Roy Morgan’s effort to pull the rug from under Newspoll on Tuesday, as noted in the update to the previous post, has deprived me of my usual Friday poll thread. It us thus left to Seat of the Week to fly the flag on its lonesome. The latest instalment looks at the NSW Central Coast seat of Robertson, held for Labor by what on present indications looks to be an undefendable margin of 1.0%.
One of the happier aspects of the 2010 election for Labor was an apparent tactical win in New South Wales, where a statewide swing of 4.8% yielded the Coalition a notional gain of only four seats – half of what would have been achieved on a uniform swing. Remarkably, the four marginals Labor retained against the trend – all of which were outside Sydney – were the only four in the state which swung in Labor’s favour: Eden-Monaro (2.0% swing), Page (1.8%), Dobell (1.1%) and, most fortuitiously, Robertson, where a winning margin of just 0.1% from 2007 became 1.0% in 2010. This was despite the unceremonious departure of Labor’s accident-prone sitting member, Belinda Neal.
Robertson covers the coast about 60 kilometres north of Sydney, with the Hawkesbury River marking its southern boundary with Berowra. All but a small share of its voters live at its coastal end, which includes Labor-leaning Woy Woy, Liberal-leaning Terrigal and marginal Gosford. The remainder of the electorate covers Popran National Park, McPherson State Forest and the Mangrove Creek dam. Although technically a federation seat, it was a different beast when it was created, covering the inland rural areas of Mudgee, Singleton and Scone.
As Robertson was drawn over time into the increasingly urbanised coast, the conservatives’ hold weakened to the point where Barry Cohen was able to gain it for Labor in 1969, and to withstand the party’s disasters of 1975 and 1977. The seat drifted back slightly in the Liberals’ favour thereafter, and was held by them throughout the Howard years by Jim Lloyd, who unseated Labor’s Frank Walker with a 9.2% swing in 1996.
Robertson returned to the Labor fold in 2007 when a 7.0% swing delivered a 184-vote winning margin to their candidate Belinda Neal, wife of Right faction powerbroker and then senior state minister John Della Bosca. Neal had earlier served in the Senate from 1994 until 1998, when she quit to make a first unsuccessful run in Robertson. Once elected Neal soon made a name for herself with a peculiar parliamentary attack on a pregnant Sophie Mirabella, and an episode in which she allegedly abused staff at Gosford restaurant-nightclub Iguana Joe’s. In 2009 her husband, who had been present during the Iguana Joe’s fracas, resigned as state Health Minister after it was revealed he was having an affair with a 26-year-old woman.
Suggestions that Neal’s preselection might be in danger emerged soon after the Iguana Joe’s incident. A challenger emerged in the shape of Deborah O’Neill, an education teacher at the University of Newcastle and narrowly unsuccessful state candidate for Gosford in 2003. O’Neill won the favour of local branches and, so Peter van Onselen of The Australian reported, “NSW Labor Right powerbrokers”. The national executive allowed the decision to be determined by a normal rank-and-file ballot, in which O’Neill defeated Neal 98 votes to 67. O’Neill went on to prevail at the election against Liberal candidate Darren Jameson, a local police sergeant.
The preselected Liberal candidate for the next election is Lucy Wicks, who has contentiously been imposed on the local branches by the fiat of the party’s state executive. Barclay Crawford of the Daily Telegraph reports this occurred at the insistence of Tony Abbott, who lacked confidence in the local party organisation owing to its poor performance at the 2010 election and the recent preselection of a problematic candidate in Dobell.
The solution was to impose candidates on both electorates; to choose women for reasons of broader electoral strategy; and to share the spoils between the warring Alex Hawke “centre Right” and David Clarke “hard Right” factions (local potentate Chris Hartcher being aligned with the latter). Robertson went to soft Right in the person of Lucy Wicks, who according to the Telegraph was a particularly galling choice for members due to her tenuous local credentials and membership of the very state executive which imposed her as candidate.
mod fib
that alien really treated you bad
LSL
[You are fortunate that many people can’t read exactly what you say and that the rest of us (including the moderator) just ignore you as not worth bothering about]
Seems you do not have an iPad,which is a bummer at correctional spelling,not as easy as a PC.
LSL
are you one of the 400 about to be “boned” by Kim Williams? Pink slips being printed as we speak.
Those Thames boats have been tiddied up to within an inch of their gunnels.
The Irish Presidency shows it can be done. They elect them, but the role is constrained & ceremonial enough that the fact parties run candidates doesn’t matter in terms of conflicting with the govt of the day. The fact that a westminster style system can do this quite comfortably is a good demonstration of why most of the arguments against going to a republic, even with an elected President, don’t hold up.
