UPDATE: Essential Research has the Coalition two-party lead up from 55-45 to 56-44, although nothing has changed on the primary vote: 33% for Labor, 49% for the Coalition and 10% for the Greens. Further questions relate to the National Disability Insurance Scheme, which party has the better policies for various groups of disadvantaged people (Labor comfortably ahead in each case), and the Olympic Games (among other things, 58% think $39 million of government spending per gold medal too much).
To commemorate the occasion of Mark Riley’s report on alleged Labor internal polling, we visit the scene of what would, assuming the poll to be authentic, be its biggest surprise: Tasmania, where Labor is said to be looking at a devastating swing and the loss of all four of its seats.
The hook for Riley’s report on Channel Seven was that Tasmania was among four states and territories where Labor was set to be wiped out, the others being Queensland, Western Australia and the Northern Territory. The first did not come as a surprise, as the picture of a 9% swing taking all in its path is entirely familiar from state-level breakdowns from Newspoll and Nielsen and Queensland-specific polling from Galaxy. However, the implied swing in Western Australia of 6%, as would be required to knock over Stephen Smith in Perth and Melissa Parke in Fremantle, is at odds with Newspoll, which has showed Labor holding its ground: 57-43 in October-December, 54-46 in January-March and 55-45 in April-June, compared with 56.4-43.6 at the election. Riley’s numbers do accord with Nielsen, whose last three monthly results for WA average to 62-38. However, even after combining three polls their sample is a very modest 390 (with a margin of error of about 5%), compared with about 900 (margin of error about 3.4%) for Newspoll.
In the case of Tasmania, together with the Northern Territory (where Labor is in danger of losing Warren Snowdon’s seat of Lingiari), no such basis for comparison is available. The state is excluded from Newspoll and Nielsen’s breakdowns for inadequate sample sizes, and the state’s one public pollster, EMRS, usually contents itself with state politics. In relating that Labor faced a two-party deficit of 56-44, the Riley report thus presumed to tell us something we didn’t already know – and quite a remarkable thing at that, given that the last election gave the Liberals their worst result in Tasmania since the modern party was founded in 1944 (33.6% on the primary vote and 39.4% on two-party preferred).
It hadn’t always been thus. At the consecutive elections of 1975, 1977, 1980, 1983 and 1984, it was not Labor but the Liberals who enjoyed clean sweeps of the state’s five seats. Certainly the state has form in turning on Labor over environmental controversies, the Franklin Dam issue of the early 1980s and Mark Latham’s forestry policy at the 2004 election being the cases in point. It could be that the another environmental issue, the carbon tax, has alienated Labor from the blue-collar base that sustains it outside of Hobart. While it seems hard to believe that this alienation could be so fierce as to power a swing of 17%, it should be remembered that the 2010 result forms an artificially high base, owing to a half-hearted campaign waged by a Liberal Party that had its strategic eye elsewhere.
The most marginal of the five seats, Bass, was dealt with in an earlier post, so today naturally enough we move on to the second, its western neighbour Braddon. Confusingly known before 1955 as Darwin, Braddon covers the north-western coastal areas of Tasmania, plus King Island in the Bass Strait. The redistribution before the 2010 election extended the electorate along the full length of the thinly populated west coast, which benefited Labor by adding the mining towns around Queenstown. The dominant population centres are Devonport and Burnie, which respectively supply about 25% and 18% of the voters.
Demographically, Braddon is distinguished by the lowest proportion of residents who completed high school of any electorate in Australia (and, relatedly, the eleventh lowest median family income), and it ranks second only to neighbouring Lyons as the electorate with the smallest proportion of non-English speakers. The timber and mining industries that have traditionally provided a solid base for Labor are balanced by beef and dairy farming, which contribute to a more conservative lean in the western parts around Smithton. Labor’s strongest area is Burnie, although Devonport also traditionally leans its way.
