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.
kezza2
I’ll be honest. I have no idea what the problem is and not much interest.
have to tell you I;m the gold medallist at arm wrestles!
let the referee begin
William @ 1699
You really should not be inciting me.
mari,
Launch Chrome and you should get “Do you want to make this your default browser?” If you don’t know where Chrome is, type it into “Find” on the start up menu search box, Vista or 7.
joe2 @ 1690
The one we should all be thanking is musrum who wrote cccp.
The rest of us are just beneficiaries who spread the word.
I think Joe6Pack is partly right.
SSM on its own is not that big an issue. The only people that would be interested would be people that are either gay or have friends or know openly gay people.
As I wrote earlier. the ALP needs to sell this issue carefully for the conservative voters that have strong faith in the holy books and if the forecasts are correct leading to big property price falls which would indicate a sharp rise in Unemployment then this is not the time to run a debate on a matter that is not overly important to the majority.
In writing that if the ALP sell this with a positive message then it wont cause that much interest from the wider public who this past weekend would have enjoyed watching the Aussies smash the Blackcaps
lizzie
s’okay
bemused and I have had an altercation over my say
he thinks she is an idiot because he can’t understand what she has to say
I say he’s a reprobate because he refuses to understand what she says.
my say is a labor diehard
bemused is a labor diehard
so, actually nothing to see here
bemused,
You really should not be inciting William: he has powers.
[The only people that would be interested would be people that are either gay or have friends or know openly gay people.]
Well if the Parliament only dealt with issues people were interested in it would do very little!
[This little black duck
Posted Sunday, December 4, 2011 at 10:34 pm | Permalink
bemused,
You really should not be inciting William: he has powers.
]
Beware of the WordPress Dashboard.
It can make or break posters 🙂
bemused,
I’m with other PBers: do not diss my say – read what the lady says and learn. You don’t have to agree.
My Say is a PB treasure.
Itep I think most issues only interest those connected to it. of course we being political animals tend to be more interested in a wider range of issues than many.
kezza2 @ 1708
A false assumption on your part.
I do admit to being puzzled that some of her posts were quite well written and others very hard to work out.
I now know the reason why and she has my full sympathy and admiration for ‘giving it a go’.
So judgemental.
So please explain what you want to argue about? I don’t get it.
Frank,
You know precisely what I mean! More clearly, bemused was trying to counter an argument with no argument.
tlbd @ 1709
William is omnipotent.
Evening PBers,
Does anyone know where Sally Sara is heading to after Kabul?
Puff,
I have used those exact words a few times before.
[The only people that would be interested would be people that are either gay or have friends or know openly gay people.]
I would suggest that it would be well over the majority of the population that would fit into those categories combined.
As someone that occasionally lets slip with a post full of poor grammar sometimes a post looks okay then later on it can be one or two words that makes the whole comment look poorly written.
I have no problem with My Say just as I never had any problems with Ron (Wonder what has become of him)
TLBd
Great minds think alike?
paddy,
With a bit of luck she will be a major face on ABC news. I reckon she might want a bit of leave first.
Ducky @ 1716
Well I was trying to put an end to a silly argument.
Doesn’t seem to have worked too well. 🙁
Boerwar,
I have had many a reaction to your countless posts, including both their tone and content, but have never responded in the manner that you have in your 1686.
For someone who frequently dismisses other posters with the ad hominem response, thank you for your heart-felt opinion about my posts but please understand when I say that I will ignore your ‘advice’.
I hope Ron is okay.
Depends for many Gay people don’t openly promote the fact that they are Gay. I think most people know at least one Gay person and many cases may not even know it.
If I had to guess how many Gay people that I know just though Work that the number would be dozens and that is Financial and Legal types without thinking about the people I know though other means.
[This little black duck
Posted Sunday, December 4, 2011 at 10:31 pm | Permalink
mari,
Launch Chrome and you should get “Do you want to make this your default browser?” If you don’t know where Chrome is, type it into “Find” on the start up menu search box, Vista or 7.]
