D-day minus 8

Patricia Karvelas in The Australian:

Liberal strategists believe they are in line to easily win at least seven Labor seats and retain their own most marginal ones – but concede they are still falling short of being able to take Government. A senior Liberal strategist said the Queensland seats of Leichhardt and Longman are as “good as gone” to Labor and that Health spokesman Peter Dutton would easily retain the seat of Dickson – which has become notionally Labor because of a redistribution. The Liberals also believe they are in line to take Dawson on a 2.4 per cent margin from Labor. In NSW they say they will easily keep their seats of Gilmore, and Macarthur, but are not as confident about the battleground seat of Lindsay in western Sydney. But they believe they can pick up Robertson and Macquarie. In WA, the Liberals believe they could pick up Hasluck and keep Swan.

Mark Simpkin on ABC Television:

Labor MPs are calling Mark Latham all sorts of things, of which the most polite is “unwelcome distraction”. One minister told the ABC the government would have lost if the election had been held in the second or third weeks of the campaign, but it’s slowly clawing its way back, making a distraction-free final week crucial.

Simon Canning in The Australian:

THE Australian Labor Party has spent nearly $5 million advertising on metropolitan television and radio, and in newspapers in the first three weeks of the election campaign, outspending the Liberals by more than $1.3m. In the first concrete ad spending figures for the election compiled by the Nielsen Company, the ALP spent $4.86m on ads until August 7, as it worked to gain an early advantage over the Liberals. The ACTU, running a campaign against the possibility of a Liberal government reintroducing Work Choices, has emerged as the third biggest spender during the first three weeks, investing $2.13m. Spending by all three groups is believed to be significantly higher than Nielsen reports with subscription TV, regional radio and regional newspapers not yet accounted for … Labor looks unlikely to match the massive spend of the Liberals during the 2007 campaign, when they invested $14.4m during the course of the campaign.

Further to the last item, Wednesday’s Gruen Nation aired results from market research company Xtreme on the volume of party television advertising. They found that from the day the election was called until last weekend, the Liberals aired 736 ads to Labor’s 635. Over half of the deficit was accounted for by Perth, where a Liberal Party engorged by mining donations has been able to blitz Labor by 151 ads to 83. The market hardest hit by both parties was Brisbane with 197 ads for Labor and 188 Coalition ads. In Sydney the score was 188 Labor and 153 Liberal; in Melbourne, 128 Coalition and 83 Labor; in Adelaide, 116 Coalition and 84 Labor.

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.

1,119 thoughts on “D-day minus 8”

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  1. So last night we’re told the Coalition are “just in front where it counts” and now we’re told they will fall short?

  2. Blogosphere has failed miserable in providing a new age journo challenge to MSN , and Fulvio’s post annoyed me (agin to think of fighting MSN back)

    Blogosphere has failed to expose MSN merrily daily ignoring a 8 billion black hole , Abbots daily refuse to answer Q’s , a horse & bugy Internet vs NBN , 28 billion in Treasury uncosted promises , a Lib CC polisy that Abbott says CC is crap , a large Debt scare when our 6% to GP is lowest in th West , a Co tax increase hitting grocerys etc , foregoing a Supa Profits tax , mythicaly claiming boats & more boats wont keep coming , cares for Hospitals but gorged a billion from them as Minister , a 97% success rate on a 16 billion BER in 9500 schools oz -wide , 1.4 million homes actualy is insulated , blocking any co2 mitigation Bill being intro in oz ,had 12 yrs to fix our Murray River and so ons to almost infinities

    And I DO keep think of journo’s reaction of self presevation & professionel ego when Grog story blogged on disabilitiys hit Journo’s twitter tweets

    Rather than one only Grog blog soon to be history stuff , why not a dedicated Net Site solely BUT very concise , for clear defined MSN distortions/ommissions with pollys statments sourced quoted proper & dated VS MSN actual words & dated for comparison…a la Media Watch Perhaps ‘left’ fight back , by shaming by name public (or is it instead too much efforts & just keep taking MSN slants denyin oz Public of info to make a objective decision)

    my sensne of public disclosure of my list non/distorted disclosures wuldbe an ALP 21/8 2 PPT of min of 54/46 and a landslide But then MSN cannt be minimised by random criticol MSN Blogoshere posts and TV adds sure too expensive

