Corangamite has covered a shifting area around Colac 150 kilometres west of Melbourne since its creation at federation, its complexion changing somewhat with the absorption of the Geelong suburbs of South Barwon and Belmont in 1955. It was one of Labor’s two gains in Victoria when Kevin Rudd came to power in 2007, giving Labor its first win in the seat since the Great Depression. In its current form the electorate includes the Geelong suburbs south-west of the Barwon River and the Great Ocean Road as far as Apollo Bay, together with rural areas to the west and north. The Geelong suburbs, which include Liberal-leaning Highton and marginal Belmont and Grovedale, contain a little over a third of the electorate’s voters, and are distinguished (along with Torquay) by a younger demographic profile and a preponderance of mortgage payers. Growth in Geelong, Torquay and the Bellarine Peninsula left the seat over quota at the redistribution to take effect at the next election, resulting in the transfer of most of the Bellarine Peninsula (accounting for about 5700 voters) to Corio. This has had a negligible impact on the Labor margin, which on Antony Green’s calculation goes from 0.4% to 0.3%.
Labor’s only wins in Corangamite prior to 2007 were in 1910, when future Prime Minister Jim Scullin became member for a term (he would return as member for the inner Melbourne seat of Yarra in 1922), and at the 1929 election when Scullin’s short-lived government came to power. The Country Party held the seat for one term from 1931, after which it was held by the United Australia Party and then the Liberal Party. The enlargement of parliament in 1984 cost the electorate its most conservative rural territory in the west, but it took another 23 years before Labor was able to realise its hopes of gaining the seat. It was assisted to this end by the “sea change” phenomenon, the ABC TV series of that name having been set in the electorate at Barwon Heads. This has drained about 10% from the Liberal primary vote in the Great Ocean Road towns since the early 1990s, with the Greens vote there burgeoning to 17% at the 2010 election.
Corangamite was held from 1984 to 2007 by Stewart McArthur, who to the dismay of some in the Liberal Party sought another term in 2007 at the age of 70. His Labor challenger was 31-year-old Darren Cheeseman, an official with the Left faction Community and Public Sector Union who won a hotly contested preselection over Peter McMullin, the Right-backed mayor of Geelong and candidate from 2004. Cheeseman went on to overwhelm McArthur’s 5.3% margin with a 6.2% swing that was evenly distributed throughout the electorate. Faced at the 2010 election by a fresh Liberal candidate in Sarah Henderson, a former state host of The 7.30 Report and daughter of former state MP Ann Henderson, Cheeseman was brought within 771 votes of defeat by a 0.4% swing that went slightly against the trend of a 1.0% statewide swing to Labor. Cheeseman went on to receive substantial publicity in February 2012 when he declared Labor would be “decimated” if Julia Gillard led it to the election, which set the ball rolling on Kevin Rudd’s unsuccessful leadership challenge a week later.
Sarah Henderson will again represent the Liberals at the next election after winning a fiercely contested struggle for Liberal preselection against Rod Nockles, an internet security expert and former Peter Costello staffer who also sought preselection in 2010. Henderson’s backers reportedly included Tony Abbott and Michael Kroger, with Nockles having support from Peter Costello, Andrew Robb, Senators Arthur Sinodinos and Scott Ryan and Higgins MP Kelly O’Dwyer. In the event, Henderson won a surprisingly easy victory with an absolute majority on the first round.
My Say,
I have been phone polled at home before and I have not to my knowledge ever registered to be polled.
I was phone polled by earlier this evening …
Asked about “the carbon tax”.
Responded: Is this push polling? There is no carbon tax.
Well that’s the question I have.
My answer is that I’d be supportive, if there were one, but as there isn’t, I’m not sure how to answer.
Hmmm
Some polling company I’d never heard of.
i think the ALP are making a tactical blunder in letting people think that the Libs won’t repeal the Carbon Price or rip up the NBN.
These are their best differentiators. They need to keep on painting the Libs as wreckers. They need to be confident that the sting from them will be gone in 16 months.
Fran. Reachtell or something like?
middle man @ 2203
While I have zero understanding of media manipulation/communication, I have absolute confidence in the fact that the ALP has lost the ability to communicate anything.
I doubt that they could sell a cold beer in a heat wave.
It is nice to remind oneself occasionally that, if Abbott had been more supportive of the NBN and less antagonistic to the idea of carbon pricing, it’s likely he’d have been PM by now….
Windsor and Oakeshott made it very clear that both were high on their agenda, so if Abbott had been more flexible on either, he might have got over the line.
yes swamprat i’ve heard this declared before.
[Fran Barlow
Posted Sunday, July 1, 2012 at 10:07 pm | Permalink
I was phone polled by earlier this evening …
Asked about “the carbon tax”.
…
Some polling company I’d never heard of.]
So there is going to be 100% opposition to the carbon tax, because those that support it want to argue semantics.