Braddon/Darwin was held by Labor legend King O’Malley from its creation in 1903 until 1917, and then by conservatives of various stripes until Ron Davies gained it for Labor in 1958. Davies held the seat until 1975, when future Premier Ray Groom’s victory contributed to the first of the Liberals’ clean sweeps. Groom was in turn succeeded upon his move to state politics in 1984 by Chris Miles. The Liberals’ electoral position meanwhile continued to strengthen due to the decline of the area’s key industries and the political upheaval caused by the Franklin Dam controversy.
Braddon’s fortunes changed very suddenly in 1998, when a 10.0% swing made Peter “Sid” Sidebottom the seat’s first Labor member in 23 years. Labor has since been defeated only in 2004, when John Howard’s late-campaign trumping of Mark Latham over forestry jobs fuelled a 7.0% swing that delivered the seat to Liberal candidate Mark Baker. Sidebottom had declined to distance himself from Latham’s policy, unlike Dick Adams in neighbouring Lyons. Endorsed again in 2007, Sidebottom was able to recover the seat with a modest 2.6% swing, before adding a further 5.1% to his margin in 2010. On the former occasion the swing was most strongly concentrated around Smithton, reversing a heavy swing to the Liberals from 2004, while the swing in 2010 was greatest in Devonport and Latrobe.
Sid Sidebottom had been a Central Coast councillor and electorate officer to Senator Nick Sherry before entering parliament, and he returned to the employ of Sherry during the interruption of his parliamentary career from 2004 to 2007. Sidebottom is presently factionally unaligned, but like Sherry was formerly a member of the Centre/Independents faction, known in its Hawke government heyday as the Centre Left. He was promoted to parliamentary secretary after the 2001 election, serving in various permutations of agriculture, resources and fisheries over the ensuing term. It took until November 2011 for him to recover his old status, that month’s reshuffle slotting him into the familiar agriculture, fisheries and forestry portfolio.
The Liberal candidate at the next election will be Michael Burr, described by the Burnie Advocate as a “high-profile Devonport real estate business owner”. Burr won preselection from a field that also included Glynn Williams, a North Motton farmer and lawyer described in the local press as an “ultra conservative”, and lower-profile local Jacqui Lambie. Burr’s backers reportedly included Senators Richard Colbeck and Stephen Parry, and local state MP Adam Brooks. It was thought that another contender might be Brett Whiteley, who lost his state seat in Braddon at the 2010 election, but he announced in the week before the preselection that he would instead focus on returning to state politics.
The point of the Tasmanian thing is symbolism. It’s Tasmania making a statement. Even if it gets knocked on the head by the High Court, a state government still said “as far as we’re legally concerned, same sex marriage should be legal”
Sure it may end up having as much teeth as a Getup petition but it’s still a step in the right direction.
And yes, Giddings could and probably is doing it to try and claw back support. Who cares? That’s politics.
There are still 661 left in Ashgrove?
BB
have to agree, that the olympics have curtailed abbott and his fraudulent stunts,so much so that in all my years ,have never heard a blatant garbage speech,any jouno who believes it writes is gone,perhaps not today, but the future would say utter garbage.
[El Nino is about to hit us… droughts will take over from flooding rains. A couple of cyclones and perhaps even talk of water restrictions will sober up the populace into accepting (again, as before) that we need to do something about Global Warming, and in particular need to be seen to be doing something, before we start lecturing the rest of the world.]
You are hoping for a natural warm climate event to help the man made climate gig ?
So “interesting” could mean:
– Newman’s support has greatly narrowed in Ashgrove since the election
– Newman is trailing in Ashgrove
– Newman’s support is still strong, if not stronger
– There is actually nothing remotely interesting about this poll, we just want people to pay attention to it.
William
[Sorry CTar1, I misunderstood your comment.]
Most do!
BK @ 2309
LOL. Classic!!
[ Newman is trailing in Ashgrove]
That would be my guess.
Will the bill get through the Legislative Council?
[rummel
Posted Monday, August 6, 2012 at 8:52 pm | Permalink
..
You are hoping for a natural warm climate event to help the man made climate gig ?]
Seems the opening of the northern passage isn’t enough.