I’ve thought for ages we should just rip off bits of the Irish Constitution, and then sell it as a proven model.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/President_of_Ireland
Poll 2 Party Preferred: ALP 43 (+1) L/NP 57 (-1) #auspol
sprock, schnappi
LSL is just jealous of my say
LSL wishes he had a heart
🙁
GhostWhoVotes @GhostWhoVotes
#Nielsen Poll Primary Votes: ALP 26 (-2) L/NP 48 (-1) #auspol
The British Navy has a surfeit of admirals – around one for each major surface ship.
GhostWhoVotes @GhostWhoVotes
#Nielsen Poll Preferred PM: Gillard 44 (+2) Abbott 46 (-4) #auspol
Hi gusface. You remind me of a bit by the late comedian Bill Hicks. Were you a fan? When I was a teenager I thought he was a god.
sprocket_ I am not a journalist, but if I was I can assure you that I would be indispensable to any organisation I worked for.
lol
GhostWhoVotes @GhostWhoVotes
#Nielsen Poll Preferred PM (Rudd/Abbott): Rudd 59 Abbott 37 #auspol
[GhostWhoVotes @GhostWhoVotes
#Nielsen Poll Preferred PM: Gillard 44 (+2) Abbott 46 (-4) #auspol]
[lol
GhostWhoVotes @GhostWhoVotes
#Nielsen Poll Preferred PM (Rudd/Abbott): Rudd 59 Abbott 37 #auspol]
HAHHAHAHAHAHH FUNNIEST SHIT EVER!
[Preferred PM (Rudd/Abbott): Rudd 59 Abbott 37 ]
WOW!
Now that is a shocking poll for caucus if ever I saw one.
[Hi gusface. You remind me of a bit by the late comedian Bill Hicks. Were you a fan? When I was a teenager I thought he was a god.]
I vote that Leisure Suit Larry be banned for this stupid and ridiculous comparison.
listen LSL
lay off my say
she is perhaps the most honest poster on PB
disagree with her, but dont disparage her
6 point turnaround on preferred PM
Libs must be really getting worried with Abbott’s standing
[GhostWhoVotes @GhostWhoVotes
#Nielsen Poll Preferred PM: Gillard 44 (+2) Abbott 46 (-4) #auspol
]
[WOW!
Now that is a shocking poll for caucus if ever I saw one.]
There were similar polls before the Feb leadership ballot but that didn’t stop the caucus from ignoring them.
Good decision in Feb guys!
If you hadnt done that we Libs might have actually been in some serious strife.
Judging by the conversation at the event I was at today, and the polling, this is going to be a very sweet time for us over the next few years.
Hehe 😉
[HAHHAHAHAHAHH FUNNIEST SHIT EVER!]
your dealer came through?
Odd that the ALP Primary down when it was up for Newspoll & Essential. Seem to be in a state of flux at the moment. As I said last year though, can’t be much improvement in the ALP rating until late this year.
[Libs must be really getting worried with Abbott’s standing]
Im shit scared of Keven coming back.
[There were similar polls before the Feb leadership ballot but that didn’t stop the caucus from ignoring them.]
Every day when I wake up, I thank the ALP caucus for its attitude of being smarter than everyone else in the room!
Gillard exudes a patronising arrogant attitude every time she opens her mouth, and the public still despise her and the ALP is now snookered into a corner after its behaviour in Feb.
The gift that keeps on giving eh!
I should make clear that I was referring to a specific routine (NSFW) by Bill Hicks .I was in no way comparing gusface’s comedic abilities to those of the late great Bill Hicks! Good grief no.
Polls seem different enough at the moment seems worth revisiting this article.
http://blogs.crikey.com.au/pollytics/2011/11/08/how-australian-pollsters-lean/
[How Australian Pollsters lean
November 8, 2011 – 2:04 pm, by Possum Comitatus
One of the questions that often gets asked is whether a given pollster generally delivers a higher vote estimate for a party than other pollsters – basically, whether a polling firm such as, say, Newspoll (to choose a random polling organisation), leans towards one party or the other.]
r
If Labor primary and Coalition primary headed south, did the Greens pick up the difference or did Others get them?
So let me get this straight:
The voter prefers Rudd to Abbott getting up towards 2 to 1,
BUT
They prefer Abbott to Gillard even after his childish running around this week.
LOL 😉
Do the ALP bloggers here still think they are on a winner with Gillard?
Well compared to saint Keven, Julia and Abbott are like two turds in a pot.
it had been polled to death before the Feb vote.
what do you do if Gillard keeps on improving and the ALP has two options that are more preferred than your top guy?
[Gillard exudes a patronising arrogant attitude every time she opens her mouth, and the public still despise her and the ALP is now snookered into a corner after its behaviour in Feb]
Well, not really mate. Labor still has between now and and a week or so before the election is called to correct its mistake.
