Stuff in the papers

With just under half the campaign to go:

• George Megalogenis in The Australian accuses Labor of spending the first two weeks of the campaign pursuing “an imaginary centre position between young and old”, instead alienating the former by being too conservative. Megalogenis explains Labor’s poll decline among older voters in terms of the global financial crisis having “ended the party for baby boomers just when they thought they had made it to a prosperous retirement”, and says the fear of falling property prices in Queensland (not shared in Sydney and Melbourne) has united young and old voters in that state against Labor.

• Milanda Rout of The Australian reports the Coalition is pessimistic about Labor’s two Victorian marginals, Deakin and Corangamite, and fears defeat not only in La Trobe and McEwen, but even in seemingly unassailable Aston (where sitting member Chris Pearce is retiring).

• Sean Parnell of The Australian offers the interesting tidbit that the Queensland Liberal National Party “allowed the federal Liberal Party to fundraise almost exclusively in the state – including through the mining debate – to fill its depleted coffers and avoid Queensland’s tougher disclosure laws”. The Bligh government reduced the threshold for disclosing donations from $1500 to $1000 in June 2008. This was presumably in anticipation of the Rudd government’s proposal to cut the threshold from $10,000 (to which the Howard government had hiked it from $1500 in 2005) to $1000, which is yet to come to fruition.

• The Adelaide Advertiser has launched a crusade against Barnaby Joyce over his rejection of Penny Wong’s call for a live debate over the River Murray in Adelaide, which Joyce dismissed as “parochial”. Joyce protests there will be “nothing much to talk about” in the absence of the water allocation plan, which the Murray Darling Basin Authority has contentiously delayed releasing until after the election.

• Phillip Hudson of the Herald-Sun reckons “ALP insiders have not seen any immediate improvement in their stocks from the PM’s pledge to unleash the ‘real Julia’.”

• Possum runs Newspoll and Nielsen state breakdowns through his fantabulous contraption and finds Labor 79.4 per cent likely to win at least 74 seats, 71.4 per cent likely to win at least 75 and 62.2 per cent likely to win at least 76 (i.e. an absolute majority).

• Antony Green’s Senate calculators are open for business.

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.

1,872 comments on “Stuff in the papers”

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  1. Paul Kelly critical of Abbotts refusal to debate Gillard in the OZ today.

    “Abbott’s rejection of debate betrays risky arrogance”

    Also been fronting people in Lindsay for last 2 nights and getting much positive support for Alp. I have had 2 say straight out their voting for the “girl” and converted a woman who voted for Howard last time around also getting workmates onside as I am a delegate ” may need to call a meeting to get the point accross ” ;). Most people seemed to want a reason to vote for Labor and listed the Ber Waste as an issue. I have a good spiel regarding ber good value for money then push the NBN and then they light up. Young ones seem to want to vote for Gillard as far as I can tell.

    I can see the value of grass roots efforts in the campaign in marginals now. When are the unions going to start pushing the message hard.
    What chance of the enquiry into the BER being released before the election if it’s a positive outcome?

    I heard Adams interview with Rudd and it went exactly how I was hoping it would go, Rudd is no Mark Latham. If he helps get a few Qld seats up it should be a good result on the 21’st.

    Cheers

  3. Paul J

    I clicked on here thinking how negative the comments were last night. To my surprise the first one I read is positive.

    Well done Paul J

    Would someone mind giving me a summary of Kellys piece in the OO, I have tried for the last 2yrs not to give them any traffic. thx

  5. Good morning bludgers, and yet another interesting day in Electionland.

    I know that people on here have commented in the past that there appears to be many journalists and party insiders who follow this blog, as things said on here are either directly commented upon in the MSM, or suggestions coincidentally picked up.

    Now, I don’t know whether I can claim any credit for Ruddy’s decision to speak to a “soft” journo, but it does seem interesting that these coincidences seem to be stacking up.

    Maybe we can add to the “ABC Bias Watch” and have a “Pollbludger Influence Watch”. 😀

  6. Queensland Nationals finally realise they could be losing a senate seat to the Greens recoil in horror and begin a fear campaign about Rockhampton becoming an instant Ghost town.

    [Acknowledging the Coalition was under pressure in Queensland to hold on to its number of senators, Mr Boswell also singled out an announcement by Mr Brown that the Greens would seek massive fishing closures in the Coral Sea off Rockhampton. ]

    http://www.themorningbulletin.com.au/story/2010/08/05/greens-policies-haunt-lnp/

  7. And while Senator Boswell is scratching the splinters from his head wondering how could it be that the Greens might win a seat from the Tories he might consider this. Senator Trood is a smart academic who was placed in an unwinnable position on the Tory senate ticket in Queensland. Another own goal to the Queensland National Party neanderthals.

  8. What would have happened if the ALP had put forward a PPL policy such as Abbott’s policy of up to $75,000. The MSM and the Coalition would be screaming WHERE IS THE MONEY COMING FROM.
    Yet Abbott is getting away with this no matter how many times the ALP keep saying that it is a flawed policy.