Graeme
[And you think that’d not be stunt’d??]
I think if Tasmania gets $500 out of the idea they’ll be doing well.
[Would the Commonwealth automatically have to challenge or could it just choose not to ?]
It could choose not to, which would be the appropriate thing to do considering it is in the Labor platform to end marriage discrimination.
[Would it not be more likely a individual or organization / group ( whatever you would like to include ) to challenge in the same way a challenge was made against the school chaplain service ?]
Frankly I don’t see how anyone has standing to challenge a same sex marriage law.
Carey:
There has been talk that Tassie’s attempts to legalise same sex marriage could be viable because of the amendments to the Marriage Act made by the Howard govt – where the Cwlth doesn’t legislate etc etc.
As other PBers have noted, it would be a wonderfully delicious irony if it were indeed Howard’s amendments which permit the states to pass laws for same sex marriage.
In Bill Bryson’s ‘Mother Tongue’ he explains that, as French was the language of the English ruling classes for some centuries after 1066, French words were used to distinguish the ‘class’ of goods – so the humble trades were called by their English names ‘baker’ ‘miller’ etc whilst the more elite had French – ‘mason’ ‘tailor’.
In the same way, the ordinary every day animal was a cow or a sheep, but once it had been transformed in the kitchen it became ‘beef’ ‘mutton’ etc.
(think of the way we still, today, ‘Frenchify’ the name of a dish to make it more ‘upper class’ – jus instead of juice, for example)
Climate Change and social change in Syria and across the Mid- East
__________
An interesting article that looks at the effects of long droughts and growing water shortages in Syria and the effects of this on living standards and social pressures for change
It also looks at historical evidence of this from ancient times onwards
All across the M E growing pressure from increased population and water shortages is leading to much poverty and social break-down in a region long notorious for heat and droughts
http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/08/03/the-way-the-wind-blows-in-syria-and-beyond/
I don’t think the Gillard Govt will go out of its way to challenge a Tasmanian SS Marriage Law. Same with any other Labor leader’s govt, obviously (so I don’t seem biased).
Abbott Govt may though.
The “problem” with English, if indeed it is a “problem”, is that it is essentially an historical language with layers of Latin, Germanic and French all criss-crossing one another, each with internal logical rules though contradictory at the same time. All the “ough” words for instance are nonsense – through and threw – for instance in terms of pronunciation.
It does not pay to be too pedantic about spelling as who can make sense of “school” versus “schedule”? Okay, the US make “schedule” = “skedual” and I have no problems with this but why not “skool”? At least the US tried to make some common sense out of “theater” and “center” but the Old School would not have this!!
Someone earlier mentioned the difference between the animal = sheep versus the meat – mutton. This is, as I understand it where we use the Anglo-Saxon word for the animal and the French for the meat (mouton).
We are lucky to have such a choice though it is interesting that when push comes to shove, getting down to basics, it is the short Anglo-Saxon words which people use either when in danger or swearing!
rummel
[You are hoping for a natural warm climate event to help the man made climate gig ?]
Madness reigns slightly east of me,
😆
confessions
[It isn’t until you start using appropriate, inclusive language that you recognise the labeling]
Then again I really did relate to a blind person I knew in 1980’s who was most indignant at Eric Ripper insisting that “blind” was verboten and that “Sight impaired” was the “correct” term. She reckoned you could call her whatever you like she was still blind !! The label was not the problem for her it was the attitudes that were.
rummel,
[You are hoping for a natural warm climate event to help the man made climate gig ?]
I’d like you to participate in a thought experiment.
What if you are wrong, and human activity (burning fossil fuels, cutting down forests etc) is a substantial factor in global warming?
I realise that you don’t admit the possibility, but for the purposes of the thought experiment please humour me and try to pretend that it might have some element of truth.
Okay, then, what are you going to say to your offspring, and your offspring’s offspring, if this planet becomes increasingly prone to extremes of temperature, sea level rises, and species extinction, while hunger and pestilence become rife amongst humans?
Just wondering.
