The Advertiser has published a poll of 571 respondents from the South Australian state seat of Chaffey, held by the state’s sole Nationals MP Karlene Maywald. It finds an effective dead heat in two-party terms between Maywald and Liberal candidate Tim Whetstone, with the former on 50.5 per cent. Primary vote figures after distribution of the undecided are 40 per cent for Whetstone, 30 per cent for Maywald, 14 per cent for Labor, 11 per cent for Family First and 3 per cent for the Greens. The result at the election was 53.2 per cent for Maywald and 28.2 per cent for the Liberal candidate, resulting in a 17.2 per cent Nationals-versus-Liberals margin after preferences. The margin of error on the poll is around 4 per cent. The paper appears not to have repeated the mistake of its poll of the electorate in August 2008, when it merely asked respondents which party they would vote for without naming Maywald as an option. When asked who Maywald should support in the event of a minority government, 53 per cent said Liberal and 33 per cent Labor. Maywald has served as a minister in Mike Rann’s government since 2004, currently in the water security and River Murray portfolios. She has nonetheless maintained she would support a “conservative” government in office.
Please feel free to use this thread for general discussion of the South Australian election.
Diogs,
All your comments on the RAH are made through a rose coloured stethescope.
You are just a hack for the RAH Party. Your opinions cannot be taken seriously because all you do is repeat this mantra that they’re nice people. Absolute crap! They’re craven political opportunists trying to bring down the State. You can’t see this because you fear of losing your job if you speak out of line. Oh, bold Diogenes, a lion on the blogs and a pussy in the cliches.
[You are just a hack]
HAHAHAHAH *gasps for air* AHAHAHAHAHA!!
The irony is so thick, it’s polluting 🙂
[They’re craven political opportunists trying to bring down the State. ]
So having a policy which is different to the Labor Party is trying to bring down the State.
[You can’t see this because you fear of losing your job if you speak out of line. ]
To start off with, my job working at the RAH is a pain in the arse and makes me about 5% of my income. If someone sacked me, they would be doing me a favour. And the only person who can sack me is Admin who hate SaveRAH. And I’m far from being a favourite with the SaveRAH people as I declined to join them.
Apart from that you are spot on.
[So having a policy which is different to the Labor Party is trying to bring down the State.]
Of course. All those who oppose Labor are nothing but treasonists.
Diogs,
“So having a policy which is different to the Labor Party is trying to bring down the State”
Um, why are they running candidates in the election?
“my job working at the RAH is a pain in the arse”
Another make work scandal exposed.
5% of your income.
There goes your latte allowance.
Your posts are just more political sophistry to cover your hard core support for a radical bunch of neophytes. You hacks are trying to dominate William’s blog to the exclusion of all intelligent alternative comment.
Umm, running for Parliament is not trying to bring down the State. We have this thing called elections where voters choose who they want to represent them. It’s called democracy.
If I left the RAH, my income would go up by about 10% rather than down.
So I could afford MORE lattes not less. But I don’t drink coffee anyway. I like tea.
[John Jackson and Jack Johnson.]
All humans are vermin in the eyes of Bilbo.
So anyway, I come down to Margaret River for the weekend, put my SA election updates file on a thumb drive, but forget to bring the thumb drive with me. So my all-singing, all-dancing review of the first week will have to wait until Sunday evening. I say this by way of apology for my low-intensity campaign coverage to this point. Things will pick up, I promise.
Diogenes,
Running as the running mates for the Liberals is not Democracy. It’s just an outrageous blot on the democratic process. They’re owned and funded by the Libs. They should tell the truth rather than hide behind their weasel words.
“If I left the RAH, my income would go up by about 10% rather than down”.
If you left the RAH then productivity would rise by 20% because no longer would they have to support your jottings on PB.
“I like tea”.
Just as I thought, you are a communist.
William
The whole campaign has been very low-intensity so far. You are just reading the mood.
GG trying to create a bit of fire – you’re not trying to fill the void of Young Peter taking a rest are you?
Diogs
Where are you sourcing your claim that 2/3 of senior doctors and nurses support a rebuild?
Am I meant to believe that you have personally asked every senior doctor and nurse in South Australia’s biggest hospital?
Do you have some sort of document signed by 2/3 of senior doctors and nurses?
You have obviously been caught up in the spin and outspoken rubbish put out by the savetheRAH/Liberal Party (wait… is there a difference??).
One big mistake Labor has made has been in letting the public form an opinion that most doctors and nurses don’t support the hospital – an assertion that is completely false.
The “whole campaign is of low intensity” supports my view that labor will be returned with most of its majority intact.
James
You made this comment
[It’s my understanding that a vast majority of the heads of departments at the RAH (both nurses and doctors) support the new RAH plans.]