  9. Apparently in the first year of operation the PPL could cost $4B. Money better spent in Public Health and Education so that people have a better affordability for these services.

  11. I didn’t catch the chat on here last night, but what has been the general reaction to the Coalition’s older worker policy?

    Is any journo asking them where the jobs will be coming from? It seems to me that offering a financial incentive to employ person X over person Y does nothing for nett jobs; all it does is ensure one worker is preferenced over another.

    The question is, who will lose out? With incentives to employ young people and incentives to employ old people, it occurs to me that the people who will be squeezed out of the job market will be those who can least afford to: those with families and/or mortgages.

  12. [George Megalogenis in The Australian accuses Labor of spending the first two weeks of the campaign pursuing “an imaginary centre position between young and old”, instead alienating the former by being too conservative. Megalogenis explains Labor’s poll decline among older voters in terms of the global financial crisis having “ended the party for baby boomers just when they thought they had made it to a prosperous retirement”, and says the fear of falling property prices in Queensland (not shared in Sydney and Melbourne) has united young and old voters in that state against Labor.]
    While I normaly respect Megalagonis’ views I think there are a few things wrong with this narrative.

    First I agree Labor wasted the first two weeks of the campaign pursuing an agenda that was too (centrist to the OO means) way right, annoying the young adn not making any difference to the oldies who vote blue and are too thick by now to realise the GFC was not caused by Labor.

    Second, Labor didn’t end the party for baby boomers, but by failing to warn of the house price bubble while in opposition, it can’t escape from it while in office.

    Third, fears of faling property prices might scare the old in Qld, but the young will be unhappy with the withdrawl of the first home buyer bonus. Despite the cries of economists that the latte has inflated home prices, it barely matches the obscene levels of real estate fees and government taxes on home buyers. The young are mercilessly fleeced by state treasuries in every state. Those charges were supposed to go with the GST deal (ten years ago!) but still haven’t.

  13. Chinda it has all the traits of the Liberal childcare scam with ABC Learning too. Business will be given what the Senior would have got for social security payments for the period of employment.

  14. [Phillip Hudson of the Herald-Sun reckons “ALP insiders have not seen any immediate improvement in their stocks from the PM’s pledge to unleash the ‘real Julia’.”]

    Who would’ve thought it? :-p

    I’m not sure they were going for an immediate improvement of stocks though. Any comeback will have to build in momentum from now until polling day. What will need to happen is people will need to doubt Abbott and Labor will need to exploit it.

    Good luck Julia.

  16. You may be right china, but Abbott is more about the politics than the policy. Labor cannot express any concerns with the policy because it would feed into the “Labor doesn’t care about old people” meme.

  17. ltep – they could hammer home the main theme is that it isn’t creating one EXTRA job; they are merely playing a cruel game of musical chairs with unemployed workers.

  18. [ a company owned by the Premier’s wife!]

    It’s actually an Israeli based company. Ben Keannely is Head of Marketing and Strategy. Evan Thornley – a former, short lived Victorian ALP MP is the CEO in Aus. In fact Thornley bailed from politics to take up the position.

  21. Smells to me what has always been the problem of Young people being given subsidised employment for six months and sacked after this so another worker can earn the boss another subsidy from the taxpayer.

  22. [Delroy did a thing on Tone’s older worker bribe last night, not a single positive call. All negative. ]

    I am not sure oldies like being reminded about being oldies and put in the same basket as dole bludgers etc.
    Cash handouts are different of course 😉

  23. Bakunin

    The SMH reported the premier’s husband owns 3.2 million shares in the company. Sorry, I should have said the premie’s husband is an owner, not her. Still, that sounds like a pretty big conflict of interest to me. When I was a public servant, I would have been breaking the law to do that.

  24. You can bet your socks that there will be plenty of ars . . le small businesses (whose propietors are in the unhinged one’s antural constituency) would rort the over 50’s proposal to the detriment of some other poor souls (they call them fodder).
    The very same companies as those that did all the nasty things that WorkChoces allowed.

  26. Sloppy Joe calls into 7 Sunrise and challenges Swan to a debate “anywhere, anytime”. I thought they were already having one at the press club next week?

  27. If anyone’s interested the coverage of Rudd’s interview on ABC News Breakfast mainly focused on Rudd denying he was the source of the leaks.

  29. [If anyone’s interested the coverage of Rudd’s interview on ABC News Breakfast mainly focused on Rudd denying he was the source of the leaks.]

    I have to say, as a strongly anti-labor person, the coalition have clearly had the better run with the ABC.

