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.
[Ah the sport channel or the video or silence is looking good.]
A Bludger uninterested in the 7.30 Report? This does not compute.
What did Tony have to gain from sitting on a Red Faces panel? Was it to convince the world he is witty and humorous or was to cement the perception of his anachronism?
He looked silly, the show mildy riduculed him and some in the crowd booed him.
Middle man, we have had a string of great captains- Border, Taylor and Waugh but Ponting does not continue that lineage.
my say. I don’t know if “Little Dorrit” that was recently on the ABC was a repeat. But I did thoroughly enjoy it.
blue green
Tony sat on red faces to convince the punters that, deep down, he really is a nice guy, and that image of him as Howard’s nasty, mean-spirited attack dog is totally wrong. That was Old Tone. New Tone is just a normal bloke, who happens to like boxing, talking about his daughters, and being caught in speedos. Completely normal. He wouldn’t dream of bringing back Workchoices, let alone cutting Health and Education spending.
or raising the gst to between 15-20%
Socrates,
Do you think it worked?
I really think the Libs should take a look at the Peter Debnam campaign in the NSW 2007 election. It was run by Scott Morrison. They are repeating it now. The ALP are repeating their exact campaign in response. I expect the same result.
M@64
Listened to the ABC radio report about Kevin Rudd about 5pm yesterday. It was almost all focused on the media and their reaction to how they were played along – as if that was the most important thing.
There wasn’t almost nothing of substance re: actual news. Sure Rudd probably led them on a bit – but it still amazes me that the media forget that their job is to report on real events that are happening.
If they (the media) worked out that the Rudd school visit was a non event, then they could have left to find some real news. No one forced them there in the 1st place and no one forced them to stay there.
Gusface,
I really only think they need to put the GST back on food, not raise it overall.
Divert the funds to environmental programs and I for one would be sold.
Brissy Rod@84
How patronising. Requiring ‘mass support’ before representation in the HoR by definition means significant minorities are disenfranchised completely.
Government is formed in the HoR. That’s where the community should be proportionately represented, as it is in almost all the advanced nations of Europe.
Then the big parties would probably break into at least two additional parties, and coalitions would become the norm; the whole community would be represented in parliament, and often in government, instead of the exclusive representation we now have, with, large minorities locked out by the limited choice. Preferential voting and single member districts mean a choice these days between two centre-right twins. It’s unfair; it’s unrepresentative; it’s exclusive; it’s outdated, and it must be changed.
#86 Brissy Rod,
In a fair electoral system 13% of the vote would translate into 13% of seats in parlianment. Also the Nationals have a much smaller HOR vote than the greens yet they have 9 seats.
I am not holding my breath that the electoral system will change, The ‘big two’ are quite happy with the status quo.
[Both majors simply drop any policy difference between them if it could lose a niche demographic. For example, asylum seekers; climate change; public funding to private schools; middle class welfare; Industrial relations. It is an amalgamated right-wing wasteland where the duopoly lives.]
To the extent your observation is accurate, it is a function of electoral democracy: the tyranny of the majority.
What are you arguing: parties should stick with unpopular positions simply to create a sense of “choice”?
But in any case, your point is overdone. The parties do have different views on these issues. Furthermore, they do have fundamentally differing views on the role of Government in society and, therefore, on whether the State can and should intervene in the economy and in society more generally in order to improve the lives of the mass of people. The conservatives do not basically have any confidence in that position at all. They prefer to do nothing – or at least, as little as possible.
You can depict both sides of politics as being the same. But this is a just rhetoric that does not describe reality.
Luckily for working people, the ALP is seriously attentive to the practicalities of winning elections and exercising the powers of the State in favour of the economic and social interests of working people, rather than, as the conservatives usually do, to their detriment.
Criticisms of the ALP from the self-styled purists of the left may kindle the warm inner glow of righteous indignation, but they are quite misguided. They would be better directed at the cynicism and incompetence of the Liberals, who lie, distort, disrupt and obstruct as a matter of daily life.
Whichever party has this as a policy will be in opposition for the next 20 years.
BG
slug the poor to fix the industries mistakes?
[In a fair electoral system 13% of the vote would translate into 13% of seats in parlianment. ]
Isreal has proportional representation and that works really well. (Insert sarcasm emoticon here). Government is formed by drawing together a clutch of every fringe group in the country. Really great.
So in Oz govt might have to be formed by a coalition of Lib, Nats, Shooters Party, Anti-immigration parties, family first and a reformed One Nation. Just what we need. 🙁
[ In a fair electoral system 13% of the vote would translate into 13% of seats in parlianment. ]
Of course the flipside is that a minority can end up wielding a disproportionate influence on policy i.e. Fielding. You seriously want the whole system to operate like the senate? You could all but guarantee that very little major reform would get through.
Gusface,
Yep. Slug everyone. Polluter pays.
blue-green that is a scary thought
Jon,
Snap.
Sky news trotting out Mark Latham to criticise the government, smacks of desperation.
bg
so the rich can pollute according to their means
wheras the poor it is a payg thingy
tres fair?
Victoria,
the shooters party’s holding a partial balance of power in the NSW Upper House has been really messy.
blue-green 106
No I don’t think it worked. Abbott came across as fake to me. He tried too hard. I thought the entrance with arms waved and “jazz hands” was a particular clanger – obviously scripted.
Off to do some work.
Gusface,
I am pretty sure that poor and rich alike eat fresh food in this country.
Socrates. Talkback caller on radio this morning claims to have been in the audience of Hey Hey. Apparently they were told to boo on purpose in order to compare it to the boos Red Symons gets.
bg
you obviously missed my point
🙁
The experience of European states with PR is not all rosy. Not only does it give a platform to the minor parties of the so-called left – such as j-v might support – it has given the same opportunity to the neo-fascists and racists of the right. This is a very troubling development and is wholly due to the PR system.
