Dennis Atkins of the Courier-Mail on the Queensland situation:
Labor looks like losing three seats in Queensland at the very least – Leichhardt, Flynn, Dawson – and not picking up the Liberal-held but notionally ALP electorates of Herbert and Dickson. Beyond this Forde, Petrie, Longman and Bonner are within reach for the Coalition but still defendable for Labor. The other Queensland marginals – Brisbane, Moreton and Blair – look to be out of reach for the Coalition but this remains an expect-the-unexpected contest. Another unexpected wild card that is troubling some in the Queensland LNP and exciting a few Labor campaigners is the seat of Wright, the newly created electorate which sprawls to the south of Greater Brisbane and is, on paper, a 4.8 per cent Coalition seat. Some local trouble with the Coalition candidate, Scott Buchholz, and his electoral roll status as well as a few issues running Labor’s way has caused a nervous reassessment in conservative circles, although signs of a 3 to 4 per cent anti-government swing in Queensland make it look like a rank outsider.
Nick O’Malley and Erik Jensen of the Sydney Morning Herald note a curious fact:
But what is truly remarkable about western Sydney is the seats of Lindsay, Macarthur and Macquarie do not enjoy the largesse expected in key marginals. They are among the most important seats in NSW, held on margins of between 0.3 and 6.3 per cent, but there is almost no campaign pork barrelling. Labor’s $2 billion for an Epping-to-Parramatta rail link falls short of the region, though it will ease traffic. The best the Liberals have managed is $5 million to upgrade local sports grounds and some money for a bushland corridor. And still the seats are without adequate transport.
Elsewhere:
Bennelong (NSW, Labor 1.4%): Momentum is building behind the idea that Maxine McKew will not be spared the backlash against Labor in Sydney. A Liberal source quoted by Imre Salusinszky of The Australian said party polling had their candidate John Alexander “well in front, confirming what state Liberal MPs based in northern Sydney have been telling The Australian since the beginning of the campaign”. However, a Labor source is quoted saying their polling has it at 50-50, to which McKew recovered after Alexander was “edging towards a win on first preferences” at the start of the campaign. A 300-sample Morgan poll conducted on Tuesday had Alexander leading 50.5-49.5
Robertson (NSW, Labor 0.1%): A complaint to police alleging Liberal candidate Darren Jameson had manhandled two boys he believed had thrown eggs at his car has been withdrawn. Jameson is blaming Labor for the leaking of the complaint to the media. Imre Salusinszky argues that if indeed was a Labor plot to besmirch Jameson in the eyes of local voters, it hasn’t worked.
Herbert (Qld, Labor 0.4%): Julia Gillard and Wayne Swan were in Townsville on Tuesday to launch mainland construction of the National Broadband Network. The fortuitous placement of NBN pilot sites and GP super clinics was covered in depth yesterday by Nikola Berkovic and Adam Cresswell of The Australian.
Courtesy of Lukas in comments, here’s a full list of Labor two-party results from the JWS Research/Telereach robopoll. You can see a full set of results for Bass here; for any other electorate, make the obvious change to the URL. The Lindsay page is broken, hence its lack of a figure in the table. Bold denotes a seat tipped to change hands.
| ALP WINS | ALP 2PP% | LNP WINS | ALP 2PP% |
| Franklin | 65 | Leichhardt | 49.9 |
| Bendigo | 61 | Robertson | 49.8 |
| Deakin | 61 | Corangamite | 49.5 |
| Bass | 60 | Calare | 49 |
| Kingston | 59 | Bennelong | 48 |
| Braddon | 58 | Flynn | 48 |
| McEwen | 57 | Cowan | 48 |
| Dunkley | 57 | McMillan | 48 |
| Hindmarsh | 56 | Swan | 48 |
| Brand | 56 | Sturt | 47 |
| Eden-Monaro | 54 | Stirling | 47 |
| Boothby | 54 | Dawson | 46 |
| Cowper | 54 | Canning | 46 |
| Dobell | 53 | Ryan | 46 |
| Page | 53 | Petrie | 44 |
| Gilmore | 53 | Forde | 44 |
| Moreton | 52 | Hughes | 44 |
| Paterson | 52 | Hinkler | 44 |
| Greenway | 51 | Hasluck | 43 |
| La Trobe | 51 | Grey | 42.5 |
| Longman | 51 | Macarthur | 42 |
| Solomon | 51 | Bonner | 41 |
| Herbert | 51 | Brisbane | 41 |
| Macquarie | ? | Dickson | 41 |
| Fisher | 41 | ||
| Bowman | 40 | ||
| Fairfax | 40 | ||
| Wright | 36 | ||
| Lindsay | ? |
If the coalition lose on Saturday, how likely is it that the relentless negativity and opposition will give way to more willingness to work with the government? They can’t just keep saying NO! and rely on negativity rather than well thought out policy positions to win in 2013.
@confessions
I think if the Coalition lose we will see a sea-change in the party (finally).
