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”.
[“Where was Gillard on Hey Hey?
Oh thats right, she chickened out.”]
Truthy they were playing truth or dare. Julia took Truth and delivered policy. Abbott not being able to committ to any truths took the dear- hence the show with the boos and all!
[Whereas TTH, for example, is the exact opposite. He stays on topic, cops torrents of abuse without responding in kind, and responds to what I ask of him with good grace. As far as the letter of the law is concerned, he’s an exemplary commenter. Unfortunately, he also happens to be a racist moron.]
William, I nearly gave myself a hernia reading that bit! 🙂
TomH – I think Simon Crean has actually aged well. His voice is not as monotone as it was when he was LOP and his face has grown into a nice warm, comfortable one.
He is a good bloke and a good Minister but just wasn’t the right fit at the time. He did a good job in calming Labor down after the 2nd loss.
Grog on Today (pre Hey Hey)
http://grogsgamut.blogspot.com/2010/07/election-2010-day-5-or-moving.html
Yes Laocoon, it is more than obvious that ‘homework’ is not big on the current Liberal agenda.
Tony claimed today that they were caught unawares as to the start of the campaign because they didn’t have the benefit of knowing what was in JG’s mind.
Che?
The day before, when asked, he said they were ready whenever an election was held.
All their current policies seem ad hoc and that is being kind. The only policy that seems to have had some rigour in researching it was asylum policy — but that is because it was from 2000.
[perhaps this continuing theme of relying on legal advice to make policial points is a reflection of a continuing them of laziness in lack of policy development ]
Worse than laziness – I think it highlights how tricky and down right sneaky they are. They’ll screw you with weasel words and legal technicalities every time. You’d never operate on a hand shake with these people. Instead you need a smart lawyer to go through their promises with a fine-toothed comb.
Red Kerry was going to make this point with Hockey tonight but Hockey had the smarts to skate away as quickly as he could. I’ll give Hockey credit for seeing what was coming.
Thanks for Grog reminder, Frank…I hadn’t noticed this bit during the course of the day, which goes to the credibility issue:
[Julia then went on to make a speech at the NSW Nurses Association Annual Conference. Her speech made a very good point about Abbott’s inability to hold to any pledge. She quoted his Budget Reply speech – rightly pointing out that it is essentially the most important speech an Opposition Leader makes in Parliament each year. In that speech (only 2 months ago) he said this about IR:
We all know that the former government’s workplace reforms went too far but they also helped to create more than two million new jobs, lift real wages by 20 per cent and more than double net household wealth between 1996 and 2007. The coalition will seek to take the unfair dismissal monkey off the back of small businesses, which are more like families than institutions. We will make Labor’s transitional employment agreements less transitional and Labor’s individual flexibility agreements more flexible because we have faith in Australian workers who are not as easily pushed around and exploited as the ACTU’s dishonest ad campaign is already making out.
That was his policy then – he wrote it down. It was was an absolutely calm, considered, prepared, scripted remark. And now he doesn’t believe any of it. None of it. Not a jot.]
[That was his policy then – he wrote it down. It was was an absolutely calm, considered, prepared, scripted remark. And now he doesn’t believe any of it. None of it. Not a jot.]
God she’s good.
Looks like I smoked TTH out of the shadows. Guess he’s having a hard night. I’d be too if I supported Abbott.
Very true.. I cannot recall Truthy letting fly with any overly nasty comments.
For a good laugh maybe William could have a special thread just fall of stupid comments that otherwise have been blocked.
#902 Glen
I seem to remember Randall campained heavily in the 04 election for the Christian vote and he did very well, however Mc Tiernan was a very populaqr state member for Armadale and actually has achieved tangible results for the electorate unlike Don Randall who just ‘say’s stuff’
I take offence to being called a racist, my sister in law just so happens to be Japanese.
The term gets thrown around a bit too much in this country me thinks. Heck if you say you are proud to be Aussie these days you get labelled a racist.
jenauthor
[Tony claimed today that they were caught unawares as to the start of the campaign because they didn’t have the benefit of knowing what was in JG’s mind]
I burst out laughing when I heard that from Abbott…like really!!
