Having proved more than a few detractors wrong in avoiding defeat on the floor of parliament to this point, the Gillard government must face the polls at some time this year, by no later than November 30. Should it push the election date out as far as it can go, it will have extended its “three-year term” to three years and three months, the date of the 2010 election having been August 21. This is because the clock on the three-year term does not start ticking until the first sitting of parliament, which was on September 28, 2010. Once the parliamentary term expires, there can be a 10-day gap before the writs are issued, as many as 27 days for the ensuing nominations period, and a further campaign period of up to 31 days until polling day. The minority government agreement reached with Tony Windsor and Rob Oakeshott after the 2010 election stipulated the “full term” to be served should continue until September or October. The Howard government provided handy precedents in this respect, having held out for at least an extra month in 2001 and 2007 without incurring too much opprobrium.
The other end of the equation is how soon the election can be held. In theory, an election for the House of Representatives can be held at any time, so long as one dispenses with the assumption that it will be held concurrently with a half-Senate election (the time where a double dissolution might have been a theoretical possibility having already passed). A House-only election would put election timing for the two houses out of sync, something governments have been determined in avoiding since the last such election was held in 1972. There were theories abroad that the government might nonetheless have just such an election in mind, either to seize advantage of an upswing in the polls or to spare itself the embarrassment of failing to bring down a budget surplus. However, the government’s pre-Christmas withdrawal from the surplus commitment — together with the Prime Minister’s recent insistence the election date will be “around three years since the last one” — make it a safe bet the House’s election timetable will indeed be tied to the Senate’s.
The next half-Senate election will be held to replace senators who were elected when Kevin Rudd came to power in 2007. They began their terms in mid-2008 and will end their terms in mid-2014. The election process must begin in the final year of the six-year term, namely from the middle of this year. Since the process involves a campaign period of at least 33 days, the earliest plausible date is August 3 — less than three weeks before the third anniversary of the 2010 election. School holidays in various states between September 21 and October 12 offer a complication for part of the period nominated by Windsor and Oakeshott, although Howard’s decision to hold the 2004 election on October 9 showed that only the consecutive AFL and NRL grand final weekends were (in Howard’s own words) “sacrosanct”.
The best bets therefore seem to be the first three Saturdays in September (the 7th, 14th and 21st) and the last three in October (the 12th, 19th and 26th), with the proximity of the three-year election anniversary strengthening the case for September over October.
It’s not as if they had to work terribly hard to convince people :P.
[zoomster
Posted Saturday, January 12, 2013 at 4:27 pm | PERMALINK
And again we have ModLib criticising Labor for attacking Abbott whilst wanting Abbott gone.]
zoomster:
It is possible to not agree with someone and still be able to detect it when that person’s political opponents are attacking him personally,
I do understand that some here lack that level of sophistication and just worship one person/side and hate/condemn the other without fail.
I see grey, many here see nothing but extremes either way!
Emo’s op ed in The Oz on climate change
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B0ctB3LVda7hLVppTjgxaWh0dTA/edit
I would have thought that any sympathy vote for Gillard would have washed through the system a long time ago.
Mod Lib@2712
PPM has all sorts of problems which I discussed at length here: http://kevinbonham.blogspot.com.au/2012/12/why-preferred-prime-ministerpremier.html The bias in favour of the incumbent (because the voters know what the incumbent is like as PM but don’t know about the opponent) is the biggest one for average poll watchers trying to make sense of it. If Gillard is, say, 10 points ahead of Abbott, that’s not good news for Labor; if they were doing well it would be expected to be more.
that’s can’t drop him
Straw in the wind?
Once upon a time, when I linked to information about climate change on twitter and used the auspol hashtag, I would find myself involved in arguments with ‘sceptics’ – some of which lasted for weeks.
In recent weeks, not a bite.
They may have all decided I’m not worth responding to. Or they may all be on holiday.
Or perhaps they’re just feeling the heat….
Kevin B,
Did you read the piece by Possum I referred to over the page on relationship between net sat and electoral fortunes?
