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Roy Morgan has published a poll which, so far as the headline figure goes, is extremely interesting in that it a) is consistent with the Newspoll result, and b) was conducted by phone, and thus cannot be anticipated to suffer the pro-Labor bias typical of Morgan’s face-to-face polling. However, the headline figure to which I refer is from respondent-allocated preferences, which for so long have been flowing to Labor in confoundingly weak proportions in Morgan’s face-to-face polls. In this poll however they have flowed to Labor inordinately strongly. If using the measure which allocates preferences according to how they flowed at the previous election, which I and all other pollsters recommended, the Coalition has a somewhat more comfortable lead of 52.5-47.5. The primary vote results are striking in being high for both major parties: 39.5% for Labor and 47% for the Coalition, against 8% for the Greens and a very low 5.5% for others.
The poll was evidently conducted from Monday to Thursday (despite some confusion in Morgan’s heading) from a sample of 668, with a margin of error of about 3.8%. Other questions were also posed by this poll, so stay tuned for more detail.
NOTE: As you may have noticed, Crikey has a new look and its implementation is characteristically being accompanied by teething problems – most seriously the failure of comments thread pagination, which has caused the previous 5000-plus comments thread to not work terribly well. Presumably this one should be okay though, for at least as long as it remains fairly short.
UPDATE: Further findings from the Morgan poll are that Julia Gillard recorded a fairly solid approval rating of 40%, with disapproval of 51%, which represents changes of 3% and 6% since Morgan last posed the question in January. Tony Abbott meanwhile is respectively down four to 32% and up four to 60%. On the question of better prime minister, Gillard has remained steady on 45% while Abbott has dropped four points to 37%. Abbott has also lost further ground to Malcolm Turnbull on the question of best leader for the Liberal Party, the former down three to 19% and the latter up five to 42%. That leaves Abbott nearly level with Joe Hockey, who is down one to 18%. Julia Gillard continues to trail Kevin Rudd as preferred Labor leader, with Gillard up three to 22% and Rudd up one to 34%.
And not forgetting …
Seat of the week: Bonner
To commemorate Labor’s improved position in the polls, Seat of the Week takes its first excursion to the Coalition side of the electoral pendulum.
The Brisbane electorate of Bonner extends south-westwards from the bayside Wynnum-Manly area to Mount Gravatt. It was created at the 2004 election, and has remarkably been left unchanged by the two redistributions conducted since. The seat is also remarkable for having changed hands with each election, starting with the Liberals’ success in overhauling a 1.9% notional margin in 2004. The defeated Labor candidate was Con Sciacca, a Keating government minister who held Bowman from 1987 to 1996 and again from 1998 to 2004. Sciacca took the safer option when the transfer of Wynnum-Manly to the new seat left Bowman with a notional Liberal margin of 3.1%, but he was unable to withstand an adverse swing of 2.4%. Labor appeared to be especially hampered by the loss of Kevin Rudd’s personal vote in those areas of the electorate which had previously been in Griffith.
The inaugural member for Bonner thus became Ross Vasta, a staffer to Senator Brett Mason, former restaurant owner, and the son of noted Brisbane barrister and Bjelke-Petersen era Supreme Court justice Angelo Vasta. Vasta’s main source of publicity in his one term in parliament was his involvement in the scandal surrounding misuse of electoral printing allowances, for which he was cleared by the Director of Public Prosecutions shortly before the 2007 election. He was always going to have his work cut out defending the Coalition’s most marginal Queensland seat at the 2007 election, and duly fell victim to a 5.2% swing which compared favourably with a statewide swing of 7.5%.
Bonner was then held for a term by Kerry Rea, previously a Brisbane councillor representing a ward that included the area around Mount Gravatt. Vasta meanwhile returned to his old job with Brett Mason and unsuccessfully contested the Wynnum-Manly ward for the Liberals at the 2008 Brisbane council election. The newly constituted Liberal National Party then gave him the chance to recover his old seat, which did not seem a likely proposition in the political climate of the time. While that had certainly changed by the time of the 2010 election, Vasta’s victory on the back of an emphatic 7.4% swing was a serious disappointment for Labor, making Bonner the “safest” of its nine notionally held Queensland seats to fall to the LNP.
