Weekend miscellany

No Morgan poll this week. There is the following however:

• ReachTel continues to pump out the Queensland state automated phone polls. Perhaps emboldened by a recent effort pointing to a 27 per cent anti-Labor swing in Stretton, they have this week targeted two safe Labor seats and elicited similarly dramatic results. A survey of 384 respondents in the seat of Ipswich is fully as bad for Labor as the Stretton poll, showing a 26 per cent swing and a win for LNP candidate Ian Berry over Labor incumbent Rachel Nolan by a margin of 9.4 per cent. In the Brisbane seat of Bundamba, a poll of 371 respondents found a 20 per cent swing which would all but eradicate Labor member Jo-Ann Miller’s margin. Katter’s Australian Party was on double figures in both seats. Last week ReachTel published a poll of 366 respondents in Ferny Grove which showed a 15 per cent swing, easily enough to account for Labor member Geoff Wilson’s margin of 4.3 per cent. It should be noted however that ReachTel is a new outfit using a methodology which is yet to prove its worth, and all the swings mentioned are well over the 13 per cent indicated by recent Newspoll and Galaxy polling.

• John Ferguson of The Australian reports polling by the Victorian Liberal Party shows it poised to win not only the Labor-held marginals of Deakin, Corangamite and La Trobe, but also recording primary votes of 50 per cent and 48 per cent in relatively safe Bruce and Chisholm. Particularly difficult to believe is a funding from Bruce that “Julia Gillard had a minus 22 per cent favourability rating with Mr Abbott at plus 2 per cent”, which compares with Nielsen’s recent Victorian results of minus 13 and minus 25. Ferguson’s report further says that former members Phil Barresi (voted out in 2007 and again unsuccessful in 2010) and Jason Wood (voted out in 2010) are considering comebacks in Deakin and La Trobe. Local councillor Tim Smith is another possible starter in Deakin, and Ernst & Young partner John Nguyen “would be backed by many local members” in Chisholm. John Roskam of the Institute of Public Affairs and lawyer John Pesutto are mentioned as being likely preselection aspirants, though it is unclear in relation to which seats.

• Michael McKenna of The Australian reports “lobbyist and former 2007 Liberal candidate for the seat of Brisbane Ted O’Brien and Sunshine Coast businesswoman Peta Simpson” will join Mal Brough in the LNP preselection contest for Peter Slipper’s seat of Fisher, with Brough “expected to easily win”. In the period between his appearance at a local function with Kevin Rudd and his defection from the party, the LNP state executive was considering having Slipper deposed at a snap December 19 preselection, which would have prevented the state election campaign clashing with any move by him to pursue internal appeals processes. However, this failed to take into account that many of Brough’s local branch “recruits” (according to The Australian, “since returning to the party in December last year, Brough has doubled the membership in the Fisher LNP branch to more than 1000”) would have been unable to participate due to the rule requiring 12 months’ membership. According to The Australian, it was “suspected that Slipper may have orchestrated the Rudd visit to entrap the LNP into calling an early preselection to defeat Brough”. Following Slipper’s defection, it is now clear the preselection will now be held after the state election.

• Sean Nicholls of the Sydney Morning Herald reports on the latest exchange in the hundred years war between NSW Liberal Right faction rivals David Clarke and Alex Hawke. The Clarke faction (the “hard” Right) has unsuccessfully sought a Supreme Court injunction to prevent the Baulkham Hills and Castle Hill Young Liberal branches from participating in the preselection for Hawke’s federal seat of Mitchell. These were the very same branches involved in a famous episode before the previous election when the unanticipated arrival of 40 Clarke supporters prompted Hawke to call the police. The Herald report further relates that “up to a dozen” NSW MPs have defected from Clarke to Hawke’s “centre right”, among them Wollondilly MP Jail Rowell and upper house MP Matthew Mason-Cox, as they were “understood to be unhappy over their treatment by Mr Clarke and his colleague, Marie Ficarra”. This is presumably one of the reasons the Clarke candidate in Mitchell, Robert Picone, is not considered much of a chance.

• John Ferguson of The Australian reports on a widening in the long-simmering battle over Victorian Liberal Senate preselection. Previously the issue had been whether the number two candidate from 2007, Helen Kroger, would suffer demotion at the expense of the number three, Scott Ryan, who has since been promoted to a more senior parliamentary position. However, a split in the Costello-Kroger faction is now jeopardising the position of the number one candidate, Mitch Fifield. A Liberal source is quoted accusing Fifield of “engineering” Ryan’s push against his factional colleague Kroger, prompting the latter’s supporters to contemplate securing her position by moving to depose Fifield from the top of the ticket. With the Liberals thought likely to win three seats in the current electoral environment, Fifield’s enemies are said to be canvassing possible challenges from John Roskam and, perhaps a little fancifully, Peter Reith.

