And you thought a week was a long time in politics. Two hours after the first intimations of action, Kevin Rudd has announced he will face a leadership challenge from Julia Gillard at 9am tomorrow. Speaking at his press conference, Rudd invoked indigenous issues, the mining tax, pensions and climate change in a clear pitch to the party’s left, whom he called on to stand tough against the machinations of the Right faction heavies who have brought the situation to a head.
For my money, if the party room’s electoral prospects are what matters to it, there is little choice for it but to back Gillard. The warlords have moved against Rudd because they are brutally aware that it is he who is dragging them down in the polls and threatening their re-election prospects. In his absence, the government will be able to modify damaging policies as Rudd could not afford to, for fear of being called out over another “backflip”. Labor would also enter the election with a credible and certain story to tell about the next three years, the lack of which defeated Howard more than any single factor with only the possible exception of WorkChoices. Then there’s the feel-good factor of our first woman prime minister, which most voters recognise as overdue. Finally, I suggest that Glenn Milne’s thoughts last week on the dynamics of a Gillard-Abbott election battle would end up looking highly prescient after the event.
Over to you.
UPDATE: And with what great timing, we get the long-awaited quarterly cumulative Newspoll. This combines polls five from April to June, which successively had Labor’s party vote at 54, 49, 50, 51 and 52, allowing state and demographic results to be provided from a reasonable sample size. The state breakdowns show a surprisingly mild move against Labor in Western Australia, from 51-49 behind in January-March to 53-47 in April-June. While Labor has crashed seven points on the primary vote to 31 per cent, the dividend has gone entirely to Greens and “others”. If the result was uniform, Labor would hold its own on those numbers. The only other state with Labor trailing is Queensland, where Labor fell from 51-49 ahead to 52-48 behind. New South Wales and Victoria recorded little change with Labor leading 52-48 and 56-44, while their lead in South Australia dived from 55-45 to 51-49.
There was little sign of recent turmoil among voters over 50, among whom the Labor vote held steady on 37 per cent. It was a case of other age groups falling to that level: Labor fell five points to 39 per cent among 18-34s, and seven to 36 per cent and 35-49s. The Coalition primary vote was up three points among men to 43 per cent but steady on 39 per cent among women, who have instead sent votes lost to Labor to the Greens and others.
UPDATE 2 (Thursday morning): Not sure how much it’s worth now, but The Advertiser ran a poll this morning of 530 voters from the seat of Adelaide, where Labor holds a margin of 8.5 per cent but has been said to be in trouble. The poll doesn’t entirely bear this out: Labor’s primary vote was down 7 per cent from the election to 41 per cent, but the Liberals are also down from 37 per cent to 35 per cent – suggesting the undecided had not been distributed – and most of the dividend went to the Greens, up 6 per cent to 16 per cent. In two-party terms, Labor retained a handsome 57-43 lead.
UPDATE 3 (Thursday afternoon): Comments thread talk tells us Galaxy are in the field, suggesting we can expect the first poll of the new era either in the Sunday News Limited tabloids.
[I suppose SHY is at least educable.]
I’d suggest the Ludovico technique.
Now he’s been replaced by a card-carrying member of the left, an atheist and a feminist (of sorts) and you’re all in a roaring rage. Very strange.
I’m not. I’m over the farkin moon.
Jack the Insider:
[Liberal Party polling tells (Abbott) that he is starting this contest against Gillard from a long way behind. Kevin Rudd may have had his nose in front but the polling tells Abbott that Gillard would win the next election by the length of the straight.]
[how do you spell loyallty?]
Not like that…anyway, you know it had to be done today if it was gonna happen. It was driven by pragmatics, not cruelty.
Mons Venus?
[the polling tells Abbott that Gillard would win the next election by the length of the straight.]
By the length of Gillard’s nose?
“Psephos, Its called article 33(1) of the the Geneva Convetion on Refugees.”
Excellent swordsmanship left-e!
gee can’t theswe parties run polls.
the ALP claim they were losing
The Liberasl claim they are well behind.
Panch
glad to see your streak of compassion shining thru
🙁
2650 – 1998 was 49-51.
It’s unusual though, yes. But we live in very unusual times.
[You have totally misread the mood though I’m not surprised.]
