Morgan: 59-41

The first Roy Morgan face-to-face poll of Tony Abbott’s Liberal leadership covers the last two weekends of polling, and it fails to replicate the encouraging results for Abbott in Morgan’s two earlier small-sample phone polls. Labor’s primary vote is up two points on Malcolm Turnbull’s last poll to 49 per cent, while the Coalition is up 0.5 per cent to 35.5 per cent. The Greens are down 1.5 per cent to 8 per cent. Labor’s lead on two-party preferred is up from 58.5-41.5 to 59-41.

Festive preselection action:

• Former Davis Cup tennis player John Alexander has won the Liberal preselection for Bennelong, having earlier tried and failed in Bradfield. Despite predictions of a close contest, the Sydney Morning Herald reported the Left-backed Alexander had an easy first round win over local business executive Mark Chan, scoring 67 votes in the ballot of 120 preselectors. As the Herald tells it, “the right split and the hard right deserted Mr Chan”, although VexNews notes the seat is “not a centre of factional operations for either camp”. The also-rans were businessman Steve Foley and financial services director Melanie Matthewson.

• Wanneroo mayor Jon Kelly has withdrawn his nomination for Labor preselection in the Perth northern suburbs federal seat of Cowan, after earlier being considered certain to get the gig. This comes in the wake of a Corruption and Crime Commission finding that Kelly had put himself at “risk” of misconduct through his relationship with Brian Burke. Burke presumably knew what he was doing when he subsequently endorsed Kelly, going on to say he had “sought my help on many occasions and I’ve always been available to assist him”. The West Australian reported the withdrawal was the product of a “mutual” decision reached after “a week of talks with Labor officials”, which included federal campaign committee chairman and Brand MP Gary Gray. Potential replacements named by The West are Dianne Guise and Judy Hughes, who respectively lost their local seats of Wanneroo and Kingsley at the state election last September. The ABC reports a decision is expected in mid-January.

• The Western Australian ALP has also confirmed Tim Hammond, Louise Durack and ECU history lecturer Bill Leadbetter as candidates for Swan, Stirling and Pearce.

• The NSW Liberals have selected incumbents Concetta Fierravanti-Wells and Bill Heffernan to head their Senate ticket, reversing the order from 2004. The Coalition agreement reserves the third position for the Nationals – I am not aware of any suggestion their candidate will be anyone other than incumbent Fiona Nash. Imre Salusinszky of The Australian reports Heffernan needed the backing of Tony Abbott to ward off challenges from David Miles, a public relations executive with Pfizer, and George Bilic, a Blacktown councillor.

• Phillip Coorey of the Sydney Morning Herald notes Left figurehead Anthony Albanese’s chutzpah in calling for the Macquarie preselection to be determined by rank-and-file party ballot, after the role he played in imposing numerous candidates elsewhere as a member of the party’s national executive. Albanese reportedly believes Left candidate Susan Templeman would win a local ballot, although the earlier mail was that the Right’s Adam Searle had the numbers and it was the Left who wanted national executive intervention.

• Final Liberal two-party margin from the Bradfield by-election: 14.8 per cent. From Higgins: 10.2 per cent. Respective turnouts were 81.51 per cent and 79.00 per cent, compared with 80.12 per cent at the Mayo by-election, 87.41 per cent in Lyne and 89.68 per cent in Gippsland. Question: if the results have been declared, why hasn’t the AEC published preference distributions?

• VexNews reports Saturday’s Liberal preselection for the Victorian state seat of Ripon was a clear win for the unsuccessful candidate from 2006, Vic Dunn, who my records tell me is “the local inspector at Maryborough”. Dunn reportedly scored 53 votes against 26 for Institute of Public Affairs agriculture policy expert and preselection perennial Louise Staley and four for local winery owner John van Beveren. Joe Helper holds the seat for Labor on a maergin of 4.3 per cent.

• The Berwick Star reports that Lorraine Wreford, the newly elected mayor of Casey, refused to confirm or deny reports she lodged a nomination for Liberal preselection in the state seat of Mordialloc last Friday. Janice Munt holds the seat for Labor on a margin of 3.5 per cent.

• The Country Voice SA website reports that one of its regular contributors, former SA Nationals president Wilbur Klein, will be the party’s candidate for Flinders at the March state election. The seats was held by the party prior to 1993, when it was won by its now-retiring Liberal member Liz Penfold.

