Roy Morgan has again rained on Julia Gillard’s poll parade, with a poll of 800 voters in four Queensland marginals showing Labor no better placed than they were said to be before Kevin Rudd’s demise. The four seats targeted are outer suburban Longman and regional Flynn, Dawson and Leichhardt, and if by some coincidence the figures for each are accurate which is unlikely, as the margin of error on each 200-sample poll is about 7 per cent Labor stands to lose all except the latter with respective swings of 7.3 per cent, 8.2 per cent and 3.4 per cent, with no change recorded in Longman. However, it would be more instructive to combine the results and think in terms of a collective swing of a bit below 5 per cent and a margin of error of 3.5 per cent. If consistent across Queensland, this would cost Labor eight seats held actually and two held notionally. Helpfully, three of these seats were covered in Newspoll’s marginal seat survey of Tuesday before last, conducted during Kevin Rudd’s last weekend as Prime Minister, the exception being Leichhardt. This showed a 6 per cent swing from a margin of error of 4 per cent. Presumably Morgan will offer a face-to-face poll from last weekend tomorrow, the first such poll conducted on Gillard’s watch.
There is better news for Labor from The Advertiser, which has Labor leading 56-44 in the Adelaide seat of Hindmarsh, held for Labor on a margin of 5.1 per cent. The survey involved 633 respondents and would have a margin of error of a little below 4 per cent, although this presumes a random sample which The Advertiser probably lacks the expertise to obtain.
Federal preselection news:
The Socialist Left faction of the Victorian ALP, which dominates the local branches, has chosen ACTU industrial officer Cath Bowtell as its candidate for the federal preselection for Melbourne, to be vacated on the retirement of Lindsay Tanner. The faction’s secretary, Andrew Giles, had been favoured by some for the position, but agreed to stand aside in favour of Bowtell, whose endorsement is now considered a fait accompli. The preselection will be conducted locally on Sunday and finalised by the party’s public office selection committee on Tuesday.
Queensland’s troubled Liberal National Party has picked a new candidate for the Brisbane seat of Moreton, which Labor’s Graham Perrett won from sitting Liberal Gary Hardgrave in 2007, after the original nominee, Michael Palmer (20-year-old son of mining magnate Clive), withdrew citing health concerns. The winner was Malcolm Cole, former Courier-Mail journalist and staffer to former Senator Santo Santoro, who defeated local businessman Steve Smith.
It’s been noted lately that the New South Wales Liberals are dragging their heels getting candidates in place in important electorates: Lindsay, Parramatta and Greenway. According to the Sydney Morning Herald, these will be resolved over the next fortnight. The Penrith Press reports two candidates have nominated in Lindsay: marketing manager Fiona Scott and casual teacher Margaret Grand.
State preselection news from New South Wales:
The Nationals’ ground-breaking open primary preselection for Tamworth was conducted last weekend, delivering victory to local businessman Kevin Anderson. The ballot was open to anyone registered in the electorate, attracting 4293 voters. Anderson won 2110 vote (49.4 per cent) to 1100 (25.7 per cent) for James Treloar, 648 (15.2 per cent) for Russell Webb and 414 (9.7 per cent) for Mark Rodda, with the distribution of Rodda’s preferences electing Anderson. A similar effort by the Victorian ALP in the Liberal-held state seat of Kilsyth in April only attracted 170, although the only procedural difference was a requirement that participants register online. The winner on that occasion was former electorate officer Vicky Setches with 75 per cent of the vote.
The Sydney Morning Herald reports the Liberal preselection for the safe Liberal NSW state seat of Baulkham Hills, to be vacated at the election by retiring Wayne Merton, has been postponed after originally being scheduled for tomorrow. The preselection is the latest front in the war between state upper house MP David Clarke and federal Mitchell MP Alex Hawke, former allies in the Right. At issue is the validity of the membership of 14 Clarke supporters who attempted to join at an infamous Baulkham Hills Young Liberals meeting in Hawke’s electorate office last year, which ended with Hawke calling the police. The Hawke forces are backing state Civil Contractors Federation chief executive David Elliott, who unsuccessfully challenged Clarke for his upper house preselection earlier this year. Clarke supports Damien Tudehope, solicitor and Australian Family Association spokesman Damien Tudehope. Also in the field is Hills Shire deputy mayor Mike Thomas. It appears the preselection will be postponed until the federal election is out of the way, in the likely event that it is called shortly.
