The latest fortnightly Roy Morgan face-to-face survey finds Labor maintaining the remarkable upward trend it has recorded across recent polling: its primary vote is up 2.5 per cent to 52 per cent, the Coalition’s is up 0.5 per cent to 34.5 per cent, while the Greens, Family First and independent/others are all down. On two-party preferred, Labor’s lead has edged up from 60-40 to 60.5-39.5. The pattern is further demonstrated by the latest Reuters Poll Trend aggregate, which finds Labor’s two-party lead has crept steadily upwards since June, and has now increased to 59.0-41.0 from 58.0-42.0 a month ago. George Megalogenis of The Australian offers an exquisitely simple hypothesis: “the women swing first, then the men”. This was apparently the pattern when the current governments in New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia were elected (I suggest One Nation complicated the picture in Queensland and Western Australia), and it gives every appearance of playing out at present federally. However, there is the curious exception of men under 35, many of whom seem to have abandoned Labor since the onset of the financial crisis.
Other news:
• Phillip Coorey of the Sydney Morning Herald reports Julia Gillard is “working behind the scenes” to save the career of Laurie Ferguson, a fellow member of the “soft Left” faction who backed the Rudd/Gillard coup against Kim Beazley in December 2006. Ferguson has been left high-and-dry by the effective abolition of his western Sydney seat of Reid, the redrawn seat of that name being the effective successor to its abolished neighbour Lowe. However, Ferguson’s efforts to find a new home are being resisted by the “hard Left” faction of Anthony Albanese. Coorey reports Ferguson believes he has the numbers to win a local preselection vote in Fowler, to be vacated with the retirement of Julia Irwin, but it seems at least as likely that this and other contentious seats will be filled by the decree of Kevin Rudd and the panel of factional leaders which was empowered to make final determinations through a recent change to the party constitution. VexNews intimates that if denied, Ferguson might look at “obtaining support for a potentially expensive and spectacular legal challenge”.
• Paul Sheehan of the Sydney Morning Herald had an interesting piece last week on the Liberal preselection for Cook ahead of the last federal election, which saw the dumping of the initially victorious Michael Towke and his eventual substitution with Scott Morrison. Towke’s Right faction lost the PR battle at the time (as my own electorate profile attests), but as Sheehan tells it, talk that Towke had fudged his CV had little or no foundation in fact. Rather, he was a victim of “a view among some senior Liberals” – evidently including John Howard – that “a Lebanese Australian could not win Cook in a tight election”. It will be recalled that the expanse of southern Sydney covered by the electorate includes Cronulla. Sheehan also relates that the Daily Telegraph’s reporting of Towke’s preselection led to a defamation action which was settled out-of-court with a payment of $50,000.
• Peter Caton of the Tweed Daily News reports the Nationals are struggling to find candidates to run against Labor incumbents Justine Elliot, in the one-time party stronghold of Richmond, and Janelle Saffin, in its marginal neighbour Page. The only known candidate for the latter is Kevin Hogan, who according to The Northern Star “runs his own finance business from his Clunes cattle farm”.
• Pat Farmer, the Liberal member for Macarthur, has as expected been soundly defeated for preselection by Russell Matheson, a police sergeant and former mayor of Campbelltown. The margin was 22 votes to nine.
• Rick Wallace of The Australian reports the Victorian ALP will follow the footsteps of the NSW Nationals by choosing a state election candidate through a US-style primary. Whereas the Nationals are still to decide which seat in which to conduct their experiment, Labor has earmarked the Liberal-held marginal of Kilsyth. The decision stems from a cross-factional committee report which also recommends reinvigorating the party organisation by slashing membership fees.
• VexNews reports that Louise Staley, who has previously sought federal preselection for Wannon and Menzies, is now hoping for a state berth in the country seat of Ripon, which Labor’s Joe Helper holds on a margin of 4.4 per cent. Staley is a former state party vice-president and Institute of Public Affairs agriculture policy expert. Also said to have nominated are “John van Beveren, a local winery owner and education professor and Vic Dunn, the local inspector at Maryborough”.
• The Australian Review of Public Affairs has published my review article on Australia: The State of Democracy, written by Marian Sawer, Norman Abjorensen and Phil Larkin through the auspices of the Democratic Audit of Australia and published by The Federation Press.