What do you know about the goddam “mood”? Were you there? I work there, for chrissake. I saw the mood first hand. The mood was that the great majority of Caucus were sick to the back teeth of Rudd and the PMO, and felt that he was leading them over a cliff.
[I really liked “our Kev”. Mistakes were made and I grieve for his suffering today.]
He may have been a dud root, but he was MY dud root.
Trubbel
ta for the chuckle
🙂
Based on the internal polling at 2533 – SA would have been left with 1 federal Labor MP out of 11 HR seats. Now I know why the SA Right was so keen for Julia…
Gus – it’s rough, and I didn’t believe it till it was happening. But it has, and there were reasons why.
Old Tom @ 2600,
Nice post Tom. I’ve got one election up on you. I come from a family and extended family who “all” vote Tory. I have over many years been treated as a leper by many of them and suffered a very distant relationship with my parents because of the fact that I have been a staunch and very active Labor supporter for all that time.
I have stood out all day manning a huge booth in over 50 degree heat and then worked inside for hours scrutineering while everyone else including the candidate was having a ball at the party. I’ve stood all day in poring rain, cold as a bastard, I’ve worn out countless pairs of shoes door knocking and letter boxing as have my wife & 4 kids and much more besides.
The likes of Rudd & Swan have been guests in my house which often was a campaign headquarters.
Nobody has done more than we have for the cause but to be abused by the likes of Frank and dismissed as nothing but a disloyal whinger by the likes of Psephos, cuts to the core and does nobody any good.
My loyalty has been more sorely tested by that than it has by yesterday and today’s events. I felt a bit lost before, but much more now!
Rant over and bed for me!
[Liberal Party polling tells (Abbott) that he is starting this contest against Gillard from a long way behind. Kevin Rudd may have had his nose in front but the polling tells Abbott that Gillard would win the next election by the length of the straight.]
I predict it wont be long before Turnbull creates a challenge.
[Now I know why the SA Right was so keen for Julia]
I believe every MHR from SA and WA voted for Gillard (I’m not sure about all the Senators), and I know why.
panch
1. you picked up an extra l in my loyallty-well done ,gold star for proofreading
🙂
2.As i said , may what happened to Rudd, happen to you in some shape or form,it may build character?
Tuckey or Hanson-Young, Sarah will do what is in the interest of her party’s values; who knows what Tuckey would do. Hmm that is a hard choice. I will go with Sarah because I fear the miners have too much power at the moment.
[I predict it wont be long before Turnbull creates a challenge.]
2 days ago I’d have said don’t be stupid…
Psephos
Any idea what portfolio Rudd will get? Julie said she will talk to him first.
[dismissed as nothing but a disloyal whinger by the likes of Psephos]
I haven’t called anybody a disloyal whinger.
My wife said I cant go out and play. Too bad Julia (her proxy).
Psephos (2330) said:
[Rudd lost the leadership because he tried to run a government in defiance of the culture of the Labor Party, with all power and wisdom centred in his own office. This was a problem seen by many, from day one, but so long as Rudd was riding high in the polls nothing could be done about it. Over the past year, Rudd’s way of doing things has become steadily less functional, as the policy challenges became more difficult. When his poll ratings began to slide (which actually happened last October, well before the CPRS decision), there were no processes available to identify and deal with the issues. Rudd clearly had no understanding of what the problem was, and he and his senior staff made it impossible for anyone to tell him. As he felt more besieged, his communications skills declined, he became more hectoring and less persuasive. This fed into the polls and focus groups that The Big Ship referred to above. An increasing number of people came simply to dislike Rudd personally. There was no way out of this box except through a leadership change. Rudd created that situation himself. He showed it again today with his over-long and self-indulgent speech.]
How can we believe anything he says every again after a back-flip such as the above?
[Psephos
Any idea what portfolio Rudd will get? ]
If you watched the 7.30 Report you know as much as anyone knows.
And according to Show’s On Internal Polling would have resuultied in the ALP only retaining Perth, Fremantle and Brand.
And for WA Labor that would’ve been lethal.
