Last weekend’s Morgan face-to-face survey echoed other polls conducted at the time in showing little change on earlier polling despite Labor’s leadership turmoil, though as always it failed to echo other polls in having Labor’s primary vote several points higher. In this case Labor’s primary vote was up half a point on the previous week to 37.5 per cent, with the Coalition also up a point to 42.5 per cent and the Greens down 3.5 per cent from an anomalous 14.5 per cent last time. As usual with Morgan (though not Nielsen), there was a substantial difference between the two-party preferred results as derived by respondent allocation (52-48 to the Coalition) and using preference flows from the previous election (50-50).
NOTE: Due to server upgrades which will hopefully put an end to Crikey’s notorious technical gremlins, comments will be closed through the entirety of Sunday morning (i.e. about midnight to about noon).
Rex, I think the senate would benefit if the three of them (Bracks, Beattie & Keneally) were in the senate
I also think the Liberals should encourage people like Jeff to enter the Senate
How would people feel about Bob Carr as PM?
…and why is my avatar a swastika?
Geez can you imagine Kennett and Abbott in the same party room? That’s like some sort of crazy scientific experiment where there’s chance of spontaneous combustion 😆
Not sure if Carr could overcome the stigma of how the ALP in NSW finished, historically the ALP need to win over half of that state vote and seats in order to win federally.
I also think age may be a factor and he is joining a team with several candidates but now that he is there then lets never say never
Dangerous ground, surely, for J Bishop to be pushing the line that Carr was recruited from outside because no one in the current parliamentary Labor party was good enough to be FA, when Tony Abbott has said much the same about his….
Just got home from a casual get together for my local branch. It’s the first time we’ve been able to meet since the leadership challenge. There was total consensus on the result of the leadership with everyone very pleased that Julia Gillard came out on top. Everyone was also happy with the Carr appointment and there was much discussion about the media response to politics over the past two weeks – none of it generous. All pretty standard there.
The other thing that came up that elicited heated discussion was a comment made by Bob Carr this morning in an interview with Geraldine Doogue: that Labor MPs must stop backgrounding journalists, and instead focus on fighting conservatives. There was furious agreement to this with members being absolutely fed up with this pathetic practice. Labor need to stop providing lazy journalists with stories and instead make them work for their supper. Maybe then we’d also start to get a bit more scrutiny on the other side of politics.
Time to get tighter than a frog’s sphincter. 😮
I think Keneally and Beattie would both see themselves as potential leaders down the track and would prefer a seat in the HoR. Carrs placement in the senate is a massive boost.
Zoomster – If Bishop wants to run that line then the government needs to remind the Liberals that during the Howard years there was a legal requirement for business to advertise positions even when they were pretty confidence that they had a suitable candidate.
Everyday the corporate sector recruits people from outside for that is how you introduce new ideas into the business.
If the Liberals do not understand how business is run and how recruitment is conducted then they are not fit to run the biggest business in the country
mexicanbeemer:
I don’t know that NSW voters really blame Bob Carr for what finally became of Labor there. He was seen as the last competent, steady leader. If anything the perception is more that the rot set in after he left.
[Poor old Dean! The likes of Billy Hughes, Jack Lang and B.A. Santamaria and his Communist adversaries make present day pollies look like pussy cats.]
What an understatement!
[Dean then makes the remarkable claim that “none of the previous internal disputes involved such venomous language and vitriolic attacks as the past week or so. The Gillard camp, especially, could only be described as using poisonous ferocity. The Rudd camp was akso far from genteel]
What utter crap! All of the great Labor triumphs and brawls are very well recorded indeed (as are most high-profile events) and accessible through:
(1) state and federal Hansards (by whatever name they are called)
(2) ALP & other political party archives;
(3) Magazines coverage, esp in The Sydney Bulletin (Early brawls in The Lone Hand);
(4) State and local newspapers, some of which still exist (eg The Age; Moreton Bay Courier/ CM). These are readily available: archived in state, university etc libraries, on microfiche and being digitalised;
(5) Many published books and many hundreds, if not thousands, of journal articles;
(6) Official government, military & police etc archives – most now in federal & state libraries/ archives
(7) Other archived materials such as photographs, diaries, letters, un/self-published memoirs, family histories, AV tapes, computer discs and so on: many university, Federal and State government archives – and the amount held increases as families/ individuals hand over materials.
