GhostWhoVotes tweets that a Galaxy poll on federal voting intention in Queensland gives the Coalition a two-party lead of 57-43 – a seven-point turn-around in Labor’s favour since the last such poll three months ago, suggesting a swing to the Coalition/LNP of only 2% since the 2010 election. Leaving aside the Labor-skewed Morgan face-to-face series, the last time a published poll of federal voting intention showed a swing that low was the Newspoll of May 27-29, 2011, which had the Coalition leading 52-48 nationally. The only Queensland seat Labor would lose on a uniform swing of that size would be Moreton, held by Graham Perrett on a margin of 1.1% (the present numbers in Queensland are 21 seats for the LNP, eight for Labor and one for Bob Katter). The primary votes are 30% for Labor (up seven on the previous poll) and 49% for the Coalition (down seven). The poll also finds 52% detecting little or no impact of the carbon tax on their household budget, against 15% for “major impact” and 27% for “minor impact”. New asylum seeker laws are rated “strong” by 26% of respondents, “inhumane” by 18% and “too little too late” by 51%. The poll was conducted on Wednesday and Thursday from a sample of 800, and has a margin of error of about 3.5%.
UPDATE: The Sunday Mail today has further results from the poll which show “two out of three people believe the Premier is going too far with his proposal to cut 20,000 public sector jobs”, together with figures showing widespared feelings of job insecurity, particularly among government employees.
Further evidence of the Queensland elastic snapping back was provided earlier this week by ReachTEL, which conducted automated phone polls of three seats out of the many which the LNP won from Labor at the state election. These showed Labor leading in two of the seats and lineball in the third. My own calculation of two-party preferred results based on preferences from the previous election had Labor leading 60-40 in Sandgate, a swing to the of 13%, and 51-49 in Brisbane Central, a swing to them of 6%. I had the LNP 51-49 ahead in Towsville, but Possum has it at 51-49 in Labor’s favour – no doubt having used a formula that took better account of the decline of the Katter’s Australian Party vote. The poll also found Campbell Newman’s personal ratings in Sandgate and Townsville in Tony Abbott if not Julia Gillard territory, though he scored better in Brisbane Central. There was similarly a strong view he had not kept his promises in Sandgate and Townville, but an even divide of opinion in Brisbane Central. The samples on each poll were around 400, for margins of error approaching 5%.
And not forgetting …
Seat of the week: Lingiari
I’ve previously been limited my Seat of the Week choices to seats where both parties have preselected candidates, but am making an exception today in a spirit of keeping things topical. The federal seat of Lingiari covers the entirety of the Northern Territory outside of Darwin, which for the most part will play second fiddle during tomorrow night’s election count: whereas Darwin’s suburbs teem with marginal seats, the remainder is largely divided between Country Liberal Party strongholds in Alice Springs and Labor strongholds elsewhere. However, the tea-leaves of the regional and remote results will be read carefully for federal implications given Labor member Warren Snowdon’s narrow margin in Lingiari, and recent rumours of Labor internal polling showing him headed for defeat.
The Northern Territory was first granted its own seat in the federal parliament in 1922, but its member did not attain full voting rights until 1968. Perhaps not coincidentally, the seat had recently fallen to Sam Calder of the Country Party after a long period of Labor control. The Country Liberal Party was established in 1978 as a local alliance between coalition parties to contest elections in the the newly established Northern Territory parliament, and Grant Tambling succeeded Calder as its members upon the latter’s retirement at the 1980 election. Tambling was unseated by Labor’s John Reeves in 1983, and returned as a Senator four years later. The seat thereafter changed hands with some regularity: future Chief Minister Paul Everingham recovered it for the CLP in 1984, Warren Snowdon won it back for Labor in 1987, Nick Dondas held it for the CLP for one term from 1996, and Snowdon recovered it in 1998.
The population of the Northern Territory is such that it consistently hovers between an entitlement of one or two seats according to the formula used to allocate seats to the states and territories. It first rose above the line prior to the 2001 election, resulting in the territory’s division between Solomon, covering Darwin, and Lingiari, which in accommodating the entire remainder of the territory is the second largest electorate in geographical terms after Durack in Western Australia. However, when the Australian Electoral Commission next conducted its mid-term determination of seat entitlements the Northern Territory had fallen 295 residents short of the number required to its second seat. With Labor and the Coalition both convinced they could win both seats at the 2004 election, the parliament proved amenable to arguments that the determination left the territory under-represented, and passed legislation to reinstate the second seat. Solomon and Lingiari accordingly have the lowest enrolments of any seats in Australia at around 62,000, compared with a national average of about 95,000 (which together with the extensive use of mobile booths explains the scarcity of numbers on the 2010 results map at the bottom of the post).
