Troy Bramston on Sky News reports the latest Newspoll result on state voting intention in New South Wales has the Coalition leading 61-39, down from the 63-37 result for March-April (Newspoll went strangely quiet on state results after that point). On the primary vote, the Coalition is steady on 47% while Labor is up three to 27% which, pathetic though it is, is Labor’s best result since March-April 2010. The results at the election were 51.0% for the Coalition, 25.6% for Labor and 10.3% for the Greens. We are also told that Barry O’Farrell’s approval rating has fallen 11 points to 37%, and that his lead as preferred premier has shrunk from 56-14 to 47-18. In contrast to the usual experience of new-ish Opposition Leaders in the early party of the electoral cycle, the uncommitted rating for John Robertson has gone up, resulting in his approval rating falling two to 26% and his disapproval falling three to 34%.
What was the 2pp at last year’s election please?
64.2-35.8.
I’d have expected a better result for NSW Labor than this, but admittedly BOF hasn’t been quite as out of control as Campbell Newman.
true TLM, also, NSW Labor is, umm, NSW Labor. Keating’s assessment of Robbo was and is pretty much on the money for mine.
So does that make NSW the most liberal state in Australia … masochists.
I think John Robertson has a lot to answer for here. Tough ask, I know, but a credible and effective opposition leader would surely have a preffered premier number northward of 18.
[I think John Robertson has a lot to answer for here. Tough ask, I know, but a credible and effective opposition leader would surely have a preffered premier number northward of 18.]
A dead guy should have a preferred premier number higher than 18 against the clown who is the NSW premier…
Even John Robertson realises how big a dick-head John Robertson really is.
Paul Keating’s vitriolic comments about Robertson derive from the fact that Keating believes Robertson prevented him from making shed loads of money from electricity privatization. That’s Keating for you IMO (I accept that most on here don’t have as negative a view of the man as I do).
But, nevertheless, the annointment of Robertson as future party leader – which took place in about the middle of the last term – is just another example of how the turkeys who run Sussex St these days have completely lost the plot. These are the people who brought you Kevin Rudd originally, the revolving door Premiers in NSW, then the magnificent 2010 election campaign (“moving forward”, the “real Julia”, etc), and then were recently trying to inflict Kevin on us all again.
I was interested to read in Crikey’s tips and rumours that Eric Roozendahl was trying to get a “public service job” (presumably from the Feds) but had failed. Yep, that just about sums up the current generation of NSW ALP
lightweight “heavies”: not talented enough for appointment to a sinecure.
Hey Eric, better try for a job with Jamie at the casino mate
And this is before NSW ALP gets its own mini-Leveson inquiry via the ICAC investigation into MacDonald, Obeid et al from 1 November for 5 or 6 months.
I’d say the Liberals would be the favourites to win the upcoming Sydney by-election on these figures.
And NSW Labor really needs to do some hard work at reforming itself if it wants the polls to get narrower than 60-40. I’ll be very disappointed if it takes a second landslide defeat in 2015 for them to get on with that.
Injecting some youth would be a start. Hoenig is very able but he is 59 – Lalich and Hay are 60+. What do they do?
Surely at least one of the 20 Labor MLA’s or 14 MLC’s had no association with the power games and bad decisions made from 2007-2011 and has a bit of political spunk and talent.
Firstly NSW Labor needs to shake off this reputation of being corrupt and incompetent. I don’t think John Robertson can do that.
Ron Hoenig might be a good bet to replace Robbo in a few months.
NSW labor has a long way to go before it becomes an acceptable face. So people shouldn’t expect any movement whatoever in the polls. But when it happens, it will happen quickly. People are noticing that this is a do nothing government. Over one third of their term already and not a substantive achievement in anything. His (BOF) only real success is managing not to be Campbell newman.
Things have been pretty quiet in NSW since the state election 17 months ago. By and large, BOF hasn’t frightened the horses nor has he annoyed any major interest group, apart from environmentalists who would never vote Liberal anyway. Nor have there been any significant scandals. The actual business of government – the trains, the roads, schools, law and order, land management and so forth – have been ticking over nicely with no major mishaps. The trains have mostly stayed on the rails. While sentences handed out by the courts still don’t meet the approval of the Daily Telegraph or the shock jocks, no one is making a big fuss at the moment.