  3. Look it’s 8.30pm here in England on the evening of August 12th and whilst I am far away modern technology has meant it is easy being able to keep in touch with the Australian election (Abbott the luddite needs to wise up on the joys on the interweb).
    I will predict now that the government will be returned with an increased majority. I am now convinced that the MSM are totally disconnected from the populous (a global phenomenon), contrast the ALP with the Coalition – and the Coalition is just not fit to govern, they are talentless. Only Turnbull is capable of being PM from their side and they are too ideologically riven to understand

  4. The 5.00 ABC radio news in Melbourne led with this poll.

    People throw the term “rogue” around when a poll like this comes up without explaining in any detail what they think went wrong. If the methodology is reasonable then the probablity of a given result decreases the further the result from the chosen sample departs from the population (i.e., if you could poll everyone). Unless they did something very wrong or fabricated it, you can’t just discard it as meaningless. Perhaps the resident marsupial can give us an analysis of what can cause a rogue poll.

  5. Or in summary and this has ever been the case…..Abbott is unelectable as PM. Ignore all commentary that says oterwise….you know it makes sense….Abbott is unelectable. Beleive it or not Australians just aren’t that stupid as to elect Abbott.

  6. Triton
    #5

    morgan 57.5/42.5 is moe 3% making possible Morgan at 54.5%/45.5%
    then less morgan norm face to face slant of up to 3% could =a Newspoll of 51.5/48.5 , Pollsters moe is true , but is still a grat get out of jail card as well Trends more vip

  7. There has been a lot of money invested in the Liberal party by vested interests. They are going to be so disappointed that Abbott is basically unelectable.

    stan speaker

    I agree, said on day 1 of the campaign 80+ to labor, and they had just made their job harder by dumping Rudd, but in the end Abbott is unelectable. Hayden’s drovers dog could beat him, and JG is a bit classier than the Hayden’s dog.

  8. Stan, wonderful technology this Overland Telegraph thingy that allows you to keep in touch with the colonies eh what? Thank ggoodness for the LNP!

  9. Oh Dear, The Nats and Libs are at war in Durack 🙂

    A preference deal between Labor and the Liberals which could snuff out the chance of an upset Nationals victory has been slammed by the junior Coalition partner.

    Labor’s Shane Hill, who would normally be considered the third-favourite in the geographically-huge seat of Durack, has elected to preference the Liberals candidate and sitting MP Barry Haase over the Nationals’ Lynne Craigie.

    Labor has preferenced the Nationals ahead of the Liberals on its Senate ticket, and had put Ms Craigie above Mr Haase on its how-to-vote cards.

    Mr Haase holds the new seat by a notional 7.7 per cent, but the Nationals have mounted a strong campaign both there and in O’Connor, held by Wilson Tuckey.

    The battle prompted Mr Haase to term the Nationals “feral”.

     http://www.watoday.com.au/federal-election/labor-liberal-doubleteam-riles-nats-20100811-11zm9.html 

  10. What is going on with Radio National Breakfast these days? The Morgan poll led the news at 6.00 am but Fran Kelly hasn’t said a word about it. In fact she just said something like “could there be a hung parliament?”

    Yesterday she said something about how Gillard’s brisk campaigning ‘smacked of desperation’, she ran the Scalzi thing from Rooty Hill in full without saying a word of him being a young liberal. It’s all very strange.

  11. $3

    You’re on to something there, Ron. Something the equivalent of Wikileaks on media misrepresentation on the one hand, and political policy/truth by parties and politicians on the other.

    Online is changing things so rapidly that the options should soon be there for the average punter, not just the politically informed, to know the truth.

    It really was a disgrace that the home insulation program and the BER were treated as scandals and waste when they were not only valuable programs and helpful in fending off GFC slumps but a big investment in the future. Of course there was waste and stuffups in both, but fairly small in relation to the speed of implementing.

  12. Sorry I meant 6:49. Now they are talking up a hung parliament. Did any one here email RN re rooty hill? At least for the abc a lot of emails may make a difference.

  13. RN now talking hung parliaments….it will not happen. If it does god help us, Katter wants subsidies for farmers FFS!

  14. And where do the independents come from, that’s ex National party members, now they hate party politics, hypocrities. Another prediction, greens won’t win Melbourne.

