The latest Essential Research survey has the Coalition gaining a point on two-party preferred, their lead now at 57-43, with both major parties steady on the primary vote (49% for the Coalition and 31% for Labor) and the Greens down one to 10%. The poll also includes Essential’s monthly leader approval ratings, which have Tony Abbott gaining three points on approval to 35% and down one on disapproval to 53%, with Julia Gillard steady on approval at 32% and up two on disapproval to 58%. Abbott has also nudged ahead on preferred prime minister, gaining from 37-37 to 38-37.
Further questions find broad hostility to the Greens, whose “performance in federal parliament” is rated as good by 17% and poor by 47%, with 53% rating their policies “too extreme” and 26% “representing the views of many voters”. There are two questions on Julian Assange which seem to suggest sympathy for him has declined since March: 28% now believe the support he has received from the government has been appropriate, compared with 22% in March, while those who think otherwise (though this could potentially include those who think it has provided too much support) is down from 36% to 33%.
Preselection stuff:
• The WA Liberals have confirmed the preselection of Christian Porter in Pearce, ahead of 24-year-old trademark lawyer Alex Butterworth and local party members Rod Henderson and Bill Crabtree. Gary Adshead of The West Australian reports the winning margin was 39 to 15, which I take to refer to Porter’s and Butterworth’s totals in the first and final round. UPDATE: The Australian reports Porter and Butterworth were the only two candidates, another two who had been mentioned having withdrawn.
• The Sunshine Coast Daily reports a field of nine candidates has nominated for the LNP preselection for Fisher on July 29: “Stephen Ainscough, Mr Brough, Richard Bruinsma, James McGrath, Graeme Mickelberg, Alan Nielsen, Daniel Purdie, Peta Simpson and Andrew Wallace”.
• The Nationals have preselected Matthew Fraser, owner of two Hungry Jacks stores in the Tweed Heads are, as their candidate for the north coast NSW seat of Richmond. Fraser won a preselection vote over Alan Hunter, a Myocum beef farmer and the candidate in 2010, Scott Cooper, a university lecturer, and John McMahon, a Tweed Heads newsagency owner.
• The Cessnock Advertiser reports the Nationals have preselected Michael Johnsen, Scone businessman and former mayor of Upper Hunter, to run against Joel Fitzgibbon in Hunter (margin 12.5%). Johnsen also ran in the seat in 1996 and 2010.
• Bevan Shields of the Illawarra Mercury reports five union leaders have publicly endorsed Stephen Jones, Labor’s member for Throsby, as Right forces led by state Wollongong MP Noreen Hay marshall forces for a preselection challenge. The unions concerned include the Right faction Australian Workers Union, together with the Left faction Australian Manufacturing Workers Union, Australian Services Union, Maritime Union of Australia and United Services Union.
Seasprite
He’s far from finished. He’s just beginning. Every time the ALP and the unions try to kill his career, it just makes the public trust him more and makes Gillard look worse and worse
[He’s far from finished. He’s just beginning. Every time the ALP and the unions try to kill his career, it just makes the public trust him more and makes Gillard look worse and worse]
Well, it helps that he has MSM/Coalition mythmaking firmly on his side at the moment. I doubt they’d stay there if the ALP did decide to give him power again.
[Rudd is finished, he wont be back as leader, you have to deal with it, go have a cry.]
Everyone save this link so we can laugh at Seasprite sometime in the future:
http://blogs.crikey.com.au/pollbludger/2012/07/16/essential-research-57-43-to-coalition/comment-page-109/#comment-1348942
I think the unions are pushing Labor to find a third candidate if Gillard is going to depart.
Eminently sensible.
[Beautiful day in Melbourne today and I hope that augurs well for a Labor victory in the Melbourne By-election.]
Labor supporters who desire a change in the Federal leadership team should be hoping for a Green win today, in order to make such a change more likely.
Just sayin’!
The liberals were scared to run a candidate,it shows how scared they are
And it shows how unpopular abbott is
spurr the liberal is back.
you people make us laugh as if we think you are labor
and .. is it the vibe i think centres got your measure.
One of the medias last stands against NBN
vexnews@vexnews
Optus-NBN tick-off is ‘a dark day’ for ACCC: Turnbull http://bit.ly/LBxD68
@my say 5450
That’s terrible, I hadn’t heard about the bus bombing. All sorts of horrible things can happen between Israel and Syria now. However, I think Obama’s got a fairly secure grip on Netanyahu’s leash and seems to be able to prevent him from starting wars.