• On Tuesday, The West Australian provided further data from the 400-sample Westpoll survey discussed a few posts ago, this time on attitudes to an emissions trading scheme. Forty per cent wanted it adopted immediately, down from 46 per cent two months ago. However, there was also a fall in the number wanting the government to wait until other countries committed to targets, from 47 per cent to 43 per cent. The remainder “ favoured other options to cut emissions or did not know”.

• Paul Murray of The West Australian offers some interesting electoral history on the occasion of the passing of former Liberal-turned-independent state MP Ian Thompson:

Shortly after the State election in February 1977, allegations began to emerge from both sides of politics about dirty deeds in the seat of Kimberley. Liberal sitting member Alan Ridge beat Labor’s Ernie Bridge on preferences by just 93 votes. The Liberals were the first to strike, claiming Labor was manipulating Aboriginal voters, but the move backfired badly. A subsequent Court of Disputed Returns case turned up scathing evidence of a deliberate Liberal campaign to deny Aboriginals the vote using underhand tactics and the election result was declared void on November 7.

Returning officers in the Kimberley for years had allowed illiterate Aboriginals to use party how-to-vote cards as an indication of their voting intention. What became apparent later was that Labor had put hundreds of Aboriginal voters on the roll and generally mobilised the indigenous community. The Liberals flew a team of young lawyers up from Perth to act as scrutineers at polling booths, with a plan to stop illiterate voters. The Court government pressured the chief electoral officer to instruct returning officers in the Kimberley to challenge illiterate voters and not accept their how-to-vote cards.

The court case turned up a letter of thanks from Mr Ridge to a Liberal Party member, who stood as an independent, saying “a third name on the ballot paper created some confusion among the illiterate voters and there is no doubt in my mind that it played a major part in having me re-elected”. Mr Ridge’s letter said that unless the Electoral Act was changed to make it more difficult for illiterate Aboriginals to cast their votes, the Liberals would not be able to win the seat.

Two days after the court ordered a new election, premier Sir Charles introduced in the Legislative Assembly a Bill to do just that. How-to-vote cards could not be used, nor could an instruction of a vote for just one candidate. Labor went ballistic, saying no illiterate voter would meet the test.

What transpired over nine hours was one of the most bitter debates ever seen in the WA Parliament and the galvanising of a new breed of Labor head kickers – Mr Burke, Mal Bryce, Bob Pearce and Arthur Tonkin, who came to power six years later. On November 10, it became apparent that the government was in trouble when one of the four National Country Party members not in the coalition Cabinet, Hendy Cowan, said he opposed the Bill because it disenfranchised all illiterate voters. When it came to the vote, the four NCP members crossed the floor and the maverick Liberal member for Subiaco, Dr Tom Dadour, abstained. The numbers split 25-25.

From the Speaker’s chair, Ian Thompson calmly noted that the law said when a Court of Disputed Returns ordered a by-election it had to be held under the same conditions as the original poll. If the Government wanted to amend the Electoral Act, it should do so after the by-election.

“Therefore I give my casting vote with the ‘Noes’ and the Bill is defeated,” he said. Hansard unusually recorded applause.

Author: William Bowe

William Bowe is a Perth-based election analyst and occasional teacher of political science. His blog, The Poll Bludger, has existed in one form or another since 2004, and is one of the most heavily trafficked websites on Australian politics.

2,931 comments on “Morgan: 59-41”

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  3. [Sorry William,

    Frank, if you’re still there,

    Where do I find Conroy’s media release please?]

    See Post 1 🙂 William had closed the thread whuile I was looking for it.

  5. [Thanks Frank, I’ve added him as well. Lecturer at ECU? Dude ain’t fit for office.]

    He’s also secretary of Swan Hills B ranch :-[)

  12. Gus, I didn’t say I doubted Frank’s word. It’s just very interesting that Conroy’s proposal isn’t putting us in with the disreputable censorship regimes of China and Middle Eastern. To know that it’s comparable with what is happening in other western democracies is highly relevant to defense of the policy.

  14. frank
    [It’s in Conroy’s Media Release]
    Geez Frank
    You are spinning out of control there. No western democratic nation has mandatory legislated internet censorship as proposed by our government.

    The Swedish ISP’s work voluntarily with the police on the nasty child porn stuff but that’s it. A major UK ISP also voluntarily tries to block some known child porn sites, that’s it again.
    No internet user in the UK or Sweden is prevented from seeing any genre of wierdo stuff they want.