As one who spent more than 3 years of my student life reading the above as an essential background to Australian History (esp post-grad Oz Hist) from 1788 (OK, I studied AusH in the 60s & 70s) to “the present day” (whatever it then was) – as one who lived in an intensely political family, have ditto friends & is nearly 70, I can assure you the above claim is – at least as far as The 50s’ Labor Split is concerned – serious crap.
Maybe he’s not old enough to remember 1951-58 as clearly as I do, or maybe he’s from a state that didn’t split (eg NSW), or, like Abbott, he’s a Latter Day Santamarian.
I have vivid & ugly memories of the 1951 Referendum, the 1955 Fed and 57 Q state splits, because I, my family, neighbours, friends, class-mates went through them at a very personal level of lies, abuse, threats, late night phone calls, denigration of Australian Veterans of Kokoda, Milne Bay etc who exercised their democratic Constitutional right to vote for whom they chose – a right for which they’d only a few years since fought, in savage, dreadful conditions (and for which some of their comrades had died): suffered it at 2 schools, at home, in the streets, with friends & school-mates who still remember how appalling it was.
I gravely doubt Rudd asked any of his supporters, from Cabinet to ordinary Aussies, to spy on & keep records on their family members, friends, workmates, fellow students; then send the reports to ASIO – Santamaria did, as is well recorded, and records and analyses published.
At no time during the mid-June 2010 – late Feb 2012’s Ruddstoration destabilisation did sectarian hysteria & some violence erupt as it did during WW I’s Conscription debates– esp Irish Catholic sectarian hysteria stirred up by Melbourne’s Arch/Bishop Mannix; countered, of course, by equally hysterical anti-clerical & other religions’ sectarians, and morphing, in many cases, into racist hysteria for and against Irish Catholics (esp after the Easter Rebellion) and anti-Catholics.
While I’m far to young to have been around during WW I, my parents, their parents, other family and friends (ditto for OH’s parents) lived through it – and those relatives covered the gamut from rabid Republican Irish Catholics to rabid Masonic calvinists. I copped earfuls growing up; I also studied it intensely for a post-grad paper in a famously nit-picking Uni Dept addicted to red ink and resubmit. To classify Conscription debates which where often violent, highly personal and deeply divisive and at least as nasty as The 50s Split, as NOT involving such venomous language and vitriolic attacks as the past week is, quite simply, in no way even close to the truth!
At no time during Ruddstoration did I notice the from-the-pulpit sectarian and racial bitterness that Mannix – the Mephistoclean devil in both Conscription and “Communist” referenda + The 50s Split – created and inflamed.
If you don’t believe me, look it up for yourselves!
I’ve identified places where you can find source material, government documents, and critiques academic and journalistic, to make up your own minds.
Fiz
Perhaps all those who live in a sitting ALP members seat could remind their member that it’s an ugly look to be seen backgrounding hack journos
What journos would be reminding Julie Bishop if they were truly fair and balanced:
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/tony-abbotts-foreign-affairs-joke-backfires/story-fn59niix-1226124706155
[TONY Abbott has delivered an unwitting slight to his deputy Julie Bishop by lauding Josh Frydenberg as the only Liberal MP who understands foreign affairs.]
[I’ve got to say it’s nice to have someone in the parliamentary party who understands foreign affairs at last,”]
Fiz – I don’t think they blame Carr for what happened for most of it occurred after he departed but due to his long tenure and closeness to that era, the voters may find it difficult to look past it but then again he does have the ability to work though that.
I did find it funny that the person (Julian) that goes on Sky News claims that one test of a successful person is how successful the succession works.
Julian appears to have forgotten that History is littered with strong or great leaders that have been successful only to see them followed by weak leaders that have lost a great deal if not everything that was created.
Alexander the Great & Louis 14th for a start
[Dangerous ground, surely, for J Bishop to be pushing the line that Carr was recruited from outside because no one in the current parliamentary Labor party was good enough to be FA, when Tony Abbott has said much the same about his….]
You always think of the perfect riposte after the event, don’t you, but with 20-20 hindsight, a sex change, a job at the ABC and the name “Emma Alberici”, when Pyne said that Carr’s appointment meant that Gillard had no-one in the caucus she could trust with Foreign Affairs, I,/i> would have quipped, “Wait a minute… aren’t you confusing your leaders? Isn’t that what Tony Abbott said about Julie Bishop?”
