Australian politics has entered uncharted waters after yesterday’s brutally efficient leadership coup, but the consensus view is that Julia Gillard is favourite to lead Labor to a victory which might have been beyond Kevin Rudd. One naysayer is Peter Brent of Mumble, a man who has been known to get things right from time to time. Brent’s assessment, published in The Australian yesterday, is that the odds now slightly favour the Coalition, whereas Labor under Rudd would most likely have increased its majority. I think he has it the wrong way around.
Certainly there is a view abroad – Mark Bahnisch of Larvatus Prodeo being one proponent – that changing leaders, particularly when in government, is inherently destabilising and destructive. The New South Wales state government’s game of musical chairs is usually offered as a cautionary tale. However, it is a mistake to compare the federal government with one whose problems are underlying, terminal and, most crucially, age-related. Through Morris Iemma, Nathan Rees and Kristina Keneally, NSW Labor’s primary vote has been super-glued to 30 per cent in the polls, for the simple reason that the leadership hasn’t been the problem.
It was a different story entirely with Kevin Rudd, who led a first-term government with a strong economic record that ought to be well ahead. The main problem lay with a leader whose credibility in the eyes of voters had been irreparably damaged by the celebrated series of policy backdowns followed by the government advertising fiasco. As is now well known, such problems were mirrored within the party. Stunning as events of recent days have been, there has been no mystery about their underlying cause: when Rudd’s poll lead evaporated, so did his authority in the party. All that remained to be answered was whether the party still felt he could struggle through to an election win, allowing the matter to be dealt with less bruisingly after the event.
Key to the decision that he couldn’t was internal polling which reportedly showed Labor headed for a net loss of 18 seats. Purported details of such polling were provided by a party insider to Andrew Bolt, and they tell a believeable story. Included are Labor seats on less than 5 per cent and Coalition seats on less than 1.5 per cent – about 40 all told. The broad picture is of Labor facing swings of 4 per cent in New South Wales and Queensland and as much as 8 per cent in South Australia, but no change in Victoria or Tasmania. In Western Australia, Hasluck would be lost, but no swing can be determined as Brand and Perth weren’t included in the poll. Also said to be a lost cause for Labor was Darwin-based Solomon.
Twenty-one seats in all were identified as Labor losses against three gains, which coming off 88 seats notionally held by Labor would leave them five seats short of a majority. This would involve an overall swing of about 3.5 per cent and a Labor two-party vote of about 49 per cent, slightly below the trend of published polling. Taken together, the evidence pointed to a worrying but by no means irretrievable situation for the government. What proved fatal to Rudd was a lack of confidence, based on recent performance, in his capacity to turn the ship around.
With regard to the likely electoral consequences, Peter van Onselen in The Australian pretty much bangs the nail on the head as far as I’m concerned, as does Niki Savva at The Drum. This from Lenore Taylor the Sydney Morning Herald also caught my eye:
Tony Abbott put a brave face on Labor’s last-ditch leadership change but privately the Coalition was desperately disappointed that it would not face an election against Kevin Rudd.
And it was utterly dismayed the mining industry had – as one source put it – ”succumbed to [Gillard’s] guile” by agreeing to her offer of a negotiating truce in the mining super profits tax war and to take the industry advertisements attacking the government off the air.
The Coalition has gone out on a limb in support of the mining industry and the prospect of a deal between the miners and the government has left it edgy.
Some developments from the upheaval:
• In what would be red-letter news on any other day, Lindsay Tanner made the shock announcement he would quit politics at the next election, making Greens candidate Adam Bandt a short-priced favourite to take his seat of Melbourne. VexNews reports “talk” that Tanner hopes to be succeeded in the seat by academic, commentator and occasional broadcaster Waleed Aly, who would seem just the thing to defuse the threat of the Greens, and Socialist Left warlord Andrew Giles, who wouldn’t.
• Shortly before the spill, VexNews reported that if Rudd went, so might two Queensland marginal seat MPs: Chris Trevor in Flynn and Jon Sullivan in Longman. Trevor said yesterday that Gillard would “always have my full support”, but Emma Chalmers of the Courier-Mail reports from Labor sources that he was contemplating quitting. Chalmers also quotes Sullivan expressing disappointment at the result, but going no further than that.
• According to The Australian’s 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.”
