Highlights of day five

With just 31 days left to go:

• Two pieces of polling intelligence have emerged today on what appears to be a widening electoral gender gap. The Australian reports the weekend’s 55-45 Newspoll had Labor leading 44 per cent to 33 per cent on the primary vote among women, but trailing 39 per cent to 42 per cent among men. We are also told that the gender gap in Tony Abbott’s personal rating is now at nine points, up from four in April. As George Megalogenis noted last week, this is likely to hit the Liberals in seats with a high concentration of working women, of which Cameron Stewart of The Australian identifies four: Bennelong, Franklin, Brisbane and Deakin. The Herald-Sun also reports that the weekend’s 50-50 Galaxy poll had Julia Gillard’s preferred prime minister lead at 58-31 among women and 51-40 among men.

• The Herald Sun further informs us that 59 per cent of respondents from the Galaxy survey supported a levy on bank profits similar to that of the mining tax, not that either party is advocating such a thing. Only 28 per cent of respondents said they were opposed.

• Leisa Scott of the Courier-Mail reports that Jen Sackley, unsuccessful LNP preselection hopeful for Leichhardt, will run as an independent. Sackley has complained of a “bullying culture” in the party, and proclaimed Labor’s Leichhardt MP Jim Turnour to be of superior “stature” to Warren Entsch, the former Liberal member who is coming out of retirement to run again for the LNP.

• Possum calculates the electoral impact of Labor’s decision to lock in an election date that gave voters only one weekday to get their enrolment in order. This is found to be in the order of fractions of 0.1 per cent, but might be a bit higher in seats with a particularly high concentration of young voters. The most marginal of these are identified as Melbourne, Ryan, Swan, Herbert, Macarthur, Solomon and Cowan.

• Verona Burgess of the Australian Financial Review notes the electoral impact of public service cuts not just on the Australian Capital Territory, where they might make life difficult for Liberal Senator Gary Humphries, but also in Eden-Monaro. As well as housing many of Canberra’s public servants in Queanbeyan, the famous bellwether electorate also encompasses Batemans Bay on the south coast, which Burgess tells us is known as “little Canberra-by-the-sea” due to its concentration of public agencies.

• Three cheers to Matthew Landauer of the Open Australia Foundation for instigating the most excellent ElectionLeaflets.org.au site, a repository for user-contributed scans and photos of electoral material.

Author: William Bowe

William Bowe is a Perth-based election analyst and occasional teacher of political science. His blog, The Poll Bludger, has existed in one form or another since 2004, and is one of the most heavily trafficked websites on Australian politics.

1,112 comments on “Highlights of day five”

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  1. Frank it should have no impact but considering how the Libs are travelling I would not put it past them or the media to try and link Jules view on I.R and the manner in which her footy club has managed a player

  2. lefty e,

    [Question: Why are some douchebags within the govt still leaking against Rudd? ]

    They feel much more comfortable on the opposition benches. You don’t need to do as much work there to earn your paycheck!

  3. [ Does this side do html? I’ve forgotten. How are people doing italic quotes from previous comments? ]

    You can use html tags eg bold italic strike etc
    as well as [] for blockquotes

  6. It is quite amazing that Abbott can score only 22% among the Liberal voters..and that Malcolm Turnbull still outstrips him 29-22..
    What a hoot.!!…and of course Julia is scoring far ahead of Abbott on all other issues too.
    A real blow to Abbott so early in the campaign ..that one one Liberal in 5 likes him as leader.
    ..even Rudd has a higher score after all the tumult !!

  7. [On the US, if Obama get beaten you lot and the rest of the world want to get down on their knees and hope the stupid yanks don’t elect one of the ignorant racist nongs with tea party connections.]

    Quite so, which is why Hillary should knock him off before the Repubs get the chance to. Remember, Reagan was only elected because the Dems lacked the nerve to get rid of the useless turkey Carter and replace him with Ted Kennedy.

  8. [ A real blow to Abbott so early in the campaign ..that one one Liberal in 5 likes him as leader. ]

    I thought they were absolutely mad last year when they put Abbott into the top job. And yet, and yet, the polls almost immediately started turning around and he seemed to kick goals. But how much of that was Rudd suddenly slipping on a banana skin? Mistake after mistake. Now Rudd has gone voters seem happy to let their true distaste for People Skills come to the fore. Phew, say I.

