On Monday, The Australian published further detail from last week’s Newspoll survey regarding election issues. This showed the Coalition best to handle every issue going, the narrowest lead being for climate change (32-25) and the widest for the economy (59-18). What stands out for me is that the issues which have gained most since 2007 on the question of whether respondents considered them “very important” 2007 – the economy, up from 60 per cent to 71 per cent, and public transport and roads, up from 56 per cent 66 per cent – are the very ones on which the Coalition holds the most commanding leads (59-18 and 54-19 respectively). The same would probably have applied for “cost of living”, which 73 per cent rate very important with the Coalition favoured 50-24, but this was not part of the mix in the 2007 poll.
Elsewhere:
• The local branch of the Greens has opted to direct preferences to Labor in Coogee, while elsewhere the Greens will be directing preferences to independents Mike Jackson in Wallsend and Gillian Sneddon in Swansea. The Liberals will direct preferences to John Tate in Newcastle, Greg Piper in Lake Macquarie, Shayne Connell in Wallsend and Barry Johnston in Charlestown. Johnston will in turn direct preferences to Liberal candidate Andrew Cornwell. According to the Newcastle Herald, Johnston, Cornwell and Labor member Matthew Morris are “said to be evenly matched in polling”.
• Market researchers purporting to be from Marrickville Council have reportedly been asking respondents if they were aware that the local mayor, Greens candidate Fiona Byrne, had “led a boycott against Israel on council recently”, and inviting them to consider whether they thought foreign policy was properly the council’s concern. The council says it has not conducted any such polling.
• Antony Green on the possible impact of former Leichhardt mayor Marie Sheehan’s independent candidacy in Balmain: “The Liberals could lead on the first preferences and, if they do, a split-up of preferences between Labor, Greens and independents could lead to a surprise Liberal victory.”
• Imre Salusinszky of The Australian reports that Labor strategists have “virtually written off Education Minister Verity Firth in Balmain, but still hold out hopes of saving Deputy Premier Carmel Tebbutt in Marrickville” – however, “On-the-ground Liberal sources suggest the opposite picture”. Salusinszky earlier reported that saving Tebbutt had become the number one priority of state Labor boss Sam Dastyari.
• Amos Aikman of The Australian notes Kristina Keneally was putting more effort than you might have thought earlier this week into Wyong, held on a margin of 6.9 per cent: “Perhaps buoyed by unexpected wins in the nearby federal seats of Dobell and Robertson last year, the party is hoping for a successful Hail Mary pass.”
• Pre-poll voting commenced on Monday.
• Recent additions to the election guide have focused on the western and south-western suburbs: Riverstone, Granville, Macquarie Fields, East Hills, Toongabbie, Smithfield, Fairfield, Blacktown, Bankstown, Mount Druitt, Liverpool and Auburn.
blackburn pseph: from the last thread.
Janet Mays is the Independent deputy Mayor of Blue Mountains. The ALP is likely to run third, probably with a vote in the mid-high teens, behind Mays and the Liberal, the local Springwood Dentist, Sage on primaries,. Mays will top the poll in all the Upper Mountains booths and the result will hinge on whether she can get more than 25 percent in booths from Warrimoo down to Blaxland, and Winmalee, where the Libs are strongest. The big Green vote , they topped the poll in Ward One (Mt Vic to Wenty Falls) Blue Mountains Council election has collapsed after they preselected a, err, most interesting person. This vote has gone holus bolus, along with an evenly spread chunk of Liberal and ALP vote across to Mays, who, as a former director of the Springwood Neighbourhood Centre, is more connected than a millipede’s backbone. I expect she will get well north of 30 percent. Sage will need to be around or above the 40 percent mark to have a chance of winning. The Libs primary was around 25 percent last time, but will significantly improve. All the math points to a Mays victory.
In general; a real issue will be the exhaust and informal factor. This will hurt the Libs trying to win seats that would be expected to be outliers for them, same for the Greens in Marrickville and Balmain. Every vote that exhausts before coming back to a challenging party (tapping into the zeitgeist in the community of a pox on all their houses) will help incumbents. O’Farrell will win, of that there is no doubt, but it won’t be quite as big as some dramatists are making out.
