Courtesy of the always reliable GhostWhoVotes, we are informed of a bombshell Nielsen poll which puts the Coalition at an election-winning 52-48 lead, from primary votes of 45 per cent for the Coalition, 36 per cent for Labor and 12 per cent for the Greens. More to follow.
UPDATE: Michelle Grattan reports “the gender gap on voting intention has disappeared, with primary and two-party-preferred votes now little different” – which frankly doesn’t seem likely. Julia Gillard’s approval rating is down five points to 51 per cent and her disapproval up six to 39 per cent, while Tony Abbott is up six points on approval to 49 per cent and disapproval down six to 45 per cent. Gillard’s lead on preferred prime minister has narrowed from 55-34 to 49-41. The poll was conducted from Tuesday to Thursday from a sample of 1356.
UPDATE 2: Possum has full demographic tables here. Not that it should offer Labor too much comfort, but the size of their slump among women (58-42 to 49-51) and in NSW (59-41 to 42-58) looks overcooked.
oakes and hockey should go on the biggest loser
now there would be a contest
Keating, on the last week of the campaign had firmed to 2.35.
The night before the election he was favourite.
Betting plunges are only one but a number of factors in market analyses.
[Perhaps we should let Latham loose on the marginals as well?]
Why not? Would be good for a laugh. Although people might mistake him for Abbott…
Psephos: Obviously Senator Feeney would prefer Rudd vanished completely, but methinks other Labor members might be more grateful to have his assistance. 🙂
[The coalition has been generating sympathy for him in a big way.]
People who have sympathy have now decided to vote for the Libs? I don’t see that as likely?
[From looking at Fieldings record it’s impossible to tell exactly who Family First stand up for.]
I would think God. We should ask Him for whom to vote.
FF policies – let’s start a list –
1. No sex before marriage.
[Jenauthor it is not the journalists’ role to hold back on stories because of their own political views.]
Nor is it their role to spew gossip that suits their political or personal agenda. Surely you know that too ltep 😉
jv
[All this mis-directed anger at journalists. Very few are interested in discussing what should now be done by Labor to fix the problem and keep the archbishop out of politics, going forward.]
Time for Gillard to exorcise this campaign & rid us of the living dead. 🙂
Good night!
It’s Time, a small percentage would have and every vote counts in a close election. If things are looking very bad for Labor in their internal polling I don’t think it could do much harm.
I agree we spend too much time talking about the media and not enough time on what the pollies are saying and doing
By the way, as I have said, Abbott need not be favourite to win the election. As a comparison, he does not have to win as easy as Keating.
Abbott hits 5/4 he wins this election.
[It’s a Grand Old Flag once again. Melbourne has now beaten Sydney and Brisbane in successive weeks. Where does our glorious leader come from? I take this as a good omen]
Psephos – I don’t want to dampen your enthusiasm, but EVERYONE has beaten Brisbane. They’ve lost twelve of their last thirteen games.
Good to see the demons winning though.
Diogenes,
[Ch7 in Adelaide said that Labor strategists had said they were not panicking but would change the game-plan. I assume that means going after Abbott but they didn’t say. ]
They seem to be slow learners when even Laurie Oakes seems to have a better grasp on the direction the Labor campaign should be headed. 😉
Darren I don’t think Oakes has a personal or political agenda. He’d print the same story regardless of which party the leaks came from. Don’t blame him that the Liberal
Arty are running a tighter ship during the campaign.
I walked past an injured corflute today.
I checked its condition and its provenance, and then tenderly administered euthanasia.
centre
funnily the seats aint moving moving much
ltep@1695
I know little about that, but I would think inside detail about the political assassination of a PM is news. So is inside detail about the opinions of ministers before cabinet decisions are made. It’s difficult to describe that as trivia.
Why shouldn’t such information be published, legall yor morally? If it were leaks from the Howard cabinet no-one would be demonising the journalists to whom the information was given.
It’s just so juvenile to blame the messenger, or to say they should keep the message to themselves, when there is no legal impediment. It’s nothing more than partisan bile. Very unseemly to a non-partisan who believes in a free press – for me and also for those I dislike.
[It’s Time, a small percentage would have and every vote counts in a close election. If things are looking very bad for Labor in their internal polling I don’t think it could do much harm.]
Given that more voters were dissatisfied with Rudd as PM than satisfied, how would putting him back into the limelight have a net benefit to Labor?
Both Oakes and Hartcher would have sought confirmation before going to print. I don’t like the stories. But our democracy depends on people like Oakes and Hartcher doing their jobs.
I am looking forward to an analysis by each of them about exactly how it is the Liberals have had four leaders in four years, who were the real movers and shakers, and what that means for the punters.
JV – please don’t bring out the old chestnut that the ‘public interest’ is by definition ‘what the public is interested in’. They are not the same thing.
The public may well be interested in who (completely invented example) Tony Abbott’s daughter has bumped uglies with, but a journalist could not justify publishing such information because the invasion of privacy is not in the public interest.
As a simple trivial example.
[political assassination of a PM]
As Gary would say, when is the state funeral again??
[I agree we spend too much time talking about the media and not enough time on what the pollies are saying and doing]
We should be talking about what the media report about the pollies and what they say, and what is said by the pollies but not reported by the media.
The huge issue of NBN got very little media exposure compared with trivial issues which the media considered to be important.
Just being informative Pebbles 😉
ltep 07 was a typo as you know.
Dee, don’t slash any body parts. yet 🙂
Centre
done
ps apparently it wasnt a lot of bets just afew biggies
Hmmmmmm
Psephos,
[I take this as a good omen. ]
Typical atheist! 😉
Gus apparently Scorpio reckons that there has been good support for the Libs in the QLD marginals.
