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.
Diogenese,
[I had to read the OO for a week while I was in FNQ and it wasn’t nearly as bad as everyone says here.]
In every visit to your fair city I have certainly found it to be far more value for money and informative than your local Adelaide Advertiser.
[ It’s very easy to cherry-pick articles which criticise Labor, sometimes fairly and sometimes not, but most of the articles are not bad and don’t slant one way or the other.]
I certainly believe that all media outlets are open to public scrutiny as they are public documents providing information and opinion to that public.
As such, when they stray from the path of accuracy in reporting or are blatantly partisan and misleading in their Opinion pieces, I reserve the right to challenge them on what they are presenting for public consumption.
But you are right. One can easily cherry pick and find often quite serious fault with prominent parts of their offering.
By the same token, I have been known to offer appreciation and approval to any number of articles especially in recent times when there has been a small movement to more balanced reporting even by some of the commentators who have received quite severe criticism from different quarters!
Glen – do the Nats/Libs still have a sanction on contesting the same seats. I had a feeling that they’d decided to back off because it was too expensive.
If the Nats are not going to run in northern NSW then the Libs would surely want to have a go.
Diogenes @ # 83
I assume that your comment of
“Pity they don’t do it”
Is aimed at my post #82.
It would be nice to know what legal requirement of the Australian Law have been broken, by whom and when as well as the legal experience and qualification of the person arguing such a case.
[It’s getting like an expanded folie a deux thing here where a siege mentality has developed and everyone in the media is out to get Labor.]
My advice to anybody that fits that description is to relax, sit back and enjoy the ride.
Any attempts by sections of the media to portray Labor in a poor light and prop up a disjointed/incompetent Opposition are clearly failing badly.
[Morgan: 60.5-39.5]
That should calm the nerves somewhat!
[Journos are no longer the font of all knowledge.]
Many journos with a few years experience spend most of their time writing opinion pieces which are then presented as news. The problem is they don’t point out what is fact and what is opinion.
I’d like to see news items that contain more than a sprinkle of opinion thrown in to be labeled as such in BOLD CAPS both on the page and on the screen in the case of television or internet.
It’s about time journos were required to accept ownership for their work rather than claiming that they are simply report news.
scorps
[In every visit to your fair city I have certainly found it to be far more value for money and informative than your local Adelaide Advertiser.]
You could throw a dart at random at the rubbish tip and the piece of paper it landed on would contain better information than the Advertiser.
Ratsars
I didn’t make that comment. I was quoting Grog and went on to say why the media provides increasingly superficial coverage. The post had nothing to do with the OV.
I have resolved not to make any further comments about the asylum seekers until something actually happens one way or the other, which will no doubt please many. 😀
[Homeless man ‘stole ferret in his pants’]
Now there’s a headline for ya 😀
http://news.smh.com.au/breaking-news-world/homeless-man-stole-ferret-in-his-pants-20091031-hqe5.html
[I have resolved not to make any further comments about the asylum seekers until something actually happens one way or the other, which will no doubt please many.]
Diog, that’s very smart of you, since you have got so many wRONgS 👿
Ross Gittins writes a piece on the need for infrastructure funding, even debt finance, which will extend well beyond the need for the stimulus:
http://www.theage.com.au/business/good-debt-bad-debt-and-the-ugly-ppp-20091030-hpz3.html
I hope Rudd and co listen to this. The previous government’s belief that you could have low taxes, low debt and adequate infrastructure and services was false. Likewise, it is false to assume the private sector will deliver via PPPs, which are now about as credible as sub-prime mortgages. If we are going to keep expanding the population, we still have many backlogs to make up. NBN, urban public transport, water and electricity infrastructure all fit the bill. You could add hospitals and universities too. A few people in my profession were almost quietly hoping that there would be a recession here, so that the first adequate flow of infrastructure funds since the Hawke years would continue a bit longer. Climate change will also increase the need to spend in this area.
[I have resolved not to make any further comments about the asylum seekers until something actually happens one way or the other, which will no doubt please many.]
Good thinking Dio, I’m with you. I bet most people are sick to death of it now.
Vera – At least the ferret wasn’t homeless – a nice warm little nest there. lol
[Likewise, it is false to assume the private sector will deliver via PPPs, which are now about as credible as sub-prime mortgages]
Funding from the public equity markets will also, at the margin, likely to be inhibited in the short term by the current antics of Macquarie Bank in exiting its roles in its listed funds (eg MIG)
Diogenes @ #106,
Thank you for your reply and my apologies.
I am usually not up to date in my reading here which means that I am usually browsing posts and it appears that I stuffed this up and I mistook you comment as being related to my post that immediately preceded it.
You might have to wait a while before you comment again on that topic as I can see it dragging out for some time.
Dio,
[You could throw a dart at random at the rubbish tip and the piece of paper it landed on would contain better information than the Advertiser.]
Gee, that’s a hard mark!!! Unfortunately, it’s pretty close to the mark though. I think many people in Adelaide would find the “free one” far better value for money! 🙂
Is it just my imagination or is William’s header post at the top of this thread growing at an alarming rate?
