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 | ? |
Have faith in the intelligence of voters! They’ll be right. The Australia public knows from right and wrong, truth and lies. believe!
Fair enough Pedro. Nothing panicking about it is going to do. Just repeat after me “Labor could very well lose but probably won’t”. Then sit back and wait for the results. Simple.
One of my roof tradies and I had a heart to heart during a workbreak. No pressure, just a chat. I made him a coffee, told him to bring his little terrier inside to play with my dogs. It was pleasant.
He’s always voted Labior but is thinking seriously about voting Liberal this time. He’s from one of those marginal Western Sydney electorates.
My argument about having to get my roof done in a hurry being a parallel to the BER has worked. He recognizes that the waste was an inevitable part of a quick response. He also recognizes that he would have been out of work if the BER hadn’t taken up the slack.
MY one remaining problem is that he doesn’t like Julia Gillard as PM. He thinks she’s too inexperienced, and I suspect there’s a bit of misogyny in there too (although he’s a nice gentle soul).
He’s been a Labor voter all his life so this would be a first-time turnaround for him if he voted Liberal.
He’s got 10 minutes to go and then the job’s finished.
So what do I tell him about Julia that’ll stick in his mind as a positive?
itep @ 688,
was quite saddened when pjk and labor lost power in 96. was quite surprised and shocked that howard and the coalition governed for 11 uninterrupted years.
i’m aware that over the 11 years of howard’s reign, some aspects of australia improved, esp. re increase in income and standard of living, but prosperity wasn’t shared across the board. however, it was at the expense of higher education, the environment, non-middle class wellfare, social justice, etc. and i’m certain the divisions that howard encouraged can’t be amended in one or two terms of labor government, because a number of those divisions are still encouraged today! i know my perceptions are atypical.
It was meant to be Itep, but I strongly suspect I was the only one laughing.
[ Codenix LucasRandall
TONY Abbott revealed today he has been “depressed” at times during the campaign… http://bit.ly/aP7fu9 // Me too! 10 minutes ago via TweetDeck Retweeted by DrewWiddowson ]
It doesn’t exactly read like Abbott is expecting to be PM, does it…
ltep:
[Not likely at all.]
for the last 3 years they’ve had blocking majority in the Senate when they’ve been able to co-opt Fielding to support them. Their negativity and opposition therefoer serves a purpose: it wrecks Labor’s agenda. Without that I can’t see their negativity serving any purpose other than to make them look like cranky sooks.
What a lot of people on this site just do not seem to get is that there is a big overlap between the boat crowd and the people who voted Labor last time because of work choices. A lot of the boat crowd are not rusted on tories they are swing voters and a lot live in marginal seats up here.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/commentary/sleepless-nights-a-risk-for-abbott/story-e6frgd0x-1225907201955
@BB
Tell him that Gillard has been caretaker PM for great periods of time during the first government, and maybe bring up her role in pulling apart WorkChoices. And that she’s not an elitist north shore snob. :p
How could you be depressed campaigning alongside jolly old Robb? I’ve haven’t actually seen any of his renowned party tricks, but I’ve heard about them.
BB – that Abbott is erratic and the Fin Review today has backed the HR NICHOLLS Society have hopes of WC being reintroduced if Abbott wins. That’s proof enough it will be back in some form/ There will be excuses that it was necessary.
[What a lot of people on this site just do not seem to get is that there is a big overlap between the boat crowd and the people who voted Labor last time because of work choices. A lot of the boat crowd are not rusted on tories they are swing voters and a lot live in marginal seats up here.]
Fortunately, Abbott hardly exudes trust and honesty on the topic of Workchoices…
The Climate Institute has evaluated the impact of the three major parties’ policies on pollution and climate change:
Labor – Increase by 19% on 1990 pollution levels by 2020
Coaltion – Increase by 8%
Greens – Decrease by 25%
http://www.climateinstitute.org.au/2010pollute-o-meter/#/home
If he truly voted ALP in all that time – including 1996 and 2004, and he’s only now considering changing to Liberal then he’s either a misogynist or mad or lying. Nothing you can say will change his mind
William Bowe
Believe it or not, but I love PR, especially at elections like this one.
But when the music stops there has to be a shortage of seats.