I haven’t had time to check the seats closely.
I agree that venting about the media is pointless. The Murdoch press hates Labor, but that’s been true for 35 years and we go on winning elections. The others are just chasing stories. If Oakes was given a story that spelled disgrace for Abbott, he’d run it in a flash, and so would any journalist not corrupted by Murdoch.
Centre
from first hand experience truthy town is gone
as for scorpio, i just skim now
🙁
[Just being informative Pebbles]
I know. It’s just been a little fubar around here lately. I know no malice was intended on your part, Centre 🙂
Without wanting to re-open last night’s debate, I note that there is a constituency in Tanzania called Mafia. Its MP is Abdulkarim Esmail Hassan Shah.
My cats don’t like Abbott one bit. While he was down here in Adelaide, they were on edge for some reason. And they don’t like his mug.
THE ANIMALS ALWAYS KNOW! 😀
[Scorpio reckons that there has been good support for the Libs in the QLD marginals.]
What exactly does that mean? There’s good support for Labor in the Qld marginals, too. Does Scorpio have a new poll? Anything else is just anecdote.
[Without wanting to re-open last night’s debate, I note that there is a constituency in Tanzania called Mafia]
I assume Mafia is a local word for something or a famous surname? Or is it actually named after the Italian crime syndicate?
[What exactly does that mean? ]
He was saying that there is very little electoral material being distributed, no organisation of helpers, didn’t even know if a campaign office was up and running yet.
People has asked what Julia should do to turn it around. I would debate him on the economy. Doesn’t need to be a grand pooh-bah event like last Sunday but a format in which she can naturally unleash against him – perhaps A Current Affair or 730 Report.
This would do three things: allow hers to tackle Abbott in a format she is comfortable with; it brings to focus the economy – our biggest asset and creates the possibility that in an aggressive one on one Abbott will respond naturally, spilling out his natural wweaknesses.
The 1993 election turned on Keating thumping Hewson on A Current Affair and then the following second leader’s debate. This is the best way for her gain momentum and put the focus back on him.
I was refering to the betting Psephos.
Scorpio if you are there, have the Libs had more betting support would you say than the ALP in QLD marginals?
People have asked what Julia should do to turn it around. I would debate him on the economy. Doesn’t need to be a grand pooh-bah event like last Sunday but a format in which she can naturally unleash against him – perhaps A Current Affair or 730 Report.
This would do three things: allows her to tackle Abbott in a format she is comfortable with; it brings to focus the economy – our biggest asset and creates the possibility that in an aggressive one on one Abbott will respond naturally, spilling out his natural wweaknesses.
The 1993 election turned on Keating thumping Hewson on A Current Affair and then the following second leader’s debate. This is the best way for her gain momentum and put the focus back on him
[I would debate him on the economy.]
Only to have it presented as a backflip because she said there would only be one debate? The damage in perception would outweigh any superior performance.
Psephos
We learn something new every day. I had never heard of Mafia Island which has a Mafia airport. To find, go to Google Earth.
TSOP
the sons axolotl has been off his food since the election
I blame abbott’s mug being on TV all the time
G
What do you feed it?
I would say there is basically no evidence on the betting markets that anything has changed in Queensland over the last week.
Gusface,
[as for scorpio, i just skim now ]
Skim over or skim through? 😉
And why is that, may I ask. I still give “everyone” the courtesy of reading their comments even though they can be abusive towards me or have differing opinions to me.
Or is it because I tend to be open and honest and tell it how it is as I see it, and not necessarily how some people would like it to be in their idealised world view?
Just reading the preface to Alan Ramsey’s book “A Matter of Opinion”.
He started his career in 1957, at which time “the Telegraph was unashamedly one of the very pillars in sustaining Menzies’ Liberal Party and The Sydney Morning Herald, in all its then 126 years of existence, had still not once enjoined its readers to vote anything but conservative”.
The progressives DO get a bum deal from the media and it DOES make a difference.
Pebbles if you find it acceptable that Oakes is trying to bring down a Govt on a piece of information from an unnamed source, information of a supposed misdeed by the now PM,which is hardly a hanging offense, information that cannot undergo scrutiny, information strongly denied by the PM, then I am sorry but you are either enjoying shit stirring or you are a member of the Liberal Party enjoying anonimity here and pushing the parties line. Whatever angle, you are a disloyal Australian in my eyes and contemptable.
Jackol@1720
No need to split hars on this one. There are two meanings to ‘public interest’, both applicable here:
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/public+interest
[I would debate him on the economy. ]
Abbott’s incredibly flaky on economic matters. He won’t even speak about specifics in press conferences, always handing over to others – it’s definately worth scratching away at him on that issue. We saw this week what happens to the opposition when the government goes on the front foot on economic matters: Abbott panicked when Labor used his GBNT line on his PPL policy, and rushed out a revised tax policy.
Gillard and Swan should up the ante by linking the NBN to economic development for the future, as well as the trade training centres which Abbott has said he’ll abolish. They should also go hard on the infrastructure part of the MRRT, which Abbott has also said he’ll abolish.
B
feeder fish
pellets
earthworms
Boerwar does the word naive mean anything to you?
G
Thank you. It was a loaded question. I am very glad it wasn’t ocky strips. BTW, a couple of months I was discussing the care of injured Little Penguins with their keeper and he said that it was important to feed them whole sardines and pillies, not just fish strips, because the brains, innards and bones all contain nutrients that keep penguins healthy.