The latest Essential Research survey has Labor’s two-party lead at 59-41, up from 58-42 last week. Also featured are approval ratings for the Prime Minister and Opposition Leader (both up solidly from six weeks ago), respondents’ self-perceptions of their employment and salary outlooks, Kim Beazley’s appointment as ambassador to the United States (54 per cent approve, 18 per cent disapprove) and Brendan Nelson’s appointment as ambassador to the European Union, Belgium and Luxembourg (49 per cent approve, 22 per cent disapprove).
Also:
• Newspoll has published its quarterly geographic and demographic analysis breakdown of federal polling results. Possum notes it shows up an intriguing divergence between city and country, which he says “could well be explained by the Coalition line on the ETS”. I might suggest that the largely forgotten Gippsland by-election of last June offered a premonition of this.
• About 200 local Liberal National Party members will vote for a candidate to succeed the outgoing Margaret May in the Gold Coast seat of McPherson on Saturday. Noses have been put out of the joint by the fact that the position was advertised on Thursday, one day before the closure of nominations, which has been universally interpreted as an attempt to assist Peter Dutton in his bid to move to the seat from notionally Labor Dickson. Glenn Milne in The Australian reports that May urged Dutton to nominate for the seat, somewhat deflating the notion that federal divisional council chair Karen Andrews might benefit from being her reported ally. Another of Dutton’s three preselection rivals is Minna Knight, a former staffer to Joe Hockey and Julie Bishop. Milne says Knight has the backing of state Currumbin MP Jann Stuckey, whose husband Richard Stuckey withdrew from the race last week. Rounding out the field is Wayne Black, of whom nothing seems to be known. Despite earlier reports, twice-unsuccessful state Burleigh candidate Michael Hart has not nominated. Tanya Westthorp of the Gold Coast Bulletin reports local members are “threatening to revolt” if the state executive overturns the result of their ballot, as seems likely if Dutton doesn’t win. Andrew Fraser of The Australian notes the local party’s history of rebuffing imported candidates with reference to the 1998 preselection, when former Brisbane lord mayor Sallyanne Atkinson finished sixth in a field of 23.
• The ABC reports that Queensland’s conservatives will soon reach a decision as to whether their federal election candidates will stand as Liberals and Nationals, Liberal Nationals, or the “LNP”.
• AAP reports speculation that Jodie Campbell, federal Labor member for the ultra-marginal Tasmanian seat of Bass, might not contest the next election. Campbell has been in the news recently after her partner was charged with assaulting her, and two of her staff members abruptly and mysteriously resigned. The AAP report notes she “has been moved from her much-televised seat in parliament behind the prime minister”. Geoff Lyons, electorate officer to Senator Helen Polley and an unsuccessful state candidate from 2002, is mentioned as a possible replacement.
• Michelle Grattan reports in The Age that former tennis star John Alexander, who made the final six in Saturday’s Bradfield preselection, is “volunteering” to take on Maxine McKew in Bennelong. Others who have been mentioned in the past are Melanie Howard and former state MPs Kerry Chikarovski and Andrew Tink, all of whom have been ruled out, and former rugby union international Brett Papworth.
• Phillip Coorey of the Sydney Morning Herald reports Pfizer executive David Miles will challenge Bill Heffernan for the second position on the New South Wales Liberal Senate ticket. Incumbent Connie Fierravanti-Wells is expected to hold the top position. The third will depend on whether the state Liberal and Nationals can smooth over tensions and reach their usual joint ticket arrangement, in which Nationals Senator Fiona Nash would take the third position.
• Phillip Coorey also reports it is “rumoured” that Noel McCoy has nominated for preselection against Philip Ruddock in Berowra, despite announcing in late July that he would not do so.
• Sue Neales of The Mercury reports Tony Mulder, police commander and Clarence council alderman, has emerged a surprise winner for Liberal preselection in the state division of Franklin. The Liberals are considered all but certain to increase their representation in the five-seat division from one seat to two at the election next March, with incumbent and party leader Will Hodgman assured of re-election. The party hierarchy is apparently keen that the second seat be won by Jacquie Petrusma, who was Family First’s Senate candidate in 2004 and 2007 and came close to winning a seat on the former occasion at the expense of Christine Milne of the Greens. Also on the ticket are Clarence City Council building inspector David Compton and Huon Valley small business owner Jillian Law. Vanessa Goodwin was earlier considered to be in the box seat, but she has since found a place in the upper house after winning the Pembroke by-election on August 1.
