D-day plus 2

Remember to keep following the late count action in the Photo Finishes threads below. In lieu of any new commentary on the current situation, now might be a good time to draw attention to the fact that I wrote a conference paper last year on minority government formation and the rise of the Greens. Meantime, here’s a new thread for general discussion.

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.

4,146 comments on “D-day plus 2”

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  1. Peter J. Nicol@4040

    The proposition that Rudd could have won an election is just completely unsupportable.

    No it’s not. It’s that focus group/polling driven thinking that got Labor into the trouble that they are now in.

    Kruddy’s “natural” level of polling was about 53/54% 2PP. A good campaign, and some political courage coulda got him back there.

    Polling measures “what is” not “what will be”, and people are notoriously bad predictors of their future behaviour.

    What selective memory you have – you DO recall how toxic the West was when the original Mining Tax was floated ?

    Had Rudd and the original Tax had stayed, I’d assure you we would only have kept Fremantle and Perth – and they’d be ultra marginal seats.

  2. Are we all hostage to volatile Queensladers and Western Sydneyites now?

    They will set the agenda, and both parties will pander to their fears and prejudices….oh hang on, thats exactly what has been happening for more than ten years now.

  3. Finally a question I can answer

    [Actually, who is Finance Minister now?]

    Tanner – you don;t need to be an MP to =be a Minister for up to three months).

    He still holds the Queens commission

  4. The Rabbot promised Turnbull a front bench position.
    Who is going to get the flick to make way for Turnbull? If that doesn’t come to fruition, there is going to be one angry festering sore residing on the back benches.

  5. Peter J Nicol, there is no way Labor can win elections with a PV in the mid 30’s. Consider, with a PV at 38.5%, a 2PPV around 50.8% and the advantages of incumbency, Labor have not been able to win a majority in the Parliament. There is no reason at all to suppose that Rudd would have been able to climb out of the grave he had dug for himself. The only reason people cling to this idea is a desire to blame “the faction leaders” for Labor’s fall from grace. Of course, these are the same people that helped deliver the victory of 2007, but this is easily overlooked.

    The truth is, Rudd’s decline began in mid 2009 and accelerated from January 2010 onwards and by the time he resigned, Rudd’s political capital was nearly exhausted – wasted on bungled policies, ruptured expectations and misconceived adventures.

  6. My initial predictions for election night were way out, but I did correct and rightly have Mckewan and Latrobe as gains, also Dunkley, and Aston to watch. Where I went wrong was Brisbane, Morton, Longman, thought we’ld lose Lindsay and Robertson. I think I had ALP 77- still quite a bit out

  7. The situation in Hasluck is not clear despite the slight
    move to Libs today. The AEC counted some postals
    which leaned Liberal.

    There are many more absents left to count and
    they are leaning ALP (and did so strongly in 2007).

    Finally there are a surprisingly large number of
    provisionals which may not end up being
    all valid but these usually favour the ALP
    by a lot.

    In total some 10,000 votes to count and
    the Liberal only ahead by about 600.

  8. What Tory governments usually do in these situations is implement an infrastructure freeze, ala Borbidge. It fits in with their anti debt, no waste, stop the boats, great economic genius view of themselves.

  9. Wow! A little bit of Bob Brown goes a Looooooooooong way!

    Qld govt moves to protect farm land

    Some mining operations will be banned on Queensland’s most fertile agricultural land under a plan released by the Queensland government.

    Miners won’t be allowed to develop mineral resources if their activities will permanently prevent the state’s most valuable food production land from being farmed in the future.

    (apologies if this was posted earlier)

  10. [ and by the time he resigned, Rudd’s political capital was nearly exhausted – wasted on bungled policies, ruptured expectations and misconceived adventures.]

    Absolutely 😆

    The NewsPolls of 2PP of 49-51, 50-50, 51-49 were clearly indicative of a deep descent by Rudd into irrelevancy :Lol:

  11. Since the ALPs majority was lost in QLD and NSW (exactly the same spots Labor wanted Rudd to campaign in), it hardly matters how Rudd would have fared in WA, especially given the relative lack of seats involved.

