2011: episode one

Happy new year everybody. Limiting our brief to known knowns, we have the following entries in the 2011 electoral calendar.

• The NSW Labor government’s date for the electoral mincer is set for March 26. Mumble man Peter Brent has bravely ventured that Labor “will do better than opinion polls in 2010 said they would, perhaps emerging with around 30 out of 93 seats”. My tip is that this prediction of Brent’s won’t scrub up quite as nicely after the event as those he made in relation to Victoria.

• John Brumby’s exit from politics will result in a by-election in his ultra-safe northern Melbourne seat of Broadmeadows, probably in February or March. According to David Rood of The Age, early contenders for Labor preselection include “former Brumby adviser and Labor state secretary Nick Reece, former adviser to Steve Bracks and lobbyist Danny Pearson, Hume councillor Burhan Yigit, ex-Labor party officer and right-wing figure Mehmet Tillem, recently defeated Labor upper house MP Nathan Murphy and former Hobsons Bay Council mayor Bill Baarini”. One might surmise that other Victorian by-elections will follow before the year is through.

• Four of the 15 seats in Tasmania’s Legislative Council will become vacant this year, with elections almost certain to be held on May 7. These include two of the three seats held by Labor, with the other two being among the 11 held by independents (Vanessa Goodwin in Pembroke being the sole Liberal). In the normal course of events, two or three seats are on rotation to become vacant each year: this year is the turn of Launceston, Murchison and Rumney. Veteran independent Don Wing is retiring in Launceston, which will be constested for the Liberals by state party president Sam McQuestin. Sitting independent Ruth Forrest will seek another term in Murchison – she will be opposed by a Labor candidate in the person of Waratah-Wynyard mayor Kevin Hyland (UPDATE: Kevin Bonham in comments advises that Hyland is no longer a starter), but not by the Liberals. Labor’s Lin Thorp is up for re-election in Rumney, and I can find no mention of potential challengers (it’s not unknown for Legislative Council members to be returned unopposed, but the Greens at least can be relied upon to take a shot in metropolitan seats). The bonus fourth seat is a by-election caused by the retirement of former Treasurer Michael Aird. Labor’s new nominee is Derwent deputy mayor Craig Farrell.

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.

6,650 comments on “2011: episode one”

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  2. Happy New Year, everyone.
    I’ve made my NY resolutions, which I always break within 3 days.

    Couple of interesting articles in The Age this morning. One about the Baby Boomer generation which has a better take on the costs to the community of getting old than the current “we can’t afford these oldies”.

    http://www.theage.com.au/national/the-baby-boomers-at-65-20101231-19c22.html

    Next is the horrible rise in birth defects in Iraq.
    Will they never learn?

    http://www.theage.com.au/world/us-weapons-suspected-in-iraq-birth-defect-cases-20101231-19byd.html

  6. http://www.theaustralian.com.au/in-depth/cabinet-papers/howard-warned-of-wages-blowout-in-big-spending/story-fn7f6f9t-1225979697149

    [On the broader economy, the then treasurer had warned in one briefing that as demand for skilled manpower for new projects added to wage pressures, it was crucial that public works proposals were scrutinised to ensure there would be net economic benefits.
    The parallels between 1980 and now are stark and the documents threaten to renew demands for the government to curb spending.]
    …
    [In 1980, the Treasury did not foresee the downturn that pushed the developed world, including Australia, into recession just a year later.
    But Mr Howard did point to one major reason for it – large wage increases.]

    I would love someone with knowledge on economics to explain why govt spending would have caused a recession, and how wage increases woul feed it.
    I don’t understand economics, but I am very suspicious of the writers in the Oz drawing parallels between 1981 and 2011.

  7. Were not having a wages blowout currently Lizzie which is quite remarkable really considering the low unemployment rate. We seem to have sruck a reasonably good balance in most industries I think.

    What Howard said in 1981 shouldn’t apply to anything in this day and age.

  8. Opposition and she can really only do this by governing well and notching up some major, observable achievements.

    The problem with “major, observable achievements” is that the Coalition and the media turn them into “catastrophic, unnecessary failures”.

    To get your news only from Coalition propaganda and the Murdoch media (with their lap dog, the ABC, not far behind), you’d think Australia was a destitute country, suffering from rampant unemployment, widespread poverty, sickness at heart and terminal decline. Interest rates are, by turns, too high and then too low, and then too high again. Employment is an impediment to progress and lower interest rates. Unemployment is also an impediment to progress and lower interest rates. It just depends on which day you pick up a paper or hear an Abbott, Hockey or Robb sound grab played word for dreary, doom-laden word by Sky News or its co-dependent, the ABC. There’s something there for everyone who feels the need to have a whinge.

