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.
[An urban myth, like Melbourne having more Greeks than Athens.]
I’d heard it that Melbourne had more Greeks than any city except Athens. Is that true?
[ Labor voters are to the right of Liberal voters on treatment of refugees.
Well duh.]
I have been enlightened.
They will not be settling them in tree houses on Malta – it’s denuded of trees (was in 2004, anyway)
It’s increasingly obvious that the media is bored with the Endless Rudd Honeymoon and that they want to cut him down to size and even up the competition so that they have more drama to sell their crap products. Rudd cannot get credit at the moment for anything he does, in any section of the media, with the only partial exception of the Fairfax papers (The Age is too busy hating the Vic ALP government to care about federal politics.)
Two words, Muskiemp, Godwin Grech. The man who single handedly brought down the Liberal Party of Australia.
Yes indeed, Australia has a lot to thank Malta for! 🙂
[I have been enlightened.]
Did you think all Labor voters were leftish intellectuals in St Peters? Go out to Parafield and chat to some Labor voters about boat arrivals.
[(The Age is too busy hating the Vic ALP government to care about federal politics.)]
Psephos,
I assume you may disahgree with this statement over in the Victorian thread ?
[Maybe there is just not enough scrutiny by the media – take the ABC for one – only Jon Faine (8:30 – midday) takes the pollies to task – and he does. Drive time is just froth and bubble – the times are gone when Virginia Trioli would get stuck into a politican at 5:30pm. As for The Age – if ever there was a newspaper that was dying on its feet it is it – editorial getting thinner by the day and the tone getting shriller by the day – I don’t think anyone outside Zone 1 reads it anymore – and the votes are to be won in Zone 2 and the outer commuter belt.]
http://blogs.crikey.com.au/pollbludger/2009/11/02/newspoll-57-43-to-labor-in-victoria-2/comment-page-1/#comment-345824
BB
Given the opinion you share with Fielding and the logic in that post, can you assure us you are not actually Steve Fielding.
[It’s increasingly obvious that the media is bored with the Endless Rudd Honeymoon and that they want to cut him down to size and even up the competition so that they have more drama to sell their crap products.]
I think this is a far more interesting allegation than that all media outlets which criticize the government have a pro-Liberal bias. The bias is towards ensuring that there is sufficient competition that any conflict between contestants is more interesting, more ‘newsworthy’ and more interesting to the audiences of the media outlets.
[I’d heard it that Melbourne had more Greeks than any city except Athens. Is that true?]
Yes, that’s what I’ve heard too Dio, but it isn’t true either.
Diog,
I am not Steve Fielding. We share the use of a word, not a world view. As no-one has answered my question I assume we can put the use of the word “hijackers” to bed with, “Yes, they are”.
[I think this is a far more interesting allegation than that all media outlets which criticize the government have a pro-Liberal bias. The bias is towards ensuring that there is sufficient competition that any conflict between contestants is more interesting, more ‘newsworthy’ and more interesting to the audiences of the media outlets.]
Actually I think the media is interested in a tighter competition because it increases their perceived power to influence the electorate. It is not only the Liberal suffering from relevance withdrawal symptoms.
Yes Fulvio, Grech ended up being OUR mole. The Libs got sucked in nicely.
It’s funny that the media didn’t happen to have the same interest in ‘competition’ during the long reign of Dear Leader’
Well I agree that the Age is increasingly crap, but that doesn’t contradict my view that it has an obsessive hatred of the Vic ALP Right and therefore of the Brumby government. Paul Austin’s despicable campaign to blame Brumby for the bushfires was the last straw for me. I now only look at the Age (apart from the football pages) when I have to. The only papers I read now with any respect are the SMH and the AFR.
I posit that the media want a return of the Liberal Gravy Train. Billions to go their way again, ala Howard’s expenditure on government advertising. They despise Kevin Rudd because he’s derailed the Gravy Train.
Well, that’s our story, Muskiemp, and we’re sticking to it!
Will Hockey ever say “The Rudd recession we never had”?
He’s been working hard at being hopeless.
BB
1. They haven’t threatened violence. The crew has never said they were in any danger. The crew is armed. The refugees are not.
2. The plane hijacker boards specifically with the intent to threaten violence. The refugees did not.
Surely hijacking is forcing the commander of a vehicle to take an action which they do not wish to do, whether a change of destination or stay at a destination when the commander wishes to leave.
The are malingering refugees: Malingerees
Hijack involves seizing control of a vehicle. The Australian Customs are in control of the ship. Hijack is illegal. I haven’t seen any member of the Government say what the refugees is doing is illegal.
[A TRADESMAN working on Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s Brisbane home has been involved in a serious accident.
The workman was cleaning the gutters at the Rudd’s family home in Norman Crescent, Norman Park when it is understood he fell to the ground, The Courier-Mail reported.