[As other PBers have noted, it would be a wonderfully delicious irony if it were indeed Howard’s amendments which permit the states to pass laws for same sex marriage.]
Yeah that would be hilarious, especially when all the Howard government did is take the common law definition of marriage and put it into the act.
A complete waste of the parliament’s time. (which costs about $100,000 a day to run).
2363
I would have thought that the opposite is true and that the Howard law, by introducing a definition of marriage, prevents the states from legislating. Pre-Howards law there was no Commonwealth definition of marriage and so a state definition of marriage would have likely passed constitutional muster.
[I don’t think the Gillard Govt will go out of its way to challenge a Tasmanian SS Marriage Law.]
It would be a complete affront to the Labor platform if the government decided to challenge the law.
It should leave it up to someone else to waste their money.
[There has been talk that Tassie’s attempts to legalise same sex marriage could be viable because of the amendments to the Marriage Act made by the Howard govt – where the Cwlth doesn’t legislate etc etc.
As other PBers have noted, it would be a wonderfully delicious irony if it were indeed Howard’s amendments which permit the states to pass laws for same sex marriage.]
I have heard that and have heard arguments to the contrary too. Not being a legal professional I can’t possibly comment and, really, the only people who’d know the outcome are the High Court after such a hypothetical case.
Thus going back to my point that you don’t know if you don’t try. If Tasmania passes it (remember, it has to pass both houses) and it doesn’t get knocked down by the High Court then history is made. If it does, then a symbolic act is made.
If you look at it from a non-partisan point of view, either result is still progress in the right direction for the cause.
[Would the Commonwealth automatically have to challenge or could it just choose not to ?]
The C’wlth may have to challenge as other ‘powers’ may be effected.
Graeme?
[I would have thought that the opposite is true and that the Howard law, by introducing a definition of marriage, prevents the states from legislating. Pre-Howards law there was no Commonwealth definition of marriage and so a state definition of marriage would have likely passed constitutional muster.]
But George Williams argues that now that the commonwealth has defined marriage in a particular way it has effectively limited its own power, and thus opened up the opportunity for the states to make marriage laws for same-sex couples.
Of course this would have to go to the High Court, but still it would be hilarious if Howard actually made it possible for the states to do this.
fiona
Definitely at least twenty years. I had heard it by media types but not by average Aussies and was “shocked” when a retired primary teacher explained that she thought it was a lovely soft variation of got. (As a child I was taught, “Don’t say got, say have.”)
Also, until the last twenty years or so, even American books didn’t use it much, but now they’re more into relaxed dialect so it’s used more.
[The C’wlth may have to challenge as other ‘powers’ may be effected.
Graeme?]
Why? If the government doesn’t want to challenge the Tasmanian laws then it doesn’t have to.
If a heap of people get married in the mean time, then it would take a very brave future federal government to say that all those marriages are going to be challenged in the High Court.
Shows On, any State AG automatically has standing.
Anyone who could show they had a legal interest affected would also have standing. If you’ve studied or read any succession law you’ll be familiar with a horrid range of family disputes being played out in court, for example, and I’d expect sooner or later we would see some of that overlapping with this one.
However, conservative or religious groups who simply dislike it but can’t show any legal effect on them would fail with costs.
Catmomma,
1) I obviously missed a bit as I was watching a game of touch football masquerading as an NRL game but who is “the disgusting little worm”?
2) Re your walking. You mentioned Heffron Park. I know it well being a life-long resident of the area. There is no track there, unless it was “cross country”, using the bike track? Or do you mean Hensley Field, across the road from the soon to fall down Eastgardens? When I lived at Malabar, the local butcher had a couple of daughters who were walkers. One actually led into the stadium at the Sydney Olympics but got disqualified before she reached the track. Jane Saville? Or something like that?
http://www.marketeconomics.com.au/2186-making-up-facts
[6 Aug 2012
Making Up Facts
Shane Watling, a member of the Liberal Party and production manager at Wespine Industries, had an article published by the ABC on its “unleashed” section today.