Can’t do the link but it’s on his site date 29th September 2012.
New record high temp today
http://www.theage.com.au/environment/weather/new-high-reached-during-great-heatwave-20130112-2cmbw.html
Hmmmmm
No comment from ML on economic management
[I’m unable to do the link, but it’s still there on Pollytics site dated 29th September 2012, if you’d like to have a look. Then get back to us.]
HSO:
I did see that (and I saw KB’s link as well).
The Pollytics graph suggests the “average” PM Approval rating for a 50:50 result in the election is an approval rating of 45%.
Gillard has not been in that territory for 2 years.
[We have to hope the government is putting a political focus on these things, which are already being taken seriously by the ABS, the public service, academics and private economists.]
The Howard Government certainly did through measures such as the Future Fund and the incentives to increase the birth rate and adjust the population profile. Further changes are taking place with this government such as the increase in retirement age to 67.
ModLib
if you were able to discriminate in the way you describe, I’d expect to find you here defending Gillard against such attacks, too.
But you don’t.
You pretend you’re balanced and objective, but I really haven’t seen much sign of it. You defend the Liberals quite vigorously, and then when challenged on how you can possibly do so, say you won’t vote for Abbott.
As for Abbott’s poor ratings being a result of Labor attacks, he’s always had poor ratings. (I can remember remarking in an interview before Gillard became PM that Abbott was a drag on the Liberal vote). His poor ratings (some research shows) dragged down the Liberal vote at the last election.
By the by, I’m always amused by the ‘Turnbull would beat Gillard’ etc match ups.
They overlook the fact that (if we play the equivalent of paper scissors rock with the names on the board) she’s already beaten all of them at least once.
Rudd beat Turnbull; she beat Rudd. She’s already beaten Abbott.
[Or perhaps they’re just feeling the heat….]
Make no mistake, our last two-to-three wet summers was what destroyed the climate change debate in this country — it was not Abbott, it was not teabagging Berandi and his cranks bombarding Liberal MPs and it certainly wasn’t the deranged Alan Jones and his convoy of incontinence.
Now that we have returned to our sadly dry and hot fire ridden summers, you will again see support for action on climate change restored to 2007/8 levels.
The carbon tax may well be an issue at the 2013 poll, but it will be all positive for Labor. Abbott will be the one avoiding that issue, rest assured.
Mod Lib
Posted Saturday, January 12, 2013 at 3:34 pm | Permalink
So even though PMJG is preferred over Abbott, why do you continually suggest that Labor,will lose because of PMJG being unpopular?
A few points here:
1. Gillard is preferred over Abbott at the moment. Where were all of you when Abbott was neck and neck with her, and beating her on approval levels? A little selective poll reading perhaps? I have consistently said that it is voting intentions that matter to me.
2. In my recollection PPM and Approval ratings have not been good predictors of how people have actually voted. I know others have done detailed analyses of these things so I will let them clarify, but opinion polls have been pretty close to the mark so there is not reason to use anything else over them.
3. Psephos says that the voting intentions will change if the approvals and PPM improve for Gillard. I don’t disagree with that, but the central point remains. You look at the voting intentions not the PPM.
Well, I think it is a little more than the PPM lead Gillard now enjoys. I haven’t seen an Essential for a couple of months, but an earlier one of their breakdowns showed a critical change.
That was, Gillard had closed the gap ratio on negative to positive. I think she was still a net negative, but only by about 8 points. In the days of carbon tax fear and loathing her net negative had drifted out to somewhere around 30+ points.
Now that to me is a pretty significant change. It suggests that, if not popular, she is at last winning (grudging possibly) respect. She is pushing slowly towards zero positive/negative ratio.
If she reaches that or beyond, I’d say the coalition are toast. See Possum’s analysis of the relationship of leaders to governments.
Kevin Bonham:
[ If Gillard is, say, 10 points ahead of Abbott, that’s not good news for Labor; if they were doing well it would be expected to be more.]
