GhostWhoVotes reports the latest Newspoll has the Coalition with a 52-48 lead, unchanged on a fortnight ago. More to follow.
UPDATE: The Australian reports Julia Gillard’s preferred prime minister rating is at an equal low of 49 per cent, down four points on last time, while Tony Abbott is up two to 34 per cent.
UPDATE 2: Graphic here. Labor is up a point on the primary vote to 34 per cent, the Coalition is steady on 43 per cent and the Greens are down a point to 13 per cent. Gillard’s personal ratings are now worse than Abbott’s: she is at at 41 per cent on both approval (down three) and disapproval (up four), while Tony Abbott is up three on approval to 44 per cent and down four on disapproval to 42 per cent.
Other matters of note:
• The Prime Minister has announced a panel will be established to consider a referendum question on constitutional recognition of Aborigines. The panel is to report by December next year, and it is currently suggested a referendum will follow at some point within three years. While logic might dictate that it be held simultaneously with the next election, the possibility that election day referendums might act as a drag on the vote of the incumbent has been noted by Peter Brent at Mumble. The panel will have to consider whether the recognition should involve a largely symbolic preamble, or substantive change to the body of the constitution. A 2008 parliamentary inquiry report identified two expressly discriminatory provisions that should be reviewed with any consideration of a preamble. One was the redundant section 25, which requires that population figures used to determine the states’ House of Representatives seat allocations exclude any races disqualified from voting under state law – something now forbidden under the Racial Discrimination Act. The other is section 51(xxvi), empowering the federal government to make laws for “the people of any race for whom it is deemed necessary to make special laws” – from which the words “other than the aboriginal race in any state” were excised by the 1967 referendum. This came under the microscope during the Hindmarsh Island Bridge case of 1998, when the federal government argued that it was not for the High Court to distinguish between permissible positive laws under the section and impermissible negative ones. The court was unable to reach a majority ruling, and constitutional law expert Anne Twomey argues the distinction would likely prove highly vexed in any case. A number of options were canvassed for replacing the existing provision with “a new legislative power in Indigenous affairs subject to the rule of non-discrimination on the grounds of race”, none of which strike me as being terribly promising from an electoral point of view. The same goes for any number of more radical suggestions for constitutional recognition, such as George Williams’ call for constitutional recognition of agreements reached between indigenous people and the various tiers of government, or Professor Kim Rubenstein’s “special Indigenous executive council” empowered to seek explanations from parliament regarding legislation that did not meet its approval.
• Mal Brough has declared an interest in Liberal National Party endorsement for the Sunshine Coast seat of Fisher, incumbent Peter Slipper having most likely signed his political death warrant by accepting Labor’s backing for the deputy speaker position. Brough, who lost his seat of Longman at the 2007 election (Wyatt Roy recovered it for the LNP on August 21), turned his back on the LNP after unsuccessfully resisting the merger as state president of the Liberal Party, believing the terms to have been unduly favourable to the Nationals.
• Some subjects for further investigation, courtesy of events in the mother country. Firstly, Britain’s High Court has overturned the election of Brown government Immigration Minister Phil Woolas for falsely claiming that his narrowly unsuccessful Liberal Democrat opponent had been courting Islamic extremists. Woolas also faces possible criminal charges, and has been barred from standing for public office for three years. Andrew Bolt reproduces one of the offending publications, and argues – rightly in my view – that the presence or otherwise of Woolas in parliament should be decided by voters rather than courts. The episode stands in stark contrast to Australian practice, where the only substantial sanctions on misleading publications in election campaigns require that the deception be “in relation to the casting of a vote” – for example, through the distribution of misleading how-to-vote cards. The Labor-Greens agreement reached after the August 21 election obliged the government to seek to address this by establishing a “truth in advertising” offence in the Electoral Act.
• Secondly, the Court of European Rights has ruled Britain must grant the right to vote to prisoners, who have been denied it since the Reform Act of 1867. Parliament must now decide whether to thumb its nose at the court. There are echoes here of our own High Court’s 2007 ruling that overturned a Howard government move to extend the existing ban on prisoners serving terms of longer than three years to all prisoners regardless.