Swamprat,
[I have absolute confidence in the fact that the ALP has lost the ability to communicate anything.]
If everything that you say is “reinterpreted”, so that if you say that old is young it will come back as young is old, how is that losing “the ability to communicate anything”?
It looks to me more like a deliberate campaign of disinformation.
Yes, the Fed ALP has done some shockers – but imo they are being punished way beyond their deserts.
Now, I wonder why …
fredn,
Toujours pur, mon ami, toujours pur…
zoomster
[Which makes your slur about the Chin – and indeed, I can think of few things more contemptible than suggesting that because these people are Chrisitan, that somehow makes us racist to take them – a little ironic.]
How unusual, verballing me and putting words in my mouth 😉
I am suggesting that the local community would have no trouble accepting them as they are white and Christian, that is “they are like us” and unlike the demonised ‘other’ who are muslim and/or black.
Popping in and popping out to do cryptic crosswords.
Enjoy your night 🙂
[i think the ALP are making a tactical blunder in letting people think that the Libs won’t repeal the Carbon Price or rip up the NBN.
These are their best differentiators. They need to keep on painting the Libs as wreckers. They need to be confident that the sting from them will be gone in 16 months.]
I think at this stage they’re goading him into making even more outrageous claims about what he’s going to do.
We’ve already seen him threaten the bureaucracy with a phoney “Caretaker Mode” threat, swear that on day #1 he will instruct the wheels to start into motion, and vow endless early elections and Double Dissolutions.
I am waiting with bated breath to see what else he can come up with if Julia eggs him on a little more.
I’m not sure whether he’s starting to look and sound like his looney astroturf supporters, or they are starting to look and sound like him.
What I do know is that there are already some prominent journos starting to goad him.
If this takes on, it could get dangerous.
peg
You were doing your usual thing of making implications – which you’ve now made plain – that posters here saying how delightful the Chin are were being racist.
I was not aware that the Chin were white. If anything, my impression was that they were ‘less white’ than your average Afghani/Iraqi.
Of course, you conveniently avoid the fact that your party is favouring the ‘whiter’ Aghanis and Iraqis over the very very dark Somalians and Sudanese.
By your logic, as applied to other posters here (whose remarks were fairly innocent) that demonstrates the Greens are racist.
(Of course, you would only imply something like that, with a cutesy open ended question. I’m not so twee).
Pegasus,
[I am suggesting that the local community would have no trouble accepting them as they are white and Christian…]
I’m not quite sure about your attribution of “white”.
And PLEASE don’t call me out as racist on this point. Far, believe you me, from it.
BB. I hope you are right. I think that is also a good strategy for the ALP. Abbott will be encouraged by Newman’s 100 day rampage. If, as Possum says, it’s the uncertainty that is freaking out the electorate, then he’ll be showing up with bucket loads of it.
fiona
just did a bit of googling. The Chin are an Asiatic people.
BB,
[… and vow endless early elections and Double Dissolutions]
Were this to eventuate, I think that we would be seeing double (if not treble) Disillusions.
And we would deserve them, in spades.
[swamprat
Posted Sunday, July 1, 2012 at 10:12 pm | Permalin
While I have zero understanding of media manipulation/communication, I have absolute confidence in the fact that the ALP has lost the ability to communicate anything.
I doubt that they could sell a cold beer in a heat wave.]
They should be out selling the NBN, it’s very popular , Conroy stuffed it up with his “spams and scams coming through the portal” comment and the internet filter, he is thought of as an idiot within the tech community, if they can get someone like Kate Lundy who is treated with a bit more respect she could get on TV shows like Sunrise to talk about it.
Zoomster,
[just did a bit of googling. The Chin are an Asiatic people.]
Which was the point that I was trying to convey ever so delicately to Pegasus 😉
GhostWhoVotes @GhostWhoVotes
#Nielsen Poll 2 Party Preferred: ALP 42 (-1) L/NP 58 (+1) #auspol
GhostWhoVotes @GhostWhoVotes
#Nielsen Poll 2 Party Preferred: ALP 42 (-1) L/NP 58 (+1) #auspol
GhostWhoVotes @GhostWhoVotes
#Nielsen Poll Preferred PM: Gillard 42 (-2) Abbott 46 (0) #auspol
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BB 2213 Which ‘prominent journos’ do you have in mind?
Centre:
Was it you that had a punt on the next poll?
Missed it by that much 🙂
zoomster @ 2217
No shit Sherlock. Burma has been an Asian country as long as I can remember. The Chin area tribal group.
[
GhostWhoVotes @GhostWhoVotes
#Nielsen Poll #CarbonTax: Support 33 Oppose 62 #auspol
fiona @ 2220
Delicacy don’t work with Greens. We established that a couple of days ago.
Gnashing of teeth in ALP ranks all over the country….you chose her, not us!
[i think the ALP are making a tactical blunder in letting people think that the Libs won’t repeal the Carbon Price or rip up the NBN.