  15. So libs spent almost same amount of time in advertising in Perth as they did in Sydney!?

    Whats going on Frank.

    WA is Howards bastion, they love his protege Tone.

    People worried Tone will expand ABCC powers to bring the mining and gas workers under control.

  16. Re Joel and ABC brekky.

    In my e-mail of complaint to them I mentioned that the blogosphere and Tweeter were alive with reports the previous night to their broadcast that Joel was a self confessed Liberal.
    One presumes major journos and news organisations keep up with Tweets etc.

    Listening to the program just now I considered it shameful that they evaded their responsibility by simply quoting the Galaxy line that Joel had “slipped through”

    no explanation was made as to how this was possible

    and ignored two questions that relate to the responsibility of the ABC.

    Firstly that they failed to be informed as to the Tweets which identified Joel.
    Well, I presume they were unaware of the Tweets.

    Secondly they did not address the issue of why they chose to play on air an outrageously blatant pro-Liberal Q and A between Joel and Tony whilst also playing, for ‘balance’ one presumes, a question that was a negative for Julia

    re ETS

    .

    The time given to the two questions may have been the same, time seems to be the criterion of choice for measuring balance by the ABC, but the impact was a negative for the ALP

    why did Julia/ALP dump the ETS?

    and a positive for the Libs

    a love-in between Joel and Tony

    .

    That is not balance.

  17. castle@18

    So libs spent almost same amount of time in advertising in Perth as they did in Sydney!?

    Whats going on Frank.

    WA is Howards bastion, they love his protege Tone.

    People worried Tone will expand ABCC powers to bring the mining and gas workers under control.

    Twiggy & Gina R have alienated the workers.

  18. Twiggy & Gina R have alienated the workers.

    Nah, couldn’t be. I saw Twiggy in fluro vest and no tie.

    Those two are just ordinary folk struggling to make a living like the rest of us.

  19. Tone and Howard need to hit WA as a dual act.

    I wish. Still, I do believe Howard doing a bit of campaigning in WA should be helpful to Labor. Somebody mentioned that he was doing his bit in Qld now. That should help out very nicely.

  20. Well he TOTALLY ignored Morgan

    Most ignored Morgan, except for some labor bloggers who it cheered and lib bloggers who sunk into deep depression.

    Interesting to see how it affected Mick and Ryan.

    Mick went from cheery condescending to abusive sarcasm.

    Ryan went from Tone moves in for the kill to I think Abbott will go OK.

    Tone did move in for the kill.

    Trouble is he moved and swiveled so fast he ended up biting his own left butt cheek.
    This enraged him so much he then swiveled again and bit his right butt cheek resulting in further howls.
    Chrissy went to calm him with the result Tone bit his butt cheek proving squeals of delight from Chrissy which caused Tone to flee.

    End result, Tone last seen fleeing with Chrissy in hot pursuit pleading bite me again Tone, bite me again Tone.

  21. End result, Tone last seen fleeing with Chrissy in hot pursuit pleading bite me again Tone, bite me again Tone.

    Sometimes when you go shopping for groceries and your hungry you end up buying more, ….uhm Castle have you had your breakfast yet? 😉

  22. The turning point in this campaign will be proved to be the exact moment when Latham ambushed Gillard. Nine’s Gyngall messaged to his ‘troops’ (via his apology) that they had to raise their act. Since then, slightly clearer air has been given to the ALP. The swing back occurred immediately from that moment. While I never doubted that ALP would win this election, it’s now quite obvious that they will be returned, probably with a slightly increased majority. I base this prediction on 2 facts.

    First, the body language coming from both camps. Anyone seeing Robb and Smith’s shambolic performance at the NBN presser would know that they were dripping sweat beads of anxiety. Abbott’s running to a beer hall stacked with vociferous supporters was that of a coward reaching for his comfort blanket.

    The second reason is that the NBN has exploded as the dominant issue in the election. I invite anyone interested to check out Turnour’s online forum on Wednesday in Cairns (google Cairns Post) where the questions were coming in 3 to 1 on the NBN issue. The moderator had to appeal to questioners to ask questions on another topic. Entsch will lose that seat, as will a few other coalition members in regional Qld.

