The latest monthly ACNielsen survey of 1400 respondents (conducted from Thursday to Saturday) shows Labor’s two-party lead down slightly from 56-44 to 55-45. This seems a fairly conservative return on the changes in the primary vote: Labor down two points to 44 per cent, the Coalition up two to 40 per cent. Malcolm Turnbull also scores relatively well on personal ratings, his approval up four to 35 per cent and his disapproval down five to 55 per cent. However, Kevin Rudd’s approval is also up two points to 70 per cent, and his lead as preferred prime minister is up from 67-24 to 69-23. Rudd’s disapproval rating is up one point to 25 per cent.
Further afield:
• Courtesy of comprehensive coverage at Andrew Landeryou’s VexNews we learn the Liberal preselection vote to succeed David Hawker in Wannon has been won by Daniel Tehan, deputy director of the Victorian Liberal Party and son of the late Kennett government minister Marie Tehan. The other candidate who made it through to the final round was Stephen Mitchell, founder of natural gas explorer Molopo Australia. David Clark, Elizabeth Matuschka, Hugh Koch and Katrina Rainsford were eliminated after the first round, followed by Simon Price and Rod Nockles, then Louise Staley, then Matt Makin.
• Labor veteran Duncan Kerr has announced he will not contest his Hobart seat of Denison at the next federal election. Misha Schubert of The Age reports this has come as a surprise, such that “when news broke yesterday, there was no obvious successor staking a public claim”. It is widely noted that Kerr leaves his seat with a margin of 15.6 per cent after gaining it from the Liberals in 1987, though it probably wouldn’t do to put this entirely down to candidate factors. Early preselection contenders identified by Michael Stedman of The Mercury are George Williams, constitutional lawyer and “Kerr associate”, Jonathan Jackson, son of former state attorney-general Judy Jackson, and Rebecca White, staffer to Kerr and a state candidate for Lyons. However, state secretary John Dowling sounds confident none of the 27 state election candidates will be contesting preselection.
• With Peter Dutton confirming his intention to jump ship from notionally Labor Dickson in northern Brisbane to safe Liberal McPherson on the Gold Coast, Labor’s narrowly unsuccessful candidate for Dickson in 2007, Fiona McNamara, has signalled her intention to again seek preselection.
• Paige Taylor of The Australian reports former WA Premier Alan Carpenter is “preparing to leave parliament”, and “could quit his seat of Willagee before the next state election, due in 2012”. Although a neighbour of the seat of Fremantle which gave the Greens their breakthrough lower house win in May, Willagee is genuinely unloseable for Labor. The front-runner to succeed Carpenter would appear to be Dave Kelly, state secretary of the Left faction Liquor, Hospitality and Miscellaneous Workers Union, who wisely held back when Fremantle became available.
• The bill for a referendum to amend South Australia’s Constitution discussed in the previous post passed the House of Assembly on the second try, after embarrassing failure on the first. However, Attorney-General Michael Atkinson openly admits he does not expect it to be passed in the upper house. The Liberals have spoken in favour of four-year Council terms and a double dissolution mechanism, but against cutting Council numbers, giving the Council President a deliberative vote, and in particular the plan to combine the measures into a single referendum question. The Legislative Council is also debating the Electoral (Miscellaneous) Amendment Bill, which proposes to ban registered political parties using the name of “a prominent public body” (plainly aimed at the Save the Royal Adelaide Hospital Group), increase fines for electoral offences by as much as 400 per cent, require that redistributions commence 24 months after an election as opposed to the current three, increase the number of members required of a registered political party from 150 to 500 (in line with most other states), introduce compulsory enrolment (surprised they didn’t have this already) and ban third parties from producing how-to-vote cards.
• Former NSW Rural Fire Services chief Phil Koperberg, who replaced Bob Debus as Labor member for Blue Mountains at the 2007 state election, is making noises which are generally being interpreted as meaning he will quit politics, either at or before the next election. According to the ABC, Koperberg says he is “not cut out for the nature of partisan or party politics and I find myself doing and saying things I would rather not do, which my conscience would have me to otherwise”, and that he is considering his future in the “medium to long-term”. Andrew Clennell of the Sydney Morning Herald reports Koperberg “has told journalists, colleagues and even Coalition MPs several times in the past two years that he was thinking of quitting before the next election”.
• Via Democratic Audit, the House Standing Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs Committee is conducting an inquiry into the effectiveness of the Referendum (Machinery Provisions) Act 1984.
UPDATE: The weekly Essential Research has Labor down a little after last week’s spike, from 61-39 to 59-41. Not sure why, but the usual suite of further questions is not included this time.
