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.
poroti – ‘fart in a fan factory’ 🙂
The rummel ( 🙂 ) in the sauna needs a RFS flouro vest.
(rummel must be busy as he usually fires back fairly quickly).
Why I regard all political leaders as having their flaws:
[The story reported Mr Whitlam said during the breakfast that he had only suffered a ”temporary coup d’tat” and would soon be re-elected; that his government’s policies on the Middle East had been influenced by ”Zionist pressures”; that he was also seeking funds from the Palestine Liberation Organisation; and that Bob Hawke would never lead the Labor Party. The revelations of the attempt to secure Iraqi funds irreparably damaged Mr Whitlam’s leadership authority and prompted the ALP national executive to condemn him, Mr Combe and Hartley, who died in 2006, ”in the strongest terms” for their error of judgment.
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/books/how-murdochs-scoop-got-whitlam-20120825-24t6s.html#ixzz24cl2Rp9d%5D
I was quite shattered at some of these revelations and Whitlam was the last leader I was an uncritical ‘fan’ of.
Since then I have tended to have a more balanced view of all Labor leaders, Hayden, Hawke, Keating, Beazley, Crean, Latham, Rudd and Gillard. I have seen all as having strengths and weaknesses, although I struggled to find much positive about Latham.
Fran – This is why I asked how old is he/she, young people that have not experience are prone to making stupid comments without thinking about the consequence and as My Say said there could be something happening in Grey’s real world that lead him to say something without thinking.
I suspect we have all said things in the heat of the moment, one of the problems with the internet is it removed the ability to show a true context of a comment.
I know that on occasion, you will see a comment that someone has for whatever reason presumed to mean something else.
The only person that needs to be apologised to is Bemused, Grey did do that and Bemused accepted that. we should respect Bemused judgement on that and be supportive.
victoria
[• The result will presumably focus attention on the federal government’s handling of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander affairs and in particular the responsible minister, Jenny Macklin]
Whislt I was only based in Darwin my impression was that Howies “Intervention” did not go down well in the NT,no matter how many “Noel Pearsons” he wheeled out.When Labor said “Yep more of the same” that was an electoral loser. Oh and if you read the comments section in the NT News people are still pissed with NT Labor ditching the open road speed limits. Even though they were introduced due to Fed Liberal duress.
You know the great thing about the internet? you can turn it off.
Shades of years past.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-08-26/hunger-strike-at-island-detention-centre/4223388
Diogenes @ 1450
[mb
The Right have been talking about the “conservative indigenous” movement for a while now. It looks like it has happened.]
Spearheaded by Noel Pearson, another S&G alumni.
[ Oh and if you read the comments section in the NT News people are still pissed with NT Labor ditching the open road speed limits. Even though they were introduced due to Fed Liberal duress. ]
I don’t think the incident in the Cannonball Run was real helpful there either.
Dio – I think the Liberals may be getting ahead of themselves, from the talk last night, there has been a number of local government changes that the local community didn’t support.
[It is the sort of thing I expect in Frank’s slime pond and not on PB.]
Gee, this equally pathetic. what Frank has got to do with anything in discussion here. it looks like for bemused Frank is the quick & convenient bashing boy whenever he feels like it.
Some of you also quite pathetic for not sticking up from Frank.
Victoria @ 1358
[Whilst Abbott remains LOTO, it is guaranteed that the credibility of both himself and JG will be mutually destroyed.]
Don’t think that is necessarily so. Yes, it has been the story thus far. But it is not a sustainable tactic, and the Coalition know it.
Which is why they tried so hard to panic the country to an early election, because they knew that extended exposure and scrutiny of Abbott himself, his campaign style, and his lack of policy substance, would be a serious problem for them.
But too late now. Looks like the parliament is going to run full term, and that the Coalition did not prepare a serious Plan B.
Hare v. tortoise.
[Jolyon Wagg @ 1438
Bemused I think you are too forgiving.
I think Grey should do the right thing and leave permanently.
Will you be surprised if I disagree?
Grey has been well and truly jumped on and kicked.
I am sure a lesson has been learnt.]
Hat’s off to you Bemused.
[grey may have something on his/her mind.
you cannot jump on here and say things about people
grey has probably gone off in tears now.
and you all getting stuck in shame on you all]
Perhaps you are right, but I think some serious self reflection is in order for Grey.