Greens state upper house MP Sylvia Hale, who earlier made what most presumed to be a retirement announcement when she said she would not seek re-election, has announced she will seek to run in the highly winnable lower house seat of Marrickville. She must first win next week’s preselection vote against Marrickville deputy mayor Fiona Byrne, the candidate from 2007.
Crikey’s Tips and Rumours reports Peter Fraser, former chief-of-staff to John Brogden, might emerge as a starter in the endlessly confusing preselection to choose a successor to Peter Debnam in Vaucluse. The remainder of the field is summarised as Left numbers woman Gabrielle Upton, independent restaurateur Peter Doyle, Woollahra mayor Andrew Petrie, Turnbull branch fixture Mary Lou Jarvis and Sydney gymnasium tycoon and right-winger Peter Cavanagh.
[But what does this mean in practice? She should take no advice? Rudd’s problem was not that he took too much advice. He took NO advice.]
There’s good advice and there’s crap advice advice.
Good advisors give good advice, hollow men give hollow advice.
How much money has Clive Palmer poured into the LNP’s/Abbott’s campaign war chest?
I noticed from William’s introduction to this thread that Palmer Jnr has withdrawn as the LNP candidate for Moreton – not that I was ever that worried about Graham Perrett holding that seat.
Aristotle
Thanks for a most interesting and insightful post.
While you’re here, are you able to tell us what you make of that poll by Morgan showing the coalition PV at 45.5%.?
[I looked up from work I was doing and spotted Tone on Sky. He appeared to be answering questions and had a silly looking grin on his face. My first thought was that he seemed a little shell shocked.]
Abbott still has the 2GB Liberal shock jocks rooting for him – Ray Hadley and Chris Smith were even more ridiculous today. 😀
“This election will be a referendum on the mining tax”.
Good luck then, Tone. It’s been resolved and is now being reported and seen as an initial cock up, but good for the country.
If they keep running with the “big new tax line” it is a huge mistake.
Graham Hockley has won Labor preselection in Federal Mayo.
Psephos@448
Yes he did, on the biggie, climate change. The sub-mensa group who knifed him, plus Gillard and Swan told him to dump it. At least Tanner and Wong were against them.
[Good advisors give good advice, hollow men give hollow advice.]
That works fine on cynical ABC comedy shows, it’s not a very meaningful distinction in practice. PMs appoint advisors whose judgement they trust, listen to their advice, and then make decisions. Rudd appointed zealous young acolytes and listened to no-one else, and eventually not even to them, I’m told. What does “hollow advice” mean in practice? Poll-driven? All politicians are poll-driven to some extent, and those who ignore polls soon find themselves out of office.
No conflict of interest at all. His polls are now at odds with the rest of them but, apart from being a mine owner, his position as a scholar and a scientist in charge of a market research organization would prohibit any tinkering with his own polls,naturally.
If Morgan says there is no conflict, then there is none. We must take his word as a gentleman and a statistician.
The are no conspiracy theories!
There are no conspiracies, even!
There is only truth…. and Morgan’s word.
BB
I thought grease was the word
[While you’re here, are you able to tell us what you make of that poll by Morgan showing the coalition PV at 45.5%.?]
That’s what Morgan reported, so you take it face value.
But I always do my calculations on Newspoll, Nielsen and Galaxy. They use the same techniques, phone poll, and use samples of at least 1000.
The importance of the CPRS decision in Rudd’s demise has been exaggerated. Rudd’s poll slump began in October, not in April. I agree it was a bad decision, but it flowed naturally from the even worse decision not to call a DD on climate in February. I believe that decision was all his own work.
You don’t like The Hollowmen making fun of political advisers? Priceless.
Are Gilllard, Swan, Tanner, Wong, and Arbib, ‘zealous young acolytes’ now? They’re the ones who said dump the ETS.
Psephos – are you saying that you don’t think the Australian Labor Party could have fought the multinationals in an election campaign and won?
[Are Gilllard, Swan, Tanner, Wong, and Arbib, ‘zealous young acolytes’ now? They’re the ones who said dump the ETS.]
So did Bob Brown and Christine Milne.
A DD on climate change? In the wake of Copenhagen? No way. The Opposition would have run the mother of all scare campaigns, and Labor would have lost a swag of outer-suburban seats in every mainland capital. Dumping the CPRS was the lesser of two evils.