[which meant that the UTC campus at Lindfield]
I think you’ll find that’s UT[b]S[/b]
…well, you get the idea… UTS
Strangley enough 56% support the stimulus package. Actually 46% support as it is, 10% want MORE! Greedy buggers . Strangely mirrors voting intent. 😉
They have not put the Green primary in the article.
Grump.
Have you picked up on the CM’s Queensland Galaxy Poll William?
http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,26067339-952,00.html
‘Union boost under Rudd’ http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,26068196-601,00.html
You would think so now the Workchoices restrictions to joining a Union, and a Unions ability to go into a workplace have been lifted.
Of course when reading the headline, read ‘UNIONS! RUN! OOOGA BOOOOGA”
[You would think so now the Workchoices restrictions to joining a Union, and a Unions ability to go into a workplace have been lifted.
Of course when reading the headline, read ‘UNIONS! RUN! OOOGA BOOOOGA”]
Yet the WA Liberals capitualted to the all powerful WA Police Union over Mandatory Sentencing for Assaults on Police Officers.
Hypocrites.
I hadn’t, Gary – thanks for that (see new post).
methinks Turnbull may regret bringing up the ghost of Workchoices by week’s end 🙂
[Ms Gillard has signalled the Government will use Parliament this week to try to link Mr Turnbull to the Howard government’s WorkChoices policy.
“Mr Turnbull has let the cat out of the bag. What was a secret plan is now a plan for everyone to see,” Ms Gillard said.
“We’ll certainly be making it clear in Parliament what WorkChoices means for Australian workers.
“We’ll be pressing Mr Turnbull to be even clearer about what he wants to do to working conditions, to penalty rates, to public holiday pay, to redundancy, to all of the things that WorkChoices hit so hard.”
But the Opposition’s Senate leader, Nick Minchin, has questioned why the Government is putting so much energy into pressuring the Coalition.
“It doesn’t seem to spend any time governing. They just attack us,” he said.
Senator Minchin says the Government is misrepresenting the Opposition’s position on industrial relations and says individual contracts were used well before WorkChoices.
“Instead of getting on and governing and managing its appalling waste in relation to its Building The Education Revolution, it just seeks to attack the Opposition,” he said.]
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/09/14/2684564.htm?section=justin
Tom
Back in your corner.
Don’t mention ‘the elephant in the room’
Now repeat 100 times “The Greens are irrelevant”
Wink wink.
Tom lets play puick the Green vote if the ALP are on 44 and the Liberals are on 0 then that leaves 16 points lets give the Greens half so on that guess work the Green vote is 8 points.
Liberal vote 0 should have been 40
Oh thos big bad bullies in the Government:
[Senator Minchin says….”Instead of getting on and governing and managing its appalling waste in relation to its Building The Education Revolution, it just seeks to attack the Opposition”…
Marg
the size of the Green vote means it’s not an elephant.
The only people on this blog who have said the Greens are irrelevant are Greens supporters.
zoom,
your funny
next you’ll be trying to convince yourself The Greens don’t support wind power
[next you’ll be trying to convince yourself The Greens don’t support wind power]
Can’t argue that the Greens support wind power, judging by the amount of hot air generated by some of their hacks on this site…
Tom
Tom the 2nd,
You’ll have to learn to get used to that,
for The Greens will be around for a long time.
Their’s a lot of work to do yet.
I’ve got the full Nielsen tables with the state breakdowns and demographics for the tragic types.
http://blogs.crikey.com.au/pollytics/2009/09/14/nielsen-stimulus-polling/
Billbowe,
Nielsen is apparently no longer called “AC Nielsen” – they’ve dropped the AC.
(Pedantic morning outburst over) 😀
Greenies, what are the chances that Brown might quit the Senate and contest Denison? He ran in 1993 and got 14.2%, but of course he has a vastly higher profile now, and he wouldn’t be running against Kerr. He’d have to be given a fair chance.
On McGurk, and the claim that new tape/s have emerged …
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/09/14/2684574.htm
[… the tapes, which contain conversations with five New South Wales politicians and one former federal minister. my emphasis]
There’s only been one ex-federal minister in the Rudd government – Joel Fitzgibbon. So is it reasonable to conclude the ex-minister was a Coalition minister?
[But the Opposition’s Senate leader, Nick Minchin, has questioned why the Government is putting so much energy into pressuring the Coalition.
“It doesn’t seem to spend any time governing. They just attack us,” he said.]
Bootstrapper.
Shanahan wrote this last Friday, just about word for word. Now Minchin takes it up. Next we should see a comment on either the ABC or, more symmetrically, back at the OO along the lines, “Responding to newspaper reports that the government is becoming vindictive in its attacks on Mr. Turnbull, Senator Minchin said…”.
