Highlights of week two

My federal election guide is at long last open for business – note the link on the sidebar below the Crikey Daily Mail ad. It could have done with another proof read, so apologies for any broken links, misplaced slabs of text or references to Kevin Rudd as Prime Minister that might remain. Entries will be progressively updated/corrected/tarted up in the weeks to come.

Miscellaneous recent happenings:

• Nominations have closed, and the ballot paper draw will be conducted tomorrow. The Australian Electoral Commission informs us there are 14,030,528 names on the electoral roll: click here for astoundingly detailed age and gender breakdowns by electorate.

• The Age reports the High Court will hear a constitutional challenge by GetUp! against the closure of the electoral rolls on the evening the writs are issued, as provided for by the Howard government’s 2005 electoral law changes.

• ABC TV’s The Gruen Nation and The Chaser’s Yes We Canberra! cleaned up in the ratings on Wednesday, recording 1.6 million and 1.5 million viewers respectively. This brings to mind a growing field of study in the United States on the impact of “soft news” (usual suspects: Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert) as a bona fide campaign information source for those bored by or cynical of the established news media institutions.

• As in 2007, Google has put together an election site which will come into its own, at least for my purposes, when polling booth locations are added as promised “closer to election day”.

Horse race stuff:

• Andrew Probyn of The West Australian reports Labor internal polling has them at 50-50 in Hasluck and Swan, but trailing 53-47 in Canning. Labor are also said to be expecting a Greens preference split of about 65-35 compared with 76-24 in 2007. It is noted that a lower flow of Greens preferences is expected in Hasluck in particular as both the Greens and the Liberals have endorsed Aboriginal candidates.

• This is how Brisbane academic and blogger Mark Bahnisch sees his local turf:

Longman is looking good for the ALP, with 20 year old LNP candidate Wyatt Roy failing to swing voters. Petrie is showing more evidence of a swing towards the Coalition, though the LNP candidate Dean Teasdale is low profile and Labor holds it by a relatively solid margin compared to its two neighbours. (Teasdale initially expressed scepticism about the rail promise, only to have the Coalition leadership match the funding later in the afternoon.) Dickson is looking very bad for its incumbent MP Peter Dutton, with Labor’s Fiona McNamara able to capitalise on his failed attempt to defect to the safer seat of McPherson.

Electorate-level news nuggets:

Robertson (Labor 0.1%): Belinda Neal has opted not to run as an independent in her seat of Robertson, contrary to widespread earlier speculation. AAP refers to “reports Ms Neal was angling for a spot in the NSW parliament”, assuming there are any left for Labor after the voters are done with them.

Dawson (Labor 2.4%): Queensland’s Crime and Misconduct Commission has dismissed 17 allegations of misconduct relating to corporate credit card use against Labor’s candidate for Dawson, Whitsunday mayor Mike Brunker. The allegations have been the subject of newspaper advertising by the Liberal National Party candidate, George Christensen. Brunker reacted to the news by complaining of “a serial pest out there in the Whitsundays who instigated all this”.

There’s always one. In fact, there’s often several. Certainly this campaign’s had a few:

Chifley (Labor 20.7%): With less than a week left before the closure of nominations, the Liberals were forced to disendorse a candidate whose preselection marked an embarrassing failure for its candidate-vetting procedures. David Barker is a conservative Christian of marked eccentricity, and according to Imre Salusinszky of The Australian was “never grilled by a full preselection panel and was interviewed only by phone before being chosen”. Astoundingly given the party’s form with Husic, Barker wrote on his Facebook page: “We ran a big risk running a guy who holds these views against a Muslim candidate.” He was promptly replaced by grocery store owner Venus Priest.

Flinders (Liberal 8.2%): Initial Labor candidate Adrian Schonfelder was a casualty of the first week, after he said Tony Abbott’s conservative social positions were “influencing people to take their own lives”. Schonfelder apologised and soon after withdrew as candidate, saying a car accident on the Friday had left him “shocked and incapacitated”.

Parramatta (Labor 9.5%): Liberal candidate Charles Camenzuli has received unwelcome publicity in the past week after Channel Nine revealed he had been criticised by a Supreme Court judge. The court ordered Camenzuli to stop publishing criticisms of building industry rival Beechwood Homes on his website, which the judge deemed “motivated by personal spite”.

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.

1,105 comments on “Highlights of week two”

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  1. Mark bahnisch seems right on the money in qld. Dickson is looking promising for Labor and true to its contrarian nature Qld “feels” as though it is starting to move towards ALP in the last few days. Leichhardt in Cairns is a tough battle with Warren Entsch being brought out of mothballs for the libs – still would be a surprise win for him. LNP splits at a local and state level will cost Entsch.