Plenty happening in Tasmania:
• Labor’s troubled first-term member for Bass, Jodie Campbell, has confirmed she will not contest the next election. Geoff Lyons, a staffer to Senator Helen Polley, has been mentioned as a possible successor, which would see the seat’s factional alignment transfer from Left to Right. The Liberals have preselected Steve Titmus, a former television news reader and PR consultant for Gunns Ltd. The winner will be the seat’s sixth member in less than two decades. UPDATE: The Launceston Examiner reports that the new candidate is likely to be determined by prime ministerial fiat “after the dust settles”, and that there is a second potential candidate in Winnaleah District High School principal Brian Wightman, who is currently pencilled in as one of six candidates for the Bass state election ticket.
• Terry Martin, independent member for the northern Hobart upper house division of Elwick, faces criminal charges which regardless of their merits are politically lethal by nature. Martin was elected as a Labor member in 2004, but was expelled by the party in March 2007 after crossing the floor to vote against the government’s fast-tracking of the proposed Tamar Valley pulp mill. He is due to face re-election at the next round of periodical elections in May; a by-election need not be held if the seat is vacated after January 1.
• Sue Neales of The Mercury reports the Liberals have finalised their state election ticket for Denison, adding “renewable energy lawyer Matthew Groom, businesswoman and former Miss Tasmania Sue Hickey, and high-profile school parents advocate and Glenorchy councillor Jenny Branch” to the already announced Michael Hodgman (the sole incumbent), Elise Archer and Matt Stevenson.
• Tasmanian government legislation for fixed terms has been referred to a committee, scuppering any chance of it being passed in the week remaining before a recess that will last until the election. Premier David Bartlett nonetheless swears that the election will be held on March 20, again locking the psephological community into the headache of simultaneous elections in South Australia and Tasmania.
Elsewhere on the site, note that it’s all happening on the Willagee by-election thread, while things are ticking over more slowly yet still surely on the Bradfield and Higgins threads. Observe also the New South Wales Newspoll post immediately below.
Oh dear Malcolm. Is that the best you can do?
http://www.news.com.au/business/story/0,27753,26293629-31037,00.html
[China stimulus boosted our recovery – Turnbull
CHINA has had a bigger impact on Australia’s economic recovery than the Federal Government’s stimulus package, Opposition Leader Malcolm Turnbull said.
The Government released its 2009/10 Mid-Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook today, saying the economy was now expected to grow 1.5 per cent in 2009/10, a sharp turnaround from the May budget forecast of a 0.5 per cent contraction.
Unemployment was now expected to peak at 6.75 per cent in 2009/10 rather than the 8.5 per cent in 2010/11.
Treasurer Wayne Swan has attributed the improved economic outlook to the Government’s fiscal stimulus measures and the Reserve Bank’s lowering of interest rates.
But Mr Turnbull said the Government’s spending had little impact on the improved economic outlook.
“The Government’s stimulus spending has been poorly directed and we have not had good value for money from it,” he said at a property business lunch in Sydney.
The demand by China for Australia’s natural resources had been more significant, he said.
“I think the Chinese Government’s stimulus probably had more impact on us than our own Government,” Mr Turnbull said. ]
People stopped listening to Mal some time back.
Frank, I ABC720 has lost .8% and 6PR have gained .4% since the last survey. Obviously .4% of the ABC audience consider Geoff Hutchison’s version of pro Liberal extremism less palatable than Howard Sattler’s.
Nothing wrong with Morgan at all if like all the others they stick to their method. It the trend that counts.
[Frank, I ABC720 has lost .8% and 6PR have gained .4% since the last survey. Obviously .4% of the ABC audience consider Geoff Hutchison’s version of pro Liberal extremism less palatable than Howard Sattler’s.]
That’s in the 10+ demographic – check out the 55+ Column – 6PR has got that demographic all sewn up.
VP,
[59% say push rather than pull. Just like govt 2PP.]
What that tells me is that the wider electorate out here in voterland is “not” listening to Malcolm Turnbullin any shape or form.
They have totally switched off to him (probably since OzCar) and I don’t think he can recover that.
The Parliamentary Liberal Party have a collective headache at the moment, they have a Leader who not only can’t lead, but no one wants to follow anyway and they have “no” policy stance on “anything” that any of them can agree on! Whooo…..
Possum on the Essential Research poll.
Is it me or are Kevin Rudds contradictory stance(s) on the boat people exactly reflected in responces in the Essential Research Poll. SPOOOOKY!