And while I’m here, here’s a piece I wrote for Crikey last week on the electoral state-of-play in South Australia. It might be showing its age in some respects.
South Australia was Labor’s forgotten triumph of the 2007 election, replicating on a smaller and less spectacular scale the decisive tectonic shift in Queensland.
The statewide two-party swing to Labor of 6.8% was only slightly below Queensland’s 7.5%, which was borne out in the proportion of seat gains: three out of 11 in South Australia, nine out of 29 in Queensland.
Labor’s resurgence put an end to a slump which dated back to 1987, the last time they had won a majority of the South Australian two-party vote, and 1990, when they last won a majority of seats.
Before that the state had been a source of strength for Labor in the post-war era, notwithstanding that a dubious electoral boundaries regime kept them out of office for much of that time at state level.
This was partly because the state party branch was spared the worst of the 1954-55 split, but also because of the large blue-collar workforce required to service an economy based largely on manufacturing and industry.
The difficulties experienced by these sectors meant the state was hit hard by the economic upheavals of the 1980s, which together with the damage done to Labor by the 1991 State Bank collapse led to a fundamental electoral shift in the Liberals’ favour.
At federal level this was manifested in a series of grim federal election results that reduced Labor to two seats out of 12 in 1996, to which only one seat was added in later terms of the Howard Government.
With one seat having been abolished in 2004, Labor’s doubling of their representation at the 2007 election gave them a bare majority of six seats out of 11, and left the Liberals without a safe seat in Adelaide.
The two Liberal hold-outs in the city were Christopher Pyne’s seat of Sturt and Andrew Southcott’s seat of Boothby, which cover the traditional party strongholds of the east and inner south.
In a tale that will become increasingly familiar as this series proceeds, speculation about the coming election was long focused on the Liberals’ chances of retaining these existing seats, but such talk faded as the new year began and disappeared with Labor’s poll collapse over the past two months.
Labor’s main strength in South Australia lies in the coastal plain north of the city centre, which makes a safe Labor seat of Port Adelaide and marginals of four others which are leavened with more conservative areas beyond.
The electorate of Adelaide covers inner suburbs both north and south of the city, which are respectively strong and weak for Labor, and the growing inner-city apartment population in between, which has proved highly volatile in its electoral habits of late.
In a rare sighting of the “doctors’ wives” effect, Labor’s Kate Ellis bucked the trend of the 2004 election to win Adelaide from Liberal incumbent Trish Worth, and she emerged from the 2007 election with what seemed like a secure 8.5% margin.
However, the Liberals are talking of internal polling showing them “closing the gap”, after staggering swings were recorded in the electorate at the March state election (at which Education Minister Jane Lomax-Smith lost the state seat of Adelaide with a swing of 14.4%).
To the west of Adelaide is coastal Hindmarsh, which combines Labor-voting inner city areas with prosperous and conservative Glenelg in the south. Labor’s Steve Georganas won by the narrowest of margins when popular Liberal member Chris Gallus retired in 2004, before picking up a relatively modest swing in 2007.
North-east of the city centre is Makin, home to newer suburbs in the hills along with the eastern part of Salisbury on the plain. Makin is the only seat in the state which has form as a bellwether, being held by Labor from its creation in 1984 until 1996, Liberal through the Howard years and Labor’s Tony Zappia since 2007.
Further north is Wakefield, which offers even starker contrasts: deep red Elizabeth in the south, rapidly growing Gawler just past the city’s northern limits (where change is favouring Labor, if the state election is anything to go by) and conservative rural and wine-growing areas beyond.
Wakefield was a safe Liberal country seat until it absorbed Elizabeth at the redistribution before the 2004 election. Liberal candidate David Fawcett unexpectedly retained it for the Liberals on that occasion, but his narrow margin was eliminated by Labor’s Nick Champion in 2007 (Fawcett now stands poised to enter the Senate).
The only seat in Adelaide which conforms neatly with the mortgage belt marginal seat stereotype is Kingston, covering the city’s outer southern coastal suburbs. Labor’s Amanda Rishworth recovered this seat for Labor in 2007 after it was lost in 2004, interest rates having had a lot to do with it on each occasion.
The diversity that characterises the other marginals is significant, as it leaves their members as susceptible to rebellions in party heartlands as to the normally more decisive ebb and flow of the mortgage-payer vote.