• A belated note, after much back and forth, about last week’s highly unfortunate Crikey system failures. I am delighted to be able to announce that it’s Ray Hadley’s fault. A story published by Crikey last Tuesday led to a mammoth spray against Tim Flannery and Crikey on Ray Hadley’s program on 2GB the following morning. As a result of Hadley’s outburst, Crikey received a massive spike in traffic to the website – so much so that the site’s servers could not handle the traffic increase and melted down two days in a row. Of course, these have not been Crikey’s only outages, and the broader difficulty remains of the system’s incapacity to cope under pressure. Management are now undertaking server cost analysis and preparing for IT/bandwidth increases.

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.

1,800 comments on “Weekend miscellany”

Comments Page 3 of 36
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  1. [David_Speers David Speers
    @SenMarkArbib giving the speech Gillard should have. Support platform change but with a conscience vote.]

    Interesting take.

  2. [I agree Kohler was on a rant on this occasion, and was biased.]
    He provides no value add for his commentaries on the Sydney ABC TV evening news; sometimes negative value add. Often smarmy.

  4. my say @ 31

    I also have Ra, have had surgery on my hands to straighten my thumbs
    6 weeks in plaster, few years ago, my middle index fingers look like banarnas ,

    My toes are all crossed over my feet, but i bless every day, with out a sewing needle in my hand
    And that day may come, I could not imagine the boredom I would face

    So english expression is not my thing, did a writers course 15 years ago though at taffe

    Thanks for revealing that. I now better understand some of your difficulties in typing.

    Years ago I worked with a young woman (late 20s) who had bad RA and I understand from that.

    Would it help if you slowed down your rate of commenting and spent a bit more time editing?

  5. BK @ 5
    [Paul Krugman on the EU and US economies.]
    http://www.americablog.com/2011/12/krugman-on-why-europe-is-headed-towards.html
    Thanks – good statement of this policy issue. My recollection these days is a bit hazy, but I think the monetarist school of economic history points to inappropriate (monetary) policy tightening as a significant contributer to the 1930s depression. And pre New-Deal, I seem to recall fiscal spending was controversial too

    It is interesting to read this as a pendent to leroy @8

    http://www.couriermail.com.au/news/opinion/abbotts-logic-in-a-hole/story-e6frerdf-1226188167571

    [Tony Abbott, Joe Hockey tempting economic armageddon with petty politicking
    by: Paul Syvret From: The Courier-Mail November 08, 2011 12:00AM

    CREDIBLE economic policy is not born of populist sound bites and uncosted opportunism.]
    The lack of rigour of the coalition does not engender any confidence as to their competence to manage economic policy in these times (or to use BB’s pithy shorthand, of which I am inordinately fond, for the coalition’s economics team: “bullshit artists”)

  7. victoria
    Posted Saturday, December 3, 2011 at 10:31 am | Permalink

    TLM is a lost cause (that is if he was ever one)

    Worse than that is him taking great delight of Labor having difficulty. That is totally unforgivable and shows him in his true colours.

    Thornleigh Labor Man
    Posted Friday, November 4, 2011 at 9:38 am | Permalink

    If the next bunch of Newspolls don’t show the huge narrowing that so many of you are confidently predicting, I’ll be laughing hysterically.

    TLM is no more Labor than Joe Hockey is. At least Hockey admits he is not.

  9. [Let’s hope Obama sticks to this undertaking.]
    http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/12/02/1041769/-Obama-vows-to-keep-pushing-Congress-until-Republicans-extend-payroll-tax-cut?via=blog_1

    Two questions on this

    1. How does ending the pay roll tax cut impact adversely on the workers? Isn’t it the companies who pay the tax?

    2. Does the president always have to give his consent as to when the sessions of the US House of Reps and Senate end?

    Anyone?

  16. [@annabelcrabb Annabel Crabb
    Delegate Eric Derricott from Victoria is the chap who called for the vote, FYI #ALPnc
    1 minute ago ]

    Shes’s referring to the vote count on the conscience amendment, otherwise it would have gone through on the voices.

  17. Darn
    [1. How does ending the pay roll tax cut impact adversely on the workers? Isn’t it the companies who pay the tax?]
    Because the payroll tax increases the cost of business employing labour. Therefore, theory is you reduce labour cost, you increase demand for labour.