Theme for the week, methinks.
Rhetoric-wise, practically all they (Coalition) did did while in government was attack the then-Opposition. Why on earth should they expect to be spared now they’re in opposition?
[There’s only been one ex-federal minister in the Rudd government – Joel Fitzgibbon. So is it reasonable to conclude the ex-minister was a Coalition minister?]
Yes, if they didn’t mention the party you can bet it was a Coalition former minister.
Heard Kate McWhatsername on ABC radio this morning, positively gushing about how she didn’t know where to start on McGurk revelations (complete with near attacks of the vapours, gasping and other manifestations of breathlessness). Rather sensibly, Wendy Harmer (guest host in the absence of the regular) asked whether the story in the SMH with its “alleged this”, “alleged that”, innuendo everywhere, really deserved a stint on the front page at all.
No, it’s not reasonable to conclude that the former Fed minister is a LNP. It could be Richo given that he has had dealings with McGurk. Now there are more tapes.
[The man told the Sydney Morning Herald that he personally transcribed the tapes, which contain conversations with five New South Wales politicians and one former federal minister.
He says the conversations were about bribes relating to development applications and criminal proceedings.
The man says he has contacted the Police Integrity Commission.]
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/09/14/2684574.htm
Pies made me laugh. I saw this. The hypocrisy in unintended. First the rants having no substance, and then using the term “gutter-crawling” in the same sentence as a reference to Heiner. I stopped reading then.
[Rudd rants have no substance]
[PRIME Minister Kevin Rudd may have moved to The Lodge but, intellectually, he has not left the confines of the gutter-crawling Queensland ALP and the small-minded inner circles of the document-shredding Goss Labor government. ]
http://blogs.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/piersakerman/index.php/dailytelegraph/comments/rudd_rants_have_no_substance/
Pies has been crying tears of blood ever since a Labor leader came on the scene to be a viable threat to Howard. No matter WHO that leader had been, even Saint Mary, Pies would have been driven to smear them. Flinging-mud-from-the-gutter is the only way the Rotund Reactionary knows.
Diog, I concede your point on the logic. But the fact remains that the political affiliation of the “ex-Minister” wasn’t mentioned. Seeing as McWhatsername has been trying to drop Labor MPs in the poo at every opportunity, it seemed to be a glaring omission that the afiliations of the “ex-Minister” were not spelled out.
The whole thing is a tissue of “allegations” that does not name names, whose source is also unnamed, about activities which may or may not have happened, all linked to a nasty, vicious, self-promoter, lurk merchant and standover man, and his associates. It is a nothing story. It is simply a gushing rush to print the latest piece of rumour and innuendo. The journalists have admitted they have not seen or heard even one of these alleged tape recordings. They are relying on the testimony of people to whom lying is a tool of the trade. Not front page material.
From previous thread:
[I note some of the comments on recent PB threads about the “inadequacies” of Barry O’Farrell and the “too right wing” NSW Liberal Party. Indeed, the ‘comment’ of The Finnigans @ 1754 is a recent example…… ALP partisans, because it is always a reflection of the ALP’s (good) prospects of winning the next election election]
http://blogs.crikey.com.au/pollbludger/2009/09/08/newspoll-55-45-13/comment-page-36/#comment-328365
David Charles, you just dont get it, do you.
NSW Labor will not win the next election. It should never had won the last election. It should be dead and buried long time ago. It has been in office for too long. It has become stale, complacent and Rudderless. 😉
Who kept it there? Your hopeless side. so what are your excuses for the “inadequacies of Barry O’Farrell”, which are all there for the punters of NSW to see.
cuppa,
The ex Federal Minister has to be Graham Richardson. He’s on record as having spoken to McGurk in his capacity as an advisor to one of his clients.
BB
As someone who is very interested in corruption (my gravatar is Falcone, the assassinated anti-Mafia campaigner), the idea that there are FIVE NSW Ministers involved in corruption is well beyond the limits of believability. There are so many reasons it is implausible I don’t know where to begin. It doesn’t come close to passing the BS test.
If it wasn’t for the fact that McGurk actually was assassinated, the whole thing would just be a laugh. But he was killed and wrote a letter saying who would kill him. And the person he named had threatened him via his bodyguard.
My guess is all the political stuff will die and go nowhere.
Surely it’s a Hawke/Keating federal minister
Wasn’t Peter McGauran involved in selling the CSIRO land to the bloke McGurk was in partnership with? I thought I heard McGauran took over from Minchin before the sale went through. He retired at last election.