I’d have cacked myself laughing as I went down to the pay office to pick up my entitlements.
Italics Alert
What italics alert, BB?
Sorry, false alarm.
[mexicanbeemer:
I don’t know that NSW voters really blame Bob Carr for what finally became of Labor there. He was seen as the last competent, steady leader. If anything the perception is more that the rot set in after he left.]
Pyne said he accomplished nothing during his tenure as Premier, conveniently forgetting a little event called The 2000 Olympics, said by someone who should know to be “the best Olympics EVER”.
Apart from that, nothing much.
Ozpol Tragic,
I will take your word for it, I reckon you know what you are talking about.
BB – Yes and the rot occurred because the Government stopped building the infrastructure needed for a modern city and instead lived off the memory of the games rather than getting on with the job.
This tends to happen to business that have some success then rest on it, this is why business recruit from outside a business for new ideas should not be fared or frowned upon.
Now can the Liberals please come to grips with how to successful engage and run a business
[Alexander the Great & Louis 14th for a start]
Alexander the Great was a do-nothing conquerer. Young, brash and unable to concentrate on more than one thing at a time, of questionable morals and a poor administrator, who took all the glory and advantage from the the Pericles government’s hard work and solid economic management before him.
McLelland was not only a hopeless A-G (Migration Act anyone?), but his final coffin nail was as Emergency Services Minister – not too much you could stuff up there. All you need to do is organise a medal ceremony for firefighters and SES.
So where is it located? within spitting distance of the Tent Embassy on Australia Day(aka Invation Day), and lets invite Tony Abbott…. A bit too much bufoonery to top off the disloyalty.
And BB Alexander was also the reason why men shave. He was so young that he couldn’t grow a decent beard. Roman generals took to imitating him by shaving their faces so that they looked younger.
Just watched the Lateline interview and came away with the following impressions:
1. What a piece of slime Pyne is. (But I already knew that)
2. What a joke it is that the Fibs think they can attack JG on her alleged lack of honesty when their own leader has openly admitted his word cannot be trusted unless it is written down.
3. Emma what’s her name is not a bad interviewer. She doesn’t just allow the crap to go through to the keeper without challenging it. Can’t wait to see her getting stuck into Abbott , if he’s not too shit scared to front someone who’ll actually take him on. We’ll see plenty of that stupid look he gets on his face when he knows he’s cornered.
Mexicanbeemer
Carr’s government spent massively on infrastructure. The problem was that for 7 years most of it was sports infrastructure. I remember a Labor MP who was about to become a minister saying she hoped Fahey’s bid for the Olympics failed because a win would stuff the state for 25 years.
[1891 Bushfire Bill
I find it amazing that people like our patron and moderator here, WB, even bother to argue that News Ltd is not an organization that regularly breaches even the low standards of journalistic ethics today, that they aren’t arrogant, vindictive and quite possibly employing corrupt practices to get what they want.
You’d think, as Eric Campbell argues, that the birthplace of such an organization, and the supplier of many of its top executives, would be the first place you’d look for how it all started.]
See, that’s the thing, Keith Murdoch, it can be argued, did some real good in 1915, Telling the government to get the hell out of the Dardanelles.
Rupert, as a young man did some good with the Max Stuart murder case*.But as the money mounted up the honour diminished and we have come to this.
*his full name was Rupert Maxwell Stuart
I get the feeling that if he was called Bob, he’d have hung.
BTW, Carr is not only PM’s firewall, he will also cut the balls off Bruce Hawker if he dares to start anymore #Ruddstoration #auspol
Half of todays posts seem to be not avalable
Darn:
Yes. I think the irony that on almost every occasion when the Opposition say that Gillard is “lying” or “deceitful” they actually lie themselves by embellishing or distorting, or just plain inventing , is starting to get noticed in more and more quarters. Definitely something Labor should be pointing out over & over again.
Interesting the the bookies odds at Centrebet have moved favourably for ALP over the last week. As of today:
ALP: $3.02 (after being $3.40 on Tuesday)
LNP: $1.37 ($1.30 on Tuesday)
The announcement of Bob Carr helped the market come in from $3.11 to $3.02 yesterday.
Oakeshott Country – I was referring to post games but as you point out the games diverted a great deal of public money towards sport infrastructure just as we are seeing currently in London.