In general II; The numbers on election night will be far from a final figure. Pre Poll is GOING OFF! Thius is THE big trend in Australian elections over the last ten years with people finding out they can keep their Saturday free by voting early (but not often as John Ducker would have liked). In the Fed’l electn the pre poll vote was up to 30 percent of votes cast in some seats. And has grown at every election I’ve noticed trending this way since NSW 2004. Every Pre Poll centre I have seen around Sydney today has queues! I expect over a third of the poll to be postal and pre poll. In tight contests this will matter. In some seats we will be waiting a few weeks for a result.
And re Port Mac – I can’t remember who it was on the last thread but what is your source for the 50 v 20 Nat v Besseling figure? I have in front of me some faxed numbers that show the inverse!!
And evan14, George Pell’s friend, the very religious Kristina Keneally will get back in. It’s a pity the Papal Knight Maurice Iemma is not around though. A thoroughly decent man. It was worth sitting in traffic for four hours a day commuting on Sydney’s dysfunctional roads and public transport safe in the knowledge that he was running the state. And why wasn’t the very talented and capable member for Cabramatta who grew up in Turramurra and lived in Coogee, Reba Meagher, given a fair go. I know people that only had to wait fourteen hours with a broken arm in a corridor of Nepean hospital before being able to get orthopedic treatment when she was the heal;th minister. And think of the legacy Tony Kelly will leave the Harbour at Barangaroo, and what about poor Joe Scimone – now that his mate Tripodi is out of the frame how is he ever going to earn a living. Which reminds me, how is Joe’s mate Ron Medich going these days? Charged with allegedly organising a hitman!! Say it ain’t so Joe! And how’s Michael Costa’s new Interurban trains coming along? What? Not ready yet? But it’s been seven years?
*sigh* And to think people interstate wonder why the people of NSW are turning on the ALP. Why are people so unkind.
Toorak, sounds like it’s straight from a “destroyed at the ballot box” Australian editorial.
Any political party makes a treacherous political partner; just look how the Liberals took advantage to wedge Labor on electricity privatisation in 2008 and flipped stances. That was the killing blow and Labor’s been twitching on the floor ever since.
It just sounds like the Greens are especially effective at pushing their policy platform. They have the confidence to actually have a platform, unlike the Liberal’s small-target band-aid policy approach.
Electricty consumers will be footing a $17 Billion (that’s with a b) bill to rebuild NSW’s poles and wires network to lock NSW into dependence upon the old baseload powerstations. That’s why retail electricty proices are rising by up to a minimum of 62 percent (in the case of Country Energy) between now and 2014. I’m no greenie, but for that you could set up solar that would give you 8,500 MW of the 240 volt juice, or the equivalent of replacing four of NSW’s seven existing carbon based power stations. What’s more, the solar would be local, so no widespread blackouts after storms and no transmission wires starting bushfires on hot summer days.
Yup, day is de smartest men in der room dem labors.
eddieward
In relation to Macquarie
the polling are from DB who has access to liberal voting in the Tally room and agreed to with a person who has ALP polling figures. I also have friends who lives in the area, who tells me Basseling is struggling.
As for Blue Mountain, Liberal polling have Sage on 43-47% for the last 3 weeks, so you will need to check your figure about May’s “win” there
But we will find out on polling days.
I like Rod Cavalier, who gives it to the Labor charlatans with both barrels but then hands out HVTs all day out of respect for all the good people who have worked for the party and its ideals for the past 120 years.
And before anyone says “Oh, but what about when it’s cloudy, or at night time?” Well kids, if you open up the bonnet of dad or mum’s car, there will be a squarish loking thing with two leads coming out of it. that’s called a battery. We pronounce it bat-ter-ree, but mechanics call it a batry. See, battery is more than just a recreational actiovity fior rugby league players, it’s also a handy thing what stores electricty and was invented by a clever german chap called Voltz, who got his name appended to the power what comes out of these wonderful little boxes. Now, the box in mum or dad’s car puts out 12 of theese volt things, but your power at home needs 240 of them, so for that we invented this cool little gadget called an inverter, which converts the 12 into 240 much like jesus did with five loaves and seven fishes (or was that the other way around) anyway, the last bit should satisfy those who prefer an imaginary friend to science.