Vera – tell OH I’m was just a little sorry for his Dragons but that lasted for 30 seconds. lol. Good win for the Eels tho and about time. Dario will be happy too.
[Shorten has been one of the stand outs at the CCs I’ve saw.]
Just saw the comment on Van Onselen’s rating Ministers. In Kev’s words “Van Onselen – What planet are you on?”
Shorten is doing a good job with disability portfolio is the story I’ve heard from people needing his help. He answers them promptly and works out how they can be helped. Must make a nice change after years of neglect.
Tanner & Swan – a good team. Poor Van Onselen is having the same problem accepting the Lib defeat as his mates in that party. What’s the bet he stands for preselection at some time.
Marg dear
still into verballing, I see.
What I originally said (I think you came in too late to the discussion to know) was that the Greens, in the lead up to the 2007 election, only had two references to wind FARMS.
About one thousand posts later, all anyone had done was confirmed that this was a fact.
Diogenes
The reports are allegations related to 5 MPs, not 5 Ministers, are they not?
Has anyone heard if the Senate hearing into the stimulus with Ken Henry will be on APAC today?
Thanks, Possum – could have gone through my whole life not knowing that if you hadn’t pointed it out.
Laocoon
You are correct. McGurk was wandering around NSW Parl the week he died saying he had tapes that threatened the careers of several Ministers. The number of Ministers is 2 or more.
It’s still highly improbable because a small Govt like NSW wouldn’t have 5 people stupid or greedy enough to be corrupted by one person. And there would be no need to get so many involved, esp when the sums of money are quite small. And NSW Labor is so cannibalistic that the alliances would have broken up by now.
William went:
[Thanks, Possum – could have gone through my whole life not knowing that if you hadn’t pointed it out.]
I’m tackling the big issues today 😛
[Has anyone heard if the Senate hearing into the stimulus with Ken Henry will be on APAC today?]
It’s not happening today. The committee’s website suggests the hearing will be next Monday, with an additional hearing on the following Monday as well (to take evidence from the Reserve Bank Governor).
The U.S. Census bureau confirms what we already knew:
[Thursday’s annual Census Bureau report on income, poverty and access to health care-the Bureau’s principal report card on the well-being of average Americans-closes the books on the economic record of George W. Bush.
It’s not a record many Republicans are likely to point to with pride.
On every major measurement, the Census Bureau report shows that the country lost ground during Bush’s two terms. While Bush was in office, the median household income declined, poverty increased, childhood poverty increased even more, and the number of Americans without health insurance spiked. By contrast, the country’s condition improved on each of those measures during Bill Clinton’s two terms, often substantially.]
http://politics.theatlantic.com/2009/09/closing_the_book_on_the_bush_legacy.php
20
He did have quite a profile in Denison in 1993 as he had been one of the members of the HAT for Denison for the previous decade and had been significant in state politics especially 1989-1992. He might not have as good a chance as you think be cause the Liberals (both the party and the voters) in Tasmania are less likely to preference the Greens over the ALP than in other states. The Greens should chose someone younger who could (if re-elected enough) stay in politics than Senator Brown. I wouldn`t think that Milne would run either as she was a member of the HAT for Lyons. Maybe Peg Putt could be persuaded to un-retire although she does seen to have been rather abrasive.
Adam at 20:
[ Greenies, what are the chances that Brown might quit the Senate and contest Denison? He ran in 1993 and got 14.2%, but of course he has a vastly higher profile now, and he wouldn’t be running against Kerr. He’d have to be given a fair chance. ]
I doubt it… he is pretty old. Plus, replacing him might turn into a giant pain, what with Andrew Wilkie (Greens #2 from the 2007 election) not being a Green any more.
Although, now that I think of it, there’s a kinda precedent. Jim Scott (former WA Greens MLC) quit the upper house in the last few months of his term, to run in the 2005 election in a certain electorate I won’t mention. Didn’t win, but didn’t disgrace himself either. There might have been an independent who sapped some of the Green vote back then. 😉
[“It doesn’t seem to spend any time governing. They just attack us,” he said.]
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Oh, that made my morning 😀
[Vera – tell OH I’m was just a little sorry for his Dragons but that lasted for 30 seconds. lol. Good win for the Eels tho and about time. Dario will be happy too.]
Indeed I am 😀
Itep 41 – thanks
I’m still in shock Dario – but I’m happy to take a few more over the next couple of weeks.
In breaking news, Phill Coory calls it the AC Nielsen poll.
http://www.smh.com.au/national/pm-stimulates-praise-but-its-last-laugh-to-nelson-20090913-fm94.html
He was a very naughty boy Greeny.
Possum,
There’s trouble right here in Psephology Place when the only change of note in a poll is the the name.