For those looking to 2007 comparisons to the betting market, look no further than Simon Jackman’s website: http://jackman.stanford.edu/oz/Aggregate2007/bettingmarkets/voteprob.pdf
Across an average of 3 betting markets, on November 24, the ALP were favourite in 81 seats.
Where they were favourite, Labor failed to pick up LaTrobe, Herbert and Bowman, and lost Swan and Cowan. (5 seats)
Where the underdog, they picked up Deakin, Bennelong, Leichhardt, Forde, Flynn, Dawson and Longman. (7 seats)
So the markets got 12 seats wrong, but ended up with roughly the right number.
confessions @ 651,
depends upon who’s leader.
if they did it for 3 years, they can do it for another 3.
“promised the price of drugs for pensioners wouldn’t be forced up by the coalition’s cuts to the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme.”
Interesting wording. Presumably the Libs could cut out the safety net or restrict access to it. That wouldn’t actually “force up” the actul price of drugs, it would just leave the most vulnerable paying those prices all the time, not for part of the year.
Perhaps the queston should be “can you guarantee that no sick person will be paying more than they are now across a year of treatment and will you guarantee not to make changes to the safety net?”
[opposition will give way to more willingness to work with the government? They can’t just keep saying NO! and rely on negativity rather than well thought out policy positions to win in 2013.]
and when will the meda work out we dont buy negative papers or listen to negative stuff
I’ve retweeted the following – get it out there:
[Pity he didn’t forgo sleep when the stimpac bill was being debated. Slept right through it on the couch in his office. Non-Action Man]
b-g I did one night at about 3 am. Tried to give some facts about debt and deficit and Costello’s structural deficit as outlined by George Mega. Obviously I was making too much sense so I got cut off pretty quickly., Put the earphones back in after hanging up the phone and the bloke was absolutely raging against me. ‘What would she know’ he said. ‘Debt is debt and it’s bad no matter what’. He kept on about getting rid of this bad, incompetent Govt, but you never know, there may just be one person out there who might take a second look.
Stop talking about ‘concession speeches’! Do you want to jink the thing?
[If the coalition lose on Saturday, how likely is it that the relentless negativity and opposition will give way to more willingness to work with the government? They can’t just keep saying NO! and rely on negativity rather than well thought out policy positions to win in 2013.]
Not likely at all.
[If the coalition lose on Saturday, how likely is it that the relentless negativity and opposition will give way to more willingness to work with the government? They can’t just keep saying NO! and rely on negativity rather than well thought out policy positions to win in 2013.]
When TA became leader last year lots of people on this site were crowing about a record liberal loss (and I thought so too). The fact they have gotten this close will embolden the hard right of the party, and I would be surprised if they changed tack any time soon.
It really looks like the Oz has gone soft from its anti-climate change, anti-ets, anti-mining tax, rudd-hating peak days.
They are running a pretty balanced show today.
Writing on the wall perhaps.
My say – The media has nothing to do with it – Labor won in 07 not because people hated Howard – not because of climate change – but because of a combination of work choices and Queensland parochialism.How else do you think Labor won a seat like Dawson.
My fear is that work choices is not biting this time and that as much as you or I might like julia she will go down like a lead balloon with blue collar workers north of the tweed.
Queensland has a history of producing frightening anti Labor swings, I live here and I can smell the breeze – up here they want Labor out. That combined with the seat betting is spooking me.
Did anybody just see the interview on sky news. It was TA on the bus and he said that people were ready to change the government and he was quite confident. He was very calm. Is he lying or are we all F******. I am so disappointed in the media. Julia is an amazing woman and PM and I will be disgusted in the people of Australia if they fall for his BS and MSN for not giving her a go and reporting the facts.
[The same on their ABC news. The lead story on the 8.00am news up my way (Far North NSW) was “Opposition Leader Tony Abbott……” I switched off.]
I’ve thought for some time now that many journalists thought that Rudd was boring and Gillard wasn’t far behind him in the boring stakes but they see Abbott as exciting and unpredictable. They know that with him as PM they’ll witness and report on an insane roller-coaster ride over 3 years and that’s what appeals to them. It’s not about good policy and what’s right for the nation but what will titillate them and make their jobs easy.
DaveM, so it could be the case that the markets have in the order if 12 seats wrong in this election too.
Interesting via the AWU Facebook page:
and if the result is close or not…
it’s like a recipe, “hmm.. needs more negativity..”
[663 PEDRO
Posted Thursday, August 19, 2010 at 2:35 pm | Permalink
My say – The media has nothing to do with it – Labor won in 07 not because people hated Howard ]
have you noticed every one is positive because we trust our pollsters here on this site. even itep and well dio the many doctor society is
so join us before you came on the sight this last couple of week the pessimism was so bad i thought we would all die with a stroke, now we are quietly happy but cautious.
Hmm,
The ultimate position the coalition take after the vote depends on who is left after the vote.
The funny thing is that because MT and JH split the more moderate vote (and heightened anti-MT feeling) only then the conservatives were able to steal the show.