• In a short but eventful article, Imre Salusinszky of The Australian reports that Mark Sheridan, neurosurgeon and director of surgical services at Liverpool Hospital, has nominated for Liberal preselection in the outer-southwest Sydney state seat of Menai, held by Labor’s Alison Megarrity on a margin of 2.6 per cent. It is also “understood” that National Rugby League chief operating officer Graham Annesley has again nominated for Miranda in southern Sydney, where he fell 0.8 per cent short of defeating Barry Collier in 2007; that Hawkesbury mayor Bart Bassett has again nominated for the north-west Sydney seat of Londonderry, where Labor’s Allan Shearan defeated him by 6.9 per cent in 2007; and Randwick mayor Bruce Notley-Smith has nominated for the inner eastern Sydney seat of Coogee, held for Labor by Paul Pearce on a margin of 7.3 per cent.
• Ben Raue at The Tally Room is constructing what promises to be a superbly comprehensive guide to the federal election post by post.
• Keep following the action at my regularly updated posts on the Bradfield federal by-election and Willagee state by-election in Western Australia.
And Turnbull is no fool, in my view it will be one or the other. I hope he stays and I hope he sorts them out, I have no doubt one eyed labor supporters are hoping for failure. How low can the Liberal party vote go is an interesting question, but I don’t think finding out is good for Australian democracy.
Bob your a one eyed green supporter so I don’t expect you believe any good can become of this or anything else to do with the Liberal party.
fredn
I agree with Hitchens. I am not expert on Islam but read a book called “Why I am not a Muslim” by Ibn Warraq. It pointed out a few reasons why the nature of Islam led to such problems. In a sense Islam now is where Christianity was in the middle ages. Most moslem nations still lack the means to prevent abuses of power by religeous authorities, and the secular role of imams tends to perpetuate that situation.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/10/02/2702843.htm
Quite clearly you have a mental disability. I don’t always support the Greens, and i’m a disaffected Labor supporter who puts Green first to remind Labor that they cannot always get in bed with the right at the expense of the left.
Socrates
To get a feel for Islam read the old testament, I have no time for either. I was reflecting on the difference between Christianity and Islam and came to similar conclusions. Christian societies have pushed the old men back into their box, we still have the likes of Pell, but they are pretty much ignored.
If you want to read about a selfish morally reprehensible god you don’t have to go to the Koran, read the the first testament. The god described their really is a disgrase.
bob1234
And I suspect you believe no good can come of anything the labor party does either.
And who the bloody hell said that? Get off your high horse.
fredn,
One eyed Labor supporters are just enjoying the chaos and self inflicted wounds the Libs seem intent on carving into themselves. Turnbull may be a smart man but his lack of judgement regarding the utegate affair and subsequent lack of apology mean that an air of unease surrounds his leadership.
Him using the “crash through or crash” method of problem resolution again is hardly surprising and probably indicates he is a one trick pony. It’s just if he wins there’ll be bruised egos and if he loses the Liberal Party will be a burning wreck.
GG
Ya, but he is the best hope they have. With regard to Turnbull he was sucker punched. In my view, even if the email was genuine, it was a non issue, but politically it would have weakened the Rudd government. Was it right? no. Was it good for the country? no. Would it have been politically clever? yes.
My problem is with a press, such nonsense should not have got off the ground; all parties got what they deserved; including the press whose credibility was further eroded.
I can understand you enjoying the fun; if Turnbull falls its DLP time for the Liberal party.
Actually when you think about it the Liberal/Nationals are already in DLP territory. The DLP/Labor split was over communism, the Liberal/National split is over climate change. It looks likes the issue is going to be fort as hard and it is going to destroy chances of being elected for decades.
Seems to be a swell of counter charges regarding the Alex Hawke incident. Vex News have the gossip. Alan Jones tees off.
http://www.vexnews.com/news/6557/patriots-at-war-alex-hawke-savaged-by-alan-jones-the-king-of-sydney-radio-who-suggests-listeners-visit-vexnews/
Only if the Nats start preferencing Labor over the Liberals (which they won’t)
Funny to hear disgruntled back benchers talking about being bullied and lack of consultation. Was there are more controlling and authoritarian leader than Howard? They just dont like Turnbull and he doesnt have the authority od having won an election
The Liberal backbenchers clearly want to fight the next election on pro Climate change issues. Greenhouse gases will always be higher under a coalition government!
Andrew – your comment a couple of pages back re the quiet on ‘asylum seekers’ now that we don’t have an hysterical leader is about to be tested.
Sharmyn Stone this am on RN was in full blast about Rudd’s failed policy on this. Of course she didn’t really have any answers except that hearsay tells her than the UNHCF (?) is corrupt and Rudd is doing nothing about it.
But she and Turnbull are determined to get this story going again – watch TPD and Pies get on to it again.
Watched an immigration debate on Fora ABC2 while getting dinner yesterday – pretty good debate and the positive side won 61% to 31% , but it seemed to be an educated audience so no tabloid stuff would have been acceptable there.