    Step outside the party spin-release why don’t you? Remember, your are free to accept the truth …

  15. [The Swedish ISP’s work voluntarily with the police on the nasty child porn stuff but that’s it. A major UK ISP also voluntarily tries to block some known child porn sites, that’s it again.
    No internet user in the UK or Sweden is prevented from seeing any genre of wierdo stuff they want.]

    But they are still blocking illegal stuff at the server end.

  17. [But they are still blocking illegal stuff at the server end.]
    Some are attemptiong to, voluntarily. With what desired result? Zero. Consumers still get to see the whole schmeer. This is the point. A huge amount of money will be wasted without stopping the child porn freaks or any other weirdo. They just use peer to peer. The only people affected will be the likes of you and me when the bureaucracy or, worse, the politicians interfere with our legitimate web activiteis.

    Anyway you know the truth. This unforced ‘initiative’ is all about the christian lobby’s votes, nothing else.

  19. Frank, 2324
    Why don’t these supposed hundreds of thousands of concerned parents worried about their children contact their ITP and arrange to have their account filtered & monitored, and save the nation A$180 million or whatever, which could be spent on catching the predators who circumvent the filter anyway, thereby making their kids far safer than the filter will?

    Because the agenda isn’t really about kids, is it! It’s about forcing an entire nation to live by the rules set by the antithesis of-silent self-appointed “moral” minority?

    And if the government didn’t introduce the filter, it would get battered by said antithesis-of-silent self-appointed “moral” minority, and the Liberals & Nationals, and prelates like Pell, and priests, parsons, pastors, elders, whatever in the lead up to Election10. Introducing the filter removes the item from the pre-election agenda, nicely removing some of the loudest & most strident self-appointed “moral” minority’s – and Abbott’s & the Libs’, and the Nats’ and Fieldings’ – most powerful electoral platforms.

    So shouldn’t we all put our hands together for yet another successful ALP government coup – snatching yet another conservative “strength/ province” from Abbott’s Undead (do they have any left?). Since the Government knows its stated aims are unachievable, what other reason could they have for doing it?

    And the biggest coup of all is that the “Moral minority” are being ever so loud, helping the government’s strategy succeed; while most of those who oppose it won’t vote for or 2nd preference the Coalition, or Fielding – if they stuff their preferences, their vote won’t count.

    On that sniggering note, I’m off to bed. Sleep tight. Don’t let the fleas bite!

  20. [Paul Murray of The West Australian offers some interesting electoral history on the occasion of the passing of former Liberal-turned-independent state MP Ian Thompson:]

    Great read.

    Thanks William.

  22. [Frank, 2324
    Why don’t these supposed hundreds of thousands of concerned parents worried about their children contact their ITP and arrange to have their account filtered & monitored, and save the nation A$180 million or whatever, which could be spent on catching the predators who circumvent the filter anyway, thereby making their kids far safer than the filter will?]

    May I remind you of Bob Brown and Junk Food Advertising Ban – Good – Interwebs being placed under the same regime as OTHER media Bad.

  24. JV you forgot Norway 🙂

    [In Norway, the National Criminal Investigation Service maintains a list of around 1000 active domain names that contain child sexual abuse material. Approximately 15 ISPs (including all major ISPs) filter this list. In turn, they provide a wholesale filtered service to their smaller ISP customers. Since February 2008, as part of the Mobile Alliance against Child Sexual Abuse Content, all major mobile operators in Norway also block this list. It is estimated that the participating ISPs cover around 95 per cent of Norwegian internet subscribers.]

  25. Tom tfab
    [Anyone who can`t see an “`” between “wall” and “s” in 18 needs their eyes checked.]
    I referred to “Another Brick in the Wall” a little earlier – could one have been dislodged and struck you between the eyes perhaps?

    On that note and appropos of nothing, at this time I give you guitar afficionados David Gilmour’s solo from “Comfortably Numb” at Royal Albert Hall 2006. I hope I get the DVD of that concert for Christmas. It’s supposed to be superb. I’ve hinted.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bDC3ade3JxU&feature=related

  27. And the FF forget this telling little FAQ.

    [17. Will the Government expand ISP filtering beyond RC material?