Sorry if i missed it, but did anyone catch Piers’ tirade in the OO on the weekend calling for a federal minister to be sacked?? Which one, you ask?? Isnt that obviouse, isnt there a big crisis implicating a minister?? Nicola Roxon, apparently. A parallel universe poor Piers lives in
A large majority (66%) approve of Rudd’s relatively tough policy on boat arrivals. But a small majority (52%) think that arrivals have increased because of Rudd’s “soft” policies. This is rather contradictory, but the broad message is that people want a tough policy. And that is what they will get. The Libs are probably getting a bit of traction on this, but on the evidence of this poll not very much. We will see what Newspoll says. But one point is clear – only a small minority want us to go in the opposite direction, towards the Greens’ policy.
Did Piers ever call for a Howard minister to be sacked?
Dario at 901
[Oh dear Malcolm. Is that the best you can do?]
Laocoon and several hundred of his closest friends were at that lunch with Malcolm Turnbull and Aussie John Symonds today.
Few observations. Started off with some repartee from the facilitator about Turnbull’s interview with Alan Jones; I assume it was not great for Turnbull, as I noticed, as someone posted here the other day, his body language went to left fist on hip.
Turnbull talked about all this stuff on the economy going well for reasons mainly other than the stimulus; his first reason for Oz economy going well was strong financial position inherited from previous government; second was strong regulation of the financial system from previous government. He did say that he was not calling for all the stimulus to go (his property industry audience wouldn’t like some economic infrastructure spending to be curtailed I suspect). However, he wants it “recalibrated”…is it my imagination, but isn’t that a Ruddism? That was ridiculed by the opposition
Was asked a good question on whether Australia should emulate the UK where, apparently, the government is looking to set up some new banks to increase banking competition. He just rabbitted on about the bank guarantee at 100k, not a million; even the friendly audience was getting a bit restive at that point.
But the very last question, when I thought it was all safe, what happened…he raised those 3 classrooms at damned Abbotsford Public School again! Nearly fell off my chair. QT redux.
So Dario, I think that, alas, the Abbotsford Public School seems to be the best he can do.
[Labor and Coalition voters were more likely than Green voters to think the Federal Government is doing the right thing in discouraging peoplesmuggling
and turning back the boats (72% Labor, 69% Liberal v 51% Green).]
Oh dear 51% of Greens think the boats should be turned back!
[So Dario, I think that, alas, the Abbotsford Public School seems to be the best he can do]
Wouldn’t it be hilarious if his election campaign included a visit there! (provided he makes it that far of course)
Oh noes – Green voters are racist fascist xenophobes just like the rest of us! Who can bob et al turn to?
[Oh noes – Green voters are racist fascist xenophobes just like the rest of us! Who can bob et al turn to?]
The Socialst Alliance 🙂
[Did Piers ever call for a Howard minister to be sacked?]
Lol! Porky Piers would rather gnaw off his own beefy leg than say a word against Howard or anyone in the Coalition.
Cuppa
“Porcine” rather than “beefy”?
[t’s pretty obvious the Indonesians won’t rescue anyone regardless of where they are, if they can get us to do it, so then we have to take the people off their hands. Rudd can’t say anything critical of Indonesia]
Herr Doktor, there is no point in keep on pointing the fingers at Indonesia. Indonesia is an archipelago of some over 15,000 islands. There are a lot of inter island ferries and there are a lot of ferry accidents. They dont even have enough resources to rescue their own people when these ferry accidents happened. Thousands died each year, just as in the Phillipines. So why should they care about few hundreds uninvited and unwelcome refugees. Get real.
[Thirty-nine people were believed to have been on board the vessel when it began taking on water about 7am yesterday, a spokesman for Home Affairs Minister Brendan O’Connor said.
A total of 19 people, all males aged between 20 and 40, have been plucked alive from the sea so far, while a life raft had been dropped down to a group of between two and five people in the water about 3pm (AEDT), the spokesman said.]
http://www.smh.com.au/world/ocean-rescue-as-boat-sinks-off-australia-20091102-hrt7.html?autostart=1
This tragedy again shows that the only solution is to process these refugees as near to the source as possible. Sri Lanka, India, Malaysia and Indonesia, with Australia as the last resort. Indonesian Solution is still better than the Australian Solution.
BK
What’s the adjective from Buffo?
[ Labor and Coalition voters were more likely than Green voters to think the Federal Government is doing the right thing in discouraging peoplesmuggling
and turning back the boats (72% Labor, 69% Liberal v 51% Green). ]
That’s very interesting. Labor voters are to the right of Liberal voters on treatment of refugees. I wonder if those figures would be the same if Howard was the PM rather than Rudd. 😉
Cuppa,
If I may be allowed: buffo is also an adjective.
Cuppa
This may help http://www.thefreedictionary.com/porcine
Imagine Ackerman, Bolt and Milne all locked up in a padded cell, driven insane after the Liberals are belted in the next election!