Lingiari is notable for having by far the highest proportion of indigenous persons of any seat in the country, at 41.8% against 15.7% for second-placed Durack. Relatedly, and depressingly, it also has the lowest median age of any electorate. The support of Aboriginal voters has given Labor enough of a base to have kept the seat in their hands, despite CLP strength in pastoral areas and the urban centres of Alice Springs, Katherine and Tennant Creek. Labor’s margins have progressed over four elections from 5.3% to 7.7% to 11.2% to 3.7%. The diversity of the electorate’s components can make for enormously complicated election results, as demonstrated by local swings over the last three elections. In the wake of the Howard government’s intervention into Aboriginal communities before the 2007 election, mobile polling booths swung 8.4% to Warren Snowdon off an already very high base of 78.7%. However, it was a very different story in 2010, when these booths swung to the CLP by no less than 28.1% – a result variously put down to the troubled Strategic Indigenous Housing and Infrastructure Program, the actions of newly merged regional councils, and the ongoing suspension of the Racial Discrimination Act by the new Labor government. Remarkably, the swings in Alice Springs were in the opposite direction, with Snowdon down 2.6% in 2007 and up 8.4% in 2010. In Tennant Creek the Labor vote fell from 58.7% to 34.2% while the Greens rocketed from 4.6% to 33.7%, a result credited to the Muckaty Station nuclear waste dump proposal.
Snowdon is a figure in Labor’s Left faction, and has held junior ministry positions since the Rudd government came to power in 2007. He had earlier been a parliamentary secretary during his first stint as a member from 1990 to 1996, again reaching the position in opposition after the 2001 election. After the 2007 election win he received a substantial promotion to the junior defence science and personnel ministry, which Glenn Milne in The Australian credited to his close association with Julia Gillard. Snowdon was demoted to indigenous health, rural and regional services after Joel Fitzgibbon resigned as Defence Minister in June 2009, which Philip Dorling of the Canberra Times put down to incoming Defence Minister John Faulkner’s “longstanding lack of enthusiasm” for him, “and perhaps more specific concerns about the contribution Mr Snowdon’s office may have made in the past week to Fitzgibbon’s downfall”. He recovered defence science after the 2010 election and further gained veterans affairs, while dropping rural and regional services.
DanG – Nice to see you and the Daily Derp back. Glad your father is OK now.
If you go to the ABC website, to the Radio section, you will find ‘The Law Report’ somewhere there.
This morning in the car radio I heard half of the program on legal aspects of the new Offshore Processing legislation particularly in relation to unaccompanied minors.
There were guests and they were discussing possible avenues of legal challenges (which they said was certain) and which parts of the law is pretty solid and which could be susceptible to challenge.
I will post a link when I go back to it to finish listening, but remember where you can find it when all this hits the courts. The program is very interesting, informative and easy on the ear.
BH
Thanks.
@AnyoneButAbbott: Great description of TA on #730 report..’he looked like he was reading cue cards from a foreign language tv show’ #auspol #anyonebutabbott
Spur212 @ 528
[The underlying problem still remains]
And what might that be?
By the way, if you think it’s going to take one post of making yourself clear to excuse you for being wrong on leadershit – think again!
Thanks Dan,
My Mum has diabetes. What more is there to say, except I have drastically reduced carbs.
Mostly. 😆
@danielhurstbne: Stunning graphic “@nytimes: How many top finishers in Tour de France other than Lance Armstrong are tainted by doping? http://t.co/JZ1iGIhB
Guytaur,
You would find the ABC Radio Law Report program this morning interesting. I won’t comment on it until they put it up on the ABC website and I hear it all.
TLM youre an embarassment. Such a bandwagon Labor supporter. At least be consistent
Puffy – thanks for the heads up on the Legal Report. I often get to hear the rerun at some ungodly hour through the night but will look for the download.
I heard a great session with Ita Buttrose early hours this week. I can see how she became so successful. She is upfront about everything. She also said that the PM gets woeful press that has nothing to do with policy. She wasn’t all that kind to present day media.