Labor’s preselected candidate for the next election is Laura Fraser Hardy, an associate with Hall Payne Lawyers.
[David Rowe has a beauty on the “cranks and crazies” remark. I had to laugh at “Mitt for brains”!]
Taxi no. “KO7-13” – is Kevin moonlighting in NYC? (The mohawk suits him.)
For those with difficulty refreshing the page, here’s a trick I developed for my phone browser (and it still works with the new layout.
Select the PERMALINK on the mostre recente comments and then refresh. It should refresh the page and then take you back to the vicinity of that PERMALINK.
Apologies for the effects of predictive text on my previous comment
Good morning everyone!
WA Premier Colin Barnett weighs into the wheat tensions in the federal Liberal party.
http://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/a/-/newshome/14936359/premier-firm-on-wheat-deregulation/
Will those WA Liberals promising to “continue their fight within Liberal ranks” show some courage and commitment to their party’s dedication to deregulation and support the govt’s bills where it really matters?
Good Morning Early Bludgers!
Spring is in the air and the kids are on holidays! What more could you want? A Morning Tea with friends to celebrate the birthday of one of them. It’ll do me. 🙂
[Andrew Elder @awelder
Blogpost: press gallery journos rattled by death of a narrative http://andrewelder.blogspot.com.au/2012/09/a-new-phase-of-uncertainty.html … @samanthamaiden]
Morning All
Interesting Julia is in New York talking up our bid for a spot on the security council. I hope we miss out – not because I don’t think we deserve the spot but more so because I’d be worried how we’d vote if did win it. The security council needs more independent voices, not another American one.
I don’t often buy the Herald Sun on a Sunday but had a look yesterday – they are having a decent crack at the Greens with stories on Bandt’s university thesis on Marx and others on page 2. Also had a large story further on questioning Lee Rhiannon’s alleged support for the Truthers – something she has denied. Here are the links to online versions
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/national/how-greens-deputy-leader-adam-bandt-hid-his-phd-thesis/story-fncynkc6-1226479474658
http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/opinion/truthers-are-stranger-than-fiction-writes-david-penberthy/story-e6freall-1226479413780
Reds under the bed anyone??? (insert crazy face here)
confessions,
It’s going to take all of Julie Bishop’s ‘diplomacy’ skills to keep a lid on the Wheat deregulation ‘discussion’ within Coalition ranks. Not to mention a predicted tussle with Barnaby and ‘Whacka’, and probably Heffernan too, who would all be on the side of re-regulation I would imagine.
I think it’s amusing how the Coalition always use, as one of their fall-back slurs of the Labor Party, that they are ‘Stalinists’, as they continue to live in the 70s and fight Cold Wars gone by, yet when ‘Battlelines’ are drawn in the Coalition itself the turf wars are fought between the Agrarian Socialists and the Free Marketeers. With Julie Bishop herself coming down on the side of the ‘Socialists’. 🙂
Good morning late-rising Bludgers like me!
The sun is up.
The birds are singing.
Labor is still in government.
Jules is still Prime Minister.
Swannie is the World’s Greatest Treasurer.
Albo is the World’s Greatest Infrastructure Minister.
Those BISONs are becoming uncontrollable, and can’t you tell when you cop a decko at those Opposite?
First we had The Unravelling, as the rabble learned to deal with being in Opposition.
Then The Great Unhinging, as the government refused to fall, as directed by them, Mr Murdoch and sundry other rich people with vested interests.
What we have now is the Final Derangement. The government is still there, the polls are turning and the accolades mounting. They know it’s all downhill from here and, like I said, it shows.
