Last week’s Essential Research survey, which I neglected to cover outside of comments (Labor were down from 58-42 to 57-43), will be the last until January 18. If last year is any guide, Newspoll should return at the same time. In other developments:
• If the somewhat partisan Townsville Bulletin commentator Malcolm Weatherup is to be believed, aspirants for Labor preselection in Townsville-based Herbert are 2007 candidate George Colbran, former mayor and Mundingburra by-election veteran Tony Mooney (who apparently “will have to overcome the kryptonite of lingering local anger about his running non-Labor candidates on his Titanic ticket in the mayoral elections”), Townsville city councillor Jenny Hill and a James Cook University psychology student. The Prime Minister has apparently promised the decision will be made by the local party, although Weatherup claims he would have preferred to have installed Mooney. Peter Lindsay retained the seat in 2007 by 343 votes.
• Staying in Queensland, Toni McRae of the Fraser Coast Chronicle reports Fraser Coast councillor Belinda McNeven has indicated she may run for preselection in Bundaberg-based Hinkler, where Labor might have been a show in 2007 if their candidate hadn’t been such a dill.
• Emily Sobey of the Ballarat Courier reports the Liberals have nominated Mark Banwell, who “works as an adviser to a financial publication in Melbourne”, as their candidate for the federal seat of Ballarat. Ballarat was Labor’s only gain at the 2001 election and has since been retained by Catherine King.
• The aforementioned Emily Sobey article also informs us the Greens have again preselected architect Marcus Ward, who also ran in 2006, as their lead candidate for the upper house region of Western Victoria at the November state election.
• Imre Salusinszky of The Australian reports Barry O’Farrell has sought to protect Right warlord David Clarke by bringing his state upper house preselection forward from March to February, suggesting he may not be as invulnerable than his factional might makes him appear.
Rocket wrote :
[ I think the US Navy let Cher record that film-clip on the USS Missouri because they thought it would help recruitment. But I believe they didn’t know in advance about the outfit that she turned up in! ]
Cher is even better in this one
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uxoWto09Oyg
[Surely not well on his way to join me in your sin bin ?
To inflict such a wicked penalty on me is wicked , shame shame]
I have no difficulty with you Ron. You haven’t got a one track mind.
I’m spending a rainy day clearing out old stuff on the PC from 2007 onwards. A piece I saved from Bushfire Bill 12th October,08, is interesting.
It was about Turnbull’s 7.30 Report with KO’B about the bank guarantees, etc. and the one where Turnbull bagged Ken Henry. The interesting part is that he was so obviously getting insider information at that stage – a la Grech. We no longer hear the same kind of narrative from the Opposition.
Reading it also makes me more aware of how often BB is more on the mark than many in the MSM.
After a deliberate effort at political “non-engagement” in 2009 due to work and family commitments I can now hardly wait for the poll cycle to begin again in two weeks, and for Federal Parliament to resume in February.
The “non-engagement” was interesting – I tried to pay less attention to all things political than at any time I can remember – about the only thing that “got me in” until the whole CPRS-Turnbull-Hockey-Andrews-Abbott shenanigans was the Grech affair, but only when on the Friday Turnbull suggested Rudd would have to resign. So I feel that basically for the “non-engaged” (vast majority of population) it is probably only leadership crises that get much attention.
But the Liberals well and truly got me “off the wagon” and I am looking forward to an interesting 2010. It seems to me that Labor are going to completely bypass the Greens and pitch the CPRS to the populace via a double dissolution and double sitting if necessary.
One thing I have done this summer is read a lot of climatology science.
Well, Australia is 3/10. Will Pakistan bowl Australia out for 89, in memory of:
[ISLAMABAD (Reuters) – Pakistan’s government came under renewed pressure on Saturday to bring stability to the country after a suicide bombing at a volleyball game — one of the worst attacks in more than two years — killed at least 89 people.]
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSSGE5BU0CQ20100102
[read a lot of climatology science.]
RocketR – did you come out on the side of the believers or deniers? I was reading a piece in Weekend OO about polar bears and the scientists say there are less and they are heading closer to populations because of melting of icecaps.
Innuits say there are more because they see more. Canadian Govt. wants to curtail hunting and sale of PB products but Innuit are against that so they have an interest in saying the population is greater.
There was also mention of many believing that CC is not man induced.
How did your research stack up on ‘man induced’ against the Oppn deniers on that.
BH 1706
What I find interesting is seeing people like A.Bolt move on to what I call “phase 2” – after years of saying “there is no warming” they now say “Oh yes there is waring but it is natural”.
The first step is to establish that there is warming. With a scientific background I am with A.Bolt and Sarah Palin on this – there is warming.