Centre
The uncertainty created by the massive insider/outsider shit sandwitch caused by removing Rudd in 2010 because a few stupid people couldn’t keep it in their pants and the damage it’s done to the PM’s reputation, authority, trustworthiness etc etc etc
puff
I will give it a listen tomorrow
guytaur
I don’t think they should take any TDF title off Armstrong without a positive result from that race. That way all competitors are being treated equally. If they just take them all and give them to the No. 2s, they could be rewarding dopers who also had no positive samples.
I think Barnett is still firm favorite in WA, but since McGowan I no longer expect a landslide, and labor has a thin hope.
Puff
I agree. Either that or declare all the races so affected null and void as races were tainted.
One or the other.
I read a tweet a few days ago where some tweeterer was lauding Christine Assange, saying that young Julian had changed the course of history, and thus being his mother made her an historical figure.
(Shades of ‘Mary the Immaculate’, but I wouldn’t for a minute suggest Assange supporters are cultists)!
Which got me thinking about what Wikileaks place in history is likely to be…
…and lead me to dig up this quote from ‘Yes Prime Minister’ (because, even though it comes from a fictional TV series, what it says is true):
[…the fact is that the movement to ‘open up’ government, if successful, always achieves a gratifying increase in the level of secrecy. Once a meeting….is opened to the public, it is used…as a propaganda platform…True discussions will then take place privately in smaller informal groups.]
Case in point: local council meetings in Victoria are open to the public. So all councils hold a meeting before the council meeting, where the arguments are thrashed out and the decision made.
They will even agree on how the ‘debate’ is going to be handled in public (“I need to say I’m against this, because I promised X that I’d raise that concern. But if you then say Y, I’ll say that your argument has changed my mind…”)
Now, the quote here is obviously about meetings, but it holds for other forums as well. Anyone involved in any level of governance, for example, is told early in their involvement never to put anything at all sensitive in emails, as they’re FOIable. Instead, as soon as the discussion gets at all sensitive, you should get on the phone.
What Wikileaks has done is to alert government agencies of holes in the system – ways information can get out which they’d rather didn’t. So what will happen is that such information will still get exchanged, but it will happen in ways that are harder to trace – and thus even less transparent.
So Wikileaks historical legacy isn’t going to be more government transparency, but less.
Anyone who disagrees with my analysis is invited, very cordially, to point to any government in the world which has become more transparent because of the leaks.
[The uncertainty created by the massive insider/outsider shit sandwitch caused by removing Rudd in 2010 because a few stupid people couldn’t keep it in their pants and the damage it’s done to the PM’s reputation, authority, trustworthiness etc etc etc]
You appear to be stuck at stage 3 of the 7 stages of grief.
Uncle Arthur claiming Abbott does a lot of work on ABC. LIAR.
Finally the rest of Australia joins SA
@bencubby: Enviro ministers have agreed to examine a national scheme for recycling bottles, cans. Coke, Schweppes are angry. http://t.co/97T83V8r
Tom Hawkins
I personally don’t care. I know what the problem is but I’m not attached to it.
All I care about is keeping Abbott out of office.
[You appear to be stuck at stage 3 of the 7 stages of grief.]
Seems a fairly lame observation in response to what was a reasonable post.
[Whatever Abbott’s views, taking Eric Abetz along with him to “win hearts and minds” is a monumental clanger of an idea, right up there with the siege of Stalingrad.
They should have stuck to Uncle Otto’s method]
Interesting comment that, BB. http://www.couriermail.com.au front page for 25 August 1942 headlines Moscow admits Stalingrad’s peril: Position is worse: Berlin says battle for city has begun In another report Zero hour near on Desert Front
[There is considerable activity behind enemy lines in the Western Desert which Rommel is trying to cloak as much as possible. The atmosphere in the desert now is one of intense expectancy.]
For any still under the impression that Darwin was bomber only once: New Fighter Tactics Pay
[Using new interceptor tactics evolved by an American Colonel, who is regarded as a tactical air fighter expert, allied fighters shot down 13 of the 47 Japanese planes which attacked and aerodrome in the Darwin area on Sunday (23rd)]
Big gains in the Solomons are reported, but nothing on the area around Milne Bay, where Coast Watcher reports on Japanese Naval activity indicate imminent invasion, Lt Cols ES Miles (Toowoomba) (C0 of 25 Bn), A Meldrum (Co 61 bn) (Brisbane), DH Morgan (CO 9bn) (Maryborough Qld) and JG Dobbs (2/27 bn) (Mitcham SA) are moving their forces into positions. All other officers & an NCO involved in the main clashes of the 26-27th would be Queenslanders; all but one (from Imbil) from Brisbane.