Turkey has a 10% threshold, but that is an aberration. (The nutters must be in larger numbers over there). Most proportional representation systems have 5% and I think one or two have 2.5%. None as low as 1.8% though. 😎
[It doesn’t exactly read like Abbott is expecting to be PM]
but he’s on the journo’s bus telling them he is confident and he appears calm. He says the voters want change. The depression bit will be the same as his ‘I speak from the heart’. It’s the Jesuit bit that BB keeps explaining to us.
The journos will all say (especially the women) – the poor love, he works so hard and keep so fit – we should support him!!
Pedros, if it happens it happens. We get it. There’s nothing Labor can do if people decide boats are the only issue that matters at the ballot box.
[The Liberals have been taken over by the crazies. Reactionary is the new black in the Liberal Pary.]
Hmm. Perhaps that’s true.
A couple of days ago – seems like an eternity – someone posted re the idea of setting up a website to review the MSM’s interpretation of events. One way you could possibility go it contact Wendy Bacon at the Centre for Independent Journalism based in the University of Technology, Sydney.
Jaundiced, Fielding pieced together a quota at the last election just as any candidate who fails to earn a quota in their own right. This includes the Greens everywhere but Tasmania and the third candidates for each of the major parties.
@dsb
I’m giving serious thought to putting together a doco on the way the media & big business have shaped the past 6 months in this country. I think we need an Australian version of Outfoxed – http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0418038/
ask your workmate to think long and hard about his voting intention. if he says he’s still going to vote liberal push him off the roof
@ty lol
[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 it therefore the act of a calm person to then promise to campaign for thirty six hours straight?
That said, the majority of the media performance has been execrable. I see a slight relenting from News Ltd in the past few days but the ABC reporting has been flat out dishonest. A terrible thing to say about the national broadcaster but everyone here but the most trusting can see it very clearly. The ABC issue gives me the following insights. Firstly, John Howard has booby trapped the public service very well. Anyone out there really think that there is only one Godwin Grech? Secondly, Kevin Rudd was almost childlike in his trust that the public service did not need changing. So childlike, in fact, that it cost him his job.
Leaving the ABC management in place was a mistake that Howard would never have made and, of course, didn’t. The ALP has been playing catch-up since the day Rudd put that misplaced trust in them. I think Gillard will win and I think that some time in the very near future, some in the ABC are going to be hearing some very loud footsteps behind them. I hardly think they will be that surprised that the party is really over, rather that it took two elections.
Sertse@701
Except of course the voters in marginal seats in western Sydney and elsewhere who the parties pander to in terms of their base ignorance, moral turpitude and prejudice. I presume we shouldn’t have faith in those voters?
Bushfire Bill, remind him of the people behind the leaders – the real engine room for policy. Under Abbott he’ll have the likes of Minchin, Abetz and Hockey – people he may not know but who will never put the interests of Western Sydney and working people first.
In the ALP, Julia will be flanked and advised by Albanese, Shorten, George and Combet – As he instinctively knows, its these people which will further the interests of working people and will be the drivers of the policies that will define the next three years.
Frank: Rudd campaigning in Melbourne today?
Wouldn’t Kevin be better deployed in a few marginal Brisbane seats?
BH,
No change yet for Paterson. Still $3.85 for ALP.
BB
Just tell him Gillard isn’t Tony Abbott.
“promised the price of drugs for pensioners wouldn’t be forced up by the coalition’s cuts to the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme.”
This is easy to do. All you need to do is make the PBS buy the cheaper version of the drug unless there is a specific reason for the more expensive version.
@703 Bushfire Bill
I’m too late for your tradie, but I would have told him that Julia was a respected deputy all that time, when Russ was os, and was well known for being very efficient at admin, as well as coping with multiple ministries.
Sh’es worked at a higher govt level than Abbot.
ltep@722
I know, but that’s because we have single transferable vote (STV) system in the Senate. That should be abolished. No preferences, just representation in proportion to a party’s support level.
STV is also the worst of the reform options in the UK.
dio @ 731,
but there isn’t always a cheaper version available!
Mark the Roofer has left now, but I told him the above re. her experience and said something else that I heard on The World Today. One of the old codgers at the bowling tournament in Port MacQuarie said, “Julia’s a woman, and women look after things better than men,. They’re more organized and that’s why I’m voting for her. She’ll get things done.”
