A summary of yesterday’s events that didn’t get posted overnight due to internet trouble.
• The election debate will be held from 6.30pm and 7.30pm on Sunday, an hour earlier and half an hour shorter than normal. The reason on both counts is to avoid a conflict with the final of MasterChef on Channel Ten. David Speers of SkyNews will moderate, and the leaders will face a panel consisting of Malcolm Farr from the Daily Telegraph, Chris Uhlmann of ABC News 24 and Laura Tingle of the Australian Financial Review.
• Christian Kerr in The Australian reports the Liberal campaign headquarters that will belatedly commence operation today is believed to be at 90 Collins Street, Melbourne, but “sources said the location was even being hidden from campaign workers who are expected to begin work there today”.
• Julia Gillard spent yesterday in the western Sydney and hinterland seats of Macquarie and Greenway. Matthew Franklin and Sarah Elks of The Australian note this is of a piece with an apparent campaign strategy to favour set-piece photo opportunities over less easily manageable appearance in public places. Tony Abbott on the other hand remained in Melbourne – less than a target-rich environment as far as marginal seats are concerned – which included a public appearance in marginal Labor Deakin. David Crowe of the Australian Financial Review made the following observation yesterday:
In a pre-emptive strike against Prime Minister Julia Gillard, the Coalition has begun a below-the-radar campaign in regional Queensland to woo voters in key areas that could decide the federal election … Shadow treasurer Joe Hockey launched the effort late last week – a move that focused on local media and local campaigns rather than participation in the blanket national media coverage of the election, when it was called on Saturday. The strategy ensured the Coalittion had senior figures campaigning in cities such as Townsville and the highly marginal seat of Herbert before Ms Gillard headed to the area yesterday (Monday) morning. Beginning last Wednesday, Mr Hockey travleled from Gladstone to Mackay, Townsville, Innisfail and Cairns over five days to campaign for Coalition candidates”.
For all your campaign movement needs (not just the leaders), note Crikey’s excellent Election Tracker feature.
• Adrian Schonfelder, Labor’s candidate for the Melbourne hinterland seat of Flinders (held for the Liberals by Greg Hunt), has apologised for suggesting Tony Abbott’s conservative social positions were “influencing people to take their own lives”.
• Simon Canning of The Australian notes Labor is “expected to keep its hands clean in the election marketing war by allowing the union movement to carry the can and send out ads attacking Liberal leader Tony Abbott and the threat of a Coalition government”. The Australian Workers Union’s Addams Family ad is cited as a case in point.
• Tony Koch and Sean Parnell of The Australian consider the impact of the government’s restitution of programs to engage indigenous people with the electoral process, which had been cut by the Rudd government. The main marginal seats with high indigenous populations are Leichhardt in far north Queensland and the Darwin-based seat of Solomon.
• The Liberal National Party has come up with an odd arrangement whereby its newly preselected candidate for Kevin Rudd’s seat of Griffith, Rebecca Docherty – herself a substitute for dumped former Liberal Democratic Party figure John Humphreys – will make way for an unspecified “high-profile” candidate should Rudd have a late change of heart about remaining in politics.
• Discussing Newspoll and Galaxy results in the Financial Review, Andrew Catsaras calculates the “market share of swinging voters” – 17 per cent of the total – at 29 per cent for Labor, 35 per cent for the Coalition and 31 per cent for the Greens. I presume he’s done this by comparing the totals to some measure of the parties’ bedrock levels of support. If we’re lucky he might enlighten us in comments.
• The Daily Telegraph has published details of a poll on climate change conducted for lobbyist firm Parker and Partners by “online polling company Pureprofile”, showing 82 per cent of respondents favouring “strong or moderate action immediately”.
psephos, for me the fact she is not employed by the party as an adviser or other role is a start.
maybe hack is too ill-defined to make my point. she doesn’t appear to be a political party careerist if you get my meaning.
I like to see both sides put up candidates who come from backgrounds that dont involve being an employee of the party, as many of them appear to be these days. I dont equate committed party member as hack as some do.
Look how far Jonathan Green has fallen in having Milne as columnist for The Drum. That’s scraping the bottom of it, Jonathan.
[Steven Miles – Labor’s candidate for Ryan
Local Liberals falling over themselves at BER project opening. Must be hard to oppose something so great for local kids and parents.
2 minutes ago · Comment ·Like]
[Must be hard to oppose something so great for local kids and parents]
Actually, they do it with considerable ease.
The campaign about AEC and union ballots is odd remember how for decades it was a Liberal crusade to get the conduct of union ballots away from unions to empower their allegedly conservative rank and file?
[ JG speaking to nurses union. Rapturous welcome]
http://twitter.com/latikambourke/journalists
Sky News just cut from Gillard’s boring speech to nursing union to Kev Rudd. Rudd now holding court with the national media #ausvotes – via Twitter
Now I know SKY is full of stupid people! They broke into Julia Gillard’s speech to watch Kevin Rudd chat to a school principal. Talk about lack of priorities!
BTW – was the rapturous applause at the Melbourne Union meeting shown on telly. I didn’t see it here – only saw her walking to the podium.