Am I the only one turned on by Jane Hutcheon’s voice?
[ I am pretty sure that poor and rich alike eat fresh food in this country. ]
True, but a great proportion of income for the poor goes on food. They run out they go hungry. What they should do is tax the begessus out of junk food. A fat tax.
b_g, i know some think it sacrilegious to say, but i thought S.Waugh tarnished to post of Australian cricket captain. I know he was a hard competitor etc, but his team ended up being boorish and arrogant.
Socrates 122,
In baseball they have a mercy rule. If you are 10 runs up after 7 innings they call they game off. I reckon after one more Neilsen and Newspoll we should call it done and put Tony and us all out of our misery.
Jon,
In many parts of Western Sydney, a fat tax is a poor tax. Heaps of studies to prove it. Hungry jacks is a pretty cheap meal.
Our system works as well as just about every other country in the world. Its more the conduct of the politicians once they get to Canberra that is the problem (ie, rigidly along party lines, especially in the ALP). I like the American notion of voting for the person ahead of the party.
[Sky news trotting out Mark Latham to criticise the government]
Again, or is that a repeat? Latham was first item on ABC radio news Melbourne at 11.00, with the same immigration stuff. I thought that was fish-and-chip wrapping by now.
Middle Man,
And Ponting has many of Waugh’s faults as Captain but none of his strengths. Awesome batsman – dissapointing captian.
{Ponting does not continue that lineage.}
are you from NSW
I think you are living in the glory days of a Labor party long gone, leaving only the scattered, shattered shards of the light on the hill.
It isn’t a choice between either supporting working people, or useless puritanism.
It also isn’t a matter of sticking to unpopular positions to ‘create choice’. An ETS isn’t unpopular. The mining tax wasn’t unpopular. Human rights aren’t unpopular. And leadership can overcome the natural resistance to change in societies.
I’m simply saying out loud what is happening. Labor is moving deliberately to the right to take the same ground as the Libs. There is very little difference between the two as of today.
Labor drops its policies of the left such as cutting back Howard’s excesses on private school funding, or removing the anti-worker building commission, getting started on a CPRS, treating refugees humanely. The Libs drop Workchoices, so we have the two majors almost identical in having policy on nothing much at all.
The huge void is in leadership – we now have niche-poll focus group majors following the lowest common denominator to the marginal electorate street party where ignorance is worshipped and rewarded. It isn’t good.
My Say,
Not from NSW.
My Say,
I would have really liked to see Shane Warne as Captain.
[or removing the anti-worker building commission, getting started on a CPRS]
jv, on both these measures Labor couldn’t get legislation through the Senate in the current term of Parliament.
briefly@126
That simply isn’t true. Such groups of right-wingers would cause trouble anyway. As do some extreme left groups. Getting them into parliament via PR is the best place for them, because they are exposed to scrutiny, and are supported less next time around when they behave like idiots.
In Australia One Nation withered and died, because Pauline Hanson was in the Senate and got lots of scrutiny which she couldn’t escape.
However, at the same time, because we don’t have PR in the HoR, Howard adopted a lot of her policies with which we are now stuck. That would not have been necessary with PR. Each party has its constituency and there is less need to garner small demographics on the edges into two amorphous parties.
[my say. I don’t know if “Little Dorrit” that was recently on the ABC was a repeat. But I did thoroughly enjoy it.]
yes i forgot that one i love programes in that time, as i love Jane Austen.
but also liked Spooks, found the scripts hard to follow in Dr Who this time so we gave up and we always liked it before. Silent Witness then there Is Robson Green also the story about the judge which the commercials have picket
up and Stephen Fry any thing with him in it.
I would love to know the budget of the abc now as in news verses and drama and the wages that now have to be paid and also the writers on the drum etc who come from other media i suppose they are paid with our tax dollars.
I would love to see big big changes at the abc, may be its me but if you had been out of the country e.g. 5 years may be more you would not recognize it and i think that is for the negative no pluses,
I felt very content with the way it was am i just getting old
Had to laugh, talkback caller on 3aw, just stated that Abbott was going to romp it in because he keeps abreast of all the papers across Australia. All their polls show Abbott winning 65-35%.
triton. Latham was interviewed yesterday. They are replaying his comments today.
[A Bludger uninterested in the 7.30 Report? This does not compute]
i find out all i want to know from here
PR seems to work well in many European countries as well as Tasmania and the ACT.
Anyway as I said I dont think the electoral system will change anytime soon, it is a fact I can accept 🙂
[because he keeps abreast of all the papers across Australia. All their polls show Abbott winning 65-35%.]
where is he getting that from an online poll
[I would have really liked to see Shane Warne as Captain.]
why
my say. He quoted, The Courier Mail, The Daily Telegraph, The Australian, and the Herald Sun. All the online polls that ask who would you vote for, have Abbott leading at least 65/35%. This gentleman that called talkback radio is convinced that based on that, Abbott will win comfortably!
[In Australia One Nation withered and died, because Pauline Hanson was in the Senate and got lots of scrutiny which she couldn’t escape.]
jv, you’re wrong here I’m afraid. When fighting the major party blighters you can’t give them this ammo. Pauline Hanson was Member for Oxley in the House of Representatives between 96-98. She failed in all her bids to win election to the Senate.
The only (legal) One Nation senator was Len Harris, who hasn’t left much of a mark on political history.
[This gentleman that called talkback radio is convinced that based on that, Abbott will win comfortably!]
its nt sad when they cannot even reason out the fact that any one can click on to a poll and that is any one that can be bothered. And also young libs etc.
O dear