Antony Green blogs on three developments in electoral and parliamentary reform so I don’t have to. To cut some long stories short:
• An all-party agreement to revert the Tasmanian Legislative Assembly to 35 members, from which it was cut to 25 in 1998, has fallen through after Opposition Leader Will Hodgman withdrew support in a riposte to government budget cuts.
• After flirting with a self-interested reversion to compulsory preferential voting, which was ditched in favour of the superior optional preferential model in 1992, the Queensland government has confirmed no such change will occur before the next election.
• The Australian Electoral Commission’s submission to the parliamentary inquiry into last year’s election has called for the federal parliament to follow the lead of New South Wales and Queensland in allowing enrolment to be updated automatically using data available from schools, utilities and such, thereby relieving voters of the bureaucratic annoyance that is currently required of them in discharge of their legal obligation. Antony Green also reports “rumours the Federal government plans to legislate on the matter”. Given the standard of discourse from some elements of the media in recent times, this could get interesting.
On a related note, British voters go to the polls on May 5 to decide whether to replace their archaic first-part-the-post electoral system with the manifestly superior “alternative vote”, or optional preferential voting as we know it in Australia. Antony Green has been working overtime lately responding to the avalanche of tosh being disseminated by the “no” campaign in its efforts to deceive the voters into making the wrong decision.
With no Morgan poll this week, here are some reports on Coalition internal polling which you can believe or not believe according to taste.
• The Australian reports a poll conducted for the Nationals in the wake of the carbon tax announcement had 40 per cent of voters in Lyne taking a favourable view of Rob Oakeshott, against 52 per cent unfavourable. This is said to compare with a poll conducted before the 2008 by-election that brought him to federal parliament which had his approval rating at 71 per cent and disapproval at just 8 per cent.
• Simon Benson of the Daily Telegraph reports a Coalition poll conducted for the NSW election shows 62 per cent “firmly against” the government’s carbon tax proposal, with only 18 per cent in favour.
UPDATE (7/3/11): The first Essential Research poll taken almost entirely after the carbon tax announcement has the Coalition opening up a 53-47 lead. Considering Labor went from 51-49 ahead to 52-48 behind on the basis of last week’s polling, half of which constituted the current result, that’s slightly better than they might have feared. The Coalition is up two points on the primary vote to 47 per cent, Labor is down one to 36 per cent and the Greens are steady on 10 per cent. Further questions on the carbon tax aren’t great for Labor, but they’re perhaps at the higher end of market expectations with 35 per cent supporting the government’s announcement and 48 per cent opposed. Fifty-nine per cent agreed the Prime Minister had broken an election promise and should have waited until after the election, while 27 per cent chose the alternative response praising her for showing strong leadership on the issue. Nonetheless, 47 per cent support action on climate change as soon as possible, against only 24 per cent who believe it can wait a few years and 19 per cent who believe action is unnecessary (a figure you should keep in mind the next time someone tries to sell you talk radio as a barometer of public opinion). There is a question on who should and shouldn’t receive compensation, but I’d doubt most respondents were able to make much of it.
Tellingly, a question on Tony Abbott’s performance shows the electorate very evenly divided: 41 per cent are ready to praise him for keeping the government accountable but 43 per cent believe he is merely obstructionist, with Labor-voting and Coalition-voting respondents representing a mirror image of each other. Twenty-seven per cent believe independents and Greens holding the balance of power has been good for Australia against 41 per cent bad, but I have my doubts about the utility of this: partisans of both side would prefer that their own party be in majority government, so it would have been good to have seen how respondents felt about minority government in comparison with majority government by the party they oppose.
evan14
I have to believe that Labor’s strategy is to keep Abbott as leader.
victoria @ 2840 I read somewhere that they brought the timetable forward for a reason. Maybe in order to have it bedded down in time for June 2012. There is definitely a plan in place.
Shanahan
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/labor-falls-to-historic-lows-newspoll/story-fn59niix-1226017343696
Unfortunetly, the ALP deserves this poll. And if their continued stupidity saddles us with an Abbott Prime Ministership – I’ll never forgive them.
Now is probably a good time to remind those who said that this Newspoll had been delayed until Mon night as it was going to be favorable to Labor that they were wRONg.
Gillard standing down or being rolled is the only way Abbott gets to be PM. That’s some strange way to get a price on carbon.
victoria,
Julia doesn’t care about the polls now. She wants to win the 2013 election. She’s working methodically.
Labor need to stick to their guns. No blinking. No turning back. They need to get a good policy in place.