[Middle class welfare rebates offer for private schools from Abbot]
they already vote liberal
but dont mistake private schools for struggling catholic school they are chalk and cheese
Obviously hoping for Rudd to go medieval on her or such.
On who is going to win on Sunday Night.
I think Adam. I can’t stand Claire. She is just a sook and coulndt sell a cookbook if she tried. They were stupid to get rid of Marion.
[It’s why they win government so infrequently. They enjoy the pain of Opposition.]
Labor has won 8 of 16 federal elections since 1969, and has also won a clear majority of state elections over that time. Until the last WA election, Labor had won more than 20 state and territory elections in a row.
cuppa @42
[I don’t know why they don’t just hand over the bloody organisation to Rupert Murdoch and let him pay to run it.]
Well there is a recurrent saving of $500 mill a year.
Better still charge Rupe to run it a $100 mill a year and be $600 mill up.
The ABC is just total garbage now.
It is embarrasing to have such extreme right looneys like Akerman and Bolt on something that is supposed to be informative and not just partisan barracking for one side the way the right wingers like the two above do.
Glen – you mean like Abbott and Pyne?
[Following Unfollow
Emma_Rodgers Rudd ignores questions from media pack #ausvotes
half a minute ago via TweetDeck
Reply Retweet .
lyndalcurtis ]
Glen: Tuckey is in O’Connor. I think it’s Barry Haase standing in Durack.
[• Tony Koch and Sean Parnell of The Australian consider the impact of the government’s restitution of programs to engage indigenous people with the electoral process, which had been cut by the Rudd government.]
Don’t you mean “cut by the Howard government”? The article says it was cut by Howard and restored by Rudd.
[Now I know SKY is full of stupid people! They broke into Julia Gillard’s speech to watch Kevin Rudd chat to a school principal. Talk about lack of priorities!]
They want to catch him either saying something bad about Gillard or making a campaign slip-up, in order to force Gillard to distance herself from him.
Either that, or he is a former PM running for re-election for his electorate as a mere backbencher, and it is fascinating…
[ Glen Milne writing for their ABC now.
The plot thickens.]
[Yes, and his article can be found posted right next to one by Marieke Hardy. What’s your point?]
Did you read the rest of the post, or just stop after the second sentence? My POINT is all the News Ltd hacks (just coincidentally, pro-Coalition and/or anti-Labor opinionists) who either appear on and / or write for the ABC.
It’s also topical to note that some ABC presenters also write for the News Ltd blog, The Punch. So the intercourse is working both ways.
The ABC is supposed to be independent: would you agree with that statement?
Do you think that the cross-pollination that’s going on (and increasing) between the Murdoch organsiation and the ABC indicates or bodes well for the ABC’s independence?
What’s YOUR point?
Ooh. Tony flying back to Melbourne for Hey Hey.
The Libs must really be in the sh_t in Victoria.
What don’t you like about the Nationals Glen? The agrarian socialism (ie, big cash handouts for regional areas)?, the fact that they pull fewer votes than the Greens yet they get a disproportionate number of front bench positions? That they create 3 cornerd contests and dilute the Tory vote? That they don’t speak with the same cultivated English accent as say a Dolly Downer or a Christopher Pyne?
Glen – here’s an ABC poll on the number of debates – extremely unreliable I know but it’s there anyway
How many debates should Gillard and Abbott have?
One 26%
Two 7%
Three 26%
Don’t care 41%
1682 votes counted
http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/poll/vote/total.htm
Psephos
Posted Wednesday, July 21, 2010 at 12:28 pm | Permalink
Before getting too apoplectic, it would be worth checking the record from 2007 to see how often ABC news bulletins began with “Kevin Rudd says”. Just a thought.
Adam , not a question of appologising for ABC methods , but ‘how’ storys get introduced as ‘news’ with ABC News Editors OWN pre slant on what Labor or Liberal annouce or or respond to , this not as it was with ABC to this extent & is not even hands
Second but separate , th order of storys televisd , with aside from pre intro’s is up to News Editor I find ABC woser now for eveness than 7 and 9 , except when Oakes kirribill is involved , he’s gone irrelevent as a fossil but wont accept it
Better still charge Rupe to run it a $100 mill a year and be $600 mill up.
The ABC is just total disgrace most dramas are repeated the only ones that are new are Dr Martin (NOW) trial and retribution and the on going bill.
Some one else may let me know if there other first timers. midsommer murder i can remember most of them
the there was miss Marple, all repeats, I suppose they think they are down to us that may have alzheimer’s
We should ask the question are they spending to much money on wages for so many journalists well look how many extra there seems to be and another one to day
and then there is the 24/7 tomorrow give us break we would rather have good drama
the day of reckoning must come dont know what or how but it will either be a channel of just news or drama or just repeats after all the 24/7 will just be repeats and after the election or even now why would you bother listening to repeats.
Where will it end for the once amazing abc. It was set for the people to give them a voice so I believe
My gut feel on the state of the polls at the moment.
Big swing towards govt in SA and Vic. Status quo in NSW. Minor swing to coalition in Queensland.
blue-green. What do you think about WA?
Cuppa. Count to five. That’s it. Calm down.