  9. [ Quite so, which is why Hillary should knock him off before the Repubs get the chance to ]

    Developed a taste for it pseph? 🙂

  12. Yes Crispy. The reason why Abbott did so well in those days was his style was at first attractive when put up against Rudd but as I said at the time, the moment would come when Abbott had to be more than na straight talking action man and actually delivery something concrete.

    The other factor is Jules is every bit the straight talking action girl that Tone is the man, therefore he no longer is able to dominate without becoming aggressive.

    Jules is beating him at his own natural game.

  13. How Ironic is this?
    Poll on the AUstralian:

    Do you agree with Julia Gillard’s plan to lower Australia’s population growth?

    * Yes 45.27%
    * No 54.73%

    Whoops!

  14. Psephos is Adam? I’d forgotten. Didn’t you go to the US to work on the Clinton campaign? Or am I misremembering?

  15. “The reason why Abbott did so well in those days was his style was at first attractive when put up against Rudd..”

    I just think Abbot energised his own base (from Turnbull look) , but that is all h did , and he has not improvd on that , well perhaps gone backwards depending on polls u look at

    Gary
    those PPM polls like comparing 2 babys in a pram , feel good but no more
    Reckon Approval rating net is better guide on how a leader afects his partys vote

  17. [Developed a taste for it pseph? 🙂

    Sometimes it works.

    [But Adam what happened to Change we can Believe in and Yes We Can???]

    I was always for Clinton, you remember.

    [Didn’t you go to the US to work on the Clinton campaign? ]

    No, I just barracked from here.

  19. [Gary
    those PPM polls like comparing 2 babys in a pram , feel good but no more
    Reckon Approval rating net is better guide on how a leader afects his partys vote]
    Agreed Ron.

  21. “Not Bowen, according to the Parliamentary Handbook. ”

    Bowen’s service is on his NSW parliamentary bio and he appears to be on the WWII Nominal Roll

    http://www.parliament.nsw.gov.au/prod/parlment/members.nsf/1fb6ebed995667c2ca256ea100825164/694f2926a2654212ca256e20007d56f4

    http://www.ww2roll.gov.au/script/veteran.asp?ServiceID=A&VeteranID=350441

    Katter’s entry on the roll says he was with 2/9 Infantry Battalion at discharge, and they’d just returned from Africa and the Middle east. Which proves nothing in particular.

    http://www.diggerhistory.info/pages-conflicts-periods/ww2/units/2-09bn.htm

    d

  23. [The reason why Abbott did so well in those days was his style was at first attractive when put up against Rudd]

    “Did so well”? His best PPM against Rudd was 34% He only appeared to be doing well because Rudd was failing, and Rudd’s failing had nothing to do with Abbott, it was entirely self-inflicted. Abbott is a dud and had been a dud from day one.

  25. Glen, do you remember the nick of the very regular commenter here in ’07 who was very much further to the right than you? He was kinda smug and over the top… he was always predicting a glorious comeback from Howard the master campaigner etc. I suspected he was a Poe, but every so often he’d lose his temper and spit bile for a while. I’m missing him.

  28. Frank,

    [Just the replay of the original story.]

    Yeah. Expect it to get run a few times tomorrow too to back up his written piece of character assassination.

    I bet Uhlmann has to sleep on the couch for the next three weeks or so. 😉

  31. La Grattan:

     http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/politics/ir-monkey-wrenches-abbott-population-perishes-on-gillard-20100722-10mwg.html 

    scorpio@1078

    Frank,

    Just the replay of the original story.

    Yeah. Expect it to get run a few times tomorrow too to back up his written piece of character assassination.

    I bet Uhlmann has to sleep on the couch for the next three weeks or so.

    They actually advertised they were going to replay the launch at Midnight EST.

    And yep Toolman may be forced to sleep in the props bay at the ABC‘s Canberra Studios. 🙂

  32. So the Big Issue of the day was that Rudd missed some non-critical National Security meetings but sent his proxies his chief of staff (SHOCK HORROR A 31 YR OLD!!!!) and
    the Deputy Prime Minister, Yawn 😀

  33. NOSTRADAMUS! I was such a tragic I kept the list of everyone’s lower house seat number predictions, and there he was, predicting a win to the coalition. Is he not around any more?