On that note, night all.
[Kit
Posted Monday, March 7, 2011 at 10:58 pm | Permalink
Unfortunetly, the ALP deserves this poll. And if their continued stupidity saddles us with an Abbott Prime Ministership – I’ll never forgive them.
]
and how long till the next Election again ??
It is funny reading all the different views.
We KNEW it’d be bad because the press and rabbott rabble went hard on the so-called lie. It will calm when the details come across. I am sure the govt. knew it too.
Wait and watch. I am not going to go silly when I knew this might be the result of last week’s carry-on.
I expect the right-wingers will be here soon to have their big gloat (which I will allow them — not because they have ANY policies … but because they know how to whip up a frenzy) — so time for me to go bathe.
Well, looks like the pants are on fire.
Gweneth, you are a sweetie 🙂 I will behave myself, until those lib plants start there stupidity again, can’t abide how they come in here, attempt to spread there lies and rubbish and then run for cover when they are challenged for facts…he was fortunate victoria and jen didn’t get hold of him…. waiting for the newspoll with some intrepidation..
If the PV fails to improve over the rest of the year, then I think Labor has to talk to the greens and indies about legislating for proportional representation in the HoR.
At 30%, it is the only realistic means of holding on to power. They should be thinking about it now, just in case.
Will be interesting to see what Morgan says on Friday and Nielsen/Essential on Monday.
[Now is probably a good time to remind those who said that this Newspoll had been delayed until Mon night as it was going to be favorable to Labor that they were wRONg]
Now is probably the time to remind keen poliwatchers that newspoll has gone misszing or even been held over
further proof that newspoll is a crock of dogshite
and is used to push certain ahem agenda’s
I concur with vic.
And goodnight all.
Funny, even JA was close to bearable tonight.
Does ayone have the Corresponding Poll Figures when Howard announced the GST ?
Goshome
[What on earth does JG have to do for Abbott to actually be preferred PM?]
I don’t know exactly but I think would have to involve furry animals and a weed whacker.
Interesting but ultimately irrelevant.
I have been reading that Labor is engaged in a rope-a-dope strategy.
That Labor is killing ’em in Parliament.
That everything will turn around when the details of the carbon price/tax are revealed.
Call me a sceptic, but if Labor couldn’t sell its stimulus package and schools building program, what hope does it have with carbon?
[I don’t believe it. The fix is in.
No effing way that Labor can be this low with CC action support so high. NO WAY.
Call me a tinfoil hat. This is a crock.]
I know I am the last person you wanted to respond to this, but, I said this many months ago- people will support it happily, until they are told the costs. We are in the how much is it going to cost phase and its going to get ugly from here on in. The question is whether Gillard and the ALP can handle the heat and stick to their guns.
On past history….unlikely…
Some of you are completely deluding yourselves if you think that this isn’t a bad poll for Labor.
I’d advise you to avoid tomorrow’s media – Radio Liberal will be gloating, so will News Ltd, & even the ABC.
Julia’s in trouble, & there will be nervous Labor backbenchers out there.
I think the only Labor figure who’ll be happy about this poll is a certain Foreign Minister currently travelling across the Middle East – the idea of forcing a byelection in Brisbane ain’t looking so good now! 😉
Labor can still win this only because they have time on their side.
If they had to fight an election on a carbon tax before it was legislated, as I have said here before, they would get massacred.
Frank
Mumble did a piece on that the other day
http://blogs.theaustralian.news.com.au/mumble/index.php/theaustralian/comments/howard_kernot_and_the_gst/
victoria
[Labor need to stick to their guns. No blinking. No turning back. They need to get a good policy in place.]
Absolutely. If they wimp out and ditch the carbon tax, they will get killed so they might as well stand and fight. They have no option.
Gusface@2849
Now , now, not so. I said “if” she proves to be a bad leader on carbon. I want her to succeed, shoulder to shoulder with the Greens and indies. It is the issue that counts here. But when is she going to develop the natural halo Oakeshott, Windsor and Brown are sporting these days?
[PhillipMHudsonPhillip Hudson
Newspoll: For those who’ve asked, price on carbon figs are correct – in favour 42, against 53 (in Dec it was 47-49)
1 minute agoFavoriteRetweetReply]
and I wonder if the NSW State Election is having an effect on these figures as well ? Especially since the loudest bleats came from NSW based ShockJocks.
Diogenes you are as usual the master of the obvious. Any chance you are able at some future date to have the spine to actually say something with conviction that is not as soft as melted butter.