• Some Christmas gift ideas for the election wonk in your life. Courtesy of the Federation Press comes Professor Graeme Orr’s The Law of Politics: Elections, Parties and Money in Australia, “the first dedicated monograph on the law on democratic politics in Australia”. And from the Cambridge University Press comes Sally Young’s How Australia Decides: Election Reporting and the Media, a “four-year empirical study” offering “the only systematic, historical and in-depth analysis of Australian election reporting”.
Diogs,
You seem to be vigorously defending your views in the court of PB.
Start your pleaing.
[Gillard alluded to this trait when asked about the criticism back home. ”I like dealing with people and whether you’re dealing with leaders of the G20, whether you’re dealing with leaders here at APEC, whether you’re at home talking to Australians about what’s on their mind, people are people and if you can get them talking and work issues through you can normally find a good place, a good path.”]
Isn’t this what we want in a leader? Did Howard ever have the charisma and vision that the media thinks JG should have.
The bitchiness from senior female journos – Trioli, Middleton, Maiden, Grattan towards the PM is pronounced. Is it jealousy? Grattan when being unable to avoid making a positive comment about the PM always finishes with a ‘but ….’
Trioli after watching the PM descend the steps of her VIP jet this morning said “shades of Kevin 747 there”. Why was that sniping necessary?
vik@4138 – thanks. Was getting my Malaysian PMs mixed up.
Are you saying that a better communication and evacuation plan couldn’t have saved any lives?
Yes they would of, but that was all part of the failures. Evacuation planning has failed in the past as most people think it will never happen to them and leave too late, then often go the wrong way as their plan said “go to” It is a most difficult part of community education as there are so many variations. A lot of work has still to be done in this area.
GG
It’s only when you use the phrase “vigorously defend” that you know they are guilty. Its like a short hand for “we are going to make this as difficult as possible so give us a deal”.
I don’t use the phrase myself. 🙂
Gillard is off again at the end of the week for a NATO meeting in Lisbon. For someone who isn’t/wasn’t comfortable doing foreign affairs she’s getting lots of practice.
Wonder how long before the usual suspects start calling her Jetset Julia (TM ;))
Diogs,
Guilty as charged.
I sentence you to being an interminable bore.
I know, I know it’s a concurrent sentence with your existing convictions.
Pom
What about forced evacuations? I know lots of firies who get really pissed off at people who stay when they should go and then the firies have to risk their lives to save them.
BH,
I for one cannot understand the bitchiness from the ‘sisterhood’. In my eyes they should be cheering her on. The one positive message out of JG’s elevation to the PM role, is “girls, everything is possible, so go for it”. And it is not a political message, so regardless of where you sit politically, it should still be applauded.
Could it be that the ‘sisterhood’ are so fearful of her failure that they are holding her to a higher standard?
Phoney Toney has put in a private members bill for Wild Rivers.
[Could it be that the ’sisterhood’ are so fearful of her failure that they are holding her to a higher standard?]
sk – Who knows. My daughter (who is about the same age as a few of those journos – not Grattan, lol) and my granddaughter were ecstatic about it. They took the positive attitude you mentioned ‘girls – go for it’.
The journos I mentioned fawn over Abbott – go figure! My daughter and granddie can’t stand him. I can only think it is against Labor who haven’t been exactly rolling out ‘red carpets and champers’ for the media women in the way Howard did.
Perfect example (don’t know if this has been posted). La Grattan in the Age this morning:
http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/atease-gillard-gains-confidence-and-competence-on-the-world-stage-20101114-17spb.html
Note: “looked more confident”, “avoided mistakes”. Generous praise indeed from the doyen of the Geriatric Press Gallery.
Who knows? Maybe “gravitas” will be used soon?
SK – is it being debated now or later, please?
[The one positive message out of JG’s elevation to the PM role, is “girls, everything is possible, so go for it”.]
Janet Albrechtsten has written that Gillard is no role model for young women because she isn’t married with kids. Presumably she feels the same way about Julie Bishop?
confessions,
JA is also always spouting about choice and consequences both of which would put Gillard very high upon the tree of of role models.
[Note: “looked more confident”, “avoided mistakes”. Generous praise indeed from the doyen of the Geriatric Press Gallery.]
BB – A couple of years ago you said La Grattan needed to go. Might be a good time now before her columns become more banal than ever.
Compare with Coorey’s piece this morning – he seems to set the pace at Fairfax now because he’s much more balanced.