Earlier in the piece, it was only one paragraph!!
Socrates – I like reading Gittins, thanks. He’s a voice of sound reason and I hope Labor can build a case for continuing with infrastructure. Perhaps that’s why Kev came out and said he was happy to have a bigger Oz – keep people gainfully employed and adequately catered for and they’ll accept it.
I’ve never agreed with Costello about paying back most of the taxes to the people. If we want good public hospitals and staff, schools, etc. we should accept that they have to be paid for by us. PPPs good be great but need to be well thought out. The quick, greedy profit motive in business needs to be addressed.
Scorps – they are really interesting tho and I have printed off William’s ‘Report card on Australian democracy’ for OH and I to tonight. Thanks for putting that up, William.
[If Moses came down today from the mount with the Ten Commandments, today’s journos would ask for a sound bite of the best three.]
GG, yes, time has certainly moved on.
I was told that when Moses came down from the mount with the Ten Commandments, the first sentence he said to the cheering mob was “Please, only attempt nine out of the ten”. But he was drown out in the mids of all the cheering and excitement.
George Megalogenis does some psephological straight-talking in today’s The Australian …
[The chink in the Rudd government’s numbers at the moment, if there is one, is men aged under 35. Labor’s primary vote among them has fallen by 8.1 percentage points in the 12 months since the collapse of Lehman Brothers, from 49.3 per cent in the September quarter last year to 41.2 per cent in the September quarter this year, according to a re-analysis of Newspoll. Only half this loss in primary votes has been picked up by the Coalition, which rose from 31.4 per cent to 35.1per cent over the same period.
… Labor maintains double-digit leads for women in all groups up to age 50. During the past 12 months the government has increased its lead among men aged 35-49; and, most telling of all, overtaken the Coalition for the primary votes of men and women aged 50-plus.
This is the precondition for a landslide: the tradies and the middle-income breadwinners who had remained loyal to John Howard in 2007 are now Rudd’s for the taking.
Something strange would need to happen for Labor to go backwards at the ballot box next year, let alone make history by losing. ]
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,26283230-5013592,00.html
Laocoon 112
Yes I agree. In a sense the private investor market is another group that has been short-changed by PPPs – many private equity investors have lost money in B&B, Alco, and MIG. I’m sure they would have much prefered to buy government bonds that were then invested in infrastructure projects, rather than hand the money to some dubious toll road promoter. Straight away some 6% to 8% in fees has been removed from the equation, so the investors must be better off.
Decent contributions today from both Peter Hartcher and Paul Kelly on the asylum seeker drama!
Rudd might give this another week, and if the Sri Lankans won’t get off the ship, watch for the Custom Officers to start getting mean and using a little force(they are armed). The left of the Labor Party will revolt, and move to the Greens(but they come back to Labor through preferences), the right will love it and it very neatly emasculates Turnball!
If the Nationals split from the Libs then this will make it easier for the ALP to negotiate bills through the Senate, if we assume that the Libs/Nats will no longer vote as a block.
Right now the ALP needs either the Coalition or they need GRN + FF + MrX.
But if the Nats split then the ALP needs:
* The Libs
* GRN + FF + MrX
* GRN + Nats
* Nats + FF + Mr X
Instability in the Opposition could make for a more cooperative senate, assuming the Nats will be willing to compromise on some issues (obviously not the ETS).
Vera,
[Homeless man ‘stole ferret in his pants’]
[Now there’s a headline for ya 😀 ]
Our wonderful “fourth estate”, informing and enriching us all with brilliant journalism and insightful reporting of the facts that matter so much in our daily lives and the agencies which make decisions that can have so much effect on our welfare and prosperity!
BH
Yes I ws meaning my comment to be across the board on “productive investment”, whether in human or physical capital. Much of the value of Telstra and Airports that were sold off by Howard were built by Hawke in the 80s. (Telstra had no fibre optic or mobile phone networks prior to the 80s). Somebody has to invest to create these assetts in the first place, and the private sector will rarely do it unless they are given a monopoly that is contrary to the public interest.
Socrates
I think there is a place for private equity; the avarice of Macquarie is breathtaking (alas, your 6-8% is probably an underestimate!!). It will be interesting to see how entities like Transurban go in terms of capital allocation when they have far less of the fee incentives of the Macqurie et al
Finns
The slaughter in my book on the Congo has started now. The author quotes the Kipling poem as the Congo being
[Where there aren’t no Ten Commandments]
I’d happily make a bet on the ALP winning the next election at almost any odds. $1, for a return of $1.05, easy!
Laocoon
I have no problem with private investment, but government needs to control the deal and ensure competitive bids to protect the taxpayer, not take a bribe from a proponent to accept the dubious.
The 6% to 8% I referred to was the level of fees I have seen (as a % of total capital) just to arrange the finance. Ongoing management fees and interest repayments were in addition to that. Thus we can have projects quoted as “$2.5 billion dollar toll roads” where the construction cost was only $1.7 billion. Hard to see how the taxpayer benefits from that.