    I understand its hard to swallow – but its far more likely than not the ALP would have over the line with the full incumbent advantage, a full campaign on the economy (not 2 weeks post ‘real Julia’), and a relative advantage in QLD.

    And the debate, sigh. Rudd got 56-44 on newspolll after he flayed Abbott alive on health.

    The ALP stuffed up. Accept it, and move on.

  12. [Bob Katter may have a small soft spot from way back.

    His father Bob Snr was originally a ALP politician and left the ALP in 1957 when the Qld Labor PArty split from the Fed.]
    How does that sit with Bob Jr’s career as a minister under Joh?

  13. Antony Green

    Despite the fact that your computer was still predicting an ALP
    win in Denison long after the pollbludger Denison thread
    had given it to Wilkie, we would never abuse you here.

  14. To think that we were looking at a 3-4 term government this time last year.

    I want to know if any big bets were placed on Abbott winning when he became OL. My initial thought was that he would lose too many women voters. Amazing performance when you consider that no one rated him, ever.

  15. [Rudd was entirely the author of his and his Government’s misfortunes. The sooner he leaves politics the better off Labor will be.]

    Rubbish why should he leave politics he led the ALP to a resounding election victory – that is a fact. Arbib, Shorten etc should be the ones leaving well before Rudd. The polls turned south for Rudd and he was not event given 1-2 mths after the neilsen to try to resurrect his fortunes because the tea leaf readers could not handle a set of average polls when they matched what howard was getting this far out from an election. As far as I can see Rudd was right to be a control freak becasue the rest of these fools could not organise a piss up in a brewery. To not campaign on the economy day in day out for the entire 6 weeks of the campaign was a sign of the total ineptitude of these people – that was the key issue and that message was simple they had a great story to sell instead it looks like they will be writing their memoirs of how they saved Aust from the GFC from the opposition benches.

  16. [The next line from Rabbott will probably be that Labor did too much too quick now back to our hammocks.]
    Yep! If you do nothing, the danger of making mistakes is zero.
    I suspect he will play it so safe he won’t turn up. Instead go off on a bike ride or marathon where we will be told its Rabbott the Action Man fundraising for some gut wrenching cause. 😀

  17. I think the ALP went OK in NSW. Only a couple of seats
    lost despite an unpopular state government.

    The media tell us it was a disaster there but
    that does not seem to true.

  18. Rod Hagen:
    Seems to me that the serious people in the Labor Party aren’t bashing either Rudd or Gillard at present. They are doing their dangdest to show the strengths of the party. It is only the Anna Bligh’s and Morris Iemma’s and others of their ilk who simply can’t help themselves at a time when unity is very important. Their antics in the last couple of days made me realise for the first time just why Queenslanders are so keen to get rid of Anna and why NSW had to dump Iemma, in fact!

    Unfortunately for Bitar, Arbib, Shorten and Howes they have become the key figures associated with Rudd’s demise. Every time their head pops up on a TV screen there is a visceral reaction against them and folks look around for something to smack. People in the community are talking about them, and how dastardly they were. So in this case, I think you’ll find that there are an awful lot of people (especially in NSW) who were nodding their head in agreement when Iemma made those comments.

    I agree that Bligh is different – I think Qlders would have liked some faceless men to turn up and carry her off.

    Either way – all quarters need to shut up about Rudd. Focus on reforming a majority govt. and, at all costs, own the successes. Be shameless!

  19. I for one think the party – including the faction leaders – got it completely right when they deposed Rudd. We will never know, but were he the leader today, contemplating an election in October, we would be looking at a leader with net satisfaction rank of -25 or -30, a PV of 33%, a possible Green vote in the high teens, a completely fictional 2PPV estimate of 51/49, a well-primed Liberal campaign based on Rudd’s failings, and the prospect of losing 25 or 30 seats. In very simple terms, I think things could be a lot worse than they appear to be now!

  20. Labor need 55% of the outstanding envelopes in Hasluck, they have gotten 48% of the envelopes so far counted. Those mystery ‘Labor higher ups’ had better be confident those absentee vote envelopes are dripping deep red.