These are their best differentiators. They need to keep on painting the Libs as wreckers.]
Agree. It makes it easier for swinging voters to vote Lib if there is less downside in doing so. The Libs seem to have recognised that NBN is a winner for Labor and conceded that they will continu.e it (but probably in a watered down version)
[GhostWhoVotes @GhostWhoVotes
#Nielsen Poll 2 Party Preferred: ALP 42 (-1) L/NP 58 (+1) #auspol]
As I already said. The boat people issue no matter if Labor win the arguments and are on the right, always strengthens the Liberals.
The Carbon Tax lie will now be front and centre for a little time now. Again no matter the real detail, it will hurt Gillard Labor since she is possibly the worst PM communicator in living memory. Leaders are meant to take the public with them, not repel them.
Mod Lib @ 2229
So people oppose something that exists only in the mind of Abbott and his flunkeys?
Cool!
GhostWhoVotes @GhostWhoVotes
#Nielsen Poll Impact of #CarbonTax after compo: Better off 5 Worse off 51 #auspol
bemused @ 2230,
I try to keep myself nice.
😉
[So people oppose something that exists only in the mind of Abbott and his flunkeys?
Cool!]
Yes, probably the best way to interpret these results
(well, at least in PB fantasyland it is)
Finished one cryptic….what’s happening..
Fiona,
I am aware that the Chin r Asiatic.
———————————————-
zoomster,
I understand, given what u have said on another occasion, that ur workshopping a Labor meme that the “Greens are racist” schtick, a schtick u no doubt are trying out in the real world.
Another anti-Greens meme that “we are advocating open slather / open borders which seems to contradict that as it suggests that the Greens welcome all peoples of all colours, creeds and religions to our shore.
[We’ve already seen him threaten the bureaucracy with a phoney “Caretaker Mode” threat, swear that on day #1 he will instruct the wheels to start into motion, and vow endless early elections and Double Dissolutions.]
I think you mean “honeymoon period – caretaker mode is between annoouncement of electino and appointment of next government.
[GhostWhoVotes @GhostWhoVotes
#Nielsen Poll Impact of #CarbonTax after compo: Better off 5 Worse off 51 #auspol]
Not a surprise at this point. The bigger question is if that will change once people actually live with it for a while rather than just hearing EVERYTHING WILL GO UP AND UP AND UP hysteria.
“Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel”.
And Sophie makes the most patriotic speeches I know of.
Mod Lib @ 2237
I agree that PB is a fantasy land on some questions, but that is not one of them.
New thread.
bemused:
So how do you interpret the 5% better off after compo result?
I was shocked by that myself….don’t remember the GST polling being that bad, perhaps recall bias, but 5% is just shocking.
So much for “I will wear out my shoes explaining it”.
Perhaps you should ask the PM to stay at home, that might help….
Pegasus @ 2238
Greens seem to have no trouble holding 2 completely opposed ideas simultaneously. So what’s your problem?
[They should be out selling the NBN, it’s very popular , Conroy stuffed it up with his “spams and scams coming through the portal” comment and the internet filter, he is thought of as an idiot within the tech community, if they can get someone like Kate Lundy who is treated with a bit more respect she could get on TV shows like Sunrise to talk about it.]
Rubbish. The It community know the difference between NBN and the hodge podge system that Turnbull is promoting as an “affordable” alternative. Conroy’s filtering may have initially put him offside with the IT crowd but all is forgiven with NBN cable to the premises.
Well you might call this a temporary blip because of all the recent noise over the boat people issue. And you might expect it subside again to 55/56-….except now we will have wall to wall scare campaign on the Carbon Tax and the CT lie….which is going to go some way to reinforcing this deterioration.
They cannot afford at this late stage to be going backwards, and have the prospect of being gut kicked for a few more weeks. Time is running out.
Re The Fog of War doco
_________
It illustrates the sheer evil of the US military machine and it’s killing power in Vietnam
No better today…worse…..with their drones..and making war on Syria now…as the US arms the anti-secular groups who have slogans like..”send the Christians to Beirut..and the Shiites to the Tomb “…as well as the slaughter in Iraq and Afghanistan in which the USA is involved
Really bad poll 42-58
an electoral wipeout wuth an 8% swing
__________
I thought it would be as bad as this for the Govt
The various polls show that people believe they will be worse off than before…so the Govt is down badly
People believe what they want to believe not what is an objective fact….
and the Govt lacks skills in communication
The Labor party’s habit of telling voters how much better off they are is a big problem, it just breeds resentment as people think others are doing better than them.
For example. Some people are being overcompensated for the carbon tax, most are getting some compensation and about 20% get nothing so when the govt says “You will be getting extra xxx payments for the carbon tax in TV ads” People saying that they only got $150 and prices have gone up more than that.
or
“The NBN will be stonger, faster, better at a cost of $40B” 80% of people to look at the maps and say, “All that money and I’m not getting it any time soon”