The indignity of Milne writing for the drum (a site for various personalities from all sections of Australian society to write opinion pieces) is unfounded. To decry this makes as much sense as someone on the right who decries Marieke getting to post regular articles.
The wonderful thing about opinion pages is they are exactly that. No evidence, no balance. Just opinion. And as the reader, you are free to choose which articles you read and which one you don’t.
i remember when the abc was sort of posh do you know what i mean and those of us who said ‘ o we just listen to the abc ‘ etc thought we where posh a little above the rest
gee that seems so long ago. bye auntie
Status quo. Maybe one seat up for grabs. Mining tax is largely off agenda. No-one has really made a deal about WA since Julia went there to sell new mining tax.
I think ALP is a chance in Aston, La trobe, and will win Mckewan, and hold Coorangi and Deakin. Can’t think of any others changing
[78 To Speak of Pebbles
Posted Wednesday, July 21, 2010 at 1:04 pm | Permalink]
Am i showing my age or am i still trying to be posh but the abc use to be well like my station the person felt at home with like a friend i invited in to my home
going going gone
$1,183 Billion has morphed into $2.1 Billion at ABC land. 🙂
[Yesterday the Opposition announced $2.1 billion in cuts it would make if elected to government.
Mr Abbott has called on Ms Gillard to explain where she would make cuts.]
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/07/21/2959837.htm?section=justin
At least they should be able to count. 😛
[but ‘how’ storys get introduced as ‘news’ with ABC News Editors OWN pre slant on what Labor or Liberal annouce or or respond to ]
And when this occurs on radio news bulletins, search engines such as Google, or the one that William used once when disputing claims of ABC bias – Invicta or something? – won’t pick it up.
The Labor Party should enlist the services of a media-monitoring agency to document the frequency across all ABC Radio networks of the phrases:
“The Federal Opposition says…”
and
“The Federal Government says…”
I bet the Liberals already have someone doing this. They (Liberals) are very media-savvy; I’ll give them that much.
TSOP, don’t let common sense or rationality enter the debate.
[or the one that William used once when disputing claims of ABC bias – Invicta or something? ]
Probably Factiva.
Private health care rebate
Private school fees rebate.
Would any Coalition supporters like to explain how these policies are not simply socialism/welfare for the rich? Why the hell should people get rebates from taxpayer money for paying private fees?
[Better still charge Rupe to run it a $100 mill a year and be $600 mill up.]
This was some one elses post sorry did forgot the brackets. mine below
The ABC is just total disgrace most dramas are repeated the only ones that are new are Dr Martin (NOW) trial and retribution and the on going bill.
Some one else may let me know if there other first timers. midsommer murder i can remember most of them
the there was miss Marple, all repeats, I suppose they think they are down to us that may have alzheimer’s
We should ask the question are they spending to much money on wages for so many journalists well look how many extra there seems to be and another one to day
and then there is the 24/7 tomorrow give us break we would rather have good drama
the day of reckoning must come dont know what or how but it will either be a channel of just news or drama or just repeats after all the 24/7 will just be repeats and after the election or even now why would you bother listening to repeats.
Where will it end for the once amazing abc. It was set for the people to give them a voice so I believe
I can’t believe Abbott’s excuse for not being prepared, up and running when the election was called. He basically said that he did not have the advantage of the government of knowing when the election would be held. Is he for real?
In which city is the leaders debate being held on Sunday?
[Private school fee relief for parents under Coalition education rebate plan ]
Not a good headline for the swinging westies.
Centaur, I think Latrobe and McKewan are won because of demographic change alone.
But I think Victorians just really hate Tony and they have consistently since day 1 he became leader.
Tony going to Aston so early in campaign is signs that things are bad.
[The Labor Party should enlist the services of a media-monitoring ]
i am very sure they know
“
Psephos, my point was that Macquarie is not actually in Sydney. I’m not saying the western suburbs aren’t. Greenway certainly is.
NPC
Canberra
Unfortunately, if there are going to be rebates for private school fees, it will only encourage these schools to increase the overall costs, knowing that some of it will be met by the taxpayer. In essence, the costs will be the same, with extra cream on top courtesy of the taxpayer. Not a good policy.
[In which city is the leaders debate being held on Sunday?]
Canberra I think. ABC claims it’s being held at the National Press Club. In 2007 it was held in the Great Hall at Parliament House (a much bigger space).
So is anybody going to have a comedy-free night tonight and watch Tone on Hey Hey to see if he makes a tit of himself?
[Not a good headline for the swinging westies.
]
Only a good headline if you attend a very expensive private school
certainly not the stuggling catholic schools
blue_green
Posted Wednesday, July 21, 2010 at 1:02 pm | Permalink
“My gut feel on the state of the polls at the moment.
Big swing towards govt in SA and Vic. STATUS quo in NSW. MINOR swing to coalition in Queensland”
NSW wont be status quo and Q’ld wont b minor
NSW is some seats going to fall out in fringe like Robertson and around Penrith etc
And up in q’ld country especially , swings will be zig and zag , and big and small , and Labor people will need a whisky or 2 for a roller coaster ride when that States results start coming in in dibs and drabs