This is where the mining tax could cause problems for Labor, as many blue-collar workers perceive a connection between the mining boom and the industrial and manufacturing sectors which employ them.
While South Australia is rarely given a guernsey as a “mining state”, BHP Billiton’s massive Olympic Dam project single-handedly allows the industry to punch above its weight, as it is associated in the public mind with the state shaking off its “rust belt” reputation from the 1990s.
Uncomfortably for Labor, BHP Billiton says the tax will jeopardise a $20 billion expansion to the project which is currently under consideration, a process that will certainly not be completed before the election.
Premier Mike Rann captured attention last week when he claimed any decision to stall the project would cost Labor four or even five seats.For all that, the Liberals have big hurdles to clear if South Australia is to produce any of the seats it needs to overhaul Labor’s majority.
The problem is a lack of low-hanging fruit — even the most marginal of Labor’s six seats, Kingston, sits on an imposing margin of 4.4%.
Furthermore, the March state election suggests Labor has a trump card in the form of a ruthlessly efficient marginal seat campaign machine, which helped Mike Rann hang on to office with just 37.5% of the primary and 48.4% of the two-party vote.
The only seats in the state which swung to Labor were the two most marginal, Light and Mawson (respectively in Wakefield and Kingston federally), and the critical eastern suburbs seats of Hartley and Newland likewise held firm against a torrid tide. Elsewhere, Labor suffered double-digit swings nearly everywhere they could afford to.
Federal Labor will be hoping to achieve similar successes in working-class areas with a campaign to focus minds on industrial relations, thereby shoring up valuable support in Makin and Wakefield in particular.
Beyond Adelaide, the state’s three non-metropolitan seats are of limited electoral interest, notwithstanding the vague threat the Democrats and now the Greens have posed in Mayo, where Jamie Briggs struggled over the line in the September 2008 by-election that followed Alexander Downer’s resignation.That leaves Barker in the state’s east, which covers rural territory which has never been of interest to Labor, and the outback electorate of Grey, which has transformed over the past two decades from safe Labor to safe Liberal — testament to the decline of the “iron triangle” cities of Whyalla, Port August and Port Pirie, and reflecting the experience of Kalgoorlie west of the border.
[have worked with peopel tht remind me of Rudd, very likable and great when things are going right but once their is a problem they just cannot cope.]
So the GFC was one of those easy times??
Yep. They thought the racist pamphlets in the seat of lindsay would get them across the line. Only they got caught in their own trap – again this is a matter on the public record and indeed court records as are the guilty pleas.
The perpetrators were from abbott faction if memory serves me correct ?
[his leadership style of micromanagement is not going to work when the tough times happen]
can you imagine what Abbotts style of management is?? I cant
Well actually, there must be some evidence from Health department
Gusface. There is a time for strong leadership and there is a time for solid leadership.
Since October last year Rudd has drifted and this is seen for the several policy backflips and backdowns. yes the ETS was forced by the pathetic Liberal Party
But there has been increasing concern about Rudd and this has been seen in his high staff turnover and things like not seening Bob Brown for a year.
Regardless of what I may think of the Greens I would still have at least one meeting per month with Brown for he is a party leader and therefore should have his office respected.
I get the feeling Abbot & co.s use of the term mafia as well as death squads, execution etc. is an attempt to get Truthy and his friends to notice that some of the ALP ‘backroom powerbrokers’ don’t have very Anglo sounding surnames and thus don’t conduct politcs the ‘Australian way’.
Is this Howardesque dog whistling on steriods?
…and more importantly, do they dope greyhounds with steriods or something else?
Laocoon – Rudd’s leadship style was born out of his earlier time as a head public servant and he was known for being tough and too a point you need that but it appears that Rudd cut himself off from his own party.
We have a very good idea of what sort of leadership Abbott will bring if he was too win.
[Centrbet has just taken down the market for Liberal leader at the next election. What do they know?]
I expect they watched the 7:30 report and thought they’ll need to add a few more names to that book.
abbott under pressure, live on TV or whatever on the campaign trail, under close questioning could do anything. The so called knockabout authentic aussie bloke is a fraud and it will not take much to set him off. The blowtorch is getting very close to his family jewels.
All he will be able to do when this is over is hop on his bike.