As for Iran, I’m sincerely hoping that they know that peace is the best option for everyone, including themselves. I’m sure foreign investors in that country (particularly from China) would advise against picking fights with Israel and the USA.
Of course they can never really help themselves with a bit of saber-rattling, especially when they’re angry about all the embargoes they have on them.
mequire what to do with these wreckers here.
i just wrote to my member again, telling her i want vote for rudd.
she will know what i mean, she is very loyal to Julia but ask her to tell any one who is not , to get behind the pm
but i think this is the same old lot doing it again.
if the media push it means its not good for them, so keeping julia is good for us.
my dad always said if the the papers are talking up the wealthy you can be sure its not good for us.
i seem to remeber that was alway said about budget time.
still stands as far as i can see it only stupid people that put some one on a pederstool that are so blind and full of their own importance
5290 BB
[The one glaring reason for keeping Gillard (apart from all the other glaring reasons, that is) is this: anyone who can stand up to the total shitstorm that has been thrown at her, get things done as she has (as opposed to “making nice” but doing little, like her predecessor), and who can bring together a fractious collection of independents, whacked out Greens and disaffected Liberals into the makings of a record-breakingly functional parliament, is the person I’d want to have next to me in the trenches when the howitzers are firing in my direction.
The reasons, the reasonings, the viciousness – and the total failure of her enemies to get her to budge from the top job – are proof in themselves that she is up to the job.
All the rest is Reality TV: action without consequences. A lazy flick of the index finger on the red button and she could be gone, simply because we are told, and many believe, that “we” just don’t like her.
You could count on your fingers and toes the number of people who are running this “Get Gillard” campaign. You all know most of the names. Yet you endlessly discuss their self-interested and self-referential claptrap as if it was real. It’s not. ]
Brilliant inspirational post! That says it better than anything. I was going to say that’s the type of thing I look forward to seeing from Ian from time to time.
But then he chimes in with a pithy one, “If Gillard goes, evil wins. It’s that easy.”
Both are gold!
[As for Iran, I’m sincerely hoping that they know that peace is the best option for everyone, including themselves. I’m sure foreign investors in that country (particularly from China) would advise against picking fights with Israel and the USA.]
I don’t think there is much foreign investment in Iran due to all the sanctions.
Unemployment in Iran is something like 15%.
Just popped in to post an article written by Dennis Aitkins from the CM today, completely contradicting all the articles already on here.
[This means one of two things needs to happen for the “inevitable” change of Labor leadership.
Gillard would have to agree to stand down without a fuss and, after his denunciation of Rudd in February, her deputy Wayne Swan would have to do the same.
Anyone with any insight into their thinking concurs this is about as likely as Tony Abbott endorsing a carbon tax.
“It ain’t gonna happen,” says a Labor figure familiar with their thinking. “Also, there’s no one who could successfully make a case, if they were listened to for longer than half a minute.”
The other possibility is there’s a repeat of June 2010, when 80 to 90 per cent of the Caucus came together and agreed Rudd should go. The most charitable in Labor ranks say Rudd’s numbers might grow to somewhere near 50 per cent but that’s not enough to get an audience with colleagues.
The sense of inevitability about Gillard’s future that Labor people sense reported here at the start of the winter break might drag on but that doesn’t mean anything will actually happen.
What you see is probably what we’ll get until election day.]
http://www.couriermail.com.au/news/opinion/comment-pm-safe-until-she-has-to-face-electors/story-e6frerc6-1226431171740
well i also read a link here that there is a build up in the persian gulf.
[Just popped in to post an article written by Dennis Aitkins from the CM today, completely contradicting all the articles already on here.]
You know things are weird when News Corp are saying that and its Fairfax doing the ramping up today.
Spring is coming: the first blowie of the season is in my study.
So I think that I will go and play in the garden. Bye for now.
[The sense of inevitability about Gillard’s future that Labor people sense reported here at the start of the winter break might drag on but that doesn’t mean anything will actually happen.
What you see is probably what we’ll get until election day]
still hold the opinion abbott will be replaced.
yes and its only dragging on becauce of people like him. you have to laugh dont you. if the papers where to get behind the PM there would be no problem.
media laws any one.
just filling in time waiting to go to our sons birthday after noon so.
check out here ,.
may the force be with us and julia
my say @ 5460
Just stay positive
Labor with Gillard wins the election by default in 2013, The media is starting to lose the plot with all this crap coming out
Abbott and co have nothing left in the tank
[Just popped in to post an article written by Dennis Aitkins from the CM today, completely contradicting all the articles already on here.]