    Without the ALP having a plurality of whipped members (the WA Nats MP will take the whip if he knows whats good for his next campaign against a WA Liberal), I just cant imagine how the Katter Gang will have the political cover to support the government.

  21. [a completely fictional 2PPV estimate of 51/49, a well-primed Liberal campaign based on Rudd’s failings, and the prospect of losing 25 or 30 seats. In very simple terms, I think things could be a lot worse than they appear to be now!]

    what is a fictional 2PPV?

  22. Jesus Frank, the original MSPT was good policy, and would have reduced the risk to most miners, and likely have, if anything, benefited the industry.

    Typical of the total lack of courage, and short-term poll-driven decision making, instead of making the case for it, you caved in and came up with a turkey.

    (Memo to Self: DON’T REPLY TO FRANK!)

  23. briefly@4081

    I for one think the party – including the faction leaders – got it completely right when they deposed Rudd. We will never know, but were he the leader today, contemplating an election in October, we would be looking at a leader with net satisfaction rank of -25 or -30, a PV of 33%, a possible Green vote in the high teens, a completely fictional 2PPV estimate of 51/49, a well-primed Liberal campaign based on Rudd’s failings, and the prospect of losing 25 or 30 seats. In very simple terms, I think things could be a lot worse than they appear to be now!

    Agreed, The Libs entire Campaign was made worthless when Rudd was dumped.

  24. Thanks Public Servant. I don’t imagine Lindsay Tanner is exactly sweating blood thoughg as he discharges his continuing duties.

  25. Peter J. Nicol@4085

    Jesus Frank, the original MSPT was good policy, and would have reduced the risk to most miners, and likely have, if anything, benefited the industry.

    Typical of the total lack of courage, and short-term poll-driven decision making, instead of making the case for it, you caved in and came up with a turkey.

    (Memo to Self: DON’T REPLY TO FRANK!)

    You still don’t get it – The West and other media outlests went FERAL. Don’t you remember the calls for Secession, the airtime given to Twiggy, Gina Reinhart, WA First ?

    Typical Greens supporter living in La La Land.

  26. [I think the ALP went OK in NSW. Only a couple of seats]

    Welll indeed, Dr good – we’re really talking about QLD here.

    So excuse me if I blow milk through my nose everytime someone suggest ‘Rudd would have lost’.

    Its a completely illogical that anyone could confidently claim that Rudd could have done worse – given the ALP got fatally hammered in his home state.

    Unless you’re a QLDer (and I am, btw), you just wont get this, but trust me, its true: Rudd being a QLDer and leader would have made a huge diff. Im sorry, but it really does matter up there.

  27. Briefly – Polling outside of election campaigns is worthless I remember Latham leading Howard 54-46 not long before the beginning of the 2007 campaign.Howard lost the safe liberal seat of Ryan in a by election and went on to win in 2001,but go on continue to swallow the party line.

  28. Janice wrote:
    None of us are privvy to the real reasons why Rudd lost the confidence of his colleagues but you can be sure that those same colleagues would never be so unkind as to splash their grievances across the country in order to kick the man further and end any hope for him to either continue his political life or make another career elsewhere. That is not the sort of stuff we could expect from Labor.
    Dee wrote:
    In my opinion Rudd was a marked man with the CPRS. That’s when the real shite began to hit the fan in media circles. The mining tax compounded & united the resolve of the resources sector to get Rudd, with of course the help of a compliant media.
    The point that always gets overlooked is the known opinion of Gillard’s character.
    She had & has been described as being deeply loyal & trustworthy. The flack being thrown around goes completely against the known character of the woman.

    Exactly, yes !:)
    I remember the Whitlam days, with the media constructions etc and how quickly it hit the fan, when Whitlam first opened negotiations on international wheat trade, by saying “It’s wheat for Communist China”. All the other scandals, the loans affair etc, came soon after.

    I worked for the TGA back in the early-mid 90s, and up against multinational interests (in that case, the pharmaceutical companies) was a real eye-opener to me, about wielding real Power on a very different scale.

