Tipping point

Crikey is running a tipping competition in which participants are asked to pick winners in 20 selected marginal seats (and also nominate the precise margin in Bowman as a tie-breaker). Not only is there a $5000 prize on offer, it also gives us a chance to measure the collective wisdom in these matters of the Crikey readership. It also means you get a first glimpse of my much-delayed election guide, with entries now available for the 20 seats in question. The whole thing will follow in reasonably short order (promise).

In other news, The Australian have provided us with attitudinal polling from the latest Newspoll. This finds “leadership” and industrial relations have increased in salience as importance issues since February; that the Coalition has solid leads on national security, asylum seekers and a number of economic measures, while Labor is streets ahead on health, education and industrial relations. It should be noted that Newspoll is increasing its sample sizes for the rest of the campaign starting with this latest survey, from about 1100 to 1700, although it seems only the normal sample’s worth of respondents were asked the supplementary questions published today.

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.

2,595 comments on “Tipping point”

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  3. I want Abbott to lose and if the Greens can`t get the HoR balance of power then I want a crushing defeat for Abbott.

  4. Jon,

    Have you deliberately distorted what I said or did you just make a mistake.

    I have not advocated Abbott. I just agreed with an earlier post that for many things there would not be much difference whether Labor or Liberal win.

    I also pointed out that if Labor lost, they might just take a more progressive line in parliament. This, combined with The Greens having the balance of power, may in some cases lead to Abbott not being as bad (in some areas) as the Labor supporters fear.

  5. All – first time poster. Word of warning I am a liberal supporter. Wondering how many others of you there are on this board.

    Labor guys – interested in knowing how long will it take to find the leaker/s. Or – do they know who it is and its to damaging to out them at the moment.

    PS my name comes from my motorbike – a Suzuki GSXR600.

  6. 2501

    There is a saying that an ALP Government is never as good as you though it would be and a Coalition Government is worse.

  8. And on a price on carbon…

    Labor have failed to implement anything. I do think that if Howard had won he would have fulfilled his election commitment and implemented a weak price on carbon. Of course it would be far too little.

  14. Jon
    Posted Wednesday, July 28, 2010 at 11:41 pm | Permalink

    JV (& MWH)

    “If you really believe there is no difference (ALP vs Libs) then you are a either naive beyond description or suffering a neuronal deficit.”

    you miss point
    guys so frustrated that there intelectual superiority and there Greens Party is accepted by only 10% of voters , you’re seeing a jilted lover’s response…a broken record of “what about me !! ” , day after day There is more sensible Greens posters here to read

  15. [crispy both lol, i recently came across some this shit on the radio from sydney that is no networked here]

    Ahh, MTR – didn’t John Singleton learn from the abortive 2UE/3AK experiment from the 80’s ?

  17. i heard this chris smith from sydney talking shit about how gillard knived rudd yet a couple off months ago all
    he was doing was bagging rudd

  18. To JV and MWH, I share your concerns about labour timidity and I will be voting green and preferencing labour. but I despair at the’ no difference’ claim and its one that can be said on a political forum but one that doesn’t really factor in the people at the bottom or basic middle class families.

    Labor have pumped enormous sums and many quality buildings and accommodation are going up for low income and homeless people. I have been involved in many of these type projects on behalf of housing associations.

    To any one with a smart kid but only a battler being able to compete on merit for a uni place rather than having all the best courses as fee only (bar one spot) as many universities tried it on under Howard is important. keeping the old funding model was disappointing but brought about by politics. Things will change with the old model ends and incumbency kicks in. More importantly education remains relatively affordable and we dont have the two tier system Howard was taking us to with underfunded public and overfunded private. Its amazing that even progressives dont really appreciate the investment in computers and resources that labor have embarked on.

    Health again – libs will take us to a two tiered system underfunding public and overfunding private.

    Australians may have forgetten the stress of a bursting mortgage brought on by inflated housing prices under Howard, finding more money for health insurance foisted upon middle class people by incentives and penalties (which labor will eventually remove).

    If you are short of money the evaporation of bulk billing , the defunding of public hospitals and the drift away of good specialists meant longer waits for specialists or procedures or alternatively increased fees as specialists felt free to raise fees as a result of the 80% rebate offered after medical fees hit a certain level (raised by Abbott after lyng about it in 04 election)

    Conservatives will also bring in individual contracts and restrict unions and worker rights as soon as they are able to

    So JV and MWH, your arguments sound elitist to me because if you are a family with a couple of kids and basic wages, you will be glad that you have more certainty of respectful working conditions, be confident that if you or your kids get sick you get good care and you dont struggle financially to pay for it. Also you hope that the education system can provide that trade or university pathway so they can get rewarding jobs.