So we have Essential running 51-49 (on the week, not the fortnightly) and Newspoll running 54-46.
Something very dodgy going on here.
Someone is wrong. Newspoll is just too convenient.
And before YOU tell me to put my tinfoil hat on, William, then YOU explain the discrepancy.
Mod Lib: Note that they’re all ignoring the important poll figure…………Gillard isn’t the first choice to be Labor leader.
This is more devastating for her than the 54-46 lead to the Coalition.
David
I know I’m too nice but Finns has told me to behave. 😀
evan14.. time you paid your lib party sub isn’t it?
BB
Do you understand the concept of MOE?
To speak of polls. How strange.
I thought that this too was really weird. And completely puzzling.
“How the West can end Gaddafi’s slaughter” The Age Geoffrey Robertson March 7, 2011
Poll: Does the international community have a duty to intervene in Libya to stop the killing of civilians?
1. Please select an answer. Yes
2. No
Yes 78%
No 22%
Despite that overwhelming Yes, do it, on line vote, the say, 30 or more comments I read seemed absolutely antagonistic to Geoffrey Robertson.
Doesn’t seem to fit.
2879: The two polls are within the margin of error of each other.
Of course, the Newspoll was based on a loaded question.
Should be an interesting conversation between Julia and Rupert.
jv
apols
just when i sense a FIX anyone is fair game
too bad newspoll is so prone to allegations of political massaging
cf 2007
Diogenes I was being nice…
[and how long till the next Election again ??]
Can I just remind the nervous nellies here that during the quarter of 2009, that is just about 9 months before the 2010 election.
Rudd was the leader and Labor was consistently leading in Newspoll 53-47 and a landslide was predicted for Rudd.
Get real, the election is 2.5 years away.
[Absolutely. If they wimp out and ditch the carbon tax, they will get killed so they might as well stand and fight. They have no option]
Extraordinary – perhaps they should all get t-shirts saying.
“We’ve got the facts
you can Save the planet with a tax”
What if find interesting is the degree of leakage to the Greens and even when given his biggest boost ever Rabbot is still out of reach.
I would like to see the raw data before I comment further, but what I have to believe in is that by the next election people will realise that their home budget will be largely unaffected despite the scare campaigns and will hopefully vote accordingly.
But one thing it has driven home is the media support of the coalition needs to be reigned in and I am going to take every opportunity to write, complain, correct every misleading statement by the media.
David: Rudd supporters don’t vote Liberal!
Who is saying the poll isn’t bad? Some of us are saying it is irrelevant.
Gillard had to do a u-turn because the people she relies on stay in government insisted on it. They stood next to her as it was announced.
If Labor loses it nerve then the party dies and Abbott – Tony Abbott, who over 60% don’t want to be PM – gets the gig, calls an election now and gets a steaming great majority.
Get on and govern. Get the NBN in, get the carbon price in and worry about the election when it is actually going to happen.
BTW my figures on support for carbon tax are wrong. 42% support not 47%.
[evan14
Posted Monday, March 7, 2011 at 11:09 pm | Permalink
David: Rudd supporters don’t vote Liberal!
]
quite a few in 2007 did – and then switched to Abbott in 2010 🙂
CORRECTION: Price on Carbon: Support 42 Oppose 53 (the figures I tweeted were from December)
The question:
[evan14
Posted Monday, March 7, 2011 at 11:09 pm | Permalink
David: Rudd supporters don’t vote Liberal!]
I rest my case
[Diogenes I was being nice…]
David, i have done extensive psycho-analysis of Diog.
When he was young he was told pain would lead to pleasure and he has stuck to that ever since.
evan14:
I fear Gillard has been hoist upon her own petard. Too much wavering and changing so that now that (I suspect) she is taking a courageous decision that she actually believes in, she isn’t getting the ‘leadership’ points just losing the ‘liar’ points.
You have to break promises in politics, but you need to be able to explain why you did it and not pretend you didn’t (like most bludgers here have been doing since the “I rule out a carbon tax….I will be introducing a carbon tax” saga started).
[GhostWhoVotes
Posted Monday, March 7, 2011 at 11:11 pm | Permalink
CORRECTION: Price on Carbon: Support 42 Oppose 53 (the figures I tweeted were from December)
The question:
Under the federal government’s plan to put a price on carbon, the price of energy sources, such as petrol, electricity and gas, may become more expensive. Would you personally be in favour or against paying more for energy sources, such as petrol, electricity and gas, if it would help to slow global warming?
]
Talk about a loaded question….