I suspect there won’t be enough popcorn in the world for everyone to get their share on election night 2013 😀
I would like to ask parental bludgers a quick question.
The grandsons were diagnosed with “nits” last night. We bought the treatment recommended, applied it, waited the regulation 30 minutes and then went through a hilarious process of combing the nits out of their hair with the nit-picker comb.
All good. Found 4 dead nits, and a satisfyingly adequate number of eggs to justify the extortionate expense of the foaming cleanser.
Her Indoors wanted to burn the bed clothes immediately, subsequently negotiated down to “at least let me (Bushfire) read the instructions first”.
There was nothing in the instructions regarding burning the bed clothes or even washing them, or (in fact) even taking them off the bed and replacing them with fresh ones.
This made sense, as the human nit only lives on the human head. The only place it lays its eggs is on human hair. It’s whole purpose in life is to suck blood from the human scalp and then to lay eggs so that little future bloodsuckers can feast too.
They die when not in contact with an itchy scalp, within a few short hours as the tiny varmints need regular top-ups.
My sage, instant-expert advice a 7pm was, “Leave the bed clothes, any nits on them from last night will be dead by now.” Hi gave the curliest of curled lips and said it will be on my head (boom-boom) if the house becomes Nit Heaven. I smiled my confident smile in the full knowledge that PBers will have the answer for me in the morning.
Was I correct?
(P.S. Re. bed-bugs,I agree: bed bugs, yes, wash the bed-clothes, burn down the house if you like… but nits are NOT bed bugs).
When it comes to lice, I do what my wife tells me irrespective of scientific evidence contrary to her view.
[shellbell
Posted Monday, September 24, 2012 at 7:25 am | Permalink
Perhaps the credibility of Essential is on the line today. All polls have bveen trending the government’s way for some little time now whereas Essential has been static for a few weeks.]
Yes, I think that will give it uncharacteristic interest from the viewpoint of observing the trends. It is not so much the actual 2pp that will matter quite so much because it is not clear which pollsters have got it right.
My own gut feeling is that the gap has not yet been filled to 50-50 or near, and is more likely still about 52.5 to 47.5. But even that is firm evidence of the gap closing, and that the trend is the thing.
And although the leadership approval ratings is to a large extent a side-issue, this too seems to be confirming the trend. Gillard now has a deficit of only about 12 on approve to disapprove. The acceptance of her, for a long time viewed as an usurper and illegitimate, seems to be growing.
If it continues, she may reach equilibrium very soon, and possibly be positive by the time an election is called. By contrast, Abbott’s ratio appears heading deeper into negative territory.
Even the MSM and the press gallery will not be able to ignore these things forever. But apparently they’re willing to try, even if it requires dying in the attempt.
The AFR’s beat-up about the government’s “financial recklessness” provided a few talking points for the opposition for a couple of days, but at what cost? No reputable economics group or credit ratings agency, leave alone the Reserve Bank and foreign investors, will give any credence to that story.
What does that do to the AFR’s reputation in the long term?
Fight ! Fight ! Fight !
[Last month Tony Abbott was given a blunt warning, by phone, from a senior member of the Liberal Party. According to notes of the conversation taken by an exceptionally reliable member of the Abbott inner circle (which is not a euphemism for Abbott), this was the warning:
”If you insist on supporting these motions there will be World War III. We will blow the division up from underneath you. You will lose the [next] election.”]
http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/politics/lid-lifted-on-nsw-black-box-20120923-26ewc.html#ixzz27KmOVePq
C@tmomma:
[It’s going to take all of Julie Bishop’s ‘diplomacy’ skills to keep a lid on the Wheat deregulation ‘discussion’ within Coalition ranks.]
But… but… I thought that was neatly resolved. In fact it was over so quickly that none of the Fairfax or News journalists felt the need to tell us what it had been all about, only that it had been fixed by the diplomatic skills of JB. Perish the thought of any dissension in the Coalition etc.