TomH
[They’ll screw you with weasel words and legal technicalities every time. You’d never operate on a hand shake with these people]
Reminds me a bit of US Republicans. I am very glad the instrumentalities of the state here are not so debauched that one has to check voting machines in Florida type things
WILLIAM
as one of th primary receivers of Show Off’s huffs , I should also concede he is a very good contributor overall , and suggest clemensy and his return now
I was tempted to also suggest he come back undr my ‘parole’ , but that would very greedy of me
TheTruthHurts@1012
John Pasquarelli was Italian, yet was Pauline Hanson’s Right Hand Man 🙂
[ I take offence to being called a racist, my sister in law just so happens to be Japanese. ]
Right, mine is a Mormon, does that make me religious?
Truthy wrote:
Sorry, I had an afternoon nap and slightly overslept. Was it that bad for Abbott that not even Truthy is spinning it as a triumph?
Truthy how’s the reading of Historical economic depressions going?
[God she’s good.]
The best thing about a channel like A-pac is that you get to see the whole interview and can then make up your own mind without the journos opinion getting in the way.
I watched Julia’s speech to the Nurses Union and then the interview with Jason Clare about trade cadetships. She is so assured in her interviews.
Also saw Tone’s interview after his play session with the school kids. There is definitely an air of unease around him and even Pyne wasn’t so self assured. They said the right things for them but the atmosphere was a bit flat.
It’s probably a good time for them both to have a rest day tomorrow but I hope the journos are swarming after them at the ceremony.
[Heck if you say you are proud to be Aussie these days you get labelled a racist.]
Rubbish
Good night.
Red Wombat
ROFL 🙂
Hmm:
BH – I actually though Abbott playing with the kids was the first time this campaign that we saw the normally confident Tone.
Actually that bit was me! 🙂
Here’s what she said:
http://www.alp.org.au/federal-government/news/speech—address-to-nsw-nurses–association-65th-a/
BH. What a lovely encapsulation of the disintermediation crisis that is afflicting the business models of media companies:
[The best thing about a channel like A-pac is that you get to see the whole interview and can then make up your own mind without the journos opinion getting in the way.]
[Right, mine is a Mormon, does that make me religious?]
Depends, do you yourself own a pair of magic underwear?
Sorry Grog – my fault for poor attribution!!
Tom Hawkins – Don’t worry I have sent Truthy off for a while for as I earlier pointed out whenever I mention previous economic depressions Truty runs for a rock.
If the current iteration of Hey Hey is anything like I remember from the past, then it isn’t an “uncontroversial context”, especially for a ‘celebrity’ on the Red Faces judging panel, where they used to always be set up for embarrassment or ridicule. Rove worked for Rudd because it was one to one. 7pm Project is probably the closest thing the commercials have to Rove now, and would be a better bet for Abbott than Red Faces.
[They’ll screw you with weasel words and legal technicalities every time. You’d never operate on a hand shake with these people]
What’s worse, he thinks he has God on his side therefore he will receive absolution for any deception — ‘the end justifies the means’ and all that.
Was Abbott actually bad on the show? Are we talking actual genuine “hurt him” type embarrassment, or just us politically aware people thought he looked ridiculous?
[Reports suggest Ban Ki-moon is considering a dedicated role for Rudd as a top-level climate change adviser. #ausvotes http://bit.ly/ddJNmP 2 minutes ago via Echofon]
Yep which I have been saying the last 2 days, Rudd was off for a job interview at the U.N while ignoring his electorate voters.
You couldn’t write this stuff if you tried. I think the punters of Griffith deserve better… they are going to vote Rudd back in, and he’s going to resign at the end of the year forcing a bi-election.
This Liberal trickery with Work Choices is dynamite – Kerry O’brien had the story half nailed tonight but should be fully prepared for Abbott next week. It looked bad enough as a mistake re election funding but now using other legislation to change any part of Fair Work Act is just open slather.
