beer.

  33. As I recall there was nary a hard word said between Labor and Greens supporters until a complete salad of Greens spent their entire Easter here declaring war on people Like Lindsay Tanner.

  34. BB

    I was surprised at how quickly they made their decision too but they might have considered it a straighforward case.

    I think they said it was the same as anything put out by government, even non-political things like health education on AIDS etc. The Grim Reaper ads all had the same disclaimer as the schools signs.

  36. [And I know the Labor hacks on here won’t bother to defend Labor on the above Crikey charges.]
    wRONg
    A link to the whole article would be good, but Crikey having a whinge? We should care? If the rest of the article is the same as extracts you posted I hope the petulant child that wrote it gets sent to his room by his mother.
    You can go too, Bob. Come out when you can have an adult conversation.

  37. By the looks of things it was a robust interview! Leigh Sales gives it too Wayne Swan who in turn gave it back to Leigh Sales, looking at the answers and questions both were defensive but yeah they are both adults.

    I don’t agree that the interview with Joe Hockey was soft for a start Wayne Swan is the Treasurer and Joe Hockey is not therefore it is only natural for an interviewer to be harder on the Gopvernment.

    I think Wayne Swan brought a little of it onto himself with nearly every answer starting with a diffensive or negative phase.

  38. Diogenes @ 1580,

    Yeah, I realised. Mind you, he seems the sort of annoying bloke that you might take the trouble to do personally. His “colourful Sydney identity” associates were probably queuing up for the privilege!

    The “tape” claim does sound dodgy- but has anyone actually asked Frank Sartor just where he was at the relevant time?

  39. The endless Greens v. Labor debate is tiresome too (if I may make so bold). There is hardly a more tedious subject than who knifed who in the back first, as it is endlessly thrashed out by some here. If you don’t like each other why can’t you take off somewhere on your own and act like children there?

  40. Crikey is being too smart by half.

    State governments or school owners like churches are usually responsible for capital woks such as school buildings. The stimulus package buildings are different. Therefore it is appropriate to advertise that they are being funded by the Commonwealth in this instance. Unfortunately a lot of parents are not interested enough to actually realise this. Furthermore, the majority of Australian voters are not parents of school children. Therefore they are even less likely to know the funding of a new school building if it is not advertised.

    It also helps with the intangibles such as consumer confidence which can be just as important as the direct employment generated by the projects.

  42. Bushfire Bill @ 1581,

    Agree 100% on the Brethren. Even if you divorce the EB issue from this current signs thing, it still stinks to high heaven, as does the AEC’s lack of action on it.

    Clear facts pointing to organised & serial efforts by an anti-democratic extremist cult to illegally subvert the democratic process…and nothing!

  43. briefly @ 1582

    Remember the 1990 election. Graham Richardson was the architect between the Greens & Labor preference deal in that election. The Greens preferences were a very important factor in Labors victory as I seem to recall. The Greens “reinforcing a lefter-than-thou identity” is entirely necessary to differentiate themselves in the electorate.

    My point is that the Greens, our “cranky cousins of the centre-left” should not only be invited for a couple of beers but a BBQ (mixed grill of course: vegetarian & non- vegetarian 🙂 ) as well. Then perhaps they wouldn’t be so cranky as they would recognised as part of the family :).

  45. [Talking about media bias, ex ABC personality and Crabby Annabel team up to prop up Barrell O’Farrell:]

    Annabel Crabb also spoke at the ALP National Conference this year. I note no one hysterically accused her of rampant left-wing bias at that point.

  46. bob1234, it is passing strange that you might quote Crikey in order to stick one into the Government. Crikey is having a general whinge about spin. But who cares what the media say about spin? The media just resent being the spin-ees instead of the spin-ers.

    Are you really so unhappy to have a Labor Government? Where is your sense of reality? Would you rather have Wilson Tuckey as Minister for Climate Change?

  49. 1583

    The reason that the Greens want to topple Tanner is that he is in the seat that is most winnable for the Greens not any specific problem with Tanner. If there was a Liberal marginal seat with someone regarded as a good minister in it the ALP would not hold back from trying to win it.

Comments are closed.

Comments Page 32 of 37
1 … 31 32 33 … 37