I did that, it is actually on my google window, asking me to update to Chrome, which as I explained I did or tried to do, following the instructions, I may have another go before the grandsons get up, but they like showing me how smart? they are
William,
Care to say Ron is “OK“?
Horsey @ 1725
You have made me want to read Boerwar’s post @ 1686
TLBD,
Thanks for that. She did a great job here in Qld anchoring Landline. She is originally from Pt Pirie region in South Aus. Her dad played footy in the SANFL
I haven’t heard from Ron since he last posted here, but this isn’t the first time he’s come and then gone.
paddy2@1718
After a year of covering the war in Afghanistan, ABC correspondent Sally Sara is preparing to return to Australia to become the ABC’s regional and rural affairs correspondent.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-12-04/sally-sara-farewells-afghanistan/3711410/?site=newcastle
She grew up in Port Broughton
Horsey @ 1725
Thanks for that I quite agree with Boerwar.
Arguing with Greens kind of reminds me of what it was like arguing with Trots. A futile exercise as they knew ‘the one true faith’ and were quite impervious to logic or reason.
mari,
“Helplessness” works wonders with the kids; makes them feel indispensable. Go for it!
Good night, Bludgers. Keep it nice.
bemused,
I know how you feel. Robinson Crusoe you are not.
In between tweeting, have been talking to a friend in Penns USA on Skype, we certainly live in the lucky country, in everyway including climate and at the moment economic conditions.
Well it is 11 pm, think I will trot off to bed, the storm has passed and the stars are back out
[mari
Posted Sunday, December 4, 2011 at 9:57 pm | Permalink
sallysaraABCSally Sara
Thanks very much for kind messages. Looking forward to final week on deck at ABC Kabul bureau.
One of the best foreign correspondents ABC has]
She was superb and moving in ‘Foreign Correspondents Report’ on Radio National today. Worth catching up on from the ABC RN website.
Ducky @ 1735
So true!
I can’t get away with it with my eldest grand-daughter (12) but she and I have gone out together and I get her to do all the planning and working out what train to catch and all that. Gives her a bit of a buzz when she surprises herself and gets it all right. Need to think of new challenges now.
[Well I was trying to put an end to a silly argument.]
You know, bemused, most people would say you lost the silly argument.
It seems that you are unable to accept that.
It’s not that I want to say I won, nor that I want to say I told you so.
But, that you are unable to say that you didn;t win the argument, tells me a lot about you.
Thanks Grey,
My wifes family in Pt Pirie knew the Sara family and we always look out for Sally.
Speaking of posters who come and go, can anyone tell me what became of Pebbles? The last I heard he was going through a very rough time.
[On 25 November 2011, the ABC announced that Sara would be returning to Australia in 2012 to take up a Senior National Television role covering rural and regional affairs]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sally_Sara
Landline? Good for the RRA but sad for the larger populace.
[This little black duck
Posted Sunday, December 4, 2011 at 10:53 pm | Permalink
mari,
“Helplessness” works wonders with the kids; makes them feel indispensable. Go for it!]
You are right, but they still think (or at least say it to my face) how smart they think I am, know which side their bread is buttered on? Talking to one earlier tonight on Skype and he was asking my opinion on something which was very nice for my ego too
Maybe we should do a roll call of those we have not heard much of lately.
Darn,
Pebbles = Carey, unless I am mistaken.
kezza2 @ 1741
Not having a winner or loser is a good outcome and would have been best left there.
I did show how you were wrong on important points since you did insist.
[Darn
Posted Sunday, December 4, 2011 at 10:58 pm | Permalink
Speaking of posters who come and go, can anyone tell me what became of Pebbles? The last I heard he was going through a very rough time.
]
Pebbles is Carey Moore, who still posts here.
[bemused
Posted Sunday, December 4, 2011 at 10:57 pm | Permalink
Ducky @ 1735
mari,
“Helplessness” works wonders with the kids; makes them feel indispensable. Go for it!
So true!
I can’t get away with it with my eldest grand-daughter (12) but she and I have gone out together and I get her to do all the planning and working out what train to catch and all that. Gives her a bit of a buzz when she surprises herself and gets it all right. Need to think of new challenges now.]
Who says us grandparents arn’t smart??