    Recently, unemployment dropped by an amount far beyond what any of the experts said it could or would. You’d think this was good news. But sadly, the first thing the ABC trotted out was the old chestnut: “Better employment figures lead to interest rate fears.”

    Hockey chimed in on this, calling for cuts in government spending to cause unemployment to stay higher. Yet he got clean away with it. Not one eyebrow was raised in our slumbering media at the Coalition’s call for greater unemployment.

    Even when interest rates don’t go up the story isn’t, “Good news: interest rates stay put.” No, it’s, “Well, this means they’ll go up next time.” We are given no opportunity to celebrate, pat ourselves on the back, or even catch our breath before the misery and fear mongering starts.

    The NBN? We shouldn’t build it because only Asian countries can afford it. It will send us broke. It won’t make a profit. Wireless technology is getting better every day. You only need the internet for email. The laws of physics will be repealed. Kids will only download porn and iTunes. It will wreck free-to-air television. One of the companies involved in the roll-out is involved in a bribe scandal. And now the Telstra pits are full of asbestos.

    None of this is explained or refuted. It’s just repeated ad infinitum until it sinks in and becomes accepted wisdom. The media rely on the general public’s anti-intellectualism – their reluctance to think – and their proclivity to whine and carp about anything to accomplish their goal of turning every single Labor initiative into a debacle. Labor, rather surprisingly, fails every time to refute any of this, being, it seems more interested in counter focus-grouping the Coalition focus-groups than actually explaining anything, or defending anything. Labor’s aim is to match one piece of bullshit with another piece of bullshit. No wonder the public is cynical.

    The historic Paid Parental Leave scheme that starts today is already being touted in the media as a disaster. Employers will cut back their own schemes. There’s too much paper work, and anyway “the Coalition’s is clearly better.”. By “better” the commentators mean “more generous”, without the slightest reference to the fact that it was dreamt up in an Abbott thought bubble, without consultation with either his party or business groups, inquiries, planning, workshopping, calls for submissions, costings or review. It was “in his book”. That’s seems to be sufficient to qualify it as “deep thinking about Australia’s future”. It sought to set in place the concept that what you earn automatically sets what the government pays you as benefits. Wealthier people deserve more support, according to Abbott. Wealthy people, naturally, agree. People who aspire to be wealthy, join in the accolades.

    That his scheme would most likely cause most employers to completely switch off (not just tone down, or modify) their own private schemes is not even considered. That the opportunities for rorting would be legion – fake pay-rises just prior toparental leave commencing for example – is not even mentioned. That Abbott broke two promises – one not to have a PPL scheme until it could be had over his dead body, and the other to never introduce new taxes – is forgotten. He is still a conviction politician, except that his convictions are subject to change on a weekly and sometimes daily basis. We have his own word for this, blurted out, in classic Abbott style actually, in an interview with Kerry O’Brien. All is forgiven, though. This just shows that a liar who admits he’s a liar is more admirable than someone who either doesn’t lie, or who at least thinks before they speak and act.

    We are left with another meltdown to come as a direct result of another botched Labor policy. The complainers will have a field day. They’ll be on the front page of The Australian, in color, telling their anecdotal stories about how their lives have been ruined by Labor… again. The implication is that for every one of these stories there are a thousand more. If only the government would just subsidize their precious lifestyles in the manner to which they have become accoustomed, then everything would be alright. If only nothing changed from exactly what it is today, unless it involves being paid more taxlayers’ money. Then they’re all for it.

    “Major, observable achievements”? It all depends on who’s observing, and who’s turning to them for a summary of what they saw. If the former is the Coalition, Murdoch and the ABC and the latter is the great, uninterested, forever-dissatisfied, ignorant (and happy to be) Australian public, then every major, observable achievement will be presented instead as a major, observable failure.

    Yet my greatest disappointment lies not in Labor’s critics, but in Labor itself. They seem unable and unwilling to counter any of the negativity. They seem to have given up, resigned to future Opposition where at least – in the calculations of the NSW Right – their pensions and superannuations will leave them comfortable enough to forget they were once a political party that truly and creditably earned the allegiance of millions.

  9. MTBW,

    Rudd could be the come back kid in 2011, (not that he ever went away). Last time Labor lost its direction he navigated them back to power.

  10. Paul_J

    Of course it’s not th same, but they’ve pulled out some old warhorses in the Oz to support Howard again in his “lower wages” song and his “curb govt spending” theme.
    After the 1981 recession, which was pretty bad in my memory, we had the “bottom of the harbour schemes”. That was fun, too 😛

  13. [Rudd could be the come back kid in 2011, (not that he ever went away). Last time Labor lost its direction he navigated them back to power.]
    I admire Rudd, I really do but the rewriting of history here is remarkable. Hell, the last time Labor lost its direction was when Rudd was in power.