But anyway, why do that when we can set force households to be reliant on the power stations whose poutput we just sold to China Light and Power for $700 Million, or about 70 percent of what the taxpayers earnt from the same generators in 2006. We had to do that to keep Standard and Poors happy, because after the sub-prime meltdown the NSW Treasury was the only organisation in the world that still took those guys seriously.
In fact, if we got a blueprint of former NSW Treasury secretary Pearce’s brain we could probably build ourselves an imbecile.
eddieward
Haven’t read all of them yet but just love your posts and your style!
Ah yes, Rod Cavalier. The education Minister who thought it would be a good idea to charge people a motza to get a trade at TAFe and, voila, no one wanted to get a trade at TAFE. But don’t worry, it’s not like it lead to a skills shortage or anything.
dovif, thanks for the ‘heads up’ on Port, I’ll get back to the editor on that one. He was querying with me if it sounded ‘right’. I think he’s being spun like an old 45. Re Sage, if that’s true, she’s got a twenty percent swing and I can’t see that in all honesty. I think it will be tighter but, as you say, the vote before and on the day will tell. One thing’s for certain they’re working it like Santa’s elf on Christmas eve. I still have an open mind with a suspicion Mays will get preference flows, but agree that Sage is the front runner.
Eddie ward
Sportsbet has the following odds
Sage at $1.20, Mays $6
Williams at $1.40, Basseling $2
They are good odds for your information
I got on Mays at $20 when they were offering Trish Doyle (no chance) v Sage. Check out the odds in Balmain. I got on the Libs at 50-1 a few weeks back. And no, I’m not Marie Sheehan (sp?).
There are some great odds out there. I asked for a quote for Hatton in the Leg Council and I suggest you do too!
His yellow t Shirts are at EVERY pre poll I checked out this morning.
eddie ward
O’Farrell has been seen in Smithville (16%) (about 4 times) and Kogarah (18%) he thinks 20% swing will be pretty standard for this election
Opinion polls are showing 15% swings and include seats in the East and North Sydney, wher the Liberals cannot get a 15% because of their primary votes already
Is this May in BM a “progressive”? Cos if so, i can’t see her doing much except split the Left vote even further and turn a 99% Lib win into a 100% Lib win.
[The New South Wales National Party’s hope of retaining the mid-north coast state seat of Myall Lakes has suffered a setback, with the party’s candidate involved in an accident.]
They shjould retain the seat regardless I would’ve thought.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2011/03/17/3166505.htm
It would seem that more independents will be elected, which often happens when Labor loses in a landslide, like in 1988.
BTW Thanks Dovif for the info on the private polling – not great news from my point of view, but interesting nonetheless.
MDMC and dovif – she’s a chamber of commerce type, and she appeals to lots of lots of old fashioned Asquithian tories who support the Lib party in the Blue Mountains. Her politics are of the wet Liberal variety – think Marise Paine or the former NSW Senator whose name escapes me who sat on the Human Rights Commish from memory (always unreliable). She’s locked in a lot of small business support. Even the Liberal candidate from 2007 has been singing her praises! She’d be well and truly in the Liberal fold except for, ahem, lifestyle issues. Let us not forget that former Blue Mountains Liberal Councillor Egan was one of the geniuses behind the fake ALP pamphlet in Lindsay in 2007. They’re a charming bunch.
And its Mays, not May – in much the same way Bradbury in Wollongong is not Bradbery. How is the reverend going btw? He was training the charismatic Noreen Hay last time I looked. He is one independent I would vote for if I was a good burgher of the ‘gong.
evan14
all I do is pass on information, anyone can use the link to the Tally room
My goodness! Ninos Khoshaba is in trouble in Smithfield! This erudite and charismatic fellow is the jewel in the crown of the intellectual colossus that is the right wing of the NSW Labor Party. If he were to fall I fear for the quality of philosophical endeavour in any future ALP caucus. And to think some unkind souls say he got where he is today by stacking branches! Tut tut. The man was forced – forced, I say! – into reluctantly putting his name forward for the ballot for Smithfield after being mobbed openly in the streets by many citizens, many of them weeping and pleading with their beloved Ninos to go to Macquarie Street and right the wrongs of civilised society. He is a future giant of western civilisation. And no, I’m not talking about WESROC.