Excellent point ru
[So did Bob Brown and Christine Milne.]
That’s true. In fact some here were arguing the same thing. Hmm.
There’s a clear distinction between being research driven and being poll driven.
Research is highly useful and it comes in many forms, including feedback from backbenchers and party members which can often be better than formal market research.
Poll driven is taking a cynical view of the electorate and making cynical policy decisions.
The former treats the electorate with respect, the latter treats them like mugs.
[But what does this mean in practice? She should take no advice? Rudd’s problem was not that he took too much advice. He took NO advice.]
I think one thing Kevin Rudd said was correct. Some in the party want to move the AS issue further right. I reckon that is wrong so I hope she’s not listening to those drongoes. Stand up and inspire us to be humane about it Julia.
CC – definitely come up with something concrete for negotiation with the Greens next term. Play the Greens with their own game.
The voters are looking for a real leader.
What did you think of the ETS as first proposed JV?
The party would like the importance of the ETS decision to have been exaggerated. The slide was there before the final dumping of the ETS, but look at the graph for the acceleration of the downward slope from April. It is beyond a black diamond run – I wouldn’t try to ski it.
Gillard ignores the Garnaut carbon plan at her peril.
Speaking of Greenway and preselections, The Greens have preselected Paul Taylor AKA AustraliaVotes
[Graham Hockley has won Labor preselection in Federal Mayo.]
JB – is he any good. Would love to see Labor and the Greens knock Briggs over.
ruawake@465
No, they were saying adopt the Garnaut model of an interim price on carbon followed by 18% reduction by 2020 to be locked in within a year or two depending on international conversion of Copenhagen commitments.
I once thought attempts at historical revisionism only applied to events at least a couple of decades ago – I don’t not any more. 😆
The icing on the cake.
The annoying adenoidal Clive Palmer and crybaby over-leveraged Twiggy are pissed off to beat the band!
Finns & BH
I’m still kicking!!! No amigo not the bucket 😯
Went to Sydney yesterday stayed overnight with brother.
But now I’m Baaaack 😀
Still not happy with the
[Psephos – are you saying that you don’t think the Australian Labor Party could have fought the multinationals in an election campaign and won?]
Rosa, how could they? These companies are among the the biggest in the world. They could buy and sell the volunteer organisation, the Australian Labor Party, a hundred times over. And when the government set out to spend just $37 million in advertising to counter the the $100 million-odd Big Dirt campaign, all hell broke loose, with the media lining up to cane them for spending even that much.
It’s to the government’s credit they have reached a fairly satisfactory deal with these corporate ruffians, and have time to bed the thing down before the election. I know you might dispute that it’s a “fairly satisfactory” outcome, but they’ve done well, IMO, and deserve our support for having a go and not giving up.
oops!! still not happy with the backstabbers
[Gillard ignores the Garnaut carbon plan at her peril.]
So now you’ve resorted to implied threats. Ha!
[No, they were saying adopt the Garnaut model of an interim price on carbon followed by 18% reduction by 2020 to be locked in within a year or two depending on international conversion of Copenhagen commitments. ]
Yes, dump the ETS. Is comprehension of English that hard?
[No, they were saying adopt the Garnaut model of an interim price on carbon followed by 18% reduction by 2020 to be locked in within a year or two depending on international conversion of Copenhagen commitments.]
And in doing so voted against the ETS. Hence they dumped the ETS. You are playing with words JV. Nice try but no cigar.
That was a good one. Ruawake, TomH and Gary all agreeing about the same re-writing of recent history.
You have all conveniently forgotten the negotiations around the Garnaut model that were conducted between the Greens and Wong in Jan/Feb this year. They were very promising on the reports, but then the geniuses of the party dumped the whole thing.
Also, apparently Blacktown City councilor Nick Tyrell was approached to run in Greenway for the Liberals but he knocked it back for the state seat of Riverstone
Did someone say that jv was a Green? I thought they were a Liberal. It’s so hard to distinguish between them these days.
[You have all conveniently forgotten the negotiations around the Garnaut model that were conducted between the Greens and Wong in Jan/Feb this year. They were very promising on the reports, but then the geniuses of the party dumped the whole thing.]
Did the Greens vote against the ETS?