Show us ya policies libs.
[Centrbet has just taken down the market for Liberal leader at the next election. What do they know?]
I think that Turnbull would be a tougher opponent for Gillard than Abbott.
Laurie Oakes:
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/opinion/a-liberal-dose-of-bad-news/story-e6frfhqf-1225884469556?from=public_rss
William, Brian was a know it all bastard when I knew him at University, and has not changed a bit. Interesting that Kerry O’Brien was a contemporary as well. Marion Wilkinson was another contemporary
We’re probably a lot of critical sods, our generation.
[no-one within the Coalition…has learned to say the words “Klaatu, barada, nikto!” to rein in the Leader of the Opposition before he leads his party over the precipice to utter defeat with his shrill rhetoric and strident attacks]
The Big Ship (843). Maybe they need to write it down.
[his leadership style of micromanagement is not going to work when the tough times happen]
The tough times did happen: Australia was facing recession, and the prospect of many Australians out of work. Kev’s leadership style worked fine then, so much so that our country avoided recession, and kept Australians in work.
Minchin & co. can console themselves by thinking swinging voters don’t watch the 7:30 report so haven’t seen Abbott’s last two interviews with Red Kerry. But how can they seriously consider going to the polls knowing Tone will have to go up against Gillard in a series of nationally televised debates?
[ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SKxA8Z3gnBY
]
PLAY IT AGAIN SAM
He is so lazy, and so lacking in competence, and a complete liar, I suspect he cant manage…leave it to the public servants??
With due respect the Governemtn had a simple choice in 2008. to spend the economy out of recession or let it slip into recession.
we know it got it right.
What i am referring to is the domestic issues that have seen Rudd struggle to sell either though being poorly advised or not sticking to the policies.
I refer people to go and read the wise words of a momnth ago by Grog when he nailed Rudd’s problem.
jenauthor – what would be the reason for taking the bet down.
Oh dear, the Liberals will be hiding Phoney Tony after tonight’s disaster on ABC TV. 😀
If the next lot of opinion polls are terrible, any chance that Turnball might launch another leadership bid? 😉
[entrbet has just taken down the market for Liberal leader at the next election. What do they know?]
what does that mean
[Oh dear, the Liberals will be hiding Phoney Tony after tonight’s disaster on ABC TV.
If the next lot of opinion polls are terrible, any chance that Turnball might launch another leadership bid?]
i missed it all but the last 5 min can you tell me in a nutshell
I tip that Tone will be gone within a fortnight.
It will be a big tap, then, on yu bike Tone!
[868 BH
Posted Friday, June 25, 2010 at 10:31 pm | Permalink
jenauthor – what would be the reason for taking the bet down
]
shhhhh perhaps we better not ask
[ tip that Tone will be gone within a fortnight.
It will be a big tap, then, on yu bike Tone!
]
dont say that i had a feeling about this i think we we better have it all by tomorrow ??? just joking
Bernard Keane and Laurie Oakes both wrote good articles a few months ago giving Kev a bit of sound advice on how to counteract Abbott and get his mojo back.
Obviously nobody pointed them out to Kev because if he’d just gone along a little way with what they said he may not be on the outer now. Shows how careful you have to be in choosing advisers, both experienced and inexperienced.
Who are the Tories going to put in as leader?
[I’d never previously formed a strong opinion one way or another on Paul Toohey. Is he always this big a wanker?]
William lives in the wrong city otherwise he would know that Toohey has always been a wangker for the coalition.
McCrann singing Julia’s praises for heaven sake. Has the earth reversed its rotation ?
Prime Minister Gillard. Its got a nice ring to it.
[can you tell me in a nutshell]
You know when a few days ago, Abbott denied saying in the party-room, that the Liberals were on verge of victory?
Well tonight he admitted that was a complete lie.
Because he is the complete liar
In a nutshell
If my OH is the barometer, the Gillard will romp in. She turned off Rudd completely and she actually sat down, watch and listen to Gillard’s presser.
Sorry Tone, go get buggered.