Sweeping statement, for which one identified, plus three unidentified Liberals provide support. Add in Tuckey and the Senator (whose name escapes me at the moment) and that’s 6. And they haven’t even been shown the instruments of torture yet.
A report due to be released soon is apparently going to show a significant drop in emissions due to the GFC, so no doubt the Libs will try and use that as an excuse to further argue against the urgency of an ETS introduction.
Bird of paradox @ 833
Thnx for that background. And i agree that the circumstances such as the result of the corruption and one nation can not be replicated as some probably will never vote labor again. As i stated early i dont think Labor can win the electorate or even urban Geraldton, but might come alot closer than a blowout to the liberals. I am guessing that labor was never going to win Colac in Corangamite. But if they hadn’t tried to drive down the margin they would not have won.
it is just looking at the 2007 federal results it seems that there is almost nowhere to go but up. If there is a good swing across WA i think Labor could aim for an Honorable loss instead of a blowout and make up for it somewhere else like in Karratha and Newman. I am pretty sure in 2007 Labor only won a single booth (barely at that!) in Geraldton. Maybe they can aim for 2 or even 3 😛
Yeah it was quite funny when Alison Carabine said to Stone “so will a coalition government just reject all asylum seekers aboard boats”, and Stone could only say, um, “No.”.
In other words, the Liberals are playing their usual game of pretending they would do things radically differently, when they actually wouldn’t.
Apparently so far this year over 400 asylum seekers that arrived on boats have been found to be refugees, while just 21 have been rejected. There is roughly 50,000 people in Australia who are illegal immigrants, about half of these are tourists and students from the UK who have over stayed their visas, and by law should now be in immigration detention.
Bob before you tell other people to catch up best do so yourself 😛
This was posted at 3.30pm yesterday
Then at 1019pm (after Kev has done the CC I might add!) you post an earlier newsarticle saying that he wouldn’t be there!
On his illness, he told the crowd that both he and Penny Wong had picked up a bug in the US, he was drinking lots of water through the CC and at the end of it Chris Evans told the crowd that he was getting whiter and whiter as it progressed.
Kev apoligised to the health workers ahead of time just incase he didn’t make it out of bed in the morning to attend the Geraldton hospital meeting to discuss health care reforms.
He seemed to get a good reception, 3 Aboriginals got to ask questions and they all thanked Kev for the Apology.
A wool grower had ideas for saving energy and someone else aked Kev if he could please make the A$ lower. Rudd piped up halway through the question that “it’s not my fault” big grin on face and to much laughter.
He was the first PM to visit Geraldton since Menzies, it was his 2nd time in 5 months and made a wise crack about them only having to wait 5mths and not 55yrs between PM visits.
Vera – Kev seemed to get a good reception at Geraldton even tho it’s not a Labor seat.
Oh gawd, just heard Malcolm saying on the news “I am a hard working man”. He might be a hard worker but he’s a careless politician.
Glen @ 822
Real Time with Bill Maher – my favourite panel political discussion show – has 3 panellists with a 4th one brought in about half-way through. It’s always entertaining and well worth grabbing off the intertubes however Bill Maher probably makes it the masterpiece that it is.
Q&A may be better off dumping the live audience questions. I think Tony could ask far better questions of the panellists than the audience members.
BTW Vera – who was the youngish pollie(?) who introduced Kev. He usually allows the sitting pollie to introduce them but I missed her name.
If it’s Tuckey’s seat why wasn’t he there. lol.
Another earthquake, this time near Tonga:
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,27574,26155067-29277,00.html
Deconst – we used to watch Bill Maher on Mondays – Comedy 9.30 p.m. Where has he gone. Hasn’t been on last couple of weeks. I luv him nearly as much as Jon Stewart
mine too.
AFAIK he’s still on Monday nights (he was this week anyway).
BH
Yesterday afternoon on way home in car ABC newsradio 602 (I think?) in there news update said something about the govt misleading people on the number of refugee arrivals.
I haven’t heard it mentioned since.
They also said go to their online poll about were the recent earthquakes and disasters due to climate change and that it was running 70/30 against. When I checked it out the poll was written as, if you thought the disasters were connected, no mention of CC.
The young lady at the CC was a Senator I’m not 100% sure but I think she was Louise Pratt.
Frank will know.
Morgan out (early?)
http://www.roymorgan.com/news/polls/2009/4420/
LNP gains ground – ALP 59.5% (down 2.5%); L-NP 40.5% (up 2.5%)
And in what is sure to generate some good digs on PB (see bold):
ALP primary support is down 0.5% to 51% and the L-NP is up 3% to 35.5%. Support for the Greens is 7.5% (down 2%), support for Family First is unchanged at 2% and Independents/ Others are 4% (down 0.5%).