The Finns
In the past I have been greatly disappointed in Frank for a few reasons but after reading the past few pages I am incline to think it may be time to lift Frank’s ban.
Frank can at times be stubborn but at least he never stropped to the lows we saw earlier.
rey
Posted Sunday, August 26, 2012 at 2:47 pm | Permalink
You know the great thing about the internet? you can turn it off]
hi grey.
glad your still around.
The Finnigans @ 1461
[It is the sort of thing I expect in Frank’s slime pond and not on PB.]
[Gee, this equally pathetic. what Frank has got to do with anything in discussion here. it looks like for bemused Frank is the quick & convenient bashing boy whenever he feels like it.
Some of you also quite pathetic for not sticking up from Frank.]
I would agree, were it not for the fact that Frank and his acolytes (looking at you) spent quite a bit of time getting stuck into me and Frank was kind of creepy like a stalker in some ways.
You have brought some of it across to PB with various snarky remarks which seem to be your pathetic style.
[I am incline to think it may be time to lift Frank’s ban.]
Mex, Methinks Frank is very happy where he is now. We are having great time with the other peeps, pollies and journos. you dont get that here on PB.
Can someone send me the links so that I can get cccp on my browser? I had to rebuild my system and lost it.
Thanks in advance.
bemused, you deserve every word i say
Diogenes
[mb
The Right have been talking about the “conservative indigenous” movement for a while now]
Indeed. See Noel Pearson and Howies love for him for basically saying ” Aborigines’ terrible situation has nothing to do with white folk.” . See also the number of Methodist + Lutheran missions into whose “loving care” the government sent thousands of Aborigines.
mexican
One of the worst things that could happen in this blog is to lift that ban. I can never understand why a small group insist on supporting his straight-out rudeness.
well i feel supportive of grey.
wwe all may say somethings we should not from time to time.
no judge and jury here
.
[no judge and jury here]
my say, no, just the occasional lynching mob
The finns
I did not notice the reference to frank. Sorry, i was distracted by other commentary. I have always stuck up for Frank
Jolyon Wagg @ 1463
[Perhaps you are right, but I think some serious self reflection is in order for Grey.]
Damn… I am not a believer, but I keep thinking of things such as ‘Let he who is without sin cast the first stone”. Sunday School did brainwash me. 😀
We could all do with some self reflection on occasions.
bemused
[We could all do with some self reflection on occasions.]
In bloodydeed.
http://www.marymackillop.org.au/prayer-space/index.cfm?loadref=42
Reflection:
Mary MacKillop had a heart big enough to enclose the troubles of all those who sought her assistance. No-one was excluded. She knew how to stand in the shoes of another. Sr Annette recalls: ‘She had the greatest compassion and love for the poor girls and the poor orphans’. There was no wound that she did not reach out to. It was in the environment of her home life that the seeds of compassion were sown. Mary wrote to Monsignor Kirby: ‘My home when I had one was a most unhappy one”.
Lizzie
I agree Frank was at times rude especially when he was faced with being wrong.
poroti – rummel has done a dive on us. Out on a practice run?
Hey guys
Frank’s rudeness could also be interpreted as loyalty and passion. I find that quite endearing. Of course, as long as the passion and loyalty is for the Labor party. 😀
Maybe the question isn’t who is right or wrong. Maybe the question we should all be asking ourselves is ‘what can *I* do to make PB a better, more open, more equitable place?’
IMHO, a better world, country, community and PB starts with that one question.
My 1468
Ha, found it, the wonders of google…
To use the Crikey Clear Comment Preview script, install in order:
Firefox
Greasemonkey
cccp
or:
Google Chrome
cccp
My personal recommendation if using Google Chrome is to also install Tampermonkey and install cccp into Tampermonkey.
[I was quite shattered at some of these revelations and Whitlam was the last leader I was an uncritical ‘fan’ of.]
It looks like the book will be worth a read.
Victoria – I admired Frank’s passion and loyalty but there were times when he made comments that were incorrect and when it was pointed put to him, rather than just debating the issue or dropping it, he would become abusive, when he was called out on it, he would dig his heels in.