[I think it’s amusing how the Coalition always use, as one of their fall-back slurs of the Labor Party, that they are ‘Stalinists’]
A classic instance of them believing their own publicity. We have Unreconstructed Trots and Catholic-Haters running agendas against Tony Abbott, Totalitarian Pol Pot groupies at the ABC and Stalinists running the Labor Party.
Jones is going to need a bigger chaff bag.
C@tmomma:
It’s difficult for the WA Liberals. Apparently most, if not all WA wheat growers export their wheat, so deregulation increases their profits, hence wheat growers in WA getting antsy about east coast Nationals’ whispers about returning to a single desk.
Before Crook got in all wheat growing areas in WA were in Liberal seats. I don’t know what Crook thinks about the govt’s proposals, but the Libs are trying their hardest to get O’Connor back: spending big, sending shadow ministers to regional towns in the electorate to spruik Labor Bad messages.
It’s such a golden opportunity for the WA Nationals (with no formal ties to the Liberals like elsewhere) to wedge the Libs. There’s also a state election before the federal election, so Nationals will have their eyes on that too.
BB:
I had lice once or twice as a kid, and I remember mum changing the bed clothes after de-lousing my brother and I.
[My own gut feeling is that the gap has not yet been filled to 50-50 or near, and is more likely still about 52.5 to 47.5. But even that is firm evidence of the gap closing, and that the trend is the thing.]
Live by the polls. Die by the polls.
We were specifically told that “The Polls” were our only guide to the electoral fate of the Gillard Government.
The late, unlamented Carney, in his concern-trollish patrician way told us (when the Labor PV was at 28) that there was nothing to stop the metric becoming 26, then 23 or even sub-20. In general the assurance was that Labor would never recover in the polls\. There was a NSW-Queensland-style baseball bat tsunami awaiting them. “Dead in the water”, “hopelessly compromised”,”no-one is listening or will ever listen again” was the common wisdom among our esteemed political pundits.
My view is that it doesn’t matter whether The Polls are wrong or not, too optimistic or about right. That the No. 1 bellwether poll showed 50-50 burst the “can’t ever make a comeback in The Polls” bubble forever. the previous 2 years of political group-think is out the window and, eventually, policy discussion will have to take its place.
Margie-and-the-kids, kissing babies, helping blind men across the street and back-burning no longer cut it as Nescafe, instant solutions to temporary glitches.
If Labor can score a 50-50 in September 2012, they can score another 50-50 (or even better) in the time between now and the election. The Oracle model of polls as 100% indicators of political truth is broken.
poroti,
But but but, the Libs don’t have faceless men!
Don’t blame me for the italicisation.
I’ve discovered another bug. Not a nit, either.
Screwing up “italics OFF” renders all PREVIOUS posts italicised, not all FUTURE ones.
Preview is almost impossible to use, so I accept no opprobrium.
For those wondering about Mr Abbott’s language:
laity = the non clergy members of the church
penance = earthly punishment for committing a sin
sin = an act against the commandments of God
relevant commandment = thou shalt not annoy the people by drawing spurious connections between SSM and bestiality
state of grace = you have done your penance and your slate is clean. You are all square with God. (The aim is to be in a state of grace when you die because you go straight to heaven.)
the fold = believers (laity and the clergy combined). This is consistent with language in which Jesus is the Good Shepherd.
God = HWMO, aka Mr Abbott
Translation: Mr Bernardi has committed a sin. He must do penance by way of a reduction in pay and status and being kicked out of the fold. When he has done his penance he will have achieved a state of grace. When he has achieved his state of grace Mr Abbott will allow him back into the fold.
[The Federal Opposition is launching a survey to help a future Coalition government decide which areas to prioritise for faster broadband services.
The Coalition says it will not be able to provide a fully costed broadband policy by the next election, but says its plan will be cheaper and completed sooner than the Government’s National Broadband Network (NBN).]