BH,
They didn’t disclose when it was being debated. I think it was an announcement by TA.
GG:
That article was one of the most gutless I’ve read in a long while. Targetting a woman’s personal circumstances in order to deride her professional achievements is as intellectually dishonest as it is cowardly.
People will remember Julia Gillard long after Janet Albrechtsten has been consigned to the irrelevence of a paywall.
Andrew Elder on Paul Howes again.
http://andrewelder.blogspot.com/2010/11/deriding-paul-howes-paul-howes-has.html
Hopefully Howes’ unhinging is ruining any chance he has of a political career in the ALP.
confessions,
Janet who? 😉
[don’t know if you recall, but recently Laurie Oakes was interviewed on LL, and he said wtte that sometimes information comes from the most unlikely sources such as cleaners who overhear discussions between the pollies.
Maybe we can expect a cleaner to come forward to admit leaking!]
victoria – I still want Kev to sue the pants off Kroger. His comments about Kev, as shown on the Insiders yesterday, were disgusting. How is it that Kroger gets away with saying whatever he likes. He’s having a go at JG as well now.
Time for Kroger’s sludge to be washed away in the same way Kev did with Downer.
Remember when Bob Ellis made one small comment about Costello and Abbott and they sued him and won, altho cranky old Ellis stills stands by his story.
Two excellent articles on roads, traffic and transport policy:
First Nicholas Gruen point out what we already know; it would have been cheaper for governments to borrow the money than allow private toll roads. Cost in NSW alone: $4.5 billion.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/11/15/3065970.htm
Second the Tourism and Transport Forum (TTF) (??) says that drivers with subsidised cars are choking our roads. True. Ther eis overwhelming evidence that once somone gets a leased tax deductible work car, they drive more, and rarely if ever catch public transport. Some people even arrange extra trips to meet their annual mileage limits. The tax subsidies should go. Why should someone driving to work get to claim it on tax when someone catching the train or bus can’t?
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/11/15/3065970.htm
[THE Liberals will direct preferences to Labor ahead of the Greens at the state election, virtually destroying the minor party’s chances of winning seats in the lower house and seizing the balance of power in Victoria.]
i hope the Greens learn their lesson and now know who is the enemy after their silly flirtation on the possibility of a “coalition” with the Fibs.
confessions – thanks for the Andrew Elder link – phew! he didn’t hold back and good on him.
Disappointing that Leigh Sales has become a fragile little petal
[I’m not an anonymous blogger. My real name is Andrew Elder, I use that name on Twitter and elsewhere.
I make a point of following blogs and tweets put up by real people – like, for example, ABC journalist Leigh Sales:
Good column by @howespaul about gutless, nasty trolls on sites like twitter who don’t use their real names. http://bit.ly/cFKPZE%5D
http://andrewelder.blogspot.com/2010/11/deriding-paul-howes-paul-howes-has.html
Finns,
Highly unlikely. The best bet is they will sulk.
Currently debating Turnbull’s PMB about a CBA on NBN.
BER, Batts, blah blah etc.
Confessions @ 4169
Howes himself appears to think that a seat in Parliament is his for the asking whenever he likes.
Whatever happened to the process of pre-selection and the rank and file involvement in it? I suspect Howes would not do very well in such a process.
An interesting article on the OECD critique of the NBN:
A bizarre critique of the NBN
For openers…
and further to that …
I’ve never worked out why the OECD feels it is an expert on every economic decision made by every country. How well did they predict the GFC?
Wild Rivers and Bank Reform introduced to Parliament
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/11/15/3066440.htm?section=justin
Not that I had much in the first place but have to say I have no respect for Paul Howes.
To describe Ned Kelly as a “murderous scumbag” is just immature, inflammatory rhetoric.
Kelly was a hero to just as many who vilified him. As for describing Wyatt Earp as a lawmaker hero well that’s just naive – Earp was a criminal and a cold blooded murderer.
Go away Paul Howes, you are not what the labor party needs.
The latest OECD report has a lot to say on a lot of issues which effect us but of course the lazy msm just focus on the NBN aspect of it, thus giving Turnbull a free kick.
I’m very much with Ron and zoomster when it comes to the fires.