With absolutely no evidence or source whatsoever. No document, no nothing.
And now you want proof of my 2/3 comment when you provide nothing for your own.
Your hypocrisy is amazing.
Fortunately I have plenty of evidence to back up my comment.
I have spoken to half of the senior doctors and many of the nurses at the RAH, and they would be 2/3 to 1/3. As you can imagine, it is a very common topic in the hospital over the last few years. The RAH Medical Staff Society took a vote on the issue and it was 2/3 against moving and 1/3 for which is the same as my estimate.
[One big mistake Labor has made has been in letting the public form an opinion that most doctors and nurses don’t support the hospital – an assertion that is completely false.]
This is also complete rubbish. Labor has paid for ads using medical administrators and strongly suggested to senior nursing and medical administrators that they write letters of support to the Tiser.
So there is your document
This is one of the few times I agree with the AMA.
[The Australian Medical Association (AMA) says both major parties have flawed plans for the Royal Adelaide Hospital (RAH).]
The new RAH is much too small by 200 beds and is designed to cut the budget by dropping beds. The rebuild won’t give us a new hospital and is a patch-up.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/02/15/2819330.htm
Has Rann sacked Tom Koutsantonis – as a candidate yet ?
[The “whole campaign is of low intensity” supports my view that labor will be returned with most of its majority intact.]
But yet when it comes to the former, the same is said of Tasmania………..
[Has Rann sacked Tom Koutsantonis – as a candidate yet ?]
You make it sound like Rann runs the factions. He doesn’t. Rann has always hated Koutz and if he could get him out he would.
Diogs,
The new hospital has 180 more beds than the current RAH.. how does that equate to bed cuts? Most of these will also be single rooms, and the railyards site has the room for accommodation expansion in the future (something the current site doesn’t have).
From what I’ve seen in letters, and what I have heard from people who know, the senior doctors and nurses do support it. If 2 doctors wrote to the Tiser against the hospital, it would end up on the front page – 4 nursing heads of dept wrote to the tiser and they put it in letters to the editor.
I also understand that more will come out to support.
Further, if anyone saw Ch10 news tonight, the Libs hospital costings is finally coming under scrutiny, and it seems that some dodgy stuff will be coming our shortly.
What is everyone’s problem with Kouts? He is a very clever guy – I’ve heard him speak at a function and he was one of the best speakers I’ve heard for a long time. He got a few speeding tickets – give it a break.
The gay beats letter was dirty, but the Lib candidate brought it up first. That’s how you play the game unfortunately.
GG
All your comments on the RAH are made through a vile reactionary lenses.
You are just a hack for the ALP. Your opinions cannot be taken seriously because all you do is repeat this mantra that others are bad people!!!!!!!!!! Absolute crud! You’re a craven political opportunists trying to bring down democracy. You can’t see this because you fear of losing your precious system if you speak out of line. Oh, bold GG, a dog on the blogs and a bitch in the cliches.
Your posts are just more political sophistry to cover your hard core support for an authoritarian bunch of Earth plundering, workers comp with-holding homophobes (it would now appear). You ALP hacks have long since dominated William’s blog to the exclusion of all intelligent alternative comment!!!!!!!!!!
Being a running-dog for Rann Labor’s police state is not Democracy. It’s just an outrageous blot on the democratic process. They’re owned and funded by corporate interests. They should tell the truth rather than hide behind their weasel words, such as supposedly being a party of labour.
Just as I thought, you are a faschist.
At which point I will be drawing a line under any further abuse either from or directed at GG.
[What is everyone’s problem with Kouts?]
He’s very much from the religious right, his social views are like Atkinson’s. His letter about beats is but one example.
A small minority of homosexual people visit beats. He is allowing rednecks to generalise on gay people in general. The only thing he has done is create more animosity and further the perception that gay people generally frequent beats, and increased the chance of gay bashings.
A small minority of straight people rape little girls but… you get where i’m going here.
Generalisations… not cool.
[hard core support for an authoritarian bunch of Earth plundering, workers comp with-holding homophobes]
lol it’s funny cause it’s true 😀
James
The bed numbers are a cut.
1. A lot of the “beds” they are counting are day surgery beds which are comfy couches and not actual beds.
2. But the main reason it is a cut is they are gutting the QEH who will lose hundreds of beds.
You have to look at the total number between the RAH and QEH and the new RAH will have LESS than the current RAH/QEH.
3. Even the current RAH had 1100 beds before they (Labor and Libs) started cutting beds and turning them into administration offices.
4. We need more beds not less. The population is aging and has increasingly complex problems. Our EDs are full with people waiting in corridors for days because there are no beds for them.