[lizzie
Posted Sunday, August 26, 2012 at 3:01 pm | Permalink
mexican
One of the worst things that could happen in this blog is to lift that ban. I can never understand why a small group insist on supporting his straight-out rudeness.]
we agree to dissagree on that one, there is some more rude than frank it just said like it was.
and i admire his spirit
but he is happy where he is , and has built a great blogg, it has a lot of visits , so much information, on it, people dont chat on there but no matter they go off and tweet what they see.
i doubt if i spent my day in a wheel chair i would be a tollerant as frank
god bless him i say
SK
I blame Abbott and his crew. After hearing all his SSSO, day after day, the discourse has sunk into the gutter. Monkey see, monkey do. 😀
victoria
I think aggression is a better word than rudeness. He attacked, often for no reason, until I left PB as soon as he appeared. I’m sure he’s now happy in his own little world, which he can control.
victoria,
ROFL!
Bemused
Your generosity is admirable.
A +1 for Frank’s place is this quote from Frank’s site quoted on a feminist site.
[I’d rather have a Prime Minister with a big arse than a big arse for a Prime Minister.”
my say
I tend to avoid engaging with any of those who use aggressive or crude language to make a point.
Puff @ 1403
]I think he is a male chauvinist pig but it is a subject best touched on then to move on, just seed it and leave it.]
Agreed. It does not need to pushed hard, the electorate will process it fine without constant reminder from Abbott’s opponents.
If I were a conservative voter, I would be more concerned about how quickly the air has gone from the Queensland balloon rather than get really excited about what is, a not very important win in a Top End outpost.
Can’t take a win away from anyone but it is one thing to win a Grand Prix another and egg and spoon race.
In actual fact there did not see to be a uniform swing and while the swing from Labor was just over 6% it all did not go to the conservatives anyway.
The win in the NT is about as impressive as the one-horse race that Labor won – on a very small turn out I understand.
The most heartening news for Labor, if the polls mean anything, is whereas Labor stood to lose seats in Queensland, it would appear they may basically keep what they have. May not be, as yet, enough to win in 2013, but it does mean any dream Abbott may have of being able to control both the Reps and Senate remains just that, a dream.
It would be hard to stomach a conservative win in 2013 but if it does happen without Abbott being able to do much about the Senate, and knowing he would not have the guts to go to a DD – even if he could do within any kind of time limit – means any administration he led would be in quicksand from Day 1.
I would go even further to prognosticate – despite was PvO says, that he would be totally ineffective in this scenario.
Tricot
I concur re Qld. At present, it is Labor’s trump card
Tricot – Yep.
If he managed to get in he would do nothing to risk it.
[Craig Emerson MP @CraigEmersonMP
. #@Bearpolitics Last night@trickibee sent me a 1979 I/v of young Abbott complaining about how many ppl were being let into Uni #auspol ]
the power of social media. Anyone who saw Emerson on Insiders this morning saw him wound up on uni entrance, and Abbott wanting to keep disadvantaged rifraff out.
Just back. Caught up with comments.
Bemused.
Great generosity sir. All the efforts of those who fight depression are appreciated by me. That inludes Mr Kennett and Mr Robb.
Burgey @1416
[Was only thinking last week how good it was to see people helping rummel out despite being political oponents, the good humour in which that was done all round and what it says about PB. Then this. There’s no place for what I’ve just read on this page. It’s appalling.]
Great comment and over all we all have much more in common than disagreement as the comments above from almost everyone conveys.
Let’s all just learn to give each other some room to move and express their opinion. None of us knows it all and thank heaven we all don’t think the same or this place would become as boring as batshite.
Bemused you have been more than gracious in your response you are a good man.
Those comments by Abbott on NT victory provey Anna Burke was right. He cannot help himself. A gentlman gives congratulations without grandstanding. All Abbott had to do to associate himself was talk shared values. Instead he has to point out the obvious that he was there and Gillard was not. This in my opinion makes him look petty and of the view that the oters and journalists are too dumb to work things out for themselves.
I think this is a parody account.
@SarahPaIinUSA: Obama thinks he can just waltz around providing healthcare for poors? What next, food & clothing? I mean is this a Bible story or something?
Like a moronic metronome, Abbott goes off and blames the NT Labor election loss on the…
‘Carbon Tax’.
What a gormless doofus that man is.