    The seat of Brisbane is proving interesting and will be close due to a range of local issues. Bevis held it in 1996 as one of two qld seats this will be very challenging. Ryan in Brisbane’s west could be another QLD labor pickup again due to distinctly local factors.

  2. William, good work with the election guide but please fix one small thing in Herbert. The person involved in the pre-selection, Jenny Hill, is not in the Left. She is the towns right wing number cruncher and Bill Ludwig’s representative in the North. She and Mooney were both in the AWU which has the numbers in Herbert so it was an argument between two right wingers.

    Jenny Hill is a branch stacker in the Karen Earhmann mold and controls dozens of votes from people who never attend ALP meetings or have anything to do with the party. Mooney is in the right, not a branch stacker or heavily involved in the party at a branch level.

    If it had gone to a vote Hill may have won due to stacked votes which would have been a disaster because she has zero talent. Mooney would probably have received the most support from active ALP members who get to fill out their own ballot papers but that would be less than half of all Herbert Branch members.

    The left would probably have reluctantly supported Tony Mooney based on his talent rather than any great affection. But remember William, Jenny Hill is not, never was or ever will be in the Left.

  3. I think we would need a very big swing to the ALP to hold Leichardt. I can’t see us winning this seat for a lot or reasons. I think Herbert will be won by the ALP even if we don’t do that well at a national level. I still think Moscow Brunker’s chances are very underated in Dawson and it is a likely win.

  4. Havn’t followed yesterday’s posts but I see the ALP campaign launch is in QLD. Will Rudd attend because if he doesn’t then that will overshadow the launch in the media. Secondly will he smile and look like a team player.

    You would have to think the hierachy already know the answers or they wouldn’t have had the launch in QLD.

  5. Perhaps the influence of inspiring chaps like the “courageous” Mark Arbib, now in Federal Labor’s Senate ranks, better explains the above.
    http://www.theage.com.au/federal-election/in-richos-footsteps-labors-new-mr-fixit-20100729-10y5j.html

    It must take a lot of courage to stab someone in the back while advancing your own position. But Arbib always does if for the party. Still, Labor is fortunate to have “clever” strategists like this. Without Arbib, Shorten, Feeney and Fallon, we might have been stuck with Rudd as PM for years. Whereas now, we have a rel chance of getting Tony Abbott. What a fantastic achievement! On top of the way NSW State Labor advanced under Arbib’s direction, he really is something for the Labor movement to be proud of. Its too bad Arbib and Karl Bitar haven’t stayed at the NSW State level to get the voter’s thanks for his wise decisions.

  6. Socrates, Did JG raise the issue of Corby yesterday or was she responding to a journalist? If the latter (which is my understanding) then is it fair to suggest her response this is part of right-wing NSW hack-fest? I’d expect our PM to support Australian’s in custody in any location around the world.

  7. [What is this for? An appeal to the convicted drug importer vote?]

    Does everything have to be couched in political terms?

  8. Socrates – Kept Rudd – Latham all over again 🙂

    To quote Glen Sterle:

    [”Let’s make no mistake: Mark put Kevin here [as leader] in the first place, which is why to take him out was a bloody big call,” the plain-spoken former truckie says. ”It’s like taking your granddad out.”

    Yet this act of quasi-parricide, according to Sterle, demonstrates the guts of the deceptively boyish-faced Arbib.

    ”I actually admire the way he operates, taking the tough decisions,” Sterle says.

    ”I sat for three years in opposition and it was excruciatingly painful watching the last throes of the Howard government. I’ve had so many Liberals say to me, ‘Oh, if we had put Peter Costello in you wouldn’t have won the election.’

    ”They didn’t show one ounce of the intestinal fortitude that Arbib showed. Arbib has put the party first.”]

    and from Warren Mundine:

    [The former ALP president Warren Mundine says: ”He did what was best in the end. Sometimes ‘best in the end’ is not necessarily fair to other people.”]

    I rest my case.

  9. Socrates
    I read that SMH article this morning and apart from being an expose of a horror situation in Labor, it raises some possible explanations to the leaking. It is already clear that some in the party are very concerned about the NSW right’s rise to power, with the help of the other Nobodies down south. (The term ‘nobodies’ by the way is one of Alex Mitchell’s from a couple of weeks ago to describe the group.)

    Given the sudden extent of the power of the Arbib cabal, the leaking could be part of a declaration of war on them from those who don’t want a Cosa Nostra party. It could be a power struggle between the left and the right, but is more likely a intra-right struggle, which seems more common these days.

    One would certainly hope there are some left in the party who could not abide the Arbib & Co way of business described in detail in the article.