Finns,
Diogenes would disapprove of the alleged spin. The announcement said the good news was that Moses had got the number down to ten. However, the detail was that Adultery was still in.
Sounds like the CPRS negotiations.
[Is it just my imagination or is William’s header post at the top of this thread growing at an alarming rate?
Earlier in the piece, it was only one paragraph!!]
I have added a four-line update on Bass, but I doubt that’s what you mean. Either it’s your imagination, or your computer was playing up.
[Homeless man ‘stole ferret in his pants’]
I started to get a severe nervous twitch, thinking about what a “hungry” ferret could do inside my “budgie smugglers”! 🙂
Socrates
[Thus we can have projects quoted as “$2.5 billion dollar toll roads” where the construction cost was only $1.7 billion. Hard to see how the taxpayer benefits from that.]
Yep hard to argue against that! Even my elastic NPV calculator would find it difficult for that cost differential to be made up 😀
[I started to get a severe nervous twitch, thinking about what a “hungry” ferret could do inside my “budgie smugglers”!]
Starve?
[I have no problem with private investment, but government needs to control the deal and ensure competitive bids to protect the taxpayer, not take a bribe from a proponent to accept the dubious.]
Yes, yes and yes.
BH & Scorpio
I knew you pair would have a smile at the ferret story 😀
Scorpio , hope they don’t eat nuts lol
[Either it’s your imagination, or your computer was playing up.]
It might be both. I just scrolled back to the first page when I entered the thread and you are right.
But I still think there was only one paragraph at the top!
I hope that spending too many hours reading PB and taking in all the insightful commentary hasn’t led to a tragic breakdown in my eyesight or powers of comprehension?
Vera,
[Scorpio , hope they don’t eat nuts lol]
Yeah, I would pass at trying to hide a squirrel down there. I understand they like nuts! 🙂
[Starve?]
No way! 🙂
[However, the detail was that Adultery was still in.]
GG, damn, damn, damn, that was my 9/10. 😉
I think this is a good idea and should have been looked at earlier. It could have reined back some of the unsustainable increase in housing stock which to my mind still leaves the economy vulnerable to a sudden price correction!
[From next year there will be price limits on homes that can be bought under the First Home Owners Grant Scheme.
Previously, no house has been too expensive to be eligible for the grant.
But starting next year, states and territories will have the power to set price caps.
So far New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland, Western Australia and the Northern Territory have specified the top price. ]
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/10/31/2729525.htm?section=justin
[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.]
That’s Unaustralian!! (Where does the capital go in Unaustralian? That doesn’t look right.)
[I’d happily make a bet on the ALP winning the next election at almost any odds. $1, for a return of $1.05, easy!]
THM, if you can get $1.05 it would probably be a good idea to get on fast.
If things continue as they are and the polls stay diabolical for the Libs, then it’s likely that no betting agency will lay any odds worthwhile taking up.
The Coalition on the other hand…………
[The slaughter in my book on the Congo has started now.]
Diog, nothing has changed much.
Scorpio
I dont understand why there is a FHOS for existing residences at all. I can understand the policy reasons for construction or newly built (stimulate activity), but I would have to believe the majority of the money for a FHOS for an existing residence just goes to the seller, and pushes up prices…
Finns
It’s actually worse now in the Congo. The worst war since WWII is still going on there.
And it turns out that the word is “un-Australian”.
According to Tempo Magazine, Jakarta. The reasons that the provincial govt’s objection to the presence of the Sri Lanka refugees are as follows:
1. They (The refugees) are arrogant.
2. The locals tried to get them off, refused and then started the hunger strike
3. They get to eat and drink better than the locals because of the International rules.
http://www.tempointeraktif.com/hg/nusa/2009/10/30/brk,20091030-205370,id.html
Finns
How many languages can you speak?
Laocoon,
You’re right and this was exacerbated by the dropping of the Capital Gains Tax and active encouragement for investors to enter the market who, by competing for existing housing stock against new home entrants, helped push real estate values way beyond realistic and replacement figures.
This was made worse by the fact that there was a growing shortage of housing stock which pushed prices up further due to the increased competition for that limited stock! The Howard Government have a lot to answer for in regard to helping inflate the real estate bubble.
Rudd is trying to deflate it slowly and in a calculated way rather than have it hit by a pin and burst with devastating consequences for the economy and investors/home owners alike!
Scorpio
I was quite happy to see the recent emphasis on metro-planning by Rudd/Swan…shows appreciation of longer term supply issues. I suspect RBA would be not unhappy with a slow deflation in house prices as well (at least in real terms).
Diog,
I speak a bit of English, plenty of Australian, Gado-gado of Bahasa, Chop suey chop suey of Mandarin, sukiyaki of Japanese, the La-la of Singlish and of course being an Amigo, a bit of Speedy Gonzales, arriva, arriva. 😉 😉