[What do you know about the goddam “mood”? Were you there? I work there, for chrissake. I saw the mood first hand. The mood was that the great majority of Caucus were sick to the back teeth of Rudd and the PMO, and felt that he was leading them over a cliff.]
leading them over a cliff? Rudd was seriously undermined by the MSM. Some of that was blood sport (let’s see if we can bring down a celebrity) and some was a deliberate attempt to change the face of national politics. The MSM were fed info by ALP traitors that fuelled those hourly/daily attacks. Charming stuff. Yes, Rudd was injured by self inflicted wounds but the fatal wounds were the knives in the back. It’s history.
Sorry Gus, cheap chuckle 🙂 I’m not much of a self editor either. I’d counsel redirecting your focus to the All White fairytale about to kick off.
the justifications shown here prove one thing
Rudd was rolled by liddle lemmings
They were scared by ONE poll
🙁
So it could be:
Julia v Abbott
Julia v Turnbull
Julia v Hockey
Julia v Tuckey
Julia v Whine
It would be a laugh if Turnbull did challenge and Hockey won instead.
Psephos – well, everyone voted for Gillard. It’s my understanding that if it went to a ballot, not all SA MHRs would have.
[How can we believe anything he says every again after a back-flip such as the above?]
Michael, I don’t really care whether you believe me or not. I’m telling people here what I believe to be the case – what motive could I possibly have to lie about it?
My wife said I cant go out and play. Too bad Julia (her proxy).
My handbag says I can’t either, but what does he know? Teh grlls are in teh House!
One lesson of Rudd’s demise is that modern politics is corrupted by a communication paradox.
The policies that governments need to implement in the 21st century are often extremely complex and require a great deal of explanation, yet the ways politicians get the message out is increasingly fragmented, from TV sound bites to Twitter messages.
In the 1980s it was relatively easy for a Government to say that it didn’t think it was a good idea for the value of the currency to be arbitrarily fixed. Or that Governments shouldn’t run airlines. That can be explained relatively straight forwardly. But how do governments explain more efficient mining taxes? Or why a carbon tax or ETS is better than Governments buying abatement?
More so now than ever before the things Governments need to do are extremely complicated, and citizens have more access to more media sources. But actually explaining things are harder.
John Doyle (AKA Roy Slaven) was right when he said it is too much to ask of a populace to make reasonable choices when it doesn’t have the information, or education, to make good decisions.
[Yes, Rudd was injured by self inflicted wounds ]
But no more than the average PM has.
Gusface@2680
and internal polling which is far more revealing than a poll for a Newspaper.
pseph @2683
Switching to comedy now?
[Psephos – well, everyone voted for Gillard. It’s my understanding that if it went to a ballot, not all SA MHRs would have.]
Well there was no ballot, so obviously no-one actually voted. What I meant was “declared how they would vote.” My understanding is that both the SA Left and Right were early to declare for Gillard, and that covers everyone.
gee people the ALP vote had been slowly falling. it has been a long time since we were discussing 57-43 or 60-40. the truth is that Rudd had been bleeding for a long while and something needed to change
pseph @ 2689.
That assumptions assumes that everyone in the SA SL and Unity were going to vote along factional lines. I understand that wasn’t the case for some.
[It’s the cult of Kochie and Sunsrise that created the monstor called Rudd and those wailing have become members of that cult.]
You’ve totally jumped the shark here Frank! Bloody hell!
Read and learn re Marginal Seats, especially from Hasluck which ironically borders my own seat of Pearce – Sharryn was one of the targets of the WA Lib’s “Postcard Campaign” re the RSPT.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/06/24/2936377.htm
[Read and learn re Marginal Seats, especially from Hasluck which ironically borders my own seat of Pearce]
Screw W.A.! The 2010 federal election will NOT be won or lost in WA!
The result will be clear well before then.
Hasluck is already a Lib gain Frank just suck it up and admit it.
William
Do you think what the ALP did was fair in light of its timing?
In your considered opinion should labor have waited?
[2675
Michael Wilbur-Ham (MWH)
How can we believe anything he says every again after a back-flip such as the above?]
MWH, who really cares what you believe?
scorpio@2692
I haven’t jumped the Shark – it is the political reality – Tabloid Morning Television has replaced traditional methods of disseminating Electoral information.
Ignore it at your peril.
geez Glen that is a big call. we shall wait and see.
Frank what flavour kool-aid have you been drinking today?