    Payroll tax is a stupid, inefficient, resource mis-allocating tax – like most of the rest of the Australian states’ tax revenues…

  18. swearycatSweary Cat

    #alpnc Lyndall Curtis says since Gillard proposed conscience vote her authority may be on the line with the count right now

    Lyndall Curtis up to her usual tricks

  23. My Say,
    I don’t have any problem with reading your posts. My hands are just starting to give me pain so I expect one day I will be where you are now, unless technology gets that good that the words are read straight off my brain and the keyboard is redundant.

    I hope you keep sewing all your life. I liked sewing, doing it as school and making my own baby clothes, but never developed any serious skills in it. I wish I had. I might be able to sew myself some nice garments, instead of the complete rubbish sold in the shops.

  25. confessions

    Precisely. The Labor party now have marriage equality as part of their platform. If a conscience vote becomes before the parliament, what will the Liberal Party do? Vote as a block against it? Will the Libs be wedged on this issue?

  26. Abbott won’t change his position, sure a few Liberals will cross the floor and he’ll be “unhappy” with them for doing so – in the end he knows he has the numbers

  27. Thefinnigans TheFinnigans天地有道人无道
    PM Gillard has shown her political skills at #alpnc. no wonder Abbott is no match for her. Mr. Abbott, what about a Conscience vote? #auspol
    12 seconds ago

  30. confessions
    Posted Saturday, December 3, 2011 at 11:19 am | Permalink

    The pressure is now on Tony Abbott. Will the Liberals try to gag their MPs who support marriage equality?

    Will any of them even speak up for it to start with? If so it will be a change on the last 4 years or so?

    If there are any so called *moderate libs* still left in the *so called* liberal party, they are invisible and silent.

    But we will see soon enough.

  32. will depend if anyone abstains Victoria but 76 would be my guess – i’d be surprised to see a vote to change get out of the 60’s though 🙁

    that’s why they needed to kill the conscience vote idea

  33. Victoria,
    With a conscience vote for Labor, and I assume Greens support, the decision on ssm rests with the Coalition. If they vote as a block the legislation is guaranteed to fail, if not, it may by passed.

    If they go as a block it will anger ssm supporters, please the right wingnuts, and be of little interest to many. It would reinforce their brand as a bunch of ye olde fuddy-duddies.

  34. [noplain Jane
    I’m super glad all those people committed to voting on the subject of equal marriage, but left before talking about women’s equality #ALPnc]

    I had the same thought myself.

  35. If it is true that for at least 2 labor members of the house of reps, the issue of gay marriage would have been one that they would have felt compelled to cross the floor against…. and thus be chucked out of the party…. it is hardly surprising that the Gillard aim has been to go for a conscience vote.

    As P.M. she has been looking ahead to try and ward off trouble, it would seem.

  37. mari @111
    [For those conservatives looking for a policy agenda, they were presented with one in the last sitting week – a thoughtful and comprehensive program for reform and innovation from newly minted Liberal senator, Arthur Sinodinos.

    For a long time Howard’s most trusted staffer, Sinodinos painted an Australia where education is king, not afraid of growth and keen to tackle productivity reforms, including the feared workplace relations agenda.]
    http://www.couriermail.com.au/ipad/all-eyes-on-abbott-as-libs-view-change/story-fn6ck620-1226212711191

    Aside from the temporary inconvience of being in the wrong house, I dont see why Sinodinos is not seen as a potential Liberal leader. I havent heard/read this speech, but it has been approvingly noted in a number of media

  38. G’day bludgers, just sat down to read the Fin Review – front page banner “Labor attack on business”, smaller banner “ALP conference calls for more worker rights”

  40. dave:

    I heard Russell Broadbent speak against amending the marriage act to allow same sex marriage.

    I was under the impression he is a moderate Liberal, bur could be wrong.

  42. Doug Cameron is on ABCNews24 saying Tony Abbott should let his MPs have a conscience vote. He is also saying this is a longtime Labor issue, years before the Greens and that a Labor private member’s bill should by put forward as soon as possible. Of course Lyndall Curtis is trying to ramp up the ‘will divide Labor’ line, Cameron is doing her like toast.

  45. [If they go as a block it will anger ssm supporters, please the right wingnuts, and be of little interest to many. It would reinforce their brand as a bunch of ye olde fuddy-duddies.]

    Though I suspect everyone will just blame JG in that case anyway, because hey, the Coalition is expected/allowed to vote as a bloc and they’re ahead in the polls, and stuff. Do people know how the crossbenchers would vote on this, out of curiosity?

  46. she will vote with her conscience Puff, which going on what she has said since being PM would be not to change the marriage act – I could be mistaken but that’s how i read it

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