Finns
Your OH is julia gillard
🙂
so the grieving is over its all for julia now and when you are feeling you need a lift its
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pPHJhL45BtE]
play it again frank
Scorpio 872
I think you might be right. Might take more than two weeks but it’ll happen.
night all, what a week what a rollercoaster.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pPHJhL45BtE
a blessing in disguise.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pPHJhL45BtE
Pretty easy to malign somebody using sweeping assumptions, construct strawmen and absolutes on limited data, claiming to know more than we do especially when it personal data, data that is filtered through those who need to justify themselves and or are on the opposite side. They serve to help rationalise the replacement of Rudd, insert our pejorative opinions as fact and so forth.
Rudd was a solid leader and whilst still new to the job dealt brialliantly with a once in a generation threat, whose mistakes were nor worse than many a PM before him, especially first terms PMs.
The diference seems to be that the mistakes Rudd made were amplified beyond their relevance throughout all conservative media and media personalities, persistent, unrelenting. Stiffling and misrepresenting facts, context and perspective. Rudd suffered a relentless corroding campaign that also attempted to suck clear air from him. It took some time, but eventually the relentless campaign began to bite, because eventually they could attach themselves to the inevitable mistakes a Govt makes and the advent of Abbott who provided a stark contrast.
Now it isn’t the job of the media to worry too much about the Opposition leaders stuff ups. But in the case of Abbott and Joyce and so forth we had probably the worst Opposition in living memory, for lack of talent and awful performance. Something the media avoided. Their lack was and is so great that the media really does have a responsibility to expose it.
If Rudd were a Howard then he would still be plain sailing, and Howard’s first term was not without drama.
London to a brick, the footage of howes on latelien will be the central plank in the fibs advertising
“the faceless men who control labor”
I wonder if you could take this photo:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1289185/Navigators-gag-amuses-plane-spotters-fighter-jet-races-Snowdonia.html
And photoshop Jo Hockey into the back seat and Tony Abboott into the front? 🙂
I’m just back from the pub. What happened on the 7.30 Report tonight, and what does it mean for our goddess?
Gusface@886
ABC won’t allow the footage to be used for Political Advertising – unless you want to play Paul howes 🙂
First poll (Galaxy) here:
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/julia-gillard-puts-labor-back-into-election-winning-position-first-poll-finds/story-e6frf7jo-1225884488474
cheers,
Mad Dog
frank
they will blamk out howes face and use sound grabs
the MEME developing will be the unions control labor
**********************************************************************
btw you really should stop your attacks
try reading what peeps are trying to say
Or are we all liberal/green/calathumpian ?
Marktwain @ 888
Basically, Kezza chewed up and spat out Tones, who was back to his uncertain (when unscripted) worst. Read the comments back a page or two.
Good news: Julia’s looking REALLY good up against this goose.
Bad news: He was so bad he’ll be gone before the election. Libs to do a Labor.
Abbott caught out telling lies – not surprisingly News Ltd and Radio Liberal aren’t saying a thing about this. 😆
Rudd’s performance on the GFC was outstanding and courageous. A stimulus package is in large part wasted if you wait for the effects of recession to be seen. You are left trying to create jobs rather than save them, a much harder thing.
Rudd had to when sky was still blue come right on the curve and do massive stimulating, whilst people were still sailing along.
It was not a simple matter or one of limited choices. Rudd had any number of permutations to try, to be more cautious, to be slower with introduction of measures.
Instead he hit hard and fast, and it worked as good as anybody could have hoped for.
I cannot imagine whats a Howard and Costello would have done with regard to a rescue package. You could absolutely guarantee that Howard would have used the GFC as an opporunity to put more controls on the people, to enhance workchoices type policies. In fact you could see the Howard govt allowing a recession to appear so it could take advantage of it.
Oh how short we sell Rudd because we are not pleased with his personal style.
Mad dog.. how does that compare with the last Galaxy poll?
Gusface@892
Build a Bridge.
You’re starting to piss me off and I don’t want upset Bilbo and others by being narky but you’re pushing it.
Have you rung Lib HQ yet to help Tone get elected ?
[Who are the Tories going to put in as leader?]
If the Libs were to change leaders again before the election, it would be suicide to go back to Turnbull while Rudd is still there to remind everybody about the Grech affair. So the question stands – who ARE the Tories going to put in as leader?
Frank
Yep
said to call you for a reference
😉
Gusface@892
Oh and you haen’t you forgotten this little important factor – the ALP IS the political arm of the Union Movement – of course the Unions are a major factor.