[Still not happy with the]
Vera – we know and understand. Just glad your kicking!
Gary
We are talking about April 2010, after the government finally went to the negotiating table with the Greens. The Greens were certainly not saying dump the ETS. Neither was Wong. What are you smoking?
Speaking of rewrites of recent Australian history,
http://www.theage.com.au/national/gillard-reclaims-winning-lead-20100702-ztex.html
Tom Hawkins@483
False dilemma, Tom. Look beyond the known world, because you might be in the Truman Show.
Does an ETS have to look like one drawn up by the same people who just made the Rent tax better!
[We are talking about April 2010, after the government finally went to the negotiating table with the Greens. The Greens were certainly not saying dump the ETS. Neither was Wong. What are you smoking?]
Only you has brought up that date. Moving the old goal posts to suit your argument now are we?
We will await with interest the results of opinion polling that is, no doubt, already in progress, or starting tonight, with Newspoll, Galaxy, Nielsen, et al probably all running supplementary polling of some sort again this weekend, and Essential and Morgan F2F in field as usual.
My gut feel (and this is nothing more than a bit of semi-informed raking over chicken entrails) is that today’s MRRT announcement is set to be a ‘game changer’ out there in voter land. Julia Gillard has enjoyed the first blush of a honeymoon this week, as was to be expected, but people’s attention spans have been rendered so narrow by the relentless torrent of 24/7 news banality and media trivia that swamps us on a minute by minute basis nowadays, that she needed to be seen to have a win now, today, or the media knives would be out to chop her down to size.
That potential negative narrative has now been short-circuited by the MRRT announcement, so I would surmise that the average voter (who has probably never even imagined the existence of, let alone heard of, or visited a psephology-oriented website) will see only a few vapid headlines in their local Saturday and Sunday paper, and watch whatever shallow reportage that passes for news on one of the dreary commercial TV channels over the next few nights in between quaffing a beer and looking at the form guide. That, unfortunately for the health of our democracy, is what will almost certainly occur, given the low level of interest and knowledge in the outside world where everyone else resides of the matters under discussion and dissection within the noble and rarified forum of The Poll Bludger.
54% to 46% TPP to the ALP, with a rising Preferred PM rating for Gillard in the early 60’s, and an ALP primary around 43%.
[The Greens were certainly not saying dump the ETS.]
Yes they were, they were saying implement the Garnaut compromise carbon tax. Give up while you are behind.
[Barry Everingham writes: News Limited’s egg-beater mentality knows no ends … witness Wednesday’s really outrageous story about what it costs to leave The Lodge empty.
During the Howard years the real story about costs and rorting the public purse by John and Janette Howard’s decision to live in Kirribilli House (so their kids education wasn’t interrupted!) didn’t see the light of day in any of News’s publications.
The misuse of RAAF VIP flights to ferry the stellar couple between Sydney and Canberra alone ran into millions — to say nothing of the travel costs of public servants who were bidden to Sydney while the ruling duo lived there.
Both establishments needed a full staff — in Canberra if John and Janette made spur of the moment decision to camp there even for the odd night. Janette was a stickler for personal comfort; whatever the cost.]
Barry Everingham in crikey today – funny how not a mention is made of that by the MSM.
OH and I had a good laugh when we heard the Indian guy calling John Howard a ‘museum piece’ . I wish he’d go quietly cos it’s embarrassing watching him pleading his case. Get Sinodinos or someone to tell him he’s cactus with the ICC and to give up, please.
I feel so sorry for the shell shocked Labor partisans that for once I don’t begrudge them their infantile round of greens bashing. Because I know they need it to feel better about themselves right now.
Bash on Labor hacks, bash on. Just imagine the greens are your daddy when he always used to let your sister ride in the front of the car instead of you.
Gary
Referring to earlier comments about the dumping of the ETS in April and Rudd’s slide in the polls I said at 474:
Your apology will be accepted.
Publius Clodius
An inane post. How surprisement.
[I feel so sorry for the shell shocked Labor partisans that for once I don’t begrudge them their infantile round of greens bashing…]
I have pointed out that Bob Brown is making comments that are contrary to Green Party policy, that is not Green bashing.
If you can live with this duplicitous behaviour, fair enough. I cannot.
[Your apology will be accepted.]
What are you on? No apology offered or needed. Did the Greens vote against the ETS?