    I’m predicting the NBN issue will mostly affect outer metrop and regional seats, as they’re the ones receiving slow internet access at the moment.

    The MSM have been clueless on this issue. Kudos to Conroy who planted it in 2007 as ‘fibre to the node’, with 2010 in mind.

  23. Interesting the seeming difference between Gruen figures (Libs have more TV ads) and the released financial data (Labor has spent more?). It almost makes me wonder if Channel Nine charges both sides the same cost per ad?

    I may sound cynical but years ago I was in a Democrats branch and we tried to get an ad in the local (Quest Brisbane) paper but the sub editor didn’t put it on the page we paid for; much further back. The election before he had said there was no space left in the crucial pre-election edition. They would always offer a refund or follow up in the next edition but by then the damage was done. Ever since I have wondered about the biases of the individuals who actually control the ad spaces.

  24. I’m surprised not more is being made about the fact that Abbott promised to have all announced policies in costing by today. Usually politicians wait until they get into government before they begin breaking promises. Abbott cannot even go two days.

  25. The ABC reports that Robb will submit the Liberals promises for costing to an “independant” agency.
    http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/08/12/2981532.htm
    Who is the agency, the IPA? Ex-staff from Anderson’s Consulting? Will we get to see the wording of how they are asked to cost them? Any economic modelling? Labor is guilty of starting this last time, with their delayed submission, but the race to the bottom continues.

    If we want an independnet blogosphere commentary here is one: the “Charter of Budget Honesty” or whatever its called, is useless. Unclear rules, no umpire, no consequences for failure.

  26. Tone and Howard need to hit WA as a dual act.

    The plan announced a month ago is for King Rat to be in WA in the last week.

  27. BK

    Precisely, that is why I said “Will we get to see the wording of what they are asked”. Of course it is garbage. Just by picking your favourite brand of economic rationalist, you can get whatever answer you want.

  28. Kroger on Channel 9 this morning when asked if Abbott can win:

    “Look… uhhh… er… there is every chance we could have a hung parliament”

    First time I’ve ever heard him not say “The Coalition are heading to victory”.

  29. dedalus

    I would agree that when Latham jumped the shark ambushing Julia, the media were forced to get their act together.

    Abbott has now said wtte that Latham reflects Labor’s poor judgment, because only a few election cycles ago, they had put him up as their Leader. Labor can’t be trusted.

    The NBN has been the sleeper of this election, and is really the big difference between the parties.

  30. ….

    29 dedalus
    Posted Friday, August 13, 2010 at 7:48 am | Permalink
    The turning point in this campaign will be proved to be the exact moment when Latham ambushed Gillard. Nine’s Gyngall messaged to his ‘troops’ (via his apology) that they had to raise their act. Since then

    is there a link to the on line chat with the member above to discussed is there text some where would be so interesting

  31. Thanks Victoria, iwas thinking of getting one so I could watch One HD for the sport, but a bit of a klutz when it comes to wiring.

    One of the more hubristic comments made was from Bishop when she said coalition would let Kim stay as ambassador to USA.

    Maybe she was trying to show magnanimity but may of reminded voters of Howards sacking of anyone and everyone with the remotest link to labor when he got in.

    Spoke of an attitude we will spare this one because we know you like him.

    And I had some crook salmon last dogma.

  32. I’m surprised not more is being made about the fact that Abbott promised to have all announced policies in costing by today.

    That’s because they are obsessing over these ‘leaks’. It started with Red Kerry last night, and Fran Kelly was still obsessing about it in her interview with Swan this morning. Meanwhile, there’s no attention given to the coalition just getting away with costings scrutiny. I have no idea what the commercials are doing, but I do expect better from a public broadcaster.

  33. Abbott has now said wtte that Latham reflects Labor’s poor judgment, because only a few election cycles ago, they had put him up as their Leader.

    Great, Abbott and Latham are twins separated at birth, Abbott attacking Latham is Abbott attacking Abbott.

  34. In the Herald Sun on the inside double page spread of Julia in Tasmania with tradies at a Trade Training Centre, with the header $1,700 extra to be given to apprentices.

    There is a picture of her with couple of young tradies in background and one next to her planting a thank you kiss on the cheek. Very positive indeed.

    I keep saying Labor will do well in VIC.

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