In fact, I believe a docu-drama of his life is being made by Fox, starring Jimmy Stewart as Ninos Khoshaba, with Matthew Newton playing the role of UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon.
Thankfully they have that other shining light of social democratic intellectualism Shaoquette Moselmane, who will be in the NSW Upper House until 2015, by which time he will probably be able to pronounce the word curriculum correctly. And unlike at Budget Estimates last year, he may even know what it means as well.
eddiw @ 65
Chris Puplick?
We need to talk
Independents.
Existing:
Dubbo: Dawn Farndell (Nat gain)
Lake Macquarie: Greg Piper (Retain)
Northern Tablelands: Lord Torbay of Crutchers Flat (Retain)
Port Macquarie: My old school buddy’s brother Peter Besseling (probable Nat gain)
Sydney: Clover Moore (Retain)
Tamworth: Peter Draper (Nat gain)
Probable:
Newcastle: John Tate (Ind gain from ALP)
Possible (independent trails but running second):
Blue Mountains: Janet Mays (Ind gain from ALP)
Wallsend: Shayne Connell (Ind gain from ALP)
Upper Hunter: Tim Duddy (Ind gain from Nat)
Wagga Wagga: Dr Joe McGirr (Ind gain from Liberal)
Wollongong: Rev Bradbery (Ind gain from ALP
Possible, but highly unlikely (the stuff in brackets is what it WOULD be, not what it is likely to be):
Charlestown: Gillian Sneddon (Ind gain from ALP)
Kiama: Mayor McCarthy (Ind gain from ALP)
Goulburn: Rob Parker (Ind gain from Lib)
Riverstone: The ever entertaining Geno Belcastro (everyone join in the chorus from the Dexy’s Midnight Runners song: oh-oh Geeeno – Ind gain from ALP)
ALso, there’s Balmain with Ms Sheehan (sp?) and the handsome John Shapiro (his picture is well worth checking out!)
I think of missed a few other contests where Indies are likely to run second, others can fill that in.
If we count the first two groups the situation for the independents is a net loss of two seats, but an extra three to the Nationals (who were supposed to be dying according to all the smarties a few years ago).
If we’re generous and throw in the third group (and that’s being mighty generous, a bit like trying to pick up SBS in the old VHF antenna days, more luck than science) the end result is a net gain of two, with three of those seats coming off the ALP. Libs still have a handsome working majority.
The big role that strong indie campaigns will do is boost Hatton’s Upper House vote. Here comes that man again.
greens have lost some percentage points overall or at least failed to gain points with the arbitary prioritising of gay marriage. this is not a core green issue – it is not even consensual among gays. why the beat up about the bougeouis institution? greens also too confident – driven by ideology, with some paranoia that better to lose for truth than win – they need to build steadily in middle australia … probably will never happen. this was the election for five or more lower house green seats. i say these criticism with concern, because it is the environment at stake …
rogan at 65, yes, Chris Puplick is one of the few people that can have the title The Honourable and not draw a snigger. That’s who I was thinking of in regards to Ms Mays of Leura.
I think you’re right geoff. What was the Bill of Rights stuff all about? And as for some of their candidates! The Blue Mountains one is special, but was outdone by Ben Van der weingart (sp?) Green cxandidate for Kiama, saying that an upgrade of the Princess highway was unecessary as, get this, people would be using Public Transport instead. Yep Ben, sure they will mate.
That’s back-out-of-the-room-without-taking-your-eyes-off-them stuff.
This election will be to the Greens, and to the environment, as the 1989 Rugby League grand final was to the Balmain Rugby League Club. Leading with minutes to go, only to blow it by making some dumb decisions.
Balmain is still around, only in a more turgid and unrecognisable form, much as the environment will be in the not too distant future.
Have we hit peak Green?
Chuck Charlestown on the Indie Possible list as well with Barry “Boris Johnson (Ind gain from ALP)
What are the chances that Hattonand his group will do a Xenophon (SALC 2006) and get more than 1 quota?
Good point Tom.