    The article itself is awfully well backgrounded too … I wonder who assisted? Not Arbib that’s for sure.

    This scenario leaves Rudd or his staffers out of the frame as the leaker, and I reckon he is in the clear.

  10. JV & Soocrtates:

    Politics is a brutal game – Deal with it – look what happened to the Libs when they didn’t replace Howard wiith Costello.

    you want feel good politics -stick with your beloved Greens – oh but I forgot didn’t the WA Greens knife Gerry Georgates in favour of Hsien Harper ?

    And who was the WA Green genius who inflicted Adele Carles ??

  11. [Your case should remain open – Senator Glen Sterle is Arbib’s party mate.]

    and he’s right.

    Now go and play with the kindy kids in the greens and leave the grown ups alone.

  12. Yes NSW Labor Govt at the national level. You can see how the poor didums of the right were outraged at Rudd appearing as though he was an independent spirit. Better the owned JGillard.

    The Rudd and 30 others should break away and form a new party of ‘independents’, in fact they could do that after the election and cause Labor to form a coalition keeping the right under control.

  13. [Frank Calabrese

    No amount of crap will justify the event if it leads to labor losin.]

    May I remind you of Morgan’s phone poll taken at the height of the leaks ?

    [Morgan: 53-47 phone poll] 🙂

    That ain’t losing 🙂

    Now go and campaign with Tony for Workchoices Mk 2 – you KNOW you really want it.

  14. Labor wont lose. The only way they would have certainly lost in my opinion is if the Libs quickly moved to Turnbull.

    They may still have an outside chance if they bought Turnbull in as Shadow Treasurer right now. The Libs have a credibility/safety gap that needs to be satisfied to convince a lot of voters they are a serious alternative.

  15. Latham reckons its Rudd and other suggests its others trying to implicate Rudd. So let me get this straight. In order to make Rudd look bad, they are happy for Labor to lose power?

  16. TP:

    [Yes NSW Labor Govt at the national level. You can see how the poor didums of the right were outraged at Rudd appearing as though he was an independent spirit. Better the owned JGillard.

    The Rudd and 30 others should break away and form a new party of ‘independents’, in fact they could do that after the election and cause Labor to form a coalition keeping the right under control.]

    Yes Mark Latham – now go and play with the other children over at the let’s elect Abbott cos he screwed Kevin creche known as LP.

  17. [I know your slow frank, but polls tend to move after events.]

    Look when the poll was taken stupid:

    [his telephone Morgan Poll on Federal voting intention was conducted over the nights of July 27/28, 2010 with an Australia-wide cross-section of 680 electors. Of all electors surveyed, a high 8% did not name a party.: July 29, 2010]

    Now who’s the slow one again – not me.

  18. [They may still have an outside chance if they bought Turnbull in as Shadow Treasurer right now. The Libs have a credibility/safety gap that needs to be satisfied to convince a lot of voters they are a serious alternative.]

    By far the most sensible thing you’ve said in months. It isn’t going to happen but the idea is a good one.

  19. [Perhaps read this and reflect Frank]

    Using a right wing to advance your right wing viewc doesn’t look good.

    Do try harder.

  20. victoria@24

    Latham reckons its Rudd and other suggests its others trying to implicate Rudd. So let me get this straight. In order to make Rudd look bad, they are happy for Labor to lose power?

    I think it’s an attack on the Arbib mafioso, by those who do not want the Federal internals to go the way of the NSW party. But one does wonder how far those who will not accept Arbib’s power plays will go with the destabilisation leading up to the election.

  21. [ LetUsRejoice
    Wayne Swan and Joe Hockey are to follow their leaders in a head-to-head debate on August 9 at the National press club #ausvotes 5 minutes ago via HootSuite

    ]

  22. [In order to make Rudd look bad, they are happy for Labor to lose power?]

    They spent a decade fighting with themselves. Games of spite between Labor groups is par for the course, no more spirited a fight than between family members.

  23. [Frank Calabrese

    …..

    Using a right wing to advance your right wing viewc doesn’t look good.]

    Your have to chuckle.

    One big plus of this election, whoever wins results in one group of right wing nutters getting it in the neck. I think the Liberals are in the most need of a good lesson, but I won’t be unhappy if it’s the NSW right.

    .

  24. Who are these two idiots on Channel 9 Morning Show, telling us that all polls except for the latest Galaxy 50-50 are irrelevant?! Bringing up the Rudd factor and saying that the worst thing for a party going into an election is disunity.

    I’ve got something worse going into an election – having an absolute spud as your leader. They simply don’t get it.