The Kilmore / Kinglake / Strathewen / St Andrews fire missed us on our “bush block” on the edge of Hurstbridge by virtue of a degree or two in wind direction and a few minutes timing of the wind change. I have my “office” in St Andrews, and my closest friends live there. A lot of people I know died in the fires and a lot more lost friends, homes, pets, and a big hunk of psychological wellbeing as a result of them. I’ve lived in bushfire prone areas for much of my life, and had them close enough to be genuinely frightened by their proximity on a number of occasions. Nothing I’ve known in 60 years came close to that day when it comes to environmental conditions or fire behaviour.
People inevitably look for “scapegoats” after these sorts of events. Nothing Nixon could have done on that day would have made the slightest difference. Nor, in my view, would any realistic planned evacuation procedure. It was a day when neither “planning” nor even individual decision making , could have prevented a major tragedy.
People talk as if ‘evacuation” was a realistic option. When? Where from? Talk of everyone in “danger” leaving the day before is nonsense. Where would they have gone to? These fires could have hit just about anywhere in rural and fringe urban Victoria and killed lots of people. The Otways, the Dandenongs, the Strezleckies, the fringes of any rural town or city, the Mornington Peninsular, Bellarine, Orbost, Shepparton, Wodonga, Beechworth, Eltham, Warrandyte, Diamond Creek, Healesville, Yarra Glen, just about anywhere. Where would just about the entire population of rural and outer suburban Victoria have been evacuated to on the previous day? How? What would have happened in the inevitable panic that would have occurred?
On the day itself, it is easy to say with the benefit of hindsight ” if people had got out of Kinglake on such and such a road at such and such a time then they would have been safe”. The reality is that with the slightest of changes in fire behaviour , or any of a thousand contingent events – a tree falling, a vehicle collision or breakdown clogging a road , an unexpected fire generated wind change – the same “escape route” could just as easily have turned such an evacuation into an even greater tragedy.
When should people in somewhere like St Andrews or Kinglake have “got out”? It is easy to say “the day before”, and it would really have been just about the only genuinely safe time, but as I’ve already pointed out evacuating the state is never going to be a realistic option.
On the day I spent a great deal of time on the phone to my friends in St Andrews, and others in Hurstbridge. My St Andrews mates were thinking of coming to our place in Hurstbridge, which is a little more “fire safe” than theirs, with a swathe of farm land providing something of a break between our bit of bush and the rest. We were worried even by lunch time that given that there were fires breaking out in various places and the wind was howling it was too much of a risk for them to come down the narrow, winding, treed, road from St Andrews to our place. Paradoxically they stayed until 5 PM when the wind change arrived, and then decided to leave, not knowing that by this time the fire had already swept past them within a couple of kilometres, killing many of their friends in St Andrews and Strathewen and was at that time destroying a house which they had just built and were intending to move to in Kinglake.
By this time, though the fire was spotting in Doreen, had killed people at Arthurs Creek, and there was a fire near South Morang.
By the time Christine Nixon went for dinner that evening almost all of the people who were going to die that day had already done so, though even the head of the CFA didn’t receive confirmed accounts of deaths until nearly 9PM. There was absolutely nothing that she, or anyone else, could have done to prevent an awful toll that day without having access to information which only became available after the events had happened.
There is no doubt that sections of the police force were more than happy to do their dangdest to make Nixon a “scapegoat”. She had been trying to “clean up” corrupt sections of the force, she had taken on some pretty dubious characters in the police union and upper management in the force, and she was a woman in a job that many of the male dominated upper echelons of the force thought belonged to a man. She had also been brought in from outside.
Jack Rush QC is a fine man, with a long history of fighting for the “little bloke”. He did his job in the Commission with a lot of skill and a lot of passion. He did just what “Council Assisting” are expected to do in this sort of situations. (You can find an interesting piece about him at http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/the-fire-within-jack-rush-qc-20100529-wmln.html) But part of the bi-product of that was a glaring spotlight on Nixon, which her enemies from earlier days made use of to the utmost of their abilities.
THere is no doubt, too, that sections of the media, most notably the Herald Sun, had decided to target Nixon. She was an easy target, given her mistake in heading off for dinner. She admits herself in retrospect that it was a mistake, but it had absolutely no impact on the events of that day or night.