Most of those defending Milne Bay were from the Militia, nicknamed “Chockos” (melt in the heat) and “Koalas” (not to be shot at; not to be exported).
At 11.40pm on 25 August (report received 1.15am 26th) an air patrol sighted 4 ships in the Bay. Before 1.00am, small groups of Japanese had landed (with at least 1 tank) and were being engaged by Aussies around the Bay: the first death would be Pte Whitton of Brisbane’s. Landings and counter-attacks continue through the night. At 2.15am, heavy and continuous gunfire was heard from the sea.
Tomorrow’s main 70th Anniversary Commemorations will be in Toowoomba (inc catafalque party and surviving veterans) and Brisbane.
Hi Vic
[Newman is a big part of it. But what about BOF and Ballieu playing games with the NDIS trial? What about the carbon price not being the apocalypse? What about low interest rates? And what about Ballieu cutting 300 million from TAFE?
These are the sum of all the parts]
How about Faillieus decision to open up our National Parks to private developers ?
That, along with cuts to TAFE will be Big Teds undoing.
The flow on effect will spread to the Federal Fibs IMO, if this is what these mongrels do at State level, then god help us should they ever get their grubby mitts on the keys to the treasury benches
Spur212 @ 561 that’s in the past.
The Labor caucus held a ballot and that matter is put to rest!
The reality is that Gillard is certainly doing a fine job and is performing very well.
Your call for Gillard to be replaced because of the polls more than a year from an election was dead wrong, as you were constantly told.
But NO, you persisted day in day out for weeks and months with the same repeatitive nonesense because you supposedly knew better.
But you did not know better did you, not by a long shot!
ciao
Time for a break. Cya later folks.
[What Wikileaks has done is to alert government agencies of holes in the system – ways information can get out which they’d rather didn’t. So what will happen is that such information will still get exchanged, but it will happen in ways that are harder to trace – and thus even less transparent.
So Wikileaks historical legacy isn’t going to be more government transparency, but less.]
Zoomster – Valid comment. As they say, ‘once bitten, twice shy’.
BH
Congratulations on the eternal fame… as a matter of interest who were you prior to 2006?
Centre
It’s not in the past in the electorate’s mind. If it was, things would be very different polling wise
Ta DanG. D’ya know any word which covers gobsmacked+ rolling on the floor+ sniggering helplessly? Cos that’s my reaction.
George Harrison’s ghost and his guitar wept!
[Australians want job security. The fibs want flexibility. Of course, code for employers using and abusing workers at the lowest possible price.
When all is said and done, it is the economy stupid.]
Had an interesting conversation with my economist Father the other day. His contention is that within 20 years, the minimum wage, in real terms, in China will be greater than the minimum wage in the United States.
It seems that the Chinese have worked out that inorder to sustain their standard of living, they need to build their middle class.
Meanwhile, the Yanks seem determined to destroy their middle class, and our Fiberals here apparently want to do likewise. And they scratch their heads and wonder why the US is declining.
OPT
gobsmacked+ rolling on the floor+ sniggering helplessly = romneyed
👿 😆
Spur212
If the electorate can see unity now in the Party, with the full backing of the PM, they really couldn’t give a rats about the past. As long as Julia continues to do a good job which there is no reason for her not to – the polls will turn!
What about Evan 😆 he’s backflipped already.
*catch u later*
[gobsmacked+ rolling on the floor+ sniggering helplessly = romneyed
👿 :lol:]
GOLD! DanG!
Centre
Not going to engage with that as whatever I write will be interpreted through the “black and white glasses”
Follow the unique flavour of an NT election day here. https://twitter.com/TheNTNews
[The NT News@TheNTNews
ELECTION 2012: WE’LL BE RUNNING THE GAUNTLET OF HOW-2-VOTE LACKEYS AND LUNATIC CANDIDATES TO BRING YOU THE COVERAGE YOU EXPECT. IN ALL CAPS]
The NT News@TheNTNews
NT VOTES: UNCONFIRMED REPORTS ‘ANGRY’ ANDERSON HAS GONE BERSERK WITH PAIR OF TONGS AT SAUSAGE SIZZLE. CHECKING OUR SAUCES, BRB]
Of all the ups and downs in all the various polls since about February 2010, this one heartens me the most.
Mitt Romney sends out a dog whistle to the Tea Party and far right of the Republican party:
[Republican challenger Mitt Romney, at a rally today in Michigan, alluded to doubts raised by some of Barack Obama’s opponents that the president was born in the U.S.