    Adam… Poe’s Law: “Without a winking smiley or other blatant display of humor, it is impossible to create a parody of right wing views that SOMEONE won’t mistake for the real thing.”

    Playing ‘Spot the Poe’ is a popular game on climate change blogs. There are whole Poe denialist sites these days.

  36. re my comment @1082 the real shock for me was learning that “Unca Howie” Regularly sent his deputy as proxy to National Security Meetings!!

  37. [I bet Uhlmann has to sleep on the couch for the next three weeks or so.]

    I doubt it – his wife is probably one of the ‘get Rudd’ mob

  39. On CC, just to refresh peoples memories in case there is an announcement tomorrow:

    CSIRO:

    http://www.csiro.au/files/files/pvfo.pdf

    Libs reaction to this in March 2010:

    http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/03/16/2847627.htm

    [Senator McGauran says the organisation has been stripped of its independence and is doing the bidding of the Minister for Science, Kim Carr.

    “Minister Carr without doubt has wandered through the CSIRO offices, intimidating the scientists and the executive to do as they’re told,” he said.

    “This is now a political organisation. The executive have become compliant to the minister, utterly.”]

    Hey, but now they believe in Direct Action?? They are lying, bottom dwelling, scum feeders, undeserving of the vote of anyone who actually thinks we need to do something about Climate change.

  40. [Jakarta may lock up boatpeople

    AUSTRALIA might be asked to fund detention centres in Indonesia to help Jakarta deter asylum-seekers from using the nation as a staging point. ]

    The Indonesians are looking at another way to screw money from the Australian government. If they were to increased security at their own boarders (land and air) then the problem might not be a problem any longer.

  46. lefty e@1092

    Whats “2 years old” about the NSC story that broke today from “cabinet sources”, Tom?

    Read and learn from BB 🙂

    Bushfire Bill@691

    Thought I’d heard this before:

    Last month, Rudd kept two of the nation’s most senior officials – Australian Defence Force chief Air Chief Marshal Angus Houston and the secretary of the Department of Foreign Affairs, Michael L’Estrange – waiting for hours outside his office.
    He accused the public service staff of leaking and not working hard enough.

    And there are increasing reports of an arrogant and inexperienced team advising the Prime Minister – one that last year felt it was appropriate for a 28-year-old flack to dress down ill frontbencher Tony Burke because he would not do a media interview.

    Anger towards Rudd over his attitude to the public service has escalated after what senior officials describe as the shabby treatment doled out to Houston and L’Estrange.
    …
    The story of two of the most senior officials in Australia being kept waiting has reverberated through the public service. Senior officials were already angry that Rudd had publicly accused them of leaking a cabinet document to journalist Laurie Oakes, but this has alienated many in Canberra’s senior echelons.

    From June 21, 2008. It’s two bloody years old!

    http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/chaos-reigns-in-rudds-office/story-e6frg6no-1111116694941

  47. [ Jakarta may lock up boatpeople ]

    I think the detention centre should be place on another Indonesian island like
    Borneo. This should send a message to the People Smugglers and their Victims
    that their effort is Futile. The People in this Camp Should be distributed evenly
    around the World.

  49. Interesting background, guys – but there’s nothing in that 2008 story about Rudd’s non-attendance at NSC meetings.

    And according to Toolman :…”Commonwealth officials *and cabinet sources* have told the ABC that, as prime minister, Mr Rudd showed a casual disregard for the national security committee, at a time when Australia was engaged in a war and wrestling with its border security policy. ”

    Tony Burke didnt deny that on lateline.

  50. And so my question again: why are some douchebags still leaking against Rudd?

    Dont they risk getting the govt in trouble by leaking anything at all about the NSC?

    Or is factional revenge more important these days? Dont want him even getting a ministry?

    Honestly, these leakers are irresponsible idiots. If Gillard has any brains she’ll knife the plotters who put her there, before they sink her like they did the NSW govt, and Rudd.

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