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 34 of 36
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  2. [bemused 1635

    Posted Sunday, December 4, 2011 at 9:55 pm | Permalink]

    Many thanks for your help, I tried to instal Google Chrome but it has failed twice, so am waiting for my very computer literate grandsons ,coming up during the holidays to show me what happened

  3. j2

    [What has Ms Roxon achieved in four years as Health Minister?

    For starters, the Primary Health Care Centre in our area is bloody marvellous. Beats sitting around in casualty for hours on the weekend. Hockey calls them G.P.Superclinics, I gather, and plans to abolish them.]

    So, how many of them are proposed and how many of them are actually completed, and why has it taken so long to build the ones that have been completed? And why, after four years, are they not all completed?

  7. Boerwar,
    [It never is, is it?]
    For the purposes of our discussion on SSM and Labor’s conscience vote and stance on SSM,( which is what our discussion is about as far as I am concerned), what the Greens do with a conscience vote is irrelevant.
    [But I do find the holier-than-thou stuff a bit difficult to stomach at times.]
    The perennial subjective opinion wheeled out when an argument is lost and the protagonist must be discredited.

  9. [Maybe Rudd could become Deputy PM. That would really get the speculation going.]

    It would. I don’t think Rudd would want it though because he knows he’ll be stuck with it for the time being. It would be leadership or nothing for him.

  10. After watching Smith on Lateline discussing his position on SSM, I found him hesitant and difficult to understand. I don’t think a wide-ranging portfolio would suit him.
    Lovely hair, tho (to quote others).

  11. mari,

    Are you on a Mac?

    For Chrome install on Windows I did the “follow the instructions” on the Google website.

  13. mari @ 1652

    Many thanks for your help, I tried to instal Google Chrome but it has failed twice, so am waiting for my very computer literate grandsons ,coming up during the holidays to show me what happened

    Now another lady has been through that recently, assisted online by musrum who is the author of cccp. Was it janice2?

    She is now a happy Chrome user. I recently switched from Firefox to Chrome and recommend it.

    Sounds like you have a damn good excuse to demand a visit from the grandsons. 😉 Enjoy their company.

  14. [So, how many of them are proposed and how many of them are actually completed, and why has it taken so long to build the ones that have been completed? And why, after four years, are they not all completed?]

    I merely relate my experience of a fully functioning and wonderful addition to health care in my area. Sorry it does not fit your narrative.

  16. Be used I never remember about being really silly about anything, its not in my nature, iam actually quite a serious. Person.

    I could say a lot more but I want

    I will say though, none of us are perfect.

    Its also good that i don’t have the time to spend all day here

  18. I think the next leadership candidates need to be talented and good communicators.

    Unfortunately, Swan and Smith have the talent, but are not good communicators IMHO. So I would rather promote people like Shorten, Bowen and Combet – maybe Plibersek – who are able to communicate well.

  20. [bemused
    Posted Sunday, December 4, 2011 at 9:58 pm | Permalink
    kezza2 @ 1629

    So many errors in your claims I don’t know where to start.

    So I won’t.]
    Please do.
    Let’s go through them one by one
    Not going to get resolved otherwise.

    I’ve had a gutful.

  21. lizzie @ 1656

    bemused

    You’re in a funny mood tonight. I’m not sad. Not all of us want to be constantly challenged by our software

    Maybe I am a bit too inclined to proselytise when I like something and think it will benefit others (ALP for example).

    Make note to be more restrained in my enthusiasm… 😀

  24. Crikey’s Croakey Blog is the place to go to obtain information about health reforms:
    http://blogs.crikey.com.au/croakey/

    3 August 2011: http://blogs.crikey.com.au/croakey/2011/08/03/health-reform-its-incremental-and-a-work-in-progress/
    [This post continues a series of reflections on health reform, marking the recent two-year anniversary of the release of the National Health and Hospitals Reform Commission’s final report, A healthier future for all Australians.]

  25. [PaulBongiornoPaul Bongiorno

    ALP delegates, including Ruddites, mark up Gillard for the “real” conference. Over to voters.]

    Good on Paul B, I don’t think we will get info like this from other media organisations?

    And thank you Bemused(1663) The beach is 50 metres away, so they like coming up, I intend to make them work??(to them computers are a pleasure) for their B&B. All this kerfufle because I forgot or missed putting a {at the beginning of a quote and Ducky kindly pointed it out to me

  27. It’s great being able to name so many Labor mps who can fill the important government roles with distinction. Try doing that with the other side.

  28. [Paul Bongiorno
    @PaulBongiorno
    ALP delegates, including Ruddites, mark up Gillard for the “real” conference. Over to voters.]

  30. my say @ 1666

    Be used I never remember about being really silly about anything, its not in my nature, iam actually quite a serious. Person.

    I did admit it was my opinion and you and others may agree.

    I particularly recalled you objecting to someone’s avatar. But anyway, no point in recalling old disagreements.

    I was happy to find we had some good points of agreement today.