    Labor should do much more, I agree but getting some cheap thrills based on ideoligical purity while those at the bottom end or the middle suffer for it is just bull crap.

    It is important that greens hold the balance of power and I am fairly confident that (a) libs will have to move to the middle to pass laws to by pass the greens or (b) the alp will have to act on progressive fact based rather than fear based policies to appeal to the greens.(and the average progressive voter who doesn’t give a crap about green/alp flame wars)

  19. MWH,

    JV
    [ In one sense ‘knowing your enemy’ is better than having a two-faced right-wing ‘labour’ party in power.]
    MWH
    [Unfortunately I think you are right. ]

    What is that but advocating for Abbott as a preferable alternative?

    You then when on to claim

    [ In hindsight I feel certain that if Howard had won the last election that Australia would now have an ETS in place which would have been much better than the CPRS. ]

    i.e Howard and the Libs have a more progressive climate policy than Labor; Now that is truly bizarre.

    These are your words MWH how else would one interpret them?

  22. Scott, you’re copping Chris Smith are you? My sympathies are with you all, though it may just be Sydney payback for sending us Steve Price. Who is networking his show? Is there a Macquarie affiliate down there?

    I used to work with Chris Smith when he was in television news. None too bright imho. I think he followed the traditional arc from tabloid newspaper to tabloid TV news to shock jock (or sometimes gameshow host…. yes Larry Emdur I’m looking at you). He has also followed the traditional shock jock path of being morally outraged on the air over the destruction of family values, and then being shown up for some sexist outrage at a Xmas party. Or something like that. Am I being libellous now? Oops. Moderator, the screens!

  23. Jon,

    If Howard had won I would have been upset that Rudd had not, and I would have felt certain that Rudd would have done better.

    The big surprise has been Labor’s failure on climate change action.

    Tonight I’ve not said anything about Abbott cf Gillard on climate change. And as it is bed time all I’ll say now is that I don’t expect either of them to do much, though Labor is the least worst.

  24. anyway i listened to the show for like an hour as i was driving to ballarat , and like for the hour after realeasing the talk back number like every 30 seconds there
    was like 4 talkback callers whom i heard before lol

  27. There’s 12 proposed new power stations that the Greens are concerned about.

    Under Labor they have to meet strict environmental and emission standards that has resulted in “no” applications being put forward as yet.

    Those applications, with Garrett as Environment Minister, will be mostly delayed or not even be submitted as they are well aware that he will not be a walk-over in any application process, thereby allowing time for alternative generation plans to be put forward.

    Under Abbott, you can bet that the whole twelve applications will be fast-track, approved in the next three years, without “any” emission conditions applying to them. Getting into bed with Abbott just demonstrates the Greens so-called concern for GH gas abatement and global warming/climate change to be an absolute lie.

    I watched that interview on A-Pac with S H-Y today almost made my stomach turn seeing her campaign better for the Liberal Party than anyone from that organisation has so far this whole election campaign.

    I hope the Greens eventually wake up to the damage they are doing to the cause of climate change abatement but I can’t see that happening as they seem to be so blinded by political advantage, that they have totally lost sight of the reason that they profess, drives their reason for being.

    It’s bloody sad that they are doing Abbott’s work for him in being so co-operative and helpful to getting him into power.

  28. [all I’ll say now is that I don’t expect either of them to do much]

    When you go to beddy-byes, think on this: Abbott would do NOTHING about climate change because he doesn’t even believe it EXISTS. He chose his front bench because most of them share his DENIAL.

    If you seriously want action on climate change (and not just an issue to bleat about from now till the end of time) you’re putting your head in the lion’s mouth with the sympathetic views of Abbott. He’s a greenie’s worst nightmare… Good night, sweet dreams.

  29. [Scott, you’re copping Chris Smith are you? My sympathies are with you all, though it may just be Sydney payback for sending us Steve Price. Who is networking his show? Is there a Macquarie affiliate down there]

    Scott is getting MTR – out of the ashes of Easy Listening 3MP – where the bulk of it’s programming is emanating from 2GB – both owned by Singo – and ironically he hasn’t learned from the 80’s when former Beautiful Music station 3AK – after a brief stint of boomer type music linked up with 2UE in Sydney and was simulcast – bar Breakfast.