I doubt it, but not beyond the realms of possibility. The second seat could come off anyone, so wouldn’t disadvantage any particular group in that sense, but by my grossly unscientific estimate they will end up on about 5 percent and an easy quota. Hatton is making a big thing about not preferencing anyone, so a big surplus, even if he didn’t get the second seat (which would be shoe salesman and NRMA gadfly Ian Scandrett), will hurt other groups (most likely Hanson and the ALP) in denying them important first preference votes as well as preference flows.
My gut feeling is that if anyone is going to get two quotas outside of the main three parties it will be the Shooters, but that’s just from seeing their stuff (signs, not bullets) plastered all over south-eastern NSW. But even that is a big call.
The goats entrails tell me that the Lunching Council result will be:
Lib/NP: 10 (If they’re unlucky: 9)
ALP: 5
Green: 2
Hatton: 1
Shooters and Fiushers: 1
The Rev Fred: 1
Hanson: 1
Family Fist: 0 (if they get lucky: 1)
With votes exhausting like public servants on a Friday afternoon I suspect the Shooterers, The Rev Fred, Hanson and (if they get lucky) Gordon Moyes’ Family Fist will be elected all on less than a full quota. In somke cases much less.
In this scenario the Libs win a working majority with Fred in the Upper House, and the unbelievers will be burnt at the stake outside Westfield every Saturday morning. It will be the Taliban in suits with big smiles, selling you time share in heaven with ten percent deposit and easy finance to approved customers*.
* – terms and conditions apply.
eddie – best posting for a while. Keep entertaining us
Someone has to make this no horse race interesting. If we leave it to the professionals Said Gaddafi will end up becoming Premier of NSW through a mistake by a News Limited sub-editor after a long lunch at the Evening Star Hotel in Elisabeth Street. What’s worse is that “Smokin'” Joe Hildebrand from the Daily Telegraph will probably end up as the state’s treasurer…or health minister…on reflection he would probably prefer to be health minister, but only if they let him have the key to the cabinet at St Vincents Infirmary.
eddie
Do you know the preference flow on Hatton’s ticket?
Mytwobobs, I have it here in front of me.
Hatton is not preferencing anyone, hence my observation above. If he gets a surplus it will exhaust unless by some act of devilry people give their own preferences. I know party hacks (yourself, obviously, excluded) despise this sort of wild, freewheeling imprudence, but it does happen. Don’t expect a lot of it, and probably only a minimal amount for the ALP.
As I posted on a previous thread, an excellent source has informed me that Andrew Ferguson (aka the Ferg, aka Martin and Laurie’s adopted brother) is making noises about wanting his old job as NSW Secretary of the CFMEU back. He resigned from that sinecure to contest this election. Ferguson is number six on the ALP ticket and has informed those concerned that he has “no chance”. Like Martin, his most commendable quality is that his dad was the eputy Premier of NSW under Wran.
And to think the ALP is opposed to an inherited aristocracy. *cough* Bowen *cough* Macleay *cough* Morris *cough* Stewart *cough* d’Amore
eddie
[And to think the ALP is opposed to an inherited aristocracy. *cough* Bowen *cough* Macleay *cough* Morris *cough* Stewart *cough* d’Amore]
And they wonder why they are failing!
Thanks for the info re Hatton.
In which area was your Dad involved in the ALP? Don’t answer if you don’t want to.
I doubt the accuracy of Dovif’s numbers for Port Macquarie.
The Nats are spending a fortune on a seat which on those figures they are certain to win. This includes some fairly despicable negative advertising. Admittedly the quality of their candidate means they are pushing excrement up a hill but it doesn’t make a lot of sense to spend so much when you have a 50%PV.
Beeseling’s campaign bus was sabotaged causing a major traffic accident yesterday – but of course this was likely to be due to someone not associated with the Nats campaign
Ray Hadley also said on Wednesday that there was a poll showing Beeseling and Williams were level pegging but I can’t find a written reference to it.
Eddie Ward it’s great to know you are still alive after all these years you must have seen a few things in your time.
Excellent posts!
My dad was heavily involved with the ALP in Penrith. Unfortunately he backed Tony Aquilina (John’s brother). Like Tony, that went pear shaped. He was involved with the Macquarie FEC when Luchetti ran the show and backed the best Liberal the ALP ever had, Ron Mulock. It’s funny that people see Penrith as a ‘Labor’ area, but without Ron Mulock the Libs would have had it for years.