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-09-24/coalition-launches-broadband-survey/4276828
Surprise, surprise. We can’t produce a fully costed broadband policy even though we’ve had 5 years in opposition to craft one.
Although at least they’ve moved on from “destroying the NBN”.
Let us move on to an italics-free future…
BB: As a parent of small children, I am frequently getting letters home warning to check my children’s hair as an outbreak of lice has been detected.
The advice always is:
1) Check the hair carefully.
2) If nothing is found, do nothing. DO NOT treat the hair if not necessary, as lice are becoming resistant to some chemicals
3) If lice or eggs are found, treat with an effective, commercially-available product as per instructions on the box/bottle
4) CHANGE BED LINEN and wash in hot water. Take any pillows and put them outside in the sun for at least 15 minutes.
5) Wash any frequently worn hats in hot water.
6) Check hair again in 7-10 days and if any further lice or eggs are found, repeat the above process.
Thankfully I’ve only ever had to do this a couple of times; it’s certainly a bloody production number! But I also know it’s important do to all this. A mother at my children’s previous school told me she just treats their hair and doesn’t bother about the rest of the things one is supposed to do. Her children were always the ones responsible for the “warnings” of outbreaks!
BTW, I don’t know if anyone else has noticed this, but the minute I start talking about head lice my head starts itching 😉
As I feared — permalinks don’t work once the page flicks over. The link to my post I posted on twitter simply goes to the latest page 1 …
Would you pass this on to the web gurus William.
It would be regrettable if there were an impediment to directing traffic to specific page content here.
Also, the preview box appears to be non-functional.
[BTW, I don’t know if anyone else has noticed this, but the minute I start talking about head lice my head starts itching ;-)]
Yes, it’s like yawning, and coughing at the Opera House. Contagious.
Yesterday at lunch I noticed a little black dot on my wife’s face, just next to her eye. I said, “You’ve got a tick,” more as a joke than anything else.
She picked the little black dot off her face and told me it was a tiny insect. NOW we know what it was. She’d just been cuddling the No. 2 grandson.
The best part was the nit picking. The boys feigned agony. The more they suffered, the more we couldn’t help laughing. Keeping the nit-picker steady became almost impossible.
Amazing how the most mundane things can become fun for adults.
confessions:
[Surprise, surprise. {The Libs} can’t produce a fully costed broadband policy even though we’ve had 5 years in opposition to craft one.]
cf:
[but says its plan will be cheaper and completed sooner than the Government’s National Broadband Network (NBN).]
Well yes, because coalition.
A very difficult morning for those on 774 ABC – leading story in Melbourne is around Jill Meagher who works for them and went missing early on Saturday morning. Police have now found some of her personal items and the homicide squad has been called it. Fingers crossed it isn’t as awful as it’s sounding 🙁
Must be a terrible time for all concerned
On that sad note, I’m off to work – have a great day All
p.s. my Brownlow picks – Sam Mitchell and Joel Selwood
Morning Bludgers – just as I get the new format worked out (and finding I kinda like it) I get hooked into BB’s ‘nit picking’.
My head is now itching like crazy – thanks BB 🙂
[Preview is almost impossible to use, so I accept no opprobrium.]
CCCP has been adjusted to fix this.
To use the Crikey Clear Comment Preview script, install in order:
Firefox
Greasemonkey
cccp
or:
Google Chrome
Tampermonkey (Optional)
cccp
You have to feel a little sorry for turnbull having to polish the turd that is the coalitions uncosted but bound to be cheaper broadband “policy”. abbott has dumped him in this role to do damage to him, no doubt about it
If the mobile site took you to the post you just made instead of back to page one of a thread, it would also be great.
Bushfire Bill,
Former Pharmacist and Mother to two children who have only ever had Nits once in their lives, here. So let me tell you what I believe to be the best road to go down to put as much space between you and them nits as possible.