And the four nursing heads were asked to send the letter by SA Health as Labor know they are losing support on the RAH. It was administrators sucking up to their bosses.
I don’t think I am gunna rely on MixSum’s predictions anymore. He predicted Labor would be out to $1.50 and Liberal’s into $3.00 by this weekend. CentreBet prices have moved, but nowhere near as much as MixSum predicted. Labor are out to $1.18 and Liberal into $4.50. I suppose in his favour he got the direction of the move correct, just the quantum of the move was vastly over-stated.
Those ‘Isobel Redmond is ready’ signs… IMHO all it does is feed in to the perception that she isn’t ready. If being ready wasn’t an issue there’d be no need to say it… being leader of a major party, it should come with the territory.
I think those signs will work against her favour.
And as for the ‘save the RAH’ signs… save the RAH, save $1b? Surely there’s a better message to put out than opposing infrastructure spending…….
bob
I haven’t seen any Save the RAH signs anywhere (except on their campaign office on Frome Rd).
They want the extra $1B (which I somehow doubt exists) spent on country health, mental health etc.
I saw they have the pivotal Bob Neil endorsement.
[I haven’t seen any Save the RAH signs anywhere]
Go up (toward the CBD) Payneham Road and turn right at Stephen Terrace (the last main road on the right before the CBD outskirts/Hackney Road). On Stephen Terrace, you’ll see it on the left about 50m up from the intersection. It was very ameteur looking.
Also, on North East Road coming out of the city, just near the Maccas/ABC building (just after them) there’s a series of 3 signs, promoting an independent “climate skeptic” candidate. Also dodgy signs.
And before the two buildings, there was a car on it’s side against a stobey pole. Not a pretty sight.
[They want the extra $1B (which I somehow doubt exists) spent on country health]
That’s sure to attract votes in the metro area where elections are completely and utterly 100% decided. Well, Stuart aside. But I don’t think it’ll go Labor any time soon. Gunn may have carried a personal vote, but with Labor’s statewide 2PP margin in 2006 (a record 56.8%) and the natural swing away from Labor to occur at this election (with polling showing greater swings in rural SA), I just can’t see it happening. Not to mention it’s currently a Liberal seat anyway and the furtherest seat out of the CBD which can be potentially lost is Light, based in the far northern metro suburbs, Gawler, and nearby surrounds.
Also, I notice that Labor is sticking with black and white candidate photos everywhere (that i’ve seen anyway, I stand to be corrected), whilst the Liberals are doing colour for the marginal/winnable seats i’ve seen (Morialta, Hartley, Adelaide). Based on the seats i’ve seen, I assume the Libs are doing colour for seats with a margin of Adelaide (10%) and less. I wonder why Labor are sticking with black and white?
And another comment – the whole rebranding of the Liberals to ‘liberal sa’. Umm, sorry to break it to them, but it takes more than rebranding to become small-l liberals. It actually requires a culture and policy direction change, of which there’s been very little to none.
And one more thing – if Redmond somehow manages to win, she’ll be the first leader from the conservative faction of the ‘Liberal Party of Australia (South Australian division)’ to win government from opposition. Brown and Tonkin were both moderates.
580 – I would say that the simple silhouette b/w signs work better than the coloured ones with background at least in Light getting in the way. Its about time the big parties abd some like FF realised that most people are turned off by excess street signs – poluttion, waste of money etc come to mind as usual reactions.
I just got a call from Tom Kenyon’s (Labor, Newland) office asking me if there are “any local issues that are concerning you.” Is this what marginal seat campaigns usually do?
[I saw they have the pivotal Bob Neil endorsement.]
Who is Bob Neil?
[Brown and Tonkin were both moderates.]
And Playford was a socialist.
[And Playford was a socialist.]
He wasn’t a socialist, people just like calling him that. He was a social and economic conservative, with some economic socialist tendancies. This does not make him a “socialist”.
bob
That’s the SaveRAH platform, not the Liberals so it’s not targetted at winning elections.
SO
Bob Neil is a cult figure who played for Adelaide Uni football team.
[His name first achieved legend status during the 1986 grand final when a chant of “Bob Neil, Bob Neil” was used to spur the Blacks on to victory. Soon his name began appearing all over Adelaide – in graffiti, on banners and over the loudspeakers at Adelaide Oval.
When a Bob Neil banner was spotted at an Aussie Rules match at The Oval, London, he had ceased being a cult figure and had transformed into a phenomenon. His name even appeared on the Berlin Wall just before it was demolished in 1990.
A brilliant mathematician, these days Bob Neil works for the Defence Department at Salisbury, but his legacy is imbedded in the Blacks’ website, named after him: http://www.bobneil.com. ]
http://www.adelaide.edu.au/adelaidean/issues/10701/news10725.html
[That’s the SaveRAH platform, not the Liberals so it’s not targetted at winning elections.]