Dad was also foolish enough to take on Kath Anderson, Peter Anderson’s mum. If you’re in the ALP in NSW you will know of her! He was a state conference delegate for many years and fought the good fight for the NCC in the GPO and Telecom unions back in the day, as good groupers liked to do. It was funny how the local parish priest always seemed to have lists of parishioners in various unions in the diocese come election time.
Anyway, he’s dead now. Poor bastard.
Mind you, he was ahead of his time. He railed against dangerous Marxists taking control of the media long before it was fashionable. He also lived in eternal fear that humanism and the enlightenment would wrest control of humanity from organised religion. I don’t think he has anything more to fear in that quarter – the enlightenment is as dead as he is.
He was, to quote Monty from Withnail and I, “shat on by Tories and shovelled up by Labour”.
He would probably vote for Fred Nile if he was alive today.
WE watched the careerists move in during the Hawke/Keating years selling their supply-side economic snake oil to the AV Jennings slums of the future out in Regentville. First Ross Free (who is not completely useless, he can always be used a s abad example), then Fay Lo Po and the community minded product of the NUW, Paluzanno, Dianne Beamer, senator Steve Hutchins. You wouldn’t leave them alone in a room with a toaster and a metal knife.
I went to school with all the Maltese kids whose families ran chicken farms out there before it became gyprock Garage Mahals. I see a Portelli is running for the Nile mob in Mulgoa. Probably the only second generation local on the ticket. St Mary’s was full of Croatians, the backbone of the local Liberal Party in the 80’s, with money from Bosnjak’s (now Westbus, or National if your a Victorian). The mortgagees have brought a sensible anglo flavour to the local torys. Bah!
I get my politics from my mother’s side. My Grandmother was a Darlo girl and after a few beers should would intone to us kids that LANG WAS RIGHT!
I don’t know about Lang, but she bloody well was.
eddie
dont agree with everything you say
But I love your turn of phrase
🙂
Oakshott, that accident at Wauchope yesterday was a bad business. Do you think this will impact on the Nats, especially with Lesley refusing to comment?
Has it set tongues a wagging?
I know this may sound in poor taste, because as I understand it three people are in hospital and one bloke is particularly banged up and may never walk again.
Bastards.
Any insight appreciated
Gusface,
Thankyou for your wonderful paraphrasing of Voltaire!
I guess that’s what politics should be
[First Ross Free (who is not completely useless, he can always be used a s abad example), then Fay Lo Po and the community minded product of the NUW, Paluzanno, Dianne Beamer, senator Steve Hutchins. You wouldn’t leave them alone in a room with a toaster and a metal knife.]
Love your language and your colourful descriptions hit the nail on the head for mine!
You should write a column!
I can relate to a lot of what you have described my grandfather was a pollie and a friend of Eddie Ward. Those were the days when a blew was a blew not a semantic argument.
83
The enlightenment is still reducing organised religions control over people. The number of people without religion is increasing across the developed world.
The Catholic Church for example is in terminal decline in the developed world. Its conservative authoritarian rulers are alienating its adherents.
“I had 40,000 bosses” still a great read.
I intend to comment fulsomely (in the strict meaning of the word) on the candidacies and conduct of this election up to and including the swearing in, and at, of the new parliament if Lord Bowe of Mukinupin deems it acceptable, on whichever is the most current of the NSW election threads. One of the joys of shift work.
And, yes, I probably could write a column but I couldn’t be arsed.
Yes it’s generated a lot of talk. Williams has difficulty putting two coherent words together and her advisers would be telling her to say nothing. From experience with Oakeshott’s campaigns I think negative advertising only appeals to the already converted in this electorate and I was surprised when the pamphlet got into my mail box – it has also created a bit of a stink.
The hospital is the major issue in this electorate and the long awaited federal funds were announced by O yesterday – I think that has taken the wind out of the Nat sails a bit. I also think the Nats still have a reputation from the privatisation of the hospital and the Glasshouse fiasco.
There is a tea party anti carbon tax rally here tomorrow pm and allegedly tea baggers are being bussed in from as far as Brisbane – its basically aimed at Oakeshott and once again is unlikely to affect anyone other than the converted. A GetUP! pro-tax rally will occur in the morning. I have no evidence but if I was the police investigating the accident, I would talk to some of the tea baggers in town.