Go hard and early. Don’t go all ‘New Age’ treatment with Tea Tree Oil-based products. They don’t work. I bought a Malathion-based product and used it according to directions, then followed up with the Conditioner and comb method until all signs of the nits have disappeared.
Of course you have to keep your kids at home until the nits are gone, but as it’s the School Holidays in NSW atm you are able to tackle it without either them going back to school to infect others, or the grandkids being reinfected themselves.
Here’s a couple of fact sheets that I believe get the balance right(oh, and it seems your OH was right, so big Spring Clean on the menu today 🙂 ):
http://raisingchildren.net.au/articles/lice.html
http://health.vic.gov.au/headlice/faq.htm
http://www.health.nsw.gov.au/publichealth/environment/headlice/treatment.asp
Have fun! 🙂
This broadband thing is farcical from the Tories. It’s going the way of “Interest rates will always be lower”.
Fancy being a year out from an election and throwing your hands in the air on a major policy issue and saying “Sorry, bit too hard. But vote for us anyway.” If labor did that in opposition the press would say its the death knell of any chance they had.
Bizarre.
[The Coalition says it will not be able to provide a fully costed broadband policy by the next election, but says its plan will be cheaper and completed sooner than the Government’s National Broadband Network (NBN).]
If it’s cheaper it is slower.
This little black duck
No “faceless men” just voices at the other end of the telephone.
Would you take the Coalition on trust when it comes to their Broadband policy?
Andrew
[You have to feel a little sorry for turnbull]
I considered your suggestion … and decided ‘Stuff him’.
http://tinyurl.com/c89zmww (click google link)
[Redmond silent as frustrated Libs agitate for leadership change
BY: SARAH MARTIN
From: The Australian September 24, 2012 12:00AM
BESIEGED South Australian Opposition Leader Isobel Redmond is maintaining her silence on whether she will step down as leader and allow the party a smooth transition to her former rival Martin Hamilton-Smith.
The Liberal leader attended a party fundraiser with former premier Steele Hall yesterday, but refused to answer leadership questions from the media.]
C@tmomma
[Would you take the Coalition on trust when it comes to their Broadband policy?]
They’ve got one ?? They have spoken of everything from “destroying” the NBN to the virtual completion of the NBN as proposed by Labor.
Would the Liberals be likely to beat Weatherill under Hamilton-Smith?
morning bludgers
Thanks fess for Elder’s latest contribution. Brilliant. It was carthatic!!
Footy fever has well and truly hit this household. Plans were put in place last night. To ensure Grand Final tickets, Son was to line up at 6.00 this morning in front of ticket agency, and daughter was to do her magic on the internet. Who got the tickets? Daughter on the internet at 9.01am!!
And great ones too. The males in the house are ecstatic. Now for the Hawks to win the game!!!!
Boerwar
My family are all Catholic, and Abbott scares the bejesus out of them all. He is unlike any Catholic I know. He is a nutter.
Womble
You have probably already headed off to work. The front page of the Herald Sun has the story on the missing ABC staff member. It is not sounding very promising.
Good Morning
Mr Abbotts latest proof he does not get it.
@Simon_Cullen: Tony Abbott says PM would be better off spending her time in Indonesia, instead of New York
Like an Olympic bid you support, not work against the national bid.
Victoria,
Yes, Andrew Elder’s latest contribution to the political debate was exemplary, as usual. However, I would have changed one line:
No, this is a result of the destruction of Abbott’s credibility.
To this:
‘No, this is a result of the destruction of Abbott’s Credlin-ability.’ 😀
Mr Elder says that Mr Abbott is a prick.
Hard to argue against that.
What an unbelievable joke Abbott is becoming. We all know he would be in New York, at the UN, rubbing shoulders with the other World Leaders as quickly as a blowfly descends onto meat left out in the sun.
And we’d all have to endure vision of him cycling his way around New York in the early morning, a la Howard Power-Walking in his Track Suit.
@1petermartin: Swan and Wong release final budget outcome for 2011-12 at 10.30am AEST