  14. @ GG watch for the Newspoll PPM figures when they offer Rudd as 3rd option. I wouldn’t put it past them to try and destabilise Gillard like that.

  15. Paul_j

    The pollsters always do this. All through Howard’s “reign” they kept asking people wtte do you prefer Costello. In a way, it’s push-polling.

  17. @ BB #8

    I read you post out loud to Wife she was impressed but can’t work out why Labor arn’t countering every announcement in the media.

    I remember when Hockey effectively called for greater unemployment and was gobsmacked that it was never picked up on.

    Just watch the strong AUD as it will be interpreted by Abbott’s mob of another sign that the goverment has lost it’s way on financial management.

  18. Bushfire Bill 8 – Well said for most part. I’m just wondering though how Labor is meant to get their messages out while the MSM, as you correctly say, is distorting everything they say and do.

  20. [Just watch the strong AUD as it will be interpreted by Abbott’s mob of another sign that the goverment has lost it’s way on financial management.]

    The hypocrites had better be careful. They presided over the lowest value of the AUDollar EVER against the Greenback.

  23. Bushfire Bill 8 – Well said for most part. I’m just wondering though how Labor is meant to get their messages out while the MSM, as you correctly say, is distorting everything they say and do.

    Get the public used to surprises.

    At the moment if a Labor politician puts a journalist in their place it’s reported as “in an extraordinary outburst…”.

    Labor should do this more often. Get the public used to the media being taken on, and the truth being spoken. Then such things may become “ordinary outbursts”.

    At the moment they’re trying so hard to offend nobody, they’re offending everybody.

  24. Don’t underestimate the power of the msm to make facts out of straw.

    There’s been several cases here on PB where we’ve demonstrated that something the msm has said is clearly wrong, and yet the same furphies keep being trotted out.

    If media savvy types such as ourselves sometimes get the spin so fixed in our heads that we keep believing it despite the evidence, then you can’t expect less politically aware people not to be sucked in too.

  25. Gary,

    Our two longest serving PMs were repudiated and despised for many years. Yet were able to return. (Plays scary organ music for the easily frightened).

    I posted Piping Shrike’s latest offering last night. Have a read. It might wipe the sleep from your eyes.

  26. NT push for statehood on 100th birthday

    http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2011/01/01/3104694.htm?section=justin

    [But former chief minister Shane Stone, the driving force behind a territory-wide vote for statehood that was narrowly defeated in October 1998, says a successful push is now unlikely to happen in his lifetime.
    Mr Stone says the Territory is subject to the Federal Aboriginal Land Rights Act and powerful land councils will not support the changes to land tenure that would result from statehood.
    “The very powerful land councils were never going to support statehood, ever, and still don’t to this day,” he said.
    “I’ve often sat and talked to senior Indigenous people and they say ‘it doesn’t serve our interests for the Northern Territory to become a state’ and I understand their arguments.”
    Meanwhile, Mr Stone says former prime minister John Howard offered to push on with statehood, even though the territory voted against it. ]

  27. [At the moment they’re trying so hard to offend nobody, they’re offending everybody.]
    It is like a kid who has been given a lollipop and is keeping very quiet, trying not to attract the attention of the bullies.

  28. [Get the public used to surprises.

    At the moment if a Labor politician puts a journalist in their place it’s reported as “in an extraordinary outburst…”.

    Labor should do this more often. Get the public used to the media being taken on, and the truth being spoken. Then such things may become “ordinary outbursts”.

    At the moment they’re trying so hard to offend nobody, they’re offending everybody.]
    But I watch the news conferences of ministers and the PM. They do have a go at the journalists. They are hitting back . Conroy in particular is a ripper at it. In fact they are becoming so good at it that the MSM have decided not to report such confrontation at all, forget about the “in an extraordinary outburst…”.

    .

  29. Incidentally, whoever runs ABC radio’s early morning newsroom needs replacing.

    The opening item on the 5am news was about Gillard’s and Abbott’s New Year’s messages. Both had called for this and that, yada-yada.

    Then 30 seconds of Abbott’s message only was played.

    Since when does the Opposition Leader’s New Year’s message qualify for replay to the exclusion of the Prime Minister’s?

    This was fixed up by the 7.45 bulletin, when a Gillard excerpt was played, and then Abbott’s, in that order. Either there was a shift change, or a phone call made.

    Abbott makes a big thing of saying “… but we’re not the guvment…”, but he sure as hell gets the right royal treatment, too many times for my liking.

    You do feel like ringing them up and complaining about things like this, but you know it won’t do any good. There are a thousand instances a day of it, so if you complain about only one of them, it takes a month for a response (usually a canned response at that) which, after due self-examination by the ABC totally exonerates them from any misdeed or misjudgement. The other 999 go un-challenged.