If this, hopefully, occurs, then that would leave the Coalition stuck with Abbott as its leader who wouldn’t be able to win an election against Rudd.
[Gillard exudes a patronising arrogant attitude every time she opens her mouth]
For a particular set of males, I suspect that that’s how they would see Prime Minister Gillard any time anywhere.
Their problem, and not one that the Prime Minister can fix.
LSL
thank god for that
hicks was an amateur
26 Primary Vote! 🙁
Please don’t say media conspiracy. It’s way too far gone and I suggest you look at the Rudd/Abbott preferred PM rating
Boerwar – it would mean they’ve gone to “others”, which I suspect is some peoples way of not actually making a decision on the spot on the phone. Indies & small parties votes not likely to be that high in reality.
It doesn’t matter who leads the ALP, they will still trounce Abbott, which is a very nice position for the Government.
[what do you do if Gillard keeps on improving and the ALP has two options that are more preferred than your top guy?]
If it looks like that we dump him and get an even bigger win.
Win win…..thats why I think this is so great.
We are setting the circumstances for absolute yonks in power, and the ALP are so stubborn they think they no better, they want to plough on ahead with the same loser!
It is just too good to be true sometimes. 😉
exactly shows on. it just means the ALP have a joker up their sleeve at all times. could pull a Hawkie.
[For a particular set of males, I suspect that that’s how they would see Prime Minister Gillard any time anywhere.
Their problem, and not one that the Prime Minister can fix.]
Interesting that you assume it is men who think this. At the event I was at it was the females who were the most unforgiving of Gillard actually.
But I guess that is sexism as well and nothing to do with Gillard having the worst political instincts of any leader in living memory…
sprock
bit too sonn too reach for the smelling salts
btw
do you really think the 26 is
a accurate
b immutable
Mod,
I don’t know why you’re getting all worked up. It’s actually a pretty good result for the Coalition.
Chinese economy…and falling growth rates
___________
A US site recently said that any fall in growth rates below 7% would signal trouble at home for the Chinese Govt…a rise in unemployment would have serious domestic results
So there will be stimulus spending in a big way by the Govt to avert internal troubles
Already they have made $300 billion Dollars worth of stimilus available..much on housing and infrastructure
Lacking any social welfare system…work is the only way people can survive
The Chinese Govt is mindful of the protest movement 20 years ago and the Tien Nn Minh protests..and the events that followed
Such events would be very bad for Oz too…
[Im shit scared of Keven coming back.]
Thankfully Labor caucus is more so bahaaaaaaaaa. Never happen thank god.
[Puff, the Magic Dragon.
Posted Sunday, June 3, 2012 at 11:14 pm | Permalink
It doesn’t matter who leads the ALP, they will still trounce Abbott, which is a very nice position for the Government.]
This is what I mean!
Like the knight with all his arms and legs cut off pretending to be in a strong position.
STEAM ON AHEAD, DONT CHANGE ANYTHING PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE!
Bring it on, baby, bring it on…
[If you hadnt done that we Libs might have actually been in some serious strife.
Judging by the conversation at the event I was at today, and the polling, this is going to be a very sweet time for us over the next few years.]
By now the chances are Rudd’s name would have been shit. The MSM and the opposition would see to that.
ML:
[If it looks like that we dump him and get an even bigger win.
Win win…..thats why I think this is so great.
We are setting the circumstances for absolute yonks in power, and the ALP are so stubborn they think they no better, they want to plough on ahead with the same loser!]
If that’s what you really believe, then I hope for your own and your family’s sake that you are in the absolute top echelon, because if you’re not you will be as screwed as everyone else not in that top 1% will be under an Abbott-lead (delib spelling) coalition government.
MM
[what do you do if Gillard keeps on improving and the ALP has two options that are more preferred than your top guy?]
Could put him in the unused Chaff Bag.
cheering favourable polls is all you have when your team is in opposition… enjoy yourselves.
Interesting that both the two latest NewsPolls are out of step with all the other polling. Forget the preferred PM polling the really telling result from Nielsen is the Labor primary vote. It is honestly hard to believe.
A change to Rudd could work igf Gillard walked away just before the election. Other than that it would fail IMHO.
[Jake
Posted Sunday, June 3, 2012 at 11:16 pm | Permalink
Mod,
I don’t know why you’re getting all worked up. It’s actually a pretty good result for the Coalition.]
Its a great result actually.
No matter what Abbott does, no matter how stupid he is, no matter what…the Australian electorate just does not like Gillard.
I feel more confident than ever that even a ninkompoop like Abbott cannot stuff this up. What more stupid, un prime ministerial thing can the schmuck do? He not only beats Gillard by about 100 seats to 50 (or worse actually), he even beats her on preferred PM.
Whatever hope you guys had of a “peak Abbott” must be shot now surely?