I’m not sure your reasoning holds here.
Firstly, Abbott has been LotO for four years including of course, one election, so the “don’t know much about him” deficit doesn’t apply in the way it might for someone who had only been in the job for a year. People have a very strong sense of him, and what he’d be like.
Secondly, at some point he will need, if he survives that long, to spell out some specific programs for the next term and when that occurs I fully expect the margin to blow out a long way.
[You pretend you’re balanced and objective, but I really haven’t seen much sign of it. ]
If I agree with something I quite often don’t comment. If I think something is ludicrous (like Meguire Bob’s claims to ignore the polls as he knows the ALP will win) then I comment.
If you want to know what I think about a specific issue, please ask and I will let you know. I have congratulated the ALP on many things in the past, and have criticised the media for silly attacks on the ALP before. No-one here will acknowledge that I have done these things- I fully understand how the blog works- but I have.
The problem is there is a tendency* here to see everything the ALP does and working brilliantly, the media as out to get the ALP and everything the LNP does as evil. So I comment to reject these hypotheses and you take this to mean I am just a partisan hack. Fine, I am not here looking for friends! 🙂
Mod Lib,
As Gorgeous Dunny has just commented, the point is that it has already moved into a positive net sat.
The fundamental issue is that both Gillard and Abbott are both equally unpopular and “neither” would actually be the preferred option of the majority of Australian people. Abbott has never been popular, though not as unpopular as some here would wish to believe. Gillard blew what popularity she had during the election campaign and it has never come back. Both sides have thrown a lot of mud and that mud has largely stuck. There is a logjam that only the election this year can break – unless – the parties break it themselves first – highly unlikely though that is.
[That was, Gillard had closed the gap ratio on negative to positive. I think she was still a net negative, but only by about 8 points. In the days of carbon tax fear and loathing her net negative had drifted out to somewhere around 30+ points.]
Gorgeous Dunny:
For the last 6m she has been around-16
For the previous 6m she was -30
An improvement but hardly “popular”!
ML 2766 I understand pretty well what you are saying 😉
[ If Gillard is, say, 10 points ahead of Abbott, that’s not good news for Labor; if they were doing well it would be expected to be more.]
Fewer truer words said. Look at Victoria, Ted Baillieu leads by 9 as preferred premier but the Libs are 10 down in the polls. And his is a government that is looking terminal.
Still no comment from ML on economic management.
The achilles heel of an LNP election campaign with all those black holes and related issues like work choice mark ii looming.
[blackburnpseph
Posted Saturday, January 12, 2013 at 4:57 pm | PERMALINK
Fewer truer words said. Look at Victoria, Ted Baillieu leads by 9 as preferred premier but the Libs are 10 down in the polls. And his is a government that is looking terminal.]
The group think that TB is facing certain defeat is a case in point:
1. The election is ages away for him- why do bloggers not use that excuse for the Vic LNP as you do for the Federal ALP?
2. TB is PP by as much as JG is PPM
3. TB has comparable approvals to JG
4. TB is losing on TPP by as much as JG
Why is JG fine and TB terminal?
[Look at Victoria, Ted Baillieu leads by 9 as preferred premier but the Libs are 10 down in the polls. And his is a government that is looking terminal.]
Curiously, since I moved back to Melbourne I haven’t spoken to anyone in the Vic ALP who thinks Labor will win the next state election. They all think Baillieu is having a mid-term slump which he’ll get out of by November 2014.
Guytaur Swan is helping the Libs out on the economic matters by making promises and now likely going going to break said promise.
[guytaur
Posted Saturday, January 12, 2013 at 4:58 pm | PERMALINK
Still no comment from ML on economic management.]
You seem to have missed my comment from 30 mins ago, so here it is again:
[Mod Lib
Posted Saturday, January 12, 2013 at 4:33 pm | PERMALINK
Do you think voters will believe these counter claims
I think the voters believe the LNP are better economic managers.
The ALP gave up on their economic record credentials when they trashed the Rudd Prime Ministership.]