Workcover Queensland are investigating the incident and the tradesman is receiving medical treatment at a Brisbane hospital. ]
How long before someone asks why Rudd’s home is a death-trap and is he too lazy to clean his own gutters? (I see quite a few people injured each year falling off roofs while cleaning their gutters. A few die)
Dio,
Glen Milne will probably create a link between the unfortunate tradesman’s injury and 15 year old pink batts in the PM’s roof.
[The workman was cleaning the gutters at the Rudd’s family home in Norman Crescent, Norman Park when it is understood he fell to the ground, The Courier-Mail reported. ]
Hmm, publishing the street name of where the PM’s house is is a welcome invitations for bored kiddies and assorted other whackaloons to cause a bit of trouble – hope there is adequate security ?
[1. They haven’t threatened violence. The crew has never said they were in any danger. The crew is armed. The refugees are not.]
Please. Some of them have allegedly said they are prepared to die resisting a forced disembarkation. Presumably this could involve some violence against the crew. If they are not intending to harm the crew (i.e. to be carried off passively) why has this not happened? There is clearly a risk assessment that anticipates potential violence deom the hijackers. There are many more of them than the crew. They have the threat of overwhelming force against the crew if they are pushed to it. Until that happens, they need the crew, just as (in most cases, with the exception of the 9/11 hijacks) aircraft hijackers need the pilot to remain functioning. You are splitting hairs, as usual.
[2. The plane hijacker boards specifically with the intent to threaten violence. The refugees did not.]
Oh right… So if you get on a plane not intending to hijack it, but end up deciding to hijack it after it’s taken off, when an opportunity presents itself, then that’s OK? More hair-splitting.
[The workman was described as five feet tall with bouffant grey hair, and smelling strongly of bourbon. As he was carried away he was heard to mutter “Bloody Rudd and hish bloody honeymoon, bloody pink batsh… I knows he’s up to shomething in there… Nesht time I’ll find out, and it’ll be all over for Mr Shmartypantsh Rudd.. I hope Malcolm appreciates the thingsh I does for him…”]
Dio #971
Interesting point, but I don’t fully agree – hijackers don’t control an aircraft – the pilot still is in control…but he needs to control the aircraft to where the hijackers need it to go (in order to avoid some threat of violence.
There is a useful distinction between ‘hijacking’ and ‘takeover’ (ie when the pilot is actually replaced like the 9/11 aircraft).
IF the crew of the MV Oceanic Viking are operating the ship, but can’t leave port for fear of violence among their human cargo, I would consider that ship to be hijacked.
Adam how have you managed defending common sense vis a vis the Oceanic Viking?
There are some unholy alliances being forged on this thread… 🙂
How low can thgey go in trying to dent Rudd’s standing in the electorate and his record popularity?
Well about this low! This one is drawing a “looooong” straw indeed!
[Kevin Rudd’s cousin-in-law, Tom Hulett, on lobbyist list]
[KEVIN Rudd’s former adviser as well as his cousin-in-law have quietly popped up on the list of registered lobbyists in Queensland, while several former politicians have disappeared from the list.
The Queensland government’s register of lobbyists shows former Maroochy Shire councillor Tom Hulett is registered as a lobbyist with Open Door Consulting, the company established and previously owned by the Prime Minister’s brother Greg.
While Greg Rudd has sold out of the firm, it still has several clients from his days there, and Mr Hulett is well-connected on the Sunshine Coast, where Open Door is still active and has several of its clients.
When Mr Hulett was a local councillor he was generally regarded as being on the conservative side of politics but he has good connections with the ALP as his wife, Carmel, nee de Vere, is a first cousin to the Prime Minister. ]
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,26290040-5013871,00.html
My point is that it is the final situation that determines whether a crime has been committed. You need an act and an intention. The intention can come on the spur of the moment, seconds before the act. A crime doesn’t have to be cold-bloodedly pre-meditated and planned to be a crime.
Think of it this way, Diog. If occupying a ship, refusing to leave it unless it steams several thousand kilometres to drop you off in a port of your choice, threatening mortal resistance if ejection is attempted, is not a crime… what in the hell is it? Normal behaviour? Socially acceptable etiquette? Happens every day, so why worry? The normal thing you should expect if you go to the sea in ships? Relieves the boredom? Come on board, as long as when we save you from drowning you weren’t intending to occupy the ship, then that’s fine with us?
These people have no other right to come to Australia other than it is their choice. They have been treated and have behaved very badly through no fault of Australia or its government. I fail to see why we should should the burden for this specific bunch’s problems and preferences, and in the process set a very bad precedent.
Next we’ll be hearing about how Rudd’s dog’s great grandson bit the postman.
Bushfire Bill
Give it a rest.
[Next we’ll be hearing about how Rudd’s dog’s great grandson bit the postman.]
It’s all pi$$ing up against a brick wall. They never learn. The same old tired ploys, repeated ad nauseam. Their hatred consumes them.