Out here and in the fire areas just about everyone reckons any deficiencies Nixon’s actions might have had on that night were more than made up for in her role during the reconstruction phase. She just about has Mary McKillop status for many people and they were extremely upset about the manner in which she was attacked for what people saw as essentially political purposes. Sure there have been plenty of snafus for one reason or another in the reconstruction phase, but very few, get sheeted home to her. She was seen as a major part of the answer , not a part of the problem.
No doubt her reputation has suffered serious damage in the eyes of the general public as a result of subsequent campaign against her, but it is not something that most people around here have any time for.
Miranda Devine – tweet
Amen to that RT @mumbletwits: If Vic Libs do it again at the next federal election Bandt will likely be a one-termer.
Space Kidette,
[Could it be that the ’sisterhood’ are so fearful of her failure that they are holding her to a higher standard? ]
The reason why Julia is copping it so hard, especially from the female journo’s is because she upset the understood convention.
That was, that the first female PM was supposed to come from the other side of politics and the favoured candidate was Julie Bishop who had been touted as the first female PM right from her entry into Parliament.
JG is nothing more than an upstart from the wrong side of the tracks that usurped the accepted convention and not only that, she had done so by unfair and totally devious tactics.
For her impertinence, she must be made to pay and the rightful order of things, restored, forthwith and this upstart put in her rightful place, the backbench on the other side of the chamber.
Rod Hagen
I am with you 100%. Very well said.
Your insight and perspective on the events of the day and thereafter are spot on.
Amen to that 🙂
@bemused/4178,
Please see Alan Kohler response to that:
http://www.businessspectator.com.au/bs.nsf/Article/A-bizarre-critique-of-the-NBN-pd20101115-B7S9E?OpenDocument&src=mp
Bligh says Abbott playing politics with with Wild Rivers Bill
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/11/15/3066469.htm?section=justin
Tweet from Latika Bourke
#NBN business plan will be released soon. Conroy and NBN types still going through it. Anti-siphoning tabled in parly next week.
Rod @4183.
A fine post well written. Says it all really.
Cheers.
@Victoria/4189,
Expect the Coalition supporters asking for an Independent Review when it’s released, Costing Millions in the mean time.
So the Victorian Government shouldn’t be implementing 66 out of the 67 recommendations of the Royal Commission?
That should save a lot of money.
brisoz @ 4187
What do you think I was linking to and quoting from?
@bemused/4193,
Sorry I thought you were linking to what originally OECD said.
Rod @ 4183
I agree with most of what you said.
With conditions like on that day, you either suppress a fire within a very short time after it starts or you cannot fight it. All that can be done is selective protection of lives and property with the limited resources available.
Your thoughts on evacuation are good common sense.
However, leaders who do not provide leadership when it is required are a failure and it cannot be overlooked.
brisoz#4191
no doubt we can expect the coalition to continue to obstruct
bemused
have you ever stopped to consider that perhaps leadership knew their limitations, and it was all about harm minimisation. If you consider the events of the day, it is amazing that Melbourne, the Dandenongs and other areas did not go up as well.
bemused @ 4177
[Howes himself appears to think that a seat in Parliament is his for the asking whenever he likes.]
With the AWU again playing a major role in the ALP he will get it regardless.
Turnbull has been going on and on about the NBN co business plan and how important it is. Well he will get his wish soon and may not be what he wished for.
When released it will show profit will start to be made within 6 years and if and when sold a good return on investment will be made. The implementation study projected approx 6%. Very impressive for a government infrastructure project.
Telstra will reach final agreement with the government towards the end of this year because they have to and it makes good business sense. This will increase the profitability of the network significantly.
At the same time as the business case Conroy will also release the wholesale price structure determined by the ACCC and the subsequent retail price flow on will emerge from that.
So, what we will have is a profitable, cost effective rollout with a very good competitive price structure. These are the two areas Turnbull has concentrated on and he will shortly get his answers. Interesting to see where he and Abbott go from there.
victoria @ 4189:
I’ve noticed on a few other blogs the outrage by Greens hacks at the Lib preference decision. Obviously it’s ok for the Liberals to preference the Greens ahead of the ALP, but not the other way around.
Victoria @ 4197
I am unclear how any leadership functions on such a day are fulfilled by appointments with a hairdresser, a biographer and dinner at a pub. Can you explain please?