I suspect the original intent of looking at the PPM figures in polling was an attempt to get a handle on how undecideds (or basically uncommitteds) would actually break at an election, on the theory that the increasing “presidentialisation” of our elections means that when a truly undecided voter gets into the polling booth it’ll be the mug shot that they like the most/hate the least who will get their vote.
So, when the party votes are locked in, PPM would probably be irrelevant; for elections without strong issues, without strong polarization, perhaps PPM is more useful. Having said that, 2010 was largely described as a washout on issues and PPM wasn’t really predictive. Go figure.
The 2013 election, come what may, will be an issues-driven polarized election, so on whatever theory I’d say PPM is going to be meaningless.
I don’t see that Labor (parliamentarians) have been ‘smearing’ Abbott. I agree that there have been continuous attacks by Labor supporters, but that would also be true for Lib supporters on all media.
ML
I asked specifically in relation to the use of the IMF claims in a campaign how the Coalition would counter.
They cannot just say awww he said surplus and then being better economic manager adjusted to suit economic circumstances. Thus breaking a promise.
That does not work. John Howard proved it. So what are the LNP going to counter that with?
One of the 400+ comments in The Guardian on the Tassie bushfires….
Astonishing, apocalyptic photos. As stirring as those from the Dust Bowl in 1930’s Oklahoma, et. al.
Perhaps the time for talking about climate change is coming to an end. It’s arrived. And we should start preparing for it’s consequences.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/interactive/2013/jan/09/wildfires-australia-pictures
Frankly, Mod Lib, I can’t understand why you would support the current Libs in any way, shape or form.
They’re clearly economically illiterate, certainly Abbott is. They contradict each other every second day, sometimes the same day on pronouncements with profound economic repercussions and they’ve said they don’t trust Treasury.
They really would destroy the joint.
Mod Lib @ 2773
My point – not terribly well conveyed I admit – is that the PPM is just a straw being grabbed and not a realistic guide as to how the ALP might go come August or whenever.
[Why is JG fine and TB terminal?]
JG has policies, TA has none
JG is improving, TA is worsening
JG has legislated lots, TA has achieved record, futile SSOs.
JG supported a Carbon Price, TA opposed it, misrepresented it and didn’t even vote against it.
JG has delivered NBN, TA squibs to MT who makes a fool of himself.
Need we go on …..?
I could probably add as well, Kevin Bonham, that Abbott has been LotO during a period when people were at entitled to reckon with the possibility that the government might be defeated on the floor of the house or forced to accept LNP amendments to some bill and/or that the Indies might install Abbott as PM on some basis or another.
Typical LotOs are seen as purely notional opponents (until an election is called) rather than active players in politics or the potential authors of new policies. It’s in this sense that the negative campaign run by Abbott has been double-edged. While it clearly hurt the regime for a long time, creating the impression of persistent crisis, when it became clear that the regime would run full-term, the lack of any coherent policy alternative to the ALP became entangled with the negative campaign — marking him as a wrecker and contributor to dysfunctional politics — which is why Turnbull got some traction when he started speaking up for being constructive.
IMO, the gap in favour of Gillard as PPM is therefore a lot more significant than it would be if we’d had “normal” politics since August 2010 — and really does underscore the salience of the policy debate that sooner or later must take place.
Psephos @ 2774
A most interesting observation.Not sure what to make of it however. My view is that it is not a government that is necessarily unpopular, more like one that the populace are indifferent toward.
oops:
[when people were entitled to reckon with ]
WOW! Thank you, Rossmore!
[guytaur
Posted Saturday, January 12, 2013 at 5:05 pm | PERMALINK
ML
I asked specifically in relation to the use of the IMF claims in a campaign how the Coalition would counter.]
I suspect the LNP will ignore the IMF. If the ALP thinks it can get any traction by using the IMF best of luck with that!
The ALP has been boasting for years about “bringing the budget back to surplus” and then hung their economic management reputtion to that particular swag.