Penrith!!!! – the names, the memories, the branch stacks!. John Aqualina being stopped from taking the coins out of the poker machines at the Henry Lawson Club! The one name that you didn’t mention was Cathy O’Toole – how to lose a vital federal election (together with Mrs Della Bosca)!
Tom at 88,
But no one trusts science. In a choice between plasma screen TV’s and a carbon price people are voting with their no deposit nothing to pay for twelve month hearts feet over to the discount retailers. Here is an example of three (I could give you scores) of beiefs that are firmly held in the community that have been scientifically disproven, yet are held as articles of faith in the community:
1. Bushfires are started in National Parks because they don’t do hazarde reduction burns
2. Electricity prices are increasing because of global warming
3. Building wider and bigger freeways will ease traffic congestion
These are very real and very pertinent social issues that are shrouded in a deep fog of ignorance and sustained by nothing more than faith and peer information. So what do we do? If you’re an environmentalist, or on the left, it’s easy to disparage the proles for being unworthy. Talking down to, and lecturing and hectoring people, simply doesn’t work. Ask any (ex) smoker. If you’re of a materialist bent, there’s money to be made from this sort of ignorance. If you’re a political party you need to appease these ignorantly held views. And so it goes…
Is education the solution? Maybe, but if it is then why are we handing TAFE over to the for-profit sector across the country (Thank you Julia). Do we just leave these stupids to hang out to dry? I don’t know, and I should go to bed soon anyway (3am start) but I mean the enlightenment is dead in so far as much as science, and commonly held facts are dead, and in their stead is the faith of ill informed perception.
As I wrote somewhere else – the Australian Working Class: Ignorant, opinionated…and wise. It’s a paradox, but enlightened policy sure ain’t the outcome anywhere in my neighbourhood.
Night all, and remember LANG IS RIGHT!
Hats off for your recent efforts, eddieward – you’re doing a better job of covering the election than I am, and the next time I write a post I’ll say so. Props as always to Oakeshott Country as well, albeit that I do wonder whether he might be taking a rosy view of Oakeshott and Besseling’s prospects. Time will tell I guess.
[But anyway, why do that when we can set force households to be reliant on the power stations whose poutput we just sold to China Light and Power for $700 Million, or about 70 percent of what the taxpayers earnt from the same generators in 2006. We had to do that to keep Standard and Poors happy, because after the sub-prime meltdown the NSW Treasury was the only organisation in the world that still took those guys seriously.]
If global warming is real I suspect we will get a carbon trading scheme with reducing permits. Not much long term value in a carbon fired power station if that happens.
night eddie
done fine,played strong
Eddie – Thanks for your interesting insights.
Tom – I do not know of any National Party MP that is elected on just 5% of the primary vote. In most seats that the Nats hold, they do so usually on a primary vote of over 50% with a massive TPP
eddie congrats what a turn of phrase !
OC
The Liberal/National really have no need to campaign on any seats, I would suggest that the National don’t even care who Basseling is, he is not their target.
Even if they are on 50%, they are going to send a larger message
When I bet on Port Macquarie 3 weeks ago, Basseling was 1.85 and Williams 1.95, all the money has been on Willaims and she has shortened to 1.40, I guess we will find out if the bookmakers are good judge of elections in 9 days
[The New South Wales ALP’s backroom bosses are moving to keep Kristina Keneally as leader after the expected state election loss next weekend.
Rather than following tradition and standing aside, many see Ms Keneally as the best candidate to see out what is expected to be a long stint in Opposition.]
Seems sensible. Can’t imagine there’ll be anyone else able to stand up to the plate.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2011/03/17/3166961.htm
If I was an ALP supporter in Port Mac, I would vote ALP and Exhaust, I would even contemplate voting Liberal.
If is not like Basseling will matter in the next 4 year, What better way to ensure the Federal government goes the full term, then to let Oakeshott know that he will be out of a job if he quit the current paridium
Smart strategy Dovif and would be a very effective message to Rob Oakeshott to stick it out for 2.5 more years it would also send the same message to Tony Windsor and Andrew “the maverick”” Wilkie.
Cheers