In fact, for the most part, things were running pretty smoothly prior to the change of government. One very noticeable change has been the lack of screaming headlines, almost daily, in the Daily telegraph telling us how bad things are and how incompetent the government is. So the state government has been pretty invisible, with not many people seeing a need to change their vote from last time.
I suspect the difference between NSW and QLD Labor is that in QLD, Bligh was seen as a legitimate Premier. She’d won an election in her own name, and the government was not seen as purely a product of party HQ wrangling. What swept them from power was the “time for a change” factor, hostility to privatisation of QR, concerns over the health system, the general anti-Federal ALP sentiment and doubtless several other local issues that could be subsumed under the time for a change banner. The swing is of course exaggerated by the sharply undemocratic manner of distributing seats.
In NSW while the “time for a change” factor was there (and indeed was there in 2007 and but for Debnam and Howard would have seen Iemma tossed) plus the bitterness over the privatisation immediately following the election the theme of Macquarie St being hostage to an utterly dysfunctional Sussex St was very strong so that every scandal (the one that sticks in my mind was that Roads Minister at the drunken party on the couch in his underwear — very last days of Rome) became part of the more thematic “faceless men running the government” line. When “faceless men” dumped Rudd, nothing more than a link back to Sussex St was needed for it to resonate here.
Swapping Premiers 3 times amplified this further and ensured neither of Iemma’s successors could be taken seriously, even by your average ALP loyalist. Finally the fixed four year term pretty much ensured that NSW had about 3 and a half years of waiting for March 2011 to toss out the regime it should probably have tossed out in 2007. Buyers’ remorse set in very early.
Also, BOF simply isn’t as out there as Newman and unlike Newman, was not parachuted into the job by his party HQ. That’s why, IMO, his position is a lot more solid.
VonKirsdarke
[I’d say the Liberals would be the favourites to win the upcoming Sydney by-election on these figures.]
Since ALP polled fourth (!!) in Sydney at the general election, their chances of winning in the by-election would look very slim.
An interesting side-light, however, is that there is some talk that Clover Moore (outgoing member) is going to endorse Alex Greenwich, who may very well get good traction. (Having said that, I agree that Liberals would be favourites)
Steve 777,
Okay with most of your oservations bar what BOF’s moseying up to do to the schools. He’s bought the “global funding” meme from the USA (!!!) via Kennett’s Victoria (the schools there haven’t recovered from that fully yet) which (he thinks) is a cunning method of disguising cutting funding to the state schools. When that particular turd hits the fan we’ll see his true colours displayed.
More Akin-style madness from the Repugs: Children born out of wedlock is comparable to rape
O’Farrell is not nearly as scary as Newman, and not as somnolent as Baillieu. But more importantly Robertson is not seen as an acceptable alternative premier, and nor does he deserve to be.
JOHN DICK-HEAD ROBERTSON!
Right, Shows On, I gather that you are not enarmoured of the NSW Leader of the Opposition. In fact, he is very much the invisible man, even more so than BOF. At this stage he was probably the only one who wanted the job. Few people in NSW would feel as strongly about Mr Robertson as you apparently do. He is not doing much to improve the Labor brand, but as far as I can see he’s not doing much that harms it. By the way, you got his middle name wrong – it’s Cameron.
I agree that it doesn’t matter much who is LOTO in NSW (or Qld) at present, so Robertson might as well have the job for now. But he will never win an election, so once the Caucus finds some new talent he should be disposed of safely somewhere.
[By the way, you got his middle name wrong – it’s Cameron.]
Heh.
[I agree that it doesn’t matter much who is LOTO in NSW (or Qld) at present, so Robertson might as well have the job for now. But he will never win an election, so once the Caucus finds some new talent he should be disposed of safely somewhere.]
Well he could at least give himself a chance of being remembered as the one who turned things around by punting the useless, attracting the useful etc
At the moment the ambition seems not to transcend regaining Wallsend in 2015.
What Steve 777 said. Unfortunately, the pre-election media hysteria (NSW in ruins) was not confined to the Daily Terror. Both Sydney papers were gunning for a change of govt (eg. push polling for recall) for at least the previous two years. Since BOF won, his govt has made some noises but done nothing remarkable, and the DT has joined its News Ltd (un)stablemates and focussed its ALP-rage against the PM and her minority government.