Carr did complete several road projects but did get himself into a bit of bother for promising not to toll them then doing so by placing tolls on them which isn’t necessarily a bad policy
So the Greeks gave the world shaving, if only they had patient it for they could correct a fee every time someone shaved, gee that might just about cover their debt problem
Twitter campaign started to get Emma Alberici to take over from Uhlmann on 7:30 report. Could be entertaining.
Dianne Davis @DavisMktng Reply Retweeted Favorite · Open
RT if you want this to happen: Emma Alberici takes over from Uhlmann on #730Report
[U seem to be stuck in a groove though your repetition is no worse than some others here]
Gee Horsey, your repetitive cut & paste must have worn the scissor out in no time too 😛
How strange now its back , must be my computer
The tolling issue was an interesting one. Tolling the M4 and M5 were certainly played a big part in the defeat of Fahey. Once Carr got in he backtracked on removing the tolls and this certainly made him unpopular in his first year. The eventual compromise was brilliant – effectively only those who lived in marginal electorates were excluded from the toll. Carr placed tolls on all new roads after that.
For mine his most significant failure was not carrying through on the sale of the electricity system when it was still worth something – 40b allegedly. He gave in to Labor sentimentality and the continued featherbedding of electricity workers. The headache he left for his successor was the start of the end for NSW Labor.
All in all, bringing Carr into the Federal Govt was really a game changer in so many ways:
1. PM Gillard stamped her authority
2. Australia gets a top notch FM with deep knowledge & intellect. He’ll make Julie Bishop looks like a squeaking budgie
3. Carr will wipe the smile off Brandis & Erica in the Senate
4. No more #Ruddstoration
5. No more 3rd Candidate
6. No Bruce Hawker’s whiteanting
Brilliant, simply stunning
Can any of the Brizzy PBs let me know how much rain there’s been up there today and if so how much please?. I like to have a bet on the Albion Park harness, but prefer not to if the track’s taken too much water.
What role does Hawker now have with the government? Whatever is I am sure it is short term.
When Alexander became King, he decreed that everyone in the army was now going to shave: officially it was to deny the enemy an easy hand-hold.
But everyone, especially the older officers that had sniggered at & joked about Alexander’s soft patchy effort, was aware of the real reason.
Knew how to stamp his authority, did young Alex (although usually, unlike that occasion, the process resulted in quite a few corpses). Pity about the batshit craziness, though…
Darn
My husband was in Enoggera about 1.30pm AEST and told me it was pouring down rain. Here in the Outer north suburbs dry as yet.
Darn
Had a fair bit here (Brisbane southern suburbs) but by the look of the radar its been a bit patchy so Albion Park may not have got much.
From here http://www.bom.gov.au/qld/flood/seast.shtml I see that Bowen Hills has had 8mm in the last hour. That’s fairly close to Albion Park
Albion Park drains well and we haven’t had enough rain to cause any problems. I would think the track would still be good.
[Alexander the Great was a do-nothing conquerer. Young, brash and unable to concentrate on more than one thing at a time, of questionable morals and a poor administrator, who took all the glory and advantage from the the Pericles government’s hard work and solid economic management before him.]
Can’t agree BB. In his early years, he was a magnificent tactician (probably Aristotle’s influence).
His understanding of how to make a conquered populace loyal, was quite audacious.
However, his alcoholic (& possible drug) binges all but destroy any legacy he might have had.
Bob Carr saying he wants to work with Oppn on foreign policy because decisions must be bi-lateral.
ABC24 almost immediately went to JulieB calling PM “untruthful”.
BB 1922 sounds like Rudd from
2007-2010.
A weather report from South Western Australia, (smiley emoticon)
Margaret River is just gorgeous right now.
Really lovely, I’m glad I’m not where all the population populates.
[The other thing that came up that elicited heated discussion was a comment made by Bob Carr this morning in an interview with Geraldine Doogue: that Labor MPs must stop backgrounding journalists, and instead focus on fighting conservatives. There was furious agreement to this with members being absolutely fed up with this pathetic practice. ]
Fiz – enjoyed your report. Is your Branch going to send a letter to that effect? I think every Branch should.
I heard Bob Carr in a news report on the way home this arvo. He was responding to the Oppn comments about the Govt. not having anyone good enough to serve as FM. Carr said wtte ‘this is good coming from the weakest Opposition in the country’s history’.
This is a pretty interesting article on the situation in the US: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/national-affairs/why-democrats-have-a-problem-with-young-voters-20120228?print=true