Silly question by Lyndal Curtis to the PM on PM: “If you cut back on the stimulus spending, won’t that cause more people to lose their jobs?”
Can they find any other way of spinning the govt’s approach to the economy?
Just in from Getup.
[Dear Frank,
With the tragic news over the weekend that another group of asylum seekers may be missing at sea, it is time for our politicians to stop using their plight as a political football.
For years GetUp members have stood shoulder to shoulder with like-minded Australians to defend some of the world’s most vulnerable people. We all thought that shameful chapter of Australian history had closed forever. In 2009, sadly, it hasn’t.
Whether they’re Labor or Liberal, our political leaders feel they have to talk tough on asylum seekers. Why? Because of the perception, real or imagined, that the Australian community is xenophobic. We’ll never change the politics until we counter that perception.
Your voice has the power to change that view. Tomorrow, as you gather with friends, family and colleagues for the race that stops a nation, there’s a good chance the topic will come up in conversation – so we’ve prepared this myth-busting factsheet to help make you a champion of tolerance and truth:
http://www.getup.org.au/campaign/ChampionsOfTruth
More minds are changed by discussions between families over the kitchen table and among friends and colleagues in the workplace than they are by pundits and politicians. Tomorrow, in every corner of the nation, more conversations will be taking place than on almost any other day of the year.
Thanks to those hostile to the rights of asylum-seekers, and some sensationalist and irresponsible media coverage, a lot of Australians’ opinions are being formed by disinformation and myth. And it’s those Australians Kevin Rudd is listening to. Tomorrow, you can help counter their influence.
We’ve all sent emails and signed petitions, but if we’re going to stop this happening every time a boat arrives we need to tackle the issue at its source. Click here to counter these myths, and help put an end to the ugly politics of fear:
http://www.getup.org.au/campaign/ChampionsOfTruth
In 2009 our papers and parliament are still full of the shameful intolerance that tarnished the first years of this century. With the issue in the headlines, and our factsheet in your hands, you can be on hand to take a stand once more for the Australia we want to be.
Thanks for being a part of the solution,
The GetUp team
PS – When children were behind razor-wire, when refugees were billed for their detention, when asylum-seekers were exploited for political expediency, the Australian community was there to rally behind tolerance and decency. Tomorrow, your help is needed again. Become a myth-buster with our handy factsheet.]
And Joe Hockey: “We weren’t in a recession so why did we have to spend so much money?” Dullard.
Ahh, the only time Essential is reported by Limited News.
[A MAJORITY of voters believe the Federal Government’s dismantling of the Coalition’s border protection regime is to blame for a surge in asylum seekers heading to Australia.
More than half of those surveyed also believe there is a real prospect terrorists are among asylum seekers arriving by boat, and want the Government to turn them back.
In a weekly online poll by consultants Essential Research, 52 per cent of those surveyed said the Government was weak on border protection, leading to more asylum seeker boats entering Australian waters.
Just 21 per cent disagreed, while the remainder were undecided.
Just 36 per cent of those surveyed supported the Government’s handling of the asylum seeker issue.
But results do not translate into support for the Opposition, with only 21 per cent saying a Coalition government would do a better job.
A total of 37 asylum seeker boats carrying almost 2000 people have been intercepted in Australian waters this year. ]
http://www.news.com.au/perthnow/story/0,21598,26294148-5005361,00.html
Yes Frank, and the 2PP was carefully omitted from the article too 😉
News Ltd today was even trying to put a positive/pro Liberal spin on the Newspoll from Victoria – they are so predictable!
Frank
That stuff from GetUp has the latest figures on which countries take the most refugees per capita. It says we come 20th out of 44. Malta is the highest.
Malta being top is not surprising as they have a massive S&R area which was a legacy from the colonial days. They don’t want to give this up as they see it as a key to keeping their oil exploration areas as well.
Any hints on Newspoll from Sky? You’d think if it was good for the Libs, they’d be bragging about it!
Malta is 300 sq kms. Where do they put them?
And they even spin a Literary Prize as a negative for Rudd.
[The Boat enters and PM doesn’t turn it away]
but after the headline it reads:
[A 30-year-old Vietnamese immigrant has added the prestigious fiction prize of the Prime Minister’s Literary Awards to his already impressive list of accolades.
Melbourne resident Nam Le’s book of short stories, titled The Boat, was among the prize-winners revealed at ceremony in Sydney today.