Milne wrote again this morning about how the OV Saga would surely undermine Rudd’s “stratospheric” poll figures. He probably wrote “end the honeymoon” in the first draft, but even Milne realises he’s up for The Big Mock on that one, so he would have changed it. For someone who criticises Rudd for being obsessed with polls, Milne gives a pretty good impression of a co-dependent.
They’ll have to learn the hard way, I’m afraid.
[Bushfire Bill
Give it a rest.]
I take it that’s the sum total of your reply to my points, Fred.
Wow so many lefties have become disenchanted with the Prime Minister hahahaha!
[If they are not intending to harm the crew (i.e. to be carried off passively) why has this not happened?]
Because it’s bad politically and because it’s illegal under Indonesian law (their Foreign Minister said that).
Remember who has the guns and it’s not the refugees.
If what the refugees were doing is illegal, the Australians could get the Indonesians to arrest them. It’s not illegal.
And the ship can go wherever it wants. It hasn’t been hijacked.
[Bushfire Bill
Give it a rest.]
I see the truth hurts both for yourself and Dio. BB, Psephos and others are entirely correct in how Rudd is dealing with this issue – and as for those “refugees”, they’ve ruined whatever remaining goodwill mainstream had with helping people in their situation, talk about biting the hand that feeds you.
[Wow so many lefties have become disenchanted with the Prime Minister hahahaha!]
Count me out of that one Glen. I think Rudd is doing the best possible under quite unique and unprecedented circumstances.
[These people have no other right to come to Australia other than it is their choice. They have been treated and have behaved very badly through no fault of Australia or its government. I fail to see why we should should the burden for this specific bunch’s problems and preferences, and in the process set a very bad precedent.]
That may well be true but it doesn’t make them hijackers.
Actually, Scorpio, what you’ve got there is quite funny.
Reading between the lines, Rudd’s cousin’s husband is a right wing member of the Liberal or National party, has signed up as a lobbyist in the Qld State Lbbyist Register, and his wife, based simply on the fact that she is Rudd’s cousin (probably from that part of the family that took the family in after they were kicked off the farm), has ipso facto deep and insidious connections insideFederal Labor, which will automatically lead to graft , corruption and enormous profit for her husband.
That sounds reasonable…
[A BOAT carrying 40 asylum-seekers that sank 350 nautical miles north-west of the Cocos Island capsized in darkness overnight as a commercial vessel attempted to rescue them.]
Diog, where did this bunch come from?
Defending rationality is always an uphill struggle, Glen.
For example, have you yet accepted the fact that Rudd stimulus saved Australia from a deep recession? Or are you still too blinded by dislike of Rudd?
[ These people have no other right to come to Australia other than it is their choice. They have been treated and have behaved very badly through no fault of Australia or its government. I fail to see why we should should the burden for this specific bunch’s problems and preferences, and in the process set a very bad precedent.
That may well be true but it doesn’t make them hijackers.]
From wikipedia for what it’s worth.
[Maritime piracy, according to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) of 1982, consists of any criminal acts of violence, detention, or depredation committed for private ends by the crew or the passengers of a private ship or aircraft that is directed on the high seas against another ship, aircraft, or against persons or property on board a ship or aircraft. Piracy can also be committed against a ship, aircraft, persons, or property in a place outside the jurisdiction of any state, in fact piracy has been the first example of universal jurisdiction. Nevertheless today the international community is facing many problems in bringing pirates to justice.[1]]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maritime_hijacking
Frank
I actually haven’t been very critical of Rudd over the OV thing. He indulged in a bit of dog-whistling at the start. The OV isn’t the problem.
Adam yes there is no doubt it helped to stave off recession to that I agree.
But he was also helped because of our strong financial system the former government assisted in regulating and our budget surplus.
From 7:30 report.
Kevin Rudd has been on the blower to the Prime Minister or the President (?) of Sri Lanka. He is now sending one of his top diplomats over there as an envoy.
Wonder what the next step will be.
One thing you have to give the media in this country at the moment, they don’t miss “any” opportunity to try a bit of suggestive denigration of poor old Rudd!
[PM in a Shocking mood for Cup day]
[Prime Minister Kevin Rudd is in a Shocking mood while Victorian Premier John Brumby has a soft spot for a Daffodil.]
http://news.smh.com.au/breaking-news-national/pm-in-a-shocking-mood-for-cup-day-20091102-htb5.html
If there is no change in tonight’s Newspoll, I would think Kevvie’s mood tomorrow will be easily soothed by a couple of stubbies of xxxx at the races!
Finns
You are a right bastard, aren’t you! 👿
Just the one mistake in twelve months and you won’t let me forget it will you. 😀
The most likely scenario is that they came from SL, just from looking at a map. But, as usual, I’ll await further information.
Andrew Landeryou’s take down of Milne over his “exclusive” claims.
http://www.vexnews.com/news/7108/fraud-glenn-milne-counterfeits-exclusive-in-the-spirit-of-north-korea/