Morgan also has its unemployment survey results out as well showing a fall in unemployment of 0.5%:
http://www.roymorgan.com/news/polls/2009/4419/
I don’t remember a time when their Fran Kelly has been less impressed by a coalition pollie. She made a withering comment on Stone’s non-answer at the end of the segment
Jack the Insiders killer line:
“While Bob Brown is a good and decent man, his party has become infected by refugees from the extreme left wing who have hung their shingles out under the smoke screen of environmental activism.”
The rest is worth a read – it’s about time someone put the boot into that tool Sylvia Hale over her McGurk idiocy.
http://blogs.theaustralian.news.com.au/jacktheinsider/index.php/theaustralian/comments/10_green_reasons_for_no_double_dissolution#61291
Re the Morgan Poll, looks like 2% of the Greens voters have switched to their Senate co-alition partners 👿
Sorry, couldn’t help having a dig 😀
I’ll say no more!
Who pays attention to Morgan?
Bill Maher is fine, except when he talks about medicine, then he turns into a complete wackaloon who opposes most vaccination, doesn’t think HIV causes AIDS, and advocates quackery for people suffering cancer including to people who’s lives were saved thanks to medical treatment of their cancer (Arlen Spector)!
http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2007/10/is_bill_maher_really_that_ignorant_part.php
Here’s Bill Maher on Twitter telling people they are idiots for getting the swine flu vaccine: http://twitter.com/billmaher/status/4403617471
He even wrote a blurb endorsing a book that says HIV doesn’t cause AIDS:
http://www.aliveandwell.org/html/top_bar_pages/whatif_eng.html
Indeed, Diogenes. And Frank, I hope this doesn’t steal your thunder:
http://au.search.yahoo.com/search?ei=UTF-8&fr=slv8-mcafee&p=shine+on+you+crazy+diamond&SpellState=n-3679869427_q-dZiDW6aA.qH9Oe54EW%2FCxwAAAA%40%40&fr2=sp-qrw-corr-top
Quoth Jack the Insider:
Is that so, Jack? They need 14.5% of the primary vote, do they, Jack? What % of the primary vote did Sarah Hanson-Young poll, Jack? Could it have been 6.4%, Jack?
Jack obviously hasn’t heard of preferences.
this link
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vyqgjCKm9nQ&feature=player_embedded
Is what?
Yes that irritated me too.
His ‘skank of America’ jokes are starting to grate as well – time to give it a rest I feel.
Thanks Vera – OH just said you’re right. She was introduced as Louise Pratt.
Hadn’t notice that Showson so I’d better take more notice. He does go ‘off’ a bit sometimes but he breaks the boredom with telly for us.
Critics just anonymous smartarses, says Turnbull
http://www.news.com.au/adelaidenow/story/0,22606,26155108-5005962,00.html
LOL! Notice how he just completely ignores Wilson Tuckey? Smart move.
NewsRadio is doing a Liberal leadership poll, the options are Turnbull, Hockey, Abbott, Andrew Robb, and – I kid you not – Phar Lap:
http://www.abc.net.au/newsradio/supp/poll/default.htm
You do, but only when the Greens vote increases 👿
http://blogs.crikey.com.au/pollbludger/2009/08/21/morgan-58-42-5/comment-page-1/#comments
Just what every failed leader who’s about to get necked says. “The challenge” has become such a ritual in Australian politics that everyone knows their lines perfectly. Next we need Hockey and Abbott to declare “100% loyalty” to Turnbull and to say “there is no challenge” over and over. Then we’ll know he’s cooked.
Read 885.
That was in reply to post 2 of that thread.
Nobody except Labor hacks take Morgan seriously.
Seriously Psephos, don’t you admire what Turnbull did yesterday? He is trying to politely tell his colleagues that if they don’t get an ETS of some sort passed before the next election they’ll lose in a landslide. He is going a step further and saying that if the partyroom wants to block the CPRS, they will first need to get rid of their leader. I admire what he has done., he just should’ve done it 6 months ago.
Pretty stupid statement Bob.
I doubt that Turnbull would be challenged. Who would it be? Not Hockey as his stances are the same as Malcolms. Not Abbott because even the Libs know he’s unelectable outside the North Shore. Not Bishop because she’s mad. Not Robb. I saw that Turnbull was at $1.90 to lead the Libs to the next election. If I were a gambling man I’d take those odds.
[NewsRadio is doing a Liberal leadership poll, the options are Turnbull, Hockey, Abbott, Andrew Robb, and – I kid you not – Phar Lap:
http://www.abc.net.au/newsradio/supp/poll/default.htm%5D
ROFL: so far it is Phar Lap by a length from Hockey.
Abbott has just done that on ABC World at Noon, Psephos