    The Government will not expand mandatory ISP-level filtering beyond RC-rated material. This would require changes to the legislation that would have to be supported by both houses of Parliament.]

  29. [is porn easy to access at present or not?[]

    Yes

    [Will a filter make it easier, less easier or the same?]

    The same

    [If the latter, then there is no more danger now in junior being on the net than there will be if a filter is installed.]

    Incorrect conclusion because juniors parents have been falsely led to believe that junior can’t access porn anymore so they don’t monitor him as closely.

  30. Frank
    [JV you forgot Norway]
    I forget nothing. I’ve been to Griffith, I’ve heard how you Italians work. 🙂

    Norway does the same voluntary stuff Sweden does. That isn’t justification for Conroy’s mandatory universal stunt. Again, no-one in Sweden, Norway or the UK is prevented from seeing anything anyone in Uzbekistan, Lichtenstein or Tuvulu can see.

    And you and all the other government troops have yet to answer my questiion: essentially:
    1. What (is the problem – exactly?);and
    2. How (exactly does Conroy’s proposal fix it)?

    After many hours doing my work today on this blog a sensible and reasoned discussion on those points from the censorship apologists would be nice.

  31. [Incorrect conclusion because juniors parents have been falsely led to believe that junior can’t access porn anymore so they don’t monitor him as closely.]

    “Rage,rage, against the dying of the light”

    LOL

  33. 30
    ‘doing my work on this blog’ = ‘on this blog, while doing my work’
    Maybe when I have less work to do it will be the former. 🙂

  38. [According to Peter Robbins (the head of the UK’s Internet Watch Foundation – the organisation that oversees the UK governments internet filter) there is currently about 500 websites being filtered by the UK – down from 3000 in 2007.]

    And yet another arguement by the Neo Anti Filterite Folk about filtering URLs at the ISP end doesn’t work gets blown out of the water.

    Thanks Listy 🙂

  39. So, if we cannot arrive at a worldwide agreement on action to keep GW under a 2 degree increase what effect in 20+ years is that going to have on the area the that encompasses China and their 1.3bn plus people? Not to mention India.

  41. [A steady stream of negotiators bearing documents are streaming past, without sharing the text. Any little thing, even a cart of fruit and water, and sandwiches delivered into the meeting, are creating murmurs of excitement. French President Nicolas Sarkozy and Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd are among the few leaders spotted. But there are other entrances that could be used to avoid the inquisitive reporters.

    Everyone’s hanging out, on the second-floor of the Bella Center, almost like they’re waiting for someone to announce ‘We’ve got a deal.’ Most delegates are not talking to the press and no one’s announcing any deal.]

    http://www.facebook.com/notes/the-climate-pool/world-leaders-hold-out-hope-but-the-speeches-dont-sound-optimistic/234372564413

  43. Thomas Paine
    [So, if we cannot arrive at a worldwide agreement on action to keep GW under a 2 degree increase what effect in 20+ years is that going to have on the area the that encompasses China and their 1.3bn plus people? Not to mention India.]
    I shudder, and have another beer, to think.

    The unofficial leaked latest UN science document says that even the legally binding proposal gets the world to +3 or more by 2100. Well that’s half our species gone for a start (hopefully we humans might be spared for a bit longer, but really, for what purpose?)

    The real test at ‘Copa- Copa – Cobana’ was to see if the science the pollies know is true would be enough to get sufficient numbers to think beyond their un-caring short-term electoral cycles, and into the realms of statesmanship. We wait anxiously.

  45. Hopefully a good night’s sleep will serve to rest my tired eyes and allow me wake up realising that the Internet Filter flame war here over the past 24 hours was just a bad, boring, pointless, unwinnable, utterly indulgent, navel-gazing bad dream and that maybe it didn’t really happen.

    ‘Night, Meta-Bloggers.

  46. Thomas P
    Of course “Copacobana” was a Barry Manilow song, and I fear we might get a Barry Manilow outcome from Copenhagen: It sounds, well, ok in the moment, but is awful from then on 🙂

  47. Have to admit that the USA holds the whip hand on China. China needs this much more than the USA. The USA industrial complex would be just as happy to say lets just deal with the effects of GW (there is probably more money in it). Feed 250 m much easier to feed than 1.3 bn.

  50. A cynic could say that for keeping pre-eminent superpower status the USA could actually promote GW to reek extra havoc in China. Assuming of course the USA is better equipped to deal with GW.

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