    It was a debacle.

  30. gough1
    Posted Thursday, July 29, 2010 at 12:09 am | Permalink

    “To JV and MWH, I share your concerns about labour timidity and I will be voting green and preferencing labour. but I despair at the’ no difference’ claim and its one that can be said on a political forum but one that doesn’t really factor in the people at the bottom or basic middle class families.”

    ‘but one that doesn’t really factor in the people at the bottom or basic middle class families.’ , you then went on to detail (very well) what Labor has done vs Libs in multiple areas …WITHIN fiscal responsible, but thats who Labor does represent , and these ar absolute priority issues to these working familys – reel life matters of health and jobs growth and education and IR fair go and tax equity and welfare suport I’m wondering what you’d like more from a 2.5 yr Govt

  31. [ so chrispy you worked with him personally lol ]

    We’re talking circa 1985. It’s all a blur. Narrow leather ties were in. Bob Hawke still held the world sculling record. And I’m not talking coxless fours.

    No ‘h’ in Crispy btw. Careful.

  33. [ It was a debacle. ]

    Thanks Frank. Interesting. I don’t think there’s ever been a really successful Sydney/Melbourne networking hook-up, apart from a couple of FM afternoon comedy teams.

  34. all my colleages the vast majority of guys here in melbourne listen to SEN only are more interested in their supercoach teams or wether gary ablett is going to the
    gold coast, even today at high level boarding meeting the sacking of jason akermanis was being discussed not about gillard or abbot lol

  35. Jon, don’t you know that JV is a lefty and has the unhelpful and embarrassing support of the village idiot who can’t find his way home. It’s easy to tell that JV is a real full blooded lefty by the way he attacks the right all the time. His targeting is not so good unfortunately and there is a lot of collateral damage to his side stated side of politics. Give him time and I’m almost sure that he will get his focus on the real loony right that now control the Liberal. God loves a trier and he is trying.

  37. Ron,

    [ There is more sensible Greens posters here to read ]

    Having read 2514 I can see what you say is true, I find these well fed privileged greens more offensive than conservatives, at least you know where conservatives stand!

  39. Frank,

    A few more tight polls and the stupid Greens might eventually wake up to the fact that an Abbott led Coalition Government is more than a possibility and an issue to wedge Labor on and stop actively campaigning for the dark side.

    One can only hope that there is some semblance of intelligence residing within the Greens somewhere but it better come to the fore quickly as time is running out fast.

  40. Jon

    You can see Christine Milne in j/v and MTW and others

    “I find these well fed privileged greens more offensive than conservatives, at least you know where conservatives stand!”

    yes , and Christine Milne is always sharking Labor Primary votes by any means as Scorp also said

  41. [One can only hope that there is some semblance of intelligence residing within the Greens somewhere but it better come to the fore quickly as time is running out fast.]

    Unfortunately it appears that it only resides in ltep.

  42. billy
    [ God loves a trier and he is trying ]

    You are I’m afraid far more charitable than I. I would say his targeting is completely scatter-gun, half cocked even, but perhaps you are right however and given time will mellow.

  43. Mark Day is right, but buried the lead. If you can’t do traffic updates morning and afternoon, you’re stuffed. People love those traffic updates.

  44. [ but it better come to the fore quickly as time is running out fast. ]

    I fear a lot of the damage is already done and it is now beyond their control.
    Their cheap political posturing could end up costing them and all of us *very* dearly.

  45. Ron,

    That piece that Frank linked to about the Greens preferences doesn’t give me much comfort with Bob Brown advising all Greens voters to ignore the preference deal and make their own decision on whether to preference the Liberals or not.

    And not preferencing marginals like Dawson id crazy because Labor could lose them for sure when, if they could hold them, Labor could make them more secure during the next term and make it a lot easier to get difficult Legislation through the Parliament.

    It is much harder either from Opposition (impossible actually) and with no margin or hung Parliament.

    The Greens have totally lost the plot in my opinion!

  48. Scorp
    #2541

    agree , however depite what Bob Brown says pref flows will % vary depending if there is no HTV (worser for ALP) VS an open ticket (slite better for ALP) , so if no pro ALP pref HTV then any present Labor seat held under between about 0.8 and 1% margin could go to Libs ! as a result depnds on which of othr 2 options

    that does not factor in very genuine 50/50 swing voters moving to Libs direct from neg anti Labor snips

    So both matters could decide seats , so one wants a strong Labor primary on 21/8 over 40% , pref 43%

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