    Lib/Nats, with their classic neocon economics Biblical Holy Writ, has always been about selling off all the assets – selling off Telstra, gold reserves, CSL (and whatever else they can lay hands on). Should be shot for the CSL sale, the major world class vaccine production centre in the southern hemisphere, (built with tax-payers money in the national public health interest) and Howard and Costello sold it off for garage sale prices.

    But I digress, the point being that for all the ALP’s faults, and occasional tangents and ‘experiments’, they are the only bastion we have against that form of laissez-faire capitalist economic might. And the Big-End of Town, (by whatever name) do have the power to pull it all unstuck behind the scenes. It can also be fear, within some members of the ALP, they see the might of the giants, and take a risk-averse approach. Hence, all the apologies, Going up against Goliaths? without the people behind you?? … *shrug*.. I’m a coward, I wouldn’t do it either 🙂

    But I agree, that with Rudd, it would have been much worse, but not his fault entirely – it all happened so fast. I’m stunned that Julia (and others of the front-bench ALPers who stayed to fight) did as well as they did, knowing full well, nationally, as well as having two big States in local/state govt messes as well. All they could do, was go for damage control in a hostile environment, try to minimise the damage…

  29. Labor need 55% of the outstanding envelopes in Hasluck, they have gotten 48% of the envelopes so far counted. Those mystery ‘Labor higher ups’ had better be confident those absentee vote envelopes are dripping deep red.

    In 2007 on 6200 absent votes the ALP picked up 455 votes – ALP vote is lower this time with swing against them. 5000 absents left now – current trend on 700 absent votes suggests a 350 pickup

    Liberal lead once pre-poll/postals are done will be over 600

    Libs will still have 250 minimum buffer

    More than likely ‘Labor higher ups’ trying to keep Hasluck in play to keep the INDs guessing and the vain hope of 73 for ALP instead of saying ‘Hasluck is gone’ and give Abbott an early negotiating edge

  30. [Agreed, The Libs entire Campaign was made worthless when Rudd was dumped.]

    Cripes! Havent you guys noticed Gillard LOST the ALP its majority? After one term! ?

    The fact that Abbott lost the election too is quite beside the point: you’re carrying on as if there’s some compelling contemporary evidence this brilliant move ‘worked’ for the ALP.

    it didnt!

    Denial is a place in Sussex st.

  31. The best chance now for Labor is if Abbott blows it on negotiations with the independents. He could think since he will have more seats that he doesn’t have to offer the independents anything and this might annoy them enough to back Labor.

    Straws being clutched but oh well 🙂

  32. Briefly 4081

    Yes and imagine what a primary vote like that would have done to the Senate. Abbott may have got a majority with FF and the DLP – bible classes for all!

  33. For those bagging Bligh, have any of you taken a good long look at LNP leader, J.P. Langbroek? He’s certainly doesn’t compare favourably with Bligh. Bligh’s problems were caused by the huge drop in state revenue due to the impact of the GFC on mining and tourism. As a result she had to sell off some state assets, and drop the petrol subsidy. I believe the dropping of the petrol subsidy was the biggest single reason for the anti Labor swing in Queensland. Both Federal and Qld Labor’s problems go right back to the GFC. In other words, they were just dead unlucky.

  34. lefty e@4095

    Agreed, The Libs entire Campaign was made worthless when Rudd was dumped.

    Cripes! Havent you guys noticed Gillard LOST the ALP its majority? After one term! ?

    The fact that Abbott lost the election too is quite beside the point: you’re carrying on as if there’s some compelling contemporary evidence this brilliant move ‘worked’ for the ALP.

    it didnt!

    Denial is a place in Sussex st.

    Another one who just does NOT get it.

    In WA the ALP would’ve been reduced to 1 or 2 MARGINAL seats.

    FACT.

  35. DemocracyatWork on the Corangamite thread seems to think the Liberals have already won Corangamite. Anyone care to explain his analysis to me? 🙂

  36. [Polling outside of election campaigns is worthless]

    yep, that polling that brought on the overthrow of Rudd sure was worthless….

    [Agreed, The Libs entire Campaign was made worthless when Rudd was dumped]

    yep, that campaign that has rolled labor after one term was worthless

    *sighs, goes to bed*

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