It will be the balance in the factions that will decide, not soul-searching. Australian political parties are not good at learning electoral lessons.
bluegreen – sorry – I put the wrong cut & paste up for 658. It was about you listening to radio.
[so join us before you came on the sight this last couple of week the pessimism was so bad i thought we would all die with a stroke, now we are quietly happy but cautious.]
Thanks my say, Pedro was starting to freak me out!
i hated howard, and i still do!
[If the coalition lose on Saturday, how likely is it that the relentless negativity and opposition will give way to more willingness to work with the government? They can’t just keep saying NO! and rely on negativity rather than well thought out policy positions to win in 2013.]
Although thrashing them completely will hasten the process, I find it takes a couple of elections before they reach the epiphany of “Maybe it’s us…”
[If the coalition lose on Saturday, how likely is it that the relentless negativity and opposition will give way to more willingness to work with the government? They can’t just keep saying NO! and rely on negativity rather than well thought out policy positions to win in 2013.]
It depends on who the leader is and what sort of strategy they adopt. Abbott said from day 1 he would be negative and so it has come to pass.
Hi Arbese and others around Bellelong
Anything on Bennelong, I saw that Maxine has lost her voice, but big brave JA took something and was OK
What are you feeling?
Ty, how many elections did you vote for the Liberals under Howard?
bg @ 671,
think it would be difficult for MT to get up because there aren’t many mods left..
itep @ 678,
you want a whole number?
exactly ZERO!
Turnbull won’t be leader again for another term at least. He angered a lot of people in the party last time and the party base is hostile to him.
[Although thrashing them completely will hasten the process, I find it takes a couple of elections before they reach the epiphany of “Maybe it’s us…”]
All of this sort of thinking that Liberals will reclaim liberalism is wishful. The Liberals have been taken over by the crazies. Reactionary is the new black in the Liberal Pary.
[I’ve thought for some time now that many journalists thought that Rudd was boring and Gillard wasn’t far behind him in the boring stakes but they see Abbott as exciting and unpredictable. They know that with him as PM they’ll witness and report on an insane roller-coaster ride over 3 years and that’s what appeals to them. It’s not about good policy and what’s right for the nation but what will titillate them and make their jobs easy.]
TomH – You and my OH think alike. He can’t believe the media reaction to Abbott and says there has to be something they’re looking for in him other than policy. It’s his erratic thought processes. It will keep them entertained.
ALP favourite in LaTrobe on Centrebet.
1.80 ALP
1.92 Libs
Confessions @651
“How likely is it that the relentless negativity and opposition will give way to more willingness to work with the government.”
Apparently Tony Abbott thinks a mandate lasts about 18 months, after which, all bets are off and the campaign for the election begins. Here’s a pertinent interview with Fran Kelly the day after the blood curdling brutal knifing and merciless assassination without mercy of Malcolm Turnbull.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mz_occZob0Y
[All of this sort of thinking that Liberals will reclaim liberalism is wishful.]
I never said they would.
I am talking about vision versus just opposing the government.
I dunno why every one thinks Tassie is going to stay status quo – I think Labor has a very good chance of picking up a few extra seats there.
Exactly Ty, many different studies have shown the public do not look back at the Howard years in a largely negative manner. Exit polls in the 2007 election showed a generally positive outlook on his government but that people felt it was time for a change. His net approval ratings only sank into the negatives at the very end of his time in office and only by a small number. Compare this to Rudd who had a net approval rating of -20 after just a couple of years.
Aurelianus, it’s hard to pick up extra seats when you hold all of them already.
Aurelianus
ALP have all the tassies seats already.
[I am talking about vision versus just opposing the government.]
That would be too much like hard work.
Well they may pick up an extra one in the Senate there.
[Aurelianus
ALP have all the tassies seats already.]
Senate seats maybe?
Nah, what about Hardacre? The sitting member’s retired and with the redistrubtion from Denison I recon it could fall to Labor. And I don’t think the Liberals are as sure that they are going to hold on to Banjo as they make out. Like 1993, my money is on Tassie being the first to go Labor’s wa.
[ALP favourite in LaTrobe on Centrebet.
1.80 ALP
1.92 Libs]
There’s been big money on that in the last few hours then. I checked it not that long ago, and the Libs were faves at $1.70
They might pick up 1 extra seat off of the Liberals in Tasmania in the Senate. Any more would require unbelievable levels of support.
Whether you or I am optomistic or pessemistic will not effect the election -I have been worried about this election ever since Abbott became leader-as my partner said last night Abbott is the closest the boat crowd will ever get to having Hanson in the lodge I don’t know how that will play out nationally but if at the same time we look like dropping a cosmo seat like bennelong what do you expect me to do – bury my head under the blankets and pretend it is not really happening.
No one more than me hopes that all my anxiety is misplaced but I am sorry blind optimism is just not in my nature.I am just hoping the last newspoll eases my concerns but for the moment I am far from conviced that Julia is going to win.
Is that meant to be amusing Aurelianus?
Benji – has Paterson moved in the betting?
Oakshott Country
Aything on Cowper you have heard?