  32. bemused @ 1671

    [Maybe I am a bit too inclined to proselytise when I like something and think it will benefit others ]
    I always react very negatively to pushy sales reps.
    And religious types who try to push their beliefs on to me.
    “Proselytise” comes into that category 🙂

  33. David Marr, on Insiders, said that The PM, possibly with Obi’s visit, has become a PM in stature and that she is likely to become more so in 2012.

  34. [Pansy Wong = deliberate homophobic slur]

    Dan, yes. It is NOT an honest mistake. It’s the
    work of some little smart-arse at News trying to
    make a mark. Deliberate, considered. Putrid.

  36. Pegasus

    [But I do find the holier-than-thou stuff a bit difficult to stomach at times.

    The perennial subjective opinion wheeled out when an argument is lost and the protagonist must be discredited.]

    Ah, there it is again… the sure-footed Greens policy guru reminds the poor policy cluck that if they don’t respond by agreeing with the Greens position they are suffering from subjective opinionating and, even worse, ad hominemism. My bad!

    As I have noted before, even when I agree with the contents of Greens policies as presented by your good self on this blog, I quite often have the same emotional response to the way in which they are presented. Now why would that be? It is not that the policies are wrong or incorrect or pisspoor. I am agreeing with them, after all.

    If you are seeking to persuade on this blog rather than parading the one true path I suggest you would do well to reflect on your approach. Call it irrational. Call it a personal attack.

    Or, perhaps, take it as some useful advice.

  37. [David Marr, on Insiders, said that The PM, possibly with Obi’s visit, has become a PM in stature and that she is likely to become more so in 2012.]
    I may be wrong but I thought that was Malcolm Farr.

  38. [This little black duck

    Posted Sunday, December 4, 2011 at 10:07 pm | Permalink

    mari,

    Are you on a Mac?

    For Chrome install on Windows I did the “follow the instructions” on the Google website.]

    I am on windows, followed the instructions, all seemed to be OK, ie downloaded but the system didn’t transfer over to Chrome, so a few days later did the same again, same result. so as I said decided to wait till the grandsons come up.

  39. There’s been Labor backbenchers who have appeared on shows like Capital Hill and The Drum who have been quite impressive. Sometimes it is refreshing to see and hear other parliamentarians besides the usual high profile ministers.

  41. [Laocoon
    Posted Sunday, December 4, 2011 at 7:21 pm | Permalink

    Amazing people, these Daily Telegraph sub-editors…

    A news website has been forced onto the back foot after running a headline referring to Senator Penny Wong as “Pansy Wong” in a story about gay marriage…

    Later the subeditor responsible added in his own tweet “Sorry conspiracy theorists but the Pansy Wong headline was an honest mistake.”]

    According to Doonesbury, relating the machinations of Republican insiders, the big advantage Bush had in being “The Dumb One” was that whenever he was caught out, he could always get away with saying, “It was just an honest mistake.”

  42. kezza2 @ 1670

    bemused
    Posted Sunday, December 4, 2011 at 9:58 pm | Permalink
    kezza2 @ 1629

    So many errors in your claims I don’t know where to start.

    So I won’t.

    Please do.
    Let’s go through them one by one
    Not going to get resolved otherwise.

    I’ve had a gutful.

    I wanted to spare us and everyone else that.

    I really don’t understand the source of your angst.

  43. [victoria

    Posted Sunday, December 4, 2011 at 10:18 pm | Permalink

    mari

    You beat me to it!]

    Great minds think alike and can pick up the “good news”

  44. Tomorrow’s opinion today, courtesy of an early post on the HS site.

    http://www.heraldsun.com.au/opinion/deaths-haunt-our-big-miners/story-e6frfhqf-1226213572040

    [Worker deaths haunt our big miners
    by: Alan Howe From: Herald Sun December 05, 2011 12:00AM

    IT is a two-speed economy, we are told.

    There are the miners – open-cut hares – making fortunes daily as China and India build their futures using Australian iron ore and coal.

    Then there are the rest of us, mostly a burden apparently, moving tortoise-like towards uncertain futures and, as we discovered at the weekend, negotiating hardship packages with the banks to avoid defaulting on our mortgages.]

    Worth reading through

  46. [I wanted to spare us and everyone else that.

    I really don’t understand the source of your angst.]
    I think everyone is interested
    let;s do it

  47. [zombiemao Zombie Mao
    I have to admit, Kevin Rudds 3 supporters are very feisty.
    9 minutes ago Favorite Retweet Reply
    Retweeted by PollBludger ]

    William is on the money with this retweet

  49. [William @ 1662

    Please explain?

    I was resisting the temptation to keep it going by hitting a few over the fence.]

    No, Bemused, that’s what you’d have been doing if you’d said nothing. What you were doing was succumbing to the temptation to keep it going, without in fact hitting anything over the fence.

  50. lizzie @ 1682

    I always react very negatively to pushy sales reps.
    And religious types who try to push their beliefs on to me.
    “Proselytise” comes into that category

    Yes, there is an element of evangelical zeal in a lot of IT people.

    Would you believe companies like Microsoft even have ‘evangelist’ as a job title?

    A bit much for me to take.

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