  30. Rangas for Climate Action now say:-
    ”However, she’s let us down badly on climate change, and now we no longer care what colour hair our politicians have, as long as they have some decent climate policies. “
    Big Day for Rangas

  31. Dennis being Dennis… as predicted. Miserable as always. Rudd’s magnanimity is dangerous for Labor.

    Rudd has positioned himself as a positive force for the re-election of Labor, saying he will do whatever he’s asked to do for the Labor cause.
    …
    The former prime minister has declared that he’ll attend the Labor campaign launch if he’s well enough after surgery, and if he’s wanted. But his appearance there will overshadow Gillard’s appearance in Brisbane and Labor will be divided.
    …
    But Rudd’s show of magnanimity by not indulging in “wouldya, couldya, shouldya” introspection has left Labor possibly worse off than before his act of forgiveness and offer to co-operate.

    If there’s a way they can spin it, they will. Expect the ABC to dutifully begin a new round of gazing at other peoples’ navels over this.

  32. I wonder how Abbott’s Health “smoke and mirrors” will go down today? Will he forget he has already spent the “savings” on mental health?

    Where will the $3billion come from? Will the budget really return to surplus under Tony?

  33. [I wonder how Abbott’s Health “smoke and mirrors” will go down today? Will he forget he has already spent the “savings” on mental health?

    Where will the $3billion come from? Will the budget really return to surplus under Tony?]

    The three key unknowns are the Rudd response, the BER study to be released and the treasury check of the coalition costings.

    Rudd. Check
    BER. TBD
    Coalition Costings. TBD

  34. [Where will the $3billion come from?]

    It won’t happen, Abbot put a condition on it.

    [The federally-funded beds would start to be delivered from “day one” of a coalition government, but there is a catch for the states. “If they want to get the money, they’ll have to produce the beds,” Mr Abbott told ABC Radio ahead of his announcement. “I think that the only way to get performance out of the states is to say the money won’t come until after they’ve performed.”]

    Without the money the states can’t produce the beds, Abbott ends up blaming the states again! and saving $3 billion.

  35. [The SMH reported the premier’s husband owns 3.2 million shares in the company. Sorry, I should have said the premie’s husband is an owner, not her. Still, that sounds like a pretty big conflict of interest to me. When I was a public servant, I would have been breaking the law to do that.]

    Agreed. The funny thing is if the ALP didn’t have a gender quota, Kristina’s husband would have gotten that seat, and perhaps he would now be premier.

  36. [Today’s announcement will include a pledge to spend $200m on infrastructure grants of up to $250,000 for existing practices]

    This is a $155 million cut to Labor’s exisitng program. Which Robb has costed at $355 million.

  38. Exactly the problem that lost the National Party the last Queensland election. Tories promise the world and then can’t get their figures to add up even after stretching the allowed time to its limit.

    Another problem for the Tories is that Warren Truss becomes Deputy Prime Minister of Australia if Rabbott’s Tories bluff their way into power. Imagine if the Rabbott fell under the proverbial bus and the Queensland National Party representative is on the dias representing the nation.

  40. Dutton said of the new health policy that money will be used to bring in overseas trained doctors.

    Like Patel? If Abbott had done his job properly when he was health minister under Howard we shouldn’t have needed to bring in doctors like him.

  41. I just promised my granddaughter $1m if she can save an equal amount from her pocket money over the next three years.
    Aren’t I a generous granddad!

  44. Me

    [Off to pre-poll vote today.

    Does anyone know if it is illegal to write abuse on a ballot.]

    c/o Antony Green

    [Can I write on the ballot paper?
    Yes, but remember this, the only people who see the ballot papers are the people who count the votes. If you are trying to send a message to Julia Gillard or Tony Abbott, they will never see it. But feel free to express yourself if it makes you feel better.

    There are two golden rules however. DON’T write in such a way that the voting squares will be obscured. This will make your vote informal. And DON’T put your name or address on the ballot paper. Your vote will be informal if you can be identified from the ballot paper.]

    I’ll take this bit for the take-home message

    [But feel free to express yourself if it makes you feel better.]

    http://blogs.abc.net.au/antonygreen/2010/07/how-to-vote-guide.html

  45. [Dutton said of the new health policy that money will be used to bring in overseas trained doctors.]

    I said he should do that. I should look up what I wrote. Where is the credit to me?

  47. [blue_green, I doubt he’ll take up your nurses suggestion though. The AMA would have a brain explosion.]

    My policies do tend to have cartel-breaking tendencies 😉

  48. ruawake.

    The Liberals costings look extremely dodgy to me.
    In order to fund their policies, how much cutting in other areas do they really have to do?

  49. I said he should do that. I should look up what I wrote. Where is the credit to me?

    Helen Wait looks after those matters, If you want credit, go to hell and wait.

  50. [Like Patel? If Abbott had done his job properly when he was health minister under Howard we shouldn’t have needed to bring in doctors like him.]

    Plenty of Aussie doctors have been Patel-like. That’s a pretty spurious suggestion.

    We just need a more streamlined way of accrediting doctors, such as setting up partnerships with a dozen or so international universities and accrediting their training from scratch.

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