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.
James J:
C’mon dude….you know you want to ……where is the Newspoll leak?????
As far as Ashgrove is concerned – who cares at this point in time?
With such an overwhelming majority at the moment, Bjelke Newman could be spreading the Plague and he would be considered to doing a good job for Queensland.
The reality is that electors tend to throw out tired and/or ineffective governments.
Even at this stage one could not put Newman’s government in this category. Voters like to think they got their choice right and are inclined to give the benefit of the doubt to the new.
It is for this reason that the gutting of Rudd was such an uncharacteristic thing to do at the time. I doubt whether he would have lost the election had he led it first time around. Second time, who knows? But that is speculation only.
Interestingly, the electorate still gave Labor a second go in any event – just.
Now, come 2013 the electors have got to make a choice Federally and decide whether the Gillard government is tired and/or ineffective.
In my view, the government is neither. However, come 2013 there will have been Labor administrations Federally for approaching 7 years. Some in the electorate, regardless of who is leading Labor, may consider it time for a change.
It is for that reason I think the basis of the election campaign for Labor in 2013 should be in effect the “Devil you know” rather than the highly dangerous and flakey “Devil you don’t know” by way of Abbott and his motley crew.
fiona
Ahhh, a devotee of the American show for toddlers – Sesame Street, perhaps? From which we get a shop assistant insisting on the letter “zee”.
I’ve noticed lately that more and more people are saying “listen up” and practically everyone now says “inside of” and “outside of”. And people say they’re (American) pissed instead of “pissed off” with something.
All the Ozzies I know mean drunk when they say pissed.
You can tell I lead a frustrating life. I really love languages and am fascinated by dialects, so I notice, I suppose.
Did the Ashgrove poll get released yet?
lizzie:
If your mother wishes to define herself that way, then that’s fine.
The problem arises when collectively referring to people with disability. Some people with vision impairment don’t like to be called blind because they feel their impairment is being used to define them as a person. They feel that they are all these other things first and foremost, and that their vision impairment is but a small part (even an irrelevent part) of their overall identity, so why are they labelled as ‘blind’ as the predominant descriptor?
Same with people who use wheelchairs or people with an intellectual disability. But I take your point about being out of the loop so to speak. The conventions do change, and it can be hard for those outside the loop to be aware of these changes. Which is why we need our political representatives, media and institutions to lead the way.
[You are hoping for a natural warm climate event to help the man made climate gig ?]
Well, a natural cool climate event took Climate off the boil, so I would hope a resumption of the normal heating process, on top of the Global Warming acceleration, would do the opposite.
Your side of politics has been benefiting from a la Nina event. It’s time for my side to benefit from the coming ten years of drought… coming to an island continent near you, and soon.
MIspent Dollars
AOC@AUSOlympicTeam
WOW! Michael Diamond shoots another perfect round. Equals world record and breaks his own Olympic record. Final to come #shooting
Fiona 2370
Imagine this!
What if God actually exists like why would you not take out insurance by following all the the stuff in the Bible, Koran etc given that there might actually be eternal life.
2376
When the definition of marriage was not legislated, before 2004, it was open to the states as there was no Commonwealth legislation to contradict and Marriage is a concurrent power not an exclusive one. Therefore the the Howard law did not introduce the ability for states to legislate a difinition.
If the wording of the Howard law did in fact fail to remove the power of the states legislate a different definition then that would be an embarrassment for the Howard Government and its drafters.
lizzie
[From which we get a shop assistant insisting on the letter “zee”.]
Arrrrrrgh zee my my No.1 finger nails across blackboard moment in language. No.2 being Fcucking cookies instead of biscuits. Grrrrrrr.
I would be suprised if the Cth government would turn a blind eye to a law for which it had advice that it was unconstitutional.
One thing I have noticed about our language’s rapid evolution is many swear words have lost their taboo factor.
Even the major ones, like the F word and C word are becoming less taboo.
However, before one thinks that is endemic of a descent into vulgarity, it should be noted other words that are racist, homophobic or other ways bigoted are becoming increasingly taboo. Which means we as a society are changing what we think of as offensive from sex and bodily functions to hating others for who they are. Who said we aren’t progressing?
Lizzie@2312:
[Is anyone old enough to pin down the moment when “gotten” became so popular in Oz? Someone told me that Sydney adopted it first.]