Well Atkins clearly didn’t put much thought into this par:
[In the great political and leadership battles of the Hawke and Keating years a handful of factional warlords Graham Richardson and Robert Ray on the Right and Gerry Hand and Bruce Childs on the Left could move great blocs of votes.]
Richardson supported Keating during the 1991 leadership ballots while Ray supported Hawke, which proves that factional allegiances can become split during leadership contests.
New thread.
FWIW, my take on the leadership matter is that if the ALP holds its nerve (i.e inter alia, keeps Gillard as PM) and government until about August of 2013, it stands a 50-50 chance of winning government in its own right. It’s hard to imagine that Abbott won’t by the middle of 2013, have been exposed as a serial dissembler and Henny Penny who simply doesn’t look to be a credible PM in the eyes of most.
Changing leaders now can’t improve those odds and will almost certainly prejudice them from an ALP perspective.
Thanks zoomster, Someone who keeps fighting when the chips are down is clearly ‘up to the office’.
Yes! That and all the other things you said @ 5364 about our great Prime Minister!
Smithe @ 5432
Thanks for that and I am pleased you are doing well.
I might disagree with you on a particular issue, but I have grown to like you as the person revealed in your posts and wish you well.
spur212 @ 5441
The sad fact is that unions (not sure if this only refers to affiliated unions) now represent something like 18% of the workforce.
Those unions are going to have to cede some of their influence to open up the party to others.
At the same time, I think the party and unions should work together to foster union membership and seek to penetrate new sectors of the workforce.
Seasprite @ 5449
Oh that is truly hilarious!
Have a cry? you are joking, I laughed at the absurdity of it. 😆
Diogenes @ 5454
Much as I think you are normally sensible, that is just absurd!
Rudd is overwhelmingly popular with the public at large and anyone else will just be seen as NSW syndrome.
itsthevibe @ 5455
Oh hilarious! The Greens are a parasitic organism the ALP needs to shrug off.
Von Kirsdarke @ 5459
I hope that leash is looped around his testicles for extra effect! 👿
my say @ 5460
Ever the ‘loyal’ Labor supporter I see.
my say @ 5460
That’s exactly what you said when Gillard knifed Rudd!! Remember?
Your ‘loyalty’ knows no bounds.
good grief – bemused – can’t william ban him or something! can’t bear it…
Some good controversial posts coming through PB and I look forward to some serious I told you so’s over the next six months.
It will take some very serious guts for so many Labor MP’s to vote for their own redundancy which will inevitably happen under the current leadership but anyone reading the tea leaves and watching the union movements and Windsor Oakeshott it’s obvious something serious is up.
I would love to know which seats Labor is going to pick up to win the next election?
Could someone advise who tips a Labor victory.
It’s obvious people don’t much like Abbott but has any leader in poll history carried such massively high disapproval ratings as Gillard and for such a long time. I mean by the time we get to two years of disapproval numbers as PM in the high 50s and low 60’s how is that going to turn around. It’s got nothing to do with Abbott or journalists people cannot you understand using basic polling data that people just don’t like Julia Gillard and stopped listening some time ago.
It ‘s obviously frustrating for Bemused but it happened to us on the Lib side when blind Freddy could see that Howard had to be replaced but the Lib stalwarts just stuck with him like the Captain of the Titanic ,result we got thrown out for at least two terms.
As I always say I hope people listen to My Say etc and stick with Julia to the inevitable electoral Tsunami but I doubt the smart Labor chiefs will let it happen.
Sorry!
BH:
[I would be more than happy to lose my seat with many of these things put in place,” Mr Windsor said.
]
Despite the fact that Windsor is in most respects an old-fashioned conservative it has never occurred to me that he was anything but a man of principle and substance. I daresay we wouldn’t get through ten minutes in the same room without arguing the toss on some matter or other, but with the arguable exception of gay marriage, I don’t doubt that he has thought carefully before opening his mouth, brings an open mind to matters on which he is uncertain, and genuinely wants the best outcome for others ahead of the best outcome for him. You can’t but be tempted to think that with reason and evidence, you could change his mind. If all on the centre-right adopted his approach, this would be a far better country. It’s hard not to like him.
I recall early on at the peak of the tabloid campaign against him and Oakeshott, some journo citing his plunging approval ratings in Tamworth, and his stunning response to the question of his likely fate at the next election. “My job is not to get re-elected”, he said. “My job is to do the job I promised to do, and let the voters decide.” The journo had no good comeback on that.
It’s hard not to respect that, whatever I think of his politics.