In science there then must be a reason for this warming effect – there must a be a reason but that does not necessarily mean we can easily find it. It is often easier to find things that are NOT the cause of something. Thus you can demonstrate that it is not due to the Earth’s molten core, that it is not due to the Milankovitch orbital cycles that were involved in past glaciations, and that it is not due to increased solar activity.
After this there are clearly some very finely balanced mechanisms at work in our atmosphere, and Arrhenius’ 1896 “greenhouse” theory may explain what is happening.
Years ago some top physics guys I knew changed to do meteorology which in those days was considered a bit “soft” [if you have watched “The Big Bang Theory” just think of what Sheldon would say about meteorology or meteorologists] – they were clearly ahead of the curve and are now at the forefront of climate research.
The Newspoll quarterly aggregates, published in the Oz yesterday, yield some interesting findings.
Conducted from October to December, combined and weighted with the quarterly results from Nielsen, and single polls in QLD from Galaxy and WA from Westpoll, gives us the following notional gain of 26 seats to the ALP:
NSW 5 seats, VIC 5 seats, QLD 8 seats, SA 3 seats, WA 5 seats
This is an increase from April- June (21 seats) and July-September (23 seats)
The swings are as follows:
NSW/ACT 1% swing, VIC 5.1% swing, QLD 5% swing, SA 5% swing, WA 6.9% swing.
Cities 4.2% swing, non-cities/regional 3.8% swing.
The two issues that dominated this last quarter were asylum seekers and the ETS, and the result was an increase in seats notionally won by the ALP.
Those who feel both these issues will work well for the Coalition have no evidence to support that view.
Well Australia 5/51.
Michael Clark, where the bloody hell is your cricket?
Finns.
How embarrassing is this? 6/52 for God’s sake!
Rocket squared
if one of those physics guys was a girl then I know the same people!!
BK, my prediction of 89 is looking good 👿
Finns – another cameo from Mitchell Johnson may thwart your prediction.
A very responsible knock from Haddin I might say!!
The 2007 2-PP was 52.7% – 47.3%.
The current Newspoll is 57-43%. I reckon that is a 4%+ swing on 2007.
According to Antony Green the swing required for the seat of Wentworth to fall is 3.9%.
I appreciate the Newspoll swing might not be uniform, but looking at the local factors:
1. Labor made an unfortunate choice of candidate in 2007, not helped by him having as one of his main campaign office people, a passionate supporter of Palestine in an electorate with a high Jewish population.
2. Turnbull claimed to have been the only Liberal to gain a swing in his favour at the 2007 election. Was this a personal endorsement of Turnbull, or Liberal voters returning to the fold after the 2004 election.
3. Turnbull gives the impression he is extremely uncomfortable in dealing and mixing with the person on the street, however comfortable he may be in corporate boardrooms.
4. He has moved his office from Bondi Junction in the south of the electorate (the mainstream section) to Edgecliff in the swankier north. Maybe this is only symbolic, but it has the vibe of the previous Liberal member who had his office in the difficult to access suburb of Double Bay.
5. Turnbull’s electorate office is manned by stereotypical Young Liberal types.
6. Turnbull has been battered by the e-mail affair.
7. Turnbull spent over $600,000 (is this an Australian record?) on his 2004 campaign and about $200,000 (whose money?) in 2007. Will a cash strapped Liberal Party be prepared to stump up money for Turnbull in 2010? Will Turnbull be prepared to spend his own money to buy the seat?
8. In both 2004 and 2007 Liberals were in government and the elections expected to be tight. In 2010, the Liberals are out of government and expected to lose badly.
An earlier poster responded to my suggestion Turnbull would be defeated if he stood in 2010, with a comment along the lines of “wanna bet”.
Can someone with a mathematical mind please calculate the probability of Turnbull holding the seat of Wentworth in 2010?
[Can someone with a mathematical mind please calculate the probability of Turnbull holding the seat of Wentworth in 2010?]
Without any specific polling for Wentworth we can only go by the published state wide polling which shows the swing currently to the ALP of 1%, much lower than the other states and well below what is required for Wentworth to fall.
This suggests the chance of Turnbull losing his seat is rather small.
[Can someone with a mathematical mind please calculate the probability of Turnbull holding the seat of Wentworth in 2010?]
Piece of cake. $5M
Why is NSW so out of kilter with the rest of the nation?
Why is the rest of the nation so out of kilter with NSW?
It is highly likely that Turnbull will not run again. Why would he? He is clearly not cut out for politics or for the Liberal Party. If he does not contest Wentworth, Labor may have a chance. Stranger things have happened, though not often.
New thread.