Can’t help you on that. I’m probably old enough, the difficulty is that senior moments are becoming so long-lasting for me that they might as well be permanent fixtures.
But it is perfectly good english. It survives in ‘proper’ english as ‘ill-gotten gains’ but it used to be the normal thing when the english language went to North America.
The usage then pretty much died out in the mother country. In the same way the use of z instead of s, as in “realized” used to be perfectly ok in England, maybe still is in some places. But the spell checker annoys me greatly, since I prefer the s form.
I rather like gotten, and find myself using it more and more. It sounds better. I hope it continues to gain in popularity.
confessions
Understand exactly what you’re saying. I remember when I was on crutches for months, and I became “disabled”, I understood how people feel who have a disability of any kind, are still the same person but are treated differently.
Happens when your hair goes white, too. Suddenly you’re elderly or a pensioner who’s lost a few marbles!!!
Must go. QandA is a duty, even if I loathe Brandis.
Night everyone.
Wow. Tony Jones did an anti LNP intro for QandA
Look what I started. Four pages of syntax, etymology and spelling discussion.
Makes me proud it does.
But is it “led” or “lead”?
Or indeed, “snuck” or “sneaked”?
Is the past tense of “text” (as in SMS texting) … “He texted me” or “He text me”?
[When the definition of marriage was not legislated, before 2004, it was open to the states as there was no Commonwealth legislation to contradict and Marriage is a concurrent power not an exclusive one. Therefore the the Howard law did not introduce the ability for states to legislate a difinition.
If the wording of the Howard law did in fact fail to remove the power of the states legislate a different definition then that would be an embarrassment for the Howard Government and its drafters.]
No this is wrong.
George Williams argument is that the states and commonwealth have always BOTH had the power to make laws with respect to marriage. In 1961 the states agreed to let the commonwealth pass a federal marriage act, which made state legislation redundant.
HOWEVER, Williams says that since the 2004 amendment is so explicit in defining marriage as a union between a man and a woman, this actually opens up the opportunity for the states to go back and exercise the power they have always had to make new marriage laws for same-sex couples.
BB@2313:
[Aoccdrnig to rseerach at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn’t mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a total mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Amzanig huh?
PS: Hwo’d yuo lkie to run tihs by yuor sepll ckehcer?]
Anyone who thinks that argument is valid has never spent time with the sydney morning herald nine letter word, trying to work out what the hell it is this time.
Bushfire Bill
[Look what I started. Four pages of syntax, etymology and spelling discussion.]
Igniting esoteric “flame wars” seem to be your forte. See anamorphic lens debate 😆
Lizzie,
I often lecture students in the lifts at work when they refer to them as “elevators”.
Like you, I’m a lover of languages, and I relish their diversity. I especially enjoy the diversity of English, even as I despair of some of the neologisms.
Sure, if a language is going to survive it must adapt, and English has been particularly good at adaptation. However, some adaptations are not so good – perhaps that explains why Mr Howard’s pet “incentivization” had such a brief flowering.
I don’t have the energy to return to Carey M’s (if it was his) passage of verballed nouns. However, Mr Howard’s nouning of a verb is possibly illustratiave.
It didn’t gain widespread acceptance. Therefore, it’s not an acceptable new word.
By contrast, (tele)phoning and texting – the former obviously, the latter, widely used by most people with mobile phones – are in general use.
“Medalling” and “podiuming” are only inflicted upon us on occasions like the Lympics – and then almost only by sports commentators. So they are not in widespread use, and deserve to be cast into the outmost darkness.
CTar1,fredn & confessions,
Thank you for your comments. I’m just dismayed that these people call themselves Labor supporters. When they are nothing of the sort. What they are is a cancer eating away at a good government. A bunch of bitter and twisted individuals.
Anyway, they have come out into the light now, and they can no longer deny what is ascribed to them or their base motivations. Led by Revenger-In-Chief, Kevin Rudd. And anyone who supports this vile individual and calls themselves ‘Labor’, should be ashamed of themselves. Except they are shameless dirtbags.
So endeth the rant. 🙂
Wal I was sneaking out when she snuck in,or is did she sneaked in
Newman and Farley Q first up on QandA.