“Nobody has asked to see my birth certificate,” Romney, standing with his wife, Ann, told the crowd in Commerce, near the hospital in Detroit where he was born. “They know this is the place where we were born and raised.”]
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-08-24/romney-makes-reference-to-birth-certificate-in-speech.html
Not sure if the following has been posted but it worth a read.
[ A woeful week that Abbott can’t fix
http://victoriarollison.com/2012/08/25/a-woeful-week-that-abbott-cant-fix/ ]
A lovely last column by Adele Horin. I’ll miss her pieces
http://m.smh.com.au/opinion/politics/for-richer-and-poorer-the-battle-goes-on-20120824-24rpe.html
[“Nobody has asked to see my birth certificate,” Romney, standing with his wife, Ann, told the crowd in Commerce, near the hospital in Detroit where he was born. “They know this is the place where we were born and raised.”]
Can anybody seriously imagine what our world would be like with Romney & Ryan taking power in the US and Abbott and Joyce taking power here in Oz? Cripes… where to run?
NT Elections from local press
“Crocodile sighted in tomato sauce at local BBQ”
CO
THanks for that link, an excellent article.
“Crocodile sighted in tomato sauce at local BBQ”
http://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/sport/a/-/afl/14606871/eagles-set-to-hand-dick-debut/
[CO
THanks for that link, an excellent article.]
Ditto
Voted in the Heffron by-election at l’ecole de Hyacinth and am please to announce to the Greens here that because I spotted one of Big Freddy Nile’s candidates at the last minute, the Greens were promoted to second last. Uncle Ron Hoenig is going to win this in a canter and KKK’s hubby is going to take over Ronnie’s big chair at Botany Parliament House. Not so sure about the bacon and egg roll, though. They did say it was the last one and there may have been a reason for that…
That CO link made some telling points about Abbott, who he thinks he is and how he got to where he is today. Reminds me of a withering baseball inspired put-down, delivered by the erstwhile Governor of Texas, Ann Richards, about George W.Bush.
“He was born on third base but he thinks he hit a triple to get there”. Sound like our Tone?
Does anyone know how old Ron Hoenig is? His Wikipedia article doesn’t say. Since he’s been a councillor since 1980, I guess he must be in his 60s. Can anyone explain why a party that holds 20 seats out of 93 would fill one of its safest seats with a candidate who, whatever his personal merits, will only serve a couple of terms and is highly unlikely to be ministerial talent?
I have jost got back from two hours at the local pub.
Not for a drink – but to empty out its flooded cellar. Three CFS and one SES called out. The water table has risen so much here this year.
Now off to the local footy.
Enjoy the day!
He can’t help himself.
After saying earlier on in the week he believed Gillard, Bolt continues the smear, concluding with the usual weasel words:
[ Did Gillard see this cheque?
This cheque, drawn on accounts attached to the Australian Workers Union Workplace Reform Association which Julia Gillard helped to register, was sent to Slater & Gordon for the purchase of a private house for Ralph Blewett, bag man for Gillard’s then boyfriend, Bruce Wilson.
Gillard was at the auction and knew the house was for Blewett and that her boyfriend would live in it.
She later told partners of her law firm she’d known the association was actually a ”slush fund”, ostensibly for her boyfriend’s re-election. In that interview she talked of such slush funds being needed to fight elections that “can cost $10,000, $20,000” .
So if Gillard had seen this cheque arrive at Slater & Gordon, and had noted it was from accounts attached to the slush fund she’d helped to set up, she might well have wondered about the huge amount and about it being used to pay for a house, not an election. If she had seen it.
I make no allegation. ]
Psephos,
You need to deep into the bowels of South Eastern Sydney Labor lore and read up on the bastardry between an earlier holder of this seat, his sister who succeeded him. Then check up on the current senator who did some back-stabbing on the husband of the next holder, who fell into the seat as a result of said bastardry, organised by the original holder of this seat, who in paying back the senator who ratted on the husband of the last member. That husband is now likely to take the place of the last man standing – the aforementioned Ronny Hoenig. Confusing? Absolutely. Should it be shipped to tasmania where that sort of borderline incest is more common? One would think so.
Ron’s age? About 60. He started young and he is said to have been mayor for 31 years. No one really knows. Perhaps they can do some carbon dating in the castle on the corner of Botany Road and Coward St. Did you know the decor is supposed to resemble parliament house?