The link to the article is here.
http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/4179752.html
In what can only be an oversight, it is hoped, the article is riddled with errors, many of which are wrong to the point that they are appear to be fabricated to try to support Mr Watling’s prejudices.
I am taking this opportunity to look at the errors of fact and in doing so, hope to alert the ABC and others to the importance of checking and then sticking to the facts.]
If the federal govt doesn’t challenge it, maybe the QLD government will?
lizzie,
While on the subject of Americanisms – whether “relaxed dialect” or not – two things that I did persuade (read: compel 😀 ) my darling daughter to stop using when she was about 4 years old were “listen up” and “in back of”.
[Shows On, any State AG automatically has standing.]
So a State Attorney General is going to go to the High Court to argue that they lack a legislative power? And if they lose they have to pay costs?
That would be hilarious.
poroti:
I wasn’t criticising you, just reflecting on the use of language given the subject had been a very recent topic of discussion tonight. 🙂
Well in 2007, I voted for Labor and lived near Outer Harbor. I am used to variations of spelling! 😉
confessions
Problem with “appropriate” language, it seems to me, is that it changes too often. No doubt people working with “?” are used to a new way of talking, but if we don’t come into contact with the right words, we’re stuck and embarrassed. Not saying this excuses pollies, but …
My mother is blind in one eye, so that’s how she and I describe it. Why is that wrong?
fiona
One that annoyed me was “Rack Off” have not heard it for years
confessions
[poroti:
I wasn’t criticising you, just reflecting on the use of language given the subject had been a very recent topic of discussion tonight. 🙂 ]
Did nae take it as criticism. All cool. So double 🙂
[Carey Moore
Posted Monday, August 6, 2012 at 9:14 pm | Permalink
Well in 2007, I voted for Labor and lived near Outer Harbor. I am used to variations of spelling!]
Outa harbor……what a great cryptic crossword clue to signify the letter “u”!
ShowsOn
[Why? If the government doesn’t want to challenge the Tasmanian laws then it doesn’t have to.]
Because it may have other effects on the Cwlth’s power in its relations with the states – these thing are not always as separate as you’d like.
Had a look at the Watling article, which seems to work on the premise that ‘stats’ aren’t as reliable as a whole series of little anecdotes which are entirely unattributed – references to shops closing early because they haven’t seen a customer for three hours (but no shop actually named), etc.
Which (apart from the total inability to verify anything he says) ignores the fact that we use statistics because – however flawed they may be – anecdotal evidence is an even less reliable guide to what’s really going on.
Of course, Watling’s form of anecdotal evidence – “I’ll just reel of some stories which may or may not be true, and you’ll just have to trust me that they are” – is even less reliable again.
Shows @2384: indeed. But in response can I say this: Queensland.
[Outa harbor……what a great cryptic crossword clue to signify the letter “u”!]
Ha. Good one! Never noticed that!
[Thus going back to my point that you don’t know if you don’t try.]
There was an interview on RN breakfast/AM about it this morning. The interviewee seemed pretty clear that because the federal Act now defined marriage in such a way, there was scope for the states to claim that marriage could be defined in a different way, ie between same sex couples.
I agree that the HC would probably need to rule, but can’t see the federal AG making an issue out of it. I could be wrong though.
[If a heap of people get married in the mean time, then it would take a very brave future federal government to say that all those marriages are going to be challenged in the High Court.]
Yes, indeed, good point.
2371
It also introduced a provision that only foreign marriages between a man and a woman were recognised by Australia which halted an application before the courts to recognise a marriage from Canada.
Legislating the common law definition also probably excluded the the states from legislating and did exclude the courts from decided that times and the attitude of the law had changed.
[but can’t see the federal AG making an issue out of it.]
As said, the ALP govt would be unwise to stand against it and I don’t see Roxon personally standing against it.
[Because it may have other effects on the Cwlth’s power in its relations with the states – these thing are not always as separate as you’d like.]
I can’t see what other effects it would have.
[I can’t see what other effects it would have.]
You can’t.