  25. I would have thought the next NSW election will demolish the current NSW right. We all know what’s going to happen-the ALP primary vote will start with a 2, and they will have probably 20 seats left at best. They will be out of power and irrelevant for a generation. I think this is actually a great opportunity for the ALP-surely there will be Federal intervention in the NSW ALP, and the current bunch of creeps who run it will be removed. Just as long as this doesn’t allow the Left to take control, and make the ALP unelectable, that will be a good thing for the party’s long-term future.

  26. Parramatta Centrist
    If that is the case there is a dam good reason for Labor to win federally. Two bunch of right wing nutters dealt with using one federal election seems like a deal too good to pass.

  27. [A sign of desperation that Labor HQ are now begging Rudd to campaign for them in marginal QLD seats?

    Learn to read boy:

    [Longman is looking good for the ALP, with 20 year old LNP candidate Wyatt Roy failing to swing voters. Petrie is showing more evidence of a swing towards the Coalition, though the LNP candidate Dean Teasdale is low profile and Labor holds it by a relatively solid margin compared to its two neighbours. (Teasdale initially expressed scepticism about the rail promise, only to have the Coalition leadership match the funding later in the afternoon.) Dickson is looking very bad for its incumbent MP Peter Dutton, with Labor’s Fiona McNamara able to capitalise on his failed attempt to defect to the safer seat of McPherson.]

  28. And, do we need to hear any more from the increasingly irrelevant Latham?
    The poor man still hasn’t gotten over getting dumped in 2005. 😀

  29. [And, do we need to hear any more from the increasingly irrelevant Latham?
    The poor man still hasn’t gotten over getting dumped in 2005. ]

    Oh the irony from some here has been lost 🙂

  30. Frank: Dutton getting kicked out of Dickson would give me a lot of pleasure, along with Poodle losing in Sturt. 🙂
    The Ruddster probably would be useful helping out in those 3 North Qld seats, especially Flynn.

  31. [You can see how the poor didums of the right were outraged at Rudd appearing as though he was an independent spirit.]

    Thomas if he was such an ‘independent spirit’ why did he curry favour with Arbib, including elevating his position on the front bench so quickly? It’s been said that Rudd would never have gotten to where he is without the help of people like Arbib. Unfortunately for him he lost this support and the leadership.

    It was a completely ordinary transition, completely analogous to the moves to replace Beazley, which Rudd benefited from and you need to move on. Don’t forget Beazley had a good solid run in the polls and was still ‘in front’ when Rudd replaced him.

  32. Woke up early this morning, turned tv on. Puff piece on some Liberal candidate on ABC24. First thing I heard was her telling a passer-by at some public place, “We’ll stop the boats.” Flicked over to Sunrise, where they had a puff-piece on journalists having to get up early and travel to unknown destinations on a bus all day. They were following Abbott, who they all admired greatly for his energy. What a great guy, he does this every day! Channel 9 had some bizarre thing from overseas, some guy who keeps turning up in shot – then they were crossing to their Hollywood correspondent. 10 were going through their headlines – top of the list was Gillard still struggling to contain leaks.

    Same old, same old. I was determined to wait and flick until I saw my first positive Labor piece. I got bored with that after about 25 minutes.

  33. Aguirre.

    You only get bored waiting for something positive on Labor. I get so annoyed I start talking to the tv. Not good.

  34. Aguirre, you can’t completely blame the media. The Liberal Party have run their campaign well and have had a lot more oxygen to present ‘good news’ compared to the ALP. The ALP have been shooting themselves in the foot at every turn and deserve what they’re getting.

  35. Betting Market Friday is up over at the Possum’s place and makes reassuring reading if you are an ALP supporter

  36. [Now will Dutton debate Roxon?]

    I’m in two minds about value of that debate. Yes, Roxon would beat him hands down BUT I can see value in not give Dutton a possible boost to his local campaign.

    However, if Roxon could find a way to point out that Dutton was trying to wriggle to another electorate that would work a treat.

  37. From previous thread – BK to Laocoon
    [Laocoon
    Yes, it is going to be interesting to see how this all pans out. It is noteworthy that this Mike Papantonio lawyer guy has filed a RICO suit on the three companies. It would be lovely to see Cheney caught up in it all – almost as satisfying as seeing a Pyne defeat!
    On another subject I was delighted to see in the paper this morning that our little Adelaide Hills outpost will just sneak in to the NBN fibre optic web. Some people here are only able to access paired gain copper dial-up.
    I think a sleeper issue for the Coaltion is going to be the number of policies where the Libs and the Nats are diametrically opposed to each other (eg NBN, Murray-Darling). If the schisms persist an Abbott government will be unable to deliver.]
    Arrgghh! Sophie Mirabella has just appeared – breakfast has just been explosively regurgitated.

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