I just think that telling metropolitan voters to vote for them, for the primary reason stated on the election poster being to save $1b, to renovate the current hospital rather than build a brand new one, is completely the wrong angle. Metro voters want infrastructure spending, especially on health and education. They should have pitched a different angle rather than taking a stand against an $1b in health, especially for a new hospital.
bob
Maybe but the only thing they want to do is to “save the RAH”. They would happily swap getting a bunch of seats and the RAH getting knocked down for getting not a single vote and the RAH staying.
“Hatred, violence in our schools’ classrooms”
http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/south-australia/hatred-violence-in-our-schools-classrooms/story-e6frea83-1225834928483
[STUDENTS injured almost 3000 public school teachers in the past two years, an Education Department report obtained by The Advertiser shows.]
This is, of course, the media making a big deal after a teacher had a brick thrown at her head at a low socio-economic school at Davoren Park. It was an isolated incident, but the media will whip up paranoia, and I wouldn’t be surprised in the slightest if Rann uses it to announce some sort of crackdown in schools, in true Rannite (and somewhat Howardite) populist law & order fashion.
All the Labor signs I’ve seen use colour. BTW, we’re only one week into the campaign and many corflutes are already showing signs of wear and tear.
This campaign is painfully slow. We desperately need new polling and will get it in the Sunday Mail later today/tomorrow.
Security guards at a minimum. Possibly metal detectors and body scanning and a fully armed SWAT team in every school depending on the polls.
[Maybe but the only thing they want to do is to “save the RAH”. They would happily swap getting a bunch of seats and the RAH getting knocked down for getting not a single vote and the RAH staying.]
That’s only gonna happen if the Libs win, which at this stage I can’t see happening. I must say, i’m pleased with how the election campaign has gone so far. It was classic media-management (for better or worse), the way Rann Labor announced the press conference half an hour before it was starting, presumably to keep Chantelois away. And she hasn’t been a feature of the campaign nor have Labor been kept off-message so far. Funnily enough, this coincides with the ’tiser dropping their daily media saturation of Chantelois. Let’s hope this keeps up and they allow the government to stay on message, so we can actually have a democratic election rather than a Lib-favouring charade.
Labor holds 28, 24 seats are needed for majority government. If the campaign keeps going the way it has been, I don’t see Labor losing more than four seats. And if the unlikely happens and they do, I can’t see Kris Hanna or Geoff Brock supporting the Liberals, both for what their ideals are and the electorates they’re in (the vast majority of Brock’s support coming from the heavily Labor-voting rural town of Port Pirie).
Maywald and Such are wildcards, both have been favourable to the Labor government since 2002, taking ministries or the speakership, and a majority of legislative voting in Labor’s direction.
[All the Labor signs I’ve seen use colour.]
The image of the candidate has been in colour? May I ask what electorates you tend to frequent?
[Security guards at a minimum. Possibly metal detectors and body scanning and a fully armed SWAT team in every school depending on the polls.]
I know you’re being facetious, but LOL anyway 😀
You know what I would support? Every teacher having some sort of panic button on them, like old people who live by themselves have, should they have an accident. The school still doesn’t know which student threw the brick. There needs to be a quick teacher response should something serious occur.
bob
The Mossad assassination squad are probably looking for a new gig. Rann could give them a call.
[The Mossad assassination squad are probably looking for a new gig. Rann could give them a call.]
Now now 😛
Re 593: Mainly eastern suburbs but also a couple of western suburbs. Interesting that Mick Atkinson is standing by his principles and not displaying posters on the Port Road.
I really like the SA Health Institute building, although I bet it is nowhere near as transparent as the flythrough shows. My office overlooks the site so I’m very pleased. Actually I can’t lose. If Labor wins I get the Institute and the new RAH. If the Libs win I get a new multi-purpose stadium. It’s all good.
[PLANS for a building likely to be South Australia’s most controversial and an $18 million overpass for McLaren Vale were unveiled today as Prime Minister Kevin Rudd joined Premier Mike Rann on the election trail. ]
http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/sas-most-controversial-building/story-e6frea6u-1225835059477
All the Mary-Lou posters I’ve seen here in Finniss are in colour. Often the parties just recycle posters from past elections, especially in safe seats. I couldn’t even tell who the new liberals posters were for at first – you have to sort of squint to try and make out “Liberals SA” in that little yellow rectangle.
After seeing one of those filthy AbortSA posters, a friend said to me, “That fetus has got my vote – but if he gets into parliament how effective is he going to be if he’s just sitting there in a glass jar full of formaldahyde?”