How is Brandis going to handle linking of Newman and Farley in Question.
poroti – last year Bushfire Bill touched off with a throw away post the infamous “Bestiality, is it OK?” debate.
I see The Australian included a table showing “how Tony Abbott compares with past opposition leaders in their last poll before being dumped” in its display for the Newspoll results a fortnight ago.
http://resources.news.com.au/files/2012/07/24/1226433/464757-240712-newspoll.pdf
“Newman is a punctiliously courteous man” says the smarmy SC.
Well, it is easy to blame the Americans for what they are doing to English but their use of “lew-tenant” is much more appropriate than the stupid “left-tenant” from “lieutenant” used in the UK.
And, while at it, the Americans using “ties” for “sleepers” has more common sense to me – the wooden bits of wood, do, in fact, “tie” the rails together, though I can equally accept that the “sleepers” on the bed of ballast also makes sense.
I suspect much more damage is being done to English via Chinglish or Ghetto Talk from wherever.
At a pub in Berwick-on-Tweed a young woman behind the bar said she thought my English was hard to understand and wanted to know if I came from Germany. I am an English speaker by birth – so I guess, it is all in the ears of the beholder.
Wow CanDo bashing, good
George Brandis SC says that Mr Newman is polite, courteous and well-mannered.
It’s “Get Newman” night on QandA!
Leroy
[poroti – last year Bushfire Bill touched off with a throw away post the infamous “Bestiality, is it OK?” debate.]
Well that amps up “esoteric” to a whole new level 🙂
OH, I see it’s Q and misandry.
William 2428
Odd they would do that. I mean, I know he’s personally unpopular but, with 46 PV and, what, 56 2PP vote, I can’t imagine the Coalition are eager to change things…
Maybe they want to shut people up who keep insisting the challenge is imminent? *shrugs*
Katie is not a shrinking violet.
fredn
[ 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.]
r would know that it is only a matter of time before streams in Australia become too warm for trout. (I can recall as a child, that when the water temperatures in the Bunyip River became warm enough, you could go into the water and catch the sluggish trout by hand). There is already evidence that salmonids elsewhere in the world are becoming restricted in range or failing to breed because of warmer water temperatures. Now, THAT, is a real AGW tragedy.
BB,
[… “snuck” or “sneaked”?]
Either, but I prefer the former because it is whimsical.
[“He texted me” or “He text me”?]
The former, because it is syntactically (grammatically) correct – and all languages have a habit of imposing regular grammatical rules on new words. (I will give you a short dissertation on creoles and grammar if you really want, but I don’t want to bore everyone just now.)
[But is it “led” or “lead”?]
Oh do keep up, BB: “led” = past tense of the verb “to be”.
“Lead” (pronounced “leed”) = present tense of the verb “to lead”.
“Lead” (pronounced like “Fred”) = the metal, as in the stuff that BHP used to dig out at Broken Hill, and as in the stuff that used to be in petrol, and as in the stuff that can seriously do your neurological system in (see Mount Isa).
eBook anyone will be cheap
eBook anyone will be cheap
fiona,
Giggle.
Great question from the Student
Tricot@2367:
[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”? ]
Indeed.
I will never forget my first staff meeting at a school in 1974.
The (also brand new to the school) USian physics/english teacher (yes, that’s right) said
“Excuse me madam principal, I would like to ask about the skedule for the first day of teaching…”
Interrupted by the head of english, with her nose in the stratosphere:
“Shedule !”
Quick as a flash, the Yank said:
“Oh yeah? Where did you go to shool?”
Gold, pure gold.
HEY MOFOS!
What about those NASA MOFOS! That landed the OPPORTUNITY MOFO on MARS!
2419
Your comment actually agrees with me about the states having definition power prior to 2004.
The states did not need to agree to the Marriage Act 1961 as Marriage is a Commonwealth power under section 51xxi.
I have looked at the Marriage 1961 and I find this argument doubtful. The Commonwealth definition of marriage is clearly written as a definition of marriage and I doubt that the High Court would allow a different state definition validity.
http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/cth/consol_act/ma196185/
ShowsOn
Mars ? Opportunity ? MOFOING brilliant.
Arts funding is about as secsessful as olympic funding.
Katter talking sense over brandis
don,
[“Where did you go to shool?”]
😀
TLBD,
[Giggle]
Be very careful, sir – I’m in no mood for trifling tonight.