Some posters here told me I was crazy to question whether there would be a surplus as the government would absolutely HAVE TO ensure a surplus and so they would do whatever it took to ensure it happened.
It appears it wont. That fact is way more powerful than anything the IMF says in the electorate.
ML
That fantasy has been blown out the water. Public accepts it was a purely political promise to the detriment of economy.
MSM and economists told them so.
Non core promise.
[blackburnpseph
Posted Saturday, January 12, 2013 at 5:07 pm | PERMALINK
Mod Lib @ 2773
My point – not terribly well conveyed I admit – is that the PPM is just a straw being grabbed and not a realistic guide as to how the ALP might go come August or whenever.]
My comment was not actually aimed at you, I just replied to your post as an appropriate vehicle for making my comment!
Sorry 🙂
I admit I only looked at one Essential for my comment, but the ratio was a lot lower than -16. It was below 10, I know.
It’s possible that following the desperate smear attempts with the Slater & Gordon/ AWU stuff from 1995 that there might have been a brake a a moderate reversal. Despite the perennial line of “questions to answer”, nobody has come up with any that she hasn’t answered so far.
It’s been sustained by the OM but without any substance to it, it will die a natural death. It’s only a question of whether Mesma wants to go down with it.
If that has been the blip in her recovery, it will fade away. Lynch and Khemlani might have worked (with media support) 40 years ago, but Blewett is no Khemlani. His history has been as a petty crook, with a record.
By “that fantasy” are you referring to an ALP government delivering a surplus?
hehe 🙂 I am norty but a few people still like me 😉
davidwh:
[Swan is helping the Libs out on the economic matters by making promises and now likely going going to break said promise.]
It was politically unwise to make such a specific promise, but I doubt that it will change the minds of anyone inclined to vote ALP. As far as I can tell, most people aren’t keen on austerity if they think it means recession or something like it. People inclined to vote LNP will certainly cite it, and the press will do their Gotcha! routines but in the end, if growth continues then Swan’s belated message that he’d prefer to protect the economy than his PR will be accepted by everyone who was a show of voting ALP — especially since the independent experts — including conservative-aligned experts/thinktanks like Ergas and Access — were saying he should put politics aside and abandon the commitment.
Conversely, if commodity prices recover enough, he might just get his surplus, which would then be a bonus for the ALP while underlining the basic point that government and household budgets are quite different kinds of thing.
Actually, the most remarkable thing about Abbott is how little he has achieved.
LOTOs, in governments with definite majorities, can usually point to changes in legislation which they brought about, by putting pressure on the government.
Abbott, in a government with no margin at all, has been unable to influence anything much at all.
With the Parliament on a knife edge, with a huge lead in the polls (which, at the very least, gave him a groundswell of support he could tap into) he failed utterly to capitalise on the situation.
If he fails to win the next election, he won’t even be a footnote in history.
[The group think that TB is facing certain defeat is a case in point:
1. The election is ages away for him- why do bloggers not use that excuse for the Vic LNP as you do for the Federal ALP?]
I don’t see TB as terminal but the glaring difference is he has little popular policy and Julia has a lot. Nobody in Vic identifies with Andrews at the moment so the polls are merely a reflection on perception of government performance and have nothing to do with a better Labor alternative… this will of course change early 2014 as Labor begin identifying what they’re about and are scrutinized.
ML
It appears the breaking of the carbon tax promise is looking like the breaking of the GST promise.
So even that is not the negative now you are hoping it is.
Been fun, fraid I have to go now….visitors! A little “real world” interruption I am afraid…
Good night.
[It was politically unwise to make such a specific promise]
Stupid would be a more succinct way of putting it. Making it in the first place, and then hanging on and hanging on with the fiction that it would happen.
zoomster
[Abbott, in a government with no margin at all, has been unable to influence anything much at all.]
I always find it strange that he refuses even to engage (or to let his caucus members engage) in worthwhile negotiation on important legislation. In this attitude he’s the same as the Repubs in USA.