  30. GG, I’ll over look your condescending manner but you’re wrong about Menzies and Howard. They were not despised by the majority. Take a look at the polls.

  31. [You do feel like ringing them up and complaining about things like this, but you know it won’t do any good. There are a thousand instances a day of it, so if you complain about only one of them, it takes a month for a response (usually a canned response at that) which, after due self-examination by the ABC totally exonerates them from any misdeed or misjudgement. The other 999 go un-challenged.]

    It’s my contention that the ABC is the most biased news organisation in the country.

  32. BB above

    [Yet my greatest disappointment lies not in Labor’s critics, but in Labor itself. They seem unable and unwilling to counter any of the negativity. They seem to have given up, resigned to future Opposition where at least – in the calculations of the NSW Right – their pensions and superannuations will leave them comfortable enough to forget they were once a political party that truly and creditably earned the allegiance of millions.]

    You have hit the nail on the head.

  33. Bushfire

    I heard that too, but I’m getting so accustomed to the imbalance that I growled sleepily and ignored it. The early news is often badly put together – must all be tired from the night shift.

    Pedant alert – last night the ABC news said that today was the first day of the new decade. Fine.
    But the world celebrated the first day of the “new millenium” on 1 Jan 2000 (couldn’t wait for 2001).
    So we’ve just had an eleven year decade.
    Brilliant!

  36. GG@9

    Nothing would surprise me! What is happening so far ain’t impressing anyone.

    A casual conversation in a local supermarket yesterday a male fellow shopper made the remark “we have a dud Prime Minister now.” Doesn’t give me great hope!

  37. Cuppa

    With all the comments about the commercial (radio and TV) I just can’t see that the ABC is the MOST biased. Lazy, sometimes innacurate, underfunded and too defensive, yes.

  38. Gary,

    Howard was Mr 14% in 1987. Menzies was thrown out of power and Labor subsequently had it’s biggest victory ever. Don’t know which polls you’re talking about.

  39. Agree with your sentiments Bushfire Bill.
    I made a couple of suggestions about how labor could look at different ways to get its message to the public. Interestingly Kevin Rudd at the WFF was asked. (this was reported on twitter)

    Question: is media subverting our democracy? Big cheer from crowd. Rudd: direct communication is important. like this talk #KRuddatWFF

    My view is that labor has to get back to the town hall type of communication plus one on one. Go direct to the people. Maybe have a labor army ( similar to abbotts green army – ha ha ) discussing, informing, persuading etc people face to face. Yes hard work but necesssary while the MSM continues to distort and misreport facts and policies.

  41. Lizzie,

    I find that the news bulletins on commercial radio (with the exception of commercial talk radio) are usually more balanced than those on the ABC. For example there isn’t the domination of political coverage with that maddening phrase:

    [The Federal Opposition says…]

    Have you ever sent a complaint to the ABC?

    I have. Lots. And here’s the rub. Not one complaint I’ve sent them about bias has ever been withheld. As BB says they exonerate themselves time and time again. “There is no bias because we’re required to be balanced.” That’s how the circular logic goes.

    They seem to act as a law unto themselves.

  42. @ Gary

    We know Conroy can chew gum and walk at the same time but that doesn’t make it into the news bulletins. Joe average doesn’t watch news conferences but he does read the headlines.

    Gillards approach of naming journos when she recieves a question should be standard practice for all Labor pollies. Labor should go further and refuse to take ther q’s unless they identify themselves and the publicatation they work for.

  45. MTBW

    [A casual conversation in a local supermarket yesterday a male fellow shopper made the remark “we have a dud Prime Minister now.” Doesn’t give me great hope!]

    Isn’t that Abbott’s main aim? To destroy the credibility of the govt, even if he has no policies for the future. I believe that is the advice from some Libs, and Hunt & Morrison are putting all their energies into helping him.

  46. A casual conversation in a local supermarket yesterday a male fellow shopper made the remark “we have a dud Prime Minister now.”

    I agree with the shopper 😆 👿

  47. [Howard was Mr 14% in 1987. Menzies was thrown out of power and Labor subsequently had it’s biggest victory ever. Don’t know which polls you’re talking about.]
    In both cases they were returned from opposition against very unpopular governments. It took exceptional circumstances in both instances and a long time for such events to occur. If what you’re arguing is that Rudd could make a return in 8 to 10 years from opposition then I will agree with you. It could happen but I doubt it.

  50. [We know Conroy can chew gum and walk at the same time but that doesn’t make it into the news bulletins. Joe average doesn’t watch news conferences but he does read the headlines]
    And who produces the headlines? Where in the world do you expect people to get the government’s message?

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