In announcing Nam’s $100,000 fiction prize, federal Arts Minister Peter Garrett said his work was evidence of the depth of young writing talent in Australia.
“Here we have a young writer with such great promise and he gets the recognition he so justly deserves,” he said.
“Australian literary culture is alive, healthy and well.”
Le, born in Vietnam and raised in Australia, has now won 11 literary prizes since 2007, including the NSW Premier’s Literary Award for Book of the Year and the Dylan Thomas Prize.
The Boat features stories written from diverse perspectives, including that of a young American woman visiting Tehran and an Australian teenager dealing with love and the impending death of his mother.
It includes two stories set against the backdrop of the Vietnam War.]
http://www.news.com.au/perthnow/story/0,21598,26294540-5005361,00.html
Frank,
Now changed to:
[The Boat enters and PM rewards it]
[Frank,
Now changed to:
The Boat enters and PM rewards it]
What sneaky so and so’s.
[Malta is 300 sq kms. Where do they put them?]
It’s certainly a tight squeeze. They’re ranked the 7th highest population density in the world…
There are more Maltese living in Australia than in Malta.
There are more ethnic Maltese in many parts of the world than in Malta …
[Labor voters are to the right of Liberal voters on treatment of refugees.]
Well duh. Who do you think Howard was dog-whistling to in 2001? The socially-conservative Anglo-Irish working-class – traditional Labor voters but susceptible to dog-whistling on issues like this. The old Australian working class was always hostile to immigration, especially non-white immigration. Today that class has largely been swamped by the new multicultural working class, but there’s enough of it left to make a difference electorally, especially in regional cities and some outer suburban areas. It swung to Howard on Tampa in 2001, then swung back in 2007 on WorkChoices. Now the Libs are trying to get it back again. Rudd knows all about this: the socially-conservative working-class is especially strong in Qld, which is significantly less multicultural than NSW and Vic.
[There are more Maltese living in Australia than in Malta.
]
An urban myth, like Melbourne having more Greeks than Athens. The population of Malta is about 400,000. There are about 150,000 Australians of Maltese birth or descent.
According to Laurie Oakes on the News Labor can take the blame for any interest rate rises from now on.
[According to Laurie Oakes on the News Labor can take the blame for any interest rate rises from now on]
Hahahahahaha
[According to Laurie Oakes on the News Labor can take the blame for any interest rate rises from now on.]
Poor old Laurie Bloats – pissed off at Rudd for not cleaning his properly when Kev was a starving student in Canberra all those years ago ? 🙂
Charmin’ Sharman putting up an execrable performance on Australia Talks.
Why didn’t you oppose the legislation? We did, on the voices.
What are you going to reintroduce? Just trust me.
Yeah Frank, I bet bloody Kev was sitting on Laurie’s lounge, drinking his beer and watching the cricket instead of cleaning the joint 👿
from Twitter:
[@latikambourke Kevin Rudd says Malcolm Turnbull ‘not tough enough’ to frame a policy on border protection. @Radio2UE]
I see my name has been taken in vain today re. my use of the word “hijackers” to describe the people on the OV.
Case #1
Someone gets on a plane, pays for the ticket. Half way through the flight they threaten to blow up the plane or otherwise enact violence to the point of their own death unless it takes them where they want to go. No-one has any problem with them being called “hijackers”.
Case #2
Someone is invited on board a ship, they are actually rescued from drowning by that ship. When the ship approaches port they threaten violence (some even say they are prepared to die rather than get off the boat, implying a violent resistance to disembarkation) unless it takes them where they want to go.. But these are not hijackers. Instead they are the poor downtrodden victims of a cruel war in Sri Lanka, who happen to have been in Indonesia for years waiting for an opportunity to rent a boat to come to Australia and can’t believe their luck when an Aussie ship picks them up.
Please explain the difference between the two: the hijacker of the plane and the hijacker of the ship. Why is one a criminal and the other a saint?
Re. Joe ockey:
[…“the recession we never had”….]
Only a couple of months ago he was calling it “The Rudd Recession”. Does he really think the voters have forgotten that? Continuing on with this tosh about the Labor government having nothing to do with our staying out of recession is in complete contradiction to the opinions of a large majority of the voters, as polled many times. He is essentially asserting that they are wrong. With no evidence. If I was a voter (and I am) I’d be insulted.
According to the 1986 census figures,Psephos you are correct. But from the wikipedia article I liked this bit, which makes us always feel like there are 400,000 of us. 🙂
[The Maltese in Australia stand proudly as a medium-sized ethnic community whose achievements have consistently been disproportionately greater than their numerical strength.]