I put that thought and how well the BER had worked (which he now agrees it did) and he said that it was a great point I’d made. Said (and I believe him) he’d think it over.
A nice, gentle soul, loves his dog, did a good job, and a very honest, salt-of-the-Earth man. Has been through a lot in his life in a medical sense (I won’t go into details). Actually, however he votes I liked him a lot. He’ll do the right thing. I think I might have won him over, but can’t say for sure.
P.S. If anyone in Sydney wants a contact for a good, meticulous roofer who works hard, does excellent work, and charges very reasonably, contact me. “All suburbs”
Pedros: I share your alarm over what might happen on the weekend, but boat people have got a lot of Aussies freaked out.
It’s a dumb thing to base your vote on, a miniscule 3,000 refugees per year seeking asylum in Australia, but blame the media for being the lapdogs of the xenophobic arm of the Liberal Party.
I had $500 on maxine in bennelong @ $2.65 in 2007.
Remember – punters don’t look for sure bets – they look for good odds a bit out of whack. Something you literally feel you can “take a punt” on.
Jaundiced, so how would they determine which parties get the final seats in each state?
@732 sorry Rudd – trying to type fast – fail!
you’re a forgiving soul, bb.
@Roy Orbison
Rudd could not change the ABC board. They have fixed 5 year terms. I did a full write-up examining the board a while ago, but again for your reading pleasure here it is: http://dailybludge.com.au/2010/06/wheres-my-abc/
Basically, the majority of board members are up for renewal next year. Gillard must win to fix the ABC. If she loses, we’re f*cked.
itep @ 738,
BATTLE ROYALE!!!!
Why are the rednecks of Western Sydney and Queensland not as concerned about all the visa overstayers who come to this country by plane?
Because they are on the whole white-skinned.
It’s a racial thing – the boat people are dark skinned, either Afghani or Iraqi or Sri Lankan.
And there’s a fair anti-Muslim element to the boat people stuff which the Liberals in Western Sydney are still exploiting.
Good one, BB – you made some good points for him to think about and just getting him to agree about ‘waste’ is amazing. I’ve made no headway with the One Nation rednecks up here.
[Fielding pieced together a quota at the last election just as any candidate who fails to earn a quota in their own right. This includes the Greens everywhere but Tasmania and the third candidates for each of the major parties.]
Regardless of the mechanics, if Labor hadn’t have preferenced Fielding so highly in Victoria, he wouldn’t have gotten in. Nobody could have predicted the exact mathematics of what happened in advance, but IMO it was still an unwise risk to put him so high. The Greens got far more votes than Fielding in 2004, but no Vic Senator. Labor could have passed the ETS if it was the other way around. No point making excuses now; don’t make that mistake again.
So the markets actually got about 14 seats wrong in 2007? What is the generally accepted number of seats ‘in play’ at an election? About 30? Thats not that great a strike rate.
Thanks the responses on the betting issue. I also read Possum’s summary.
I think those preaching caution are just being sensible. This is incredibly close and I still have fears for WA, where people proved at the last state election that they will swallow everything the West Australian throws at them.
Kerry Stokes has plenty of money tied up in mining and The West has been savage on the mining tax. I hope I am wrong but I’d not be relying on holding or picking up seats over here.
Remember how Howard tried to make us all afraid of terrorists with those fridge magnets? Laughing stock.
We should have laughed at the boat people scare too, but didn’t.
[Why are the rednecks of Western Sydney and Queensland not as concerned about all the visa overstayers who come to this country by plane?
Because they are on the whole white-skinned.
It’s a racial thing – the boat people are dark skinned, either Afghani or Iraqi or Sri Lankan.
And there’s a fair anti-Muslim element to the boat people stuff which the Liberals in Western Sydney are still exploiting.]
There are lots of asylum seekers who come by plane who are dark skinned. I’d say its the fact that boats present a striking image are splashed all over the media. You can’t do this with planes effectively. The media stoke up this issue and bogans dance along…
Sertse@701
I think that’s what worries me. In my experience the Australian people have a habit of doing whatever the media tells them to. Might be an unpoplular view but I believe the biggest reason for the popularity of AFL (at least in the southern states) is cause you’ve got the media constantly feeding people the line that it’s the greatest. That said I don’t know if the media can successfully shine the turd that is Abbott.