By the way business is probably not getting too excited about FWA because it still contains a fair bit of Work Choices and Labor would do well to say that some changes are still needed.
And Truthy if the Liberals are half smart if the current candidate goes alright then they should keep her and just continue to campaign for Griffith is normally a marginal.
[If the current iteration of Hey Hey is anything like I remember from the past, then it isn’t an “uncontroversial context”, especially for a ‘celebrity’ on the Red Faces judging panel, where they used to always be set up for embarrassment or ridicule. Rove worked for Rudd because it was one to one. 7pm Project is probably the closest thing the commercials have to Rove now, and would be a better bet for Abbott than Red Faces.]
I agree completely.
My issue with the choice of Hey Hey was not because he wanted to go on an entertainment show (in fact, entertainment shows would work well for Abbott’s image), but rather that he chose one with very little viewership that, now the nostalgia has faded, nobody could care less about.
I think the 7pm project, or a football show would be better.
MexicanB – I agree he looked pretty much like Tone with the kids but at the presser after he was back to very long pauses in his answers and a few uncomfortable minutes with questions.
After awhile he settled down and copied Julia’s way of handling the journos. He called them out and told one to wait while he took a previous question. He must have realised that his pressers have been shambolic events.
Nah, he was ok. The show itself is embarrassing just to be associated with. But he didn’t say or do anything that will be remembered by 8am tomorrow.
Wouldn’t have won a vote or lost one methinks
I saw in today’s Herald Sun a graph that listed the total promises.
The Liberals so far have promises $6.8Billion more than the ALP have.
If I read that correctly then how can the Liberals claim they are goign to cut spending when there committments are so large.
[This Liberal trickery with Work Choices is dynamite – Kerry O’brien had the story half nailed tonight but should be fully prepared for Abbott next week]
Liberals will be trying very hard for tomorrow to be a circuit breaker and for the caravan to move on to something – anything else.
If Abbott is still being grilled on Workchoice next week, he is looking more and more like roadkill
[ Depends, do you yourself own a pair of magic underwear? ]
Do they look like red speedos?
Hey Hey , despite its ratings , provides a Polly with a different viewer voter from say curent affairs/60 minutes (or even 10 second news grabs) & in less tense enviro for public to see there good side as a person & someone to trust …eg his promises
whether a politcan stars or stuffs up is up to him/her , so principal of appear is logical
Laocoon – I hope ABC24 does the same thing and doesn’t just have journos pulling interviews apart before we see them in full.
Orf to bed – night all
Truthy, beat that dead horse all you want. It just looks pathetic.
It reminds me of the eve of the 2007 election, when Robb had a list of a dozen or so Labor candidates whom the Libs were going to legally challenge if they won their respective elections, essentially saying “If you elect Labor you’re gonna be stuck with all these by-elections very soon!”
[You couldn’t write this stuff if you tried. I think the punters of Griffith deserve better… they are going to vote Rudd back in, and he’s going to resign at the end of the year forcing a bi-election.]
TTH, it worked for Costello (more or less).
I don’t think going on Hey Hey is a problem, I seem to recall that Bob Hawke went on it years ago
Laocoon there is no way Work Choices will die with tonight’s revelations. They would have been much better just to stick with a few basic changes. Now they have opened the floodgates and everyone will be wondering just how far they might take it.
mexicanbeemer@1045
But back then Bob Hawke was PM, and the show was for the time relevant and popular.
[Truthy, beat that dead horse all you want. It just looks pathetic.]
EXPLAIN to me.. WHY Kevin Rudd… the Minister for NOTHING, was doing at the U.N in New York, 3 Days into the election campaign?
Explain it. Come on, one good reason will do.
That was when it was popular Mexi. And the humour worked.
Now the humour is tired. Daryl is past it. And it shows no innovation.
[Explain it. Come on, one good reason will do.]
Because, like with Obama, when he was PM he formed relationships.