GhostWhoVotes reports the first Nielsen for the year has the Coalition leading 56-44 on two-party preferred, compared with 52-48 in the final poll last year. The primary votes are 30% for Labor (down five) and 47% for the Coalition (up four) – we’ll have to wait on the Greens. Even worse news for Julia Gillard on personal ratings, with Tony Abbott seizing a 49-45 lead as preferred prime minister compared with 50-40 to Gillard last time, and she trails Kevin Rudd 61% to 35%. However, the latter result is very similar to Abbott’s 58-35 deficit against Malcolm Turnbull. Opinion is divided on whether the parties should actually do anything about it: 52% support Labor changing leaders and 45% don’t (up four and down three), with eerily similar numbers for the Liberals (51% to 46%).
We also had overnight a Galaxy poll of 800 women voters concerning voting intention and attitudes to the leaders. The voting intention figures were 36% for Labor, 46% for the Coalition and 10% for the Greens, for a two-party preferred lead to the Coalition of 53-47 – about where you would expect it be when allowing for a 55-45 poll trend, the size of the gender gap in recent years and perhaps a smidgin of house bias in favour of the Coalition on Galaxy’s part. When respondents were asked if they were concerned about Abbott saying “‘no’ to everything”, his views on abortion and “the way he treats women”, abortion recorded the lowest response rate among Labor voters and the highest among Coalition voters (albeit by slight margins in each case). The divide was still wider for the question of whether was Abbott was a misogynist, breaking 44-24 for among Labor voters and 9-69 against among Coalition voters for a total of 25-44. Thirteen per cent of respondents said they were less likely to vote for Gillard because she was unmarried and has no children, and the same number said they were more likely to vote for Abbott for the opposite reasons.
UPDATE (18/2/2013): Essential Research breaks the freefall with the Coalition two-party lead back down to 54-46 after a week at 55-45, with Labor up a point on the primary vote to 35%, the Coalition down one to 47% and the Greens steady on 9%. The poll also finds 56% approval and 22% disapproval for recent thought bubbles about development of northern Australia. Other questions relate drugs in sport, including the eye-opening finding that 52% would approve of a ban on sports betting.
Poroti,
Richo talking about NSW Labor corruption is like Dracula talking about the Blood Bank
dave
I did aay that. It is hardly surprising. It stands to reason. No business entity works in a vacuum. The tenacles of deals would have involved other operators with money to invest etc.
I am curious as to what BOF will decide with the recommendations he has to hand from ICAC. I believe thereafter the feds will decide how to handle this matter further.
[ Labor has lost the plot, and the narrative – http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/politics/labor-has-lost-the-plot-and-the-narrative-20130221-2eua9.html#ixzz2LZYIHFBo … – well even Waleed Aly had to protect his ricebowl, hope it’s halal ]
I’m fed up with the lefty bias on the ABC!
I agree with Waleed.
Labor is a good government that has lost its way. 😀
The Finnigans
Well at least we would know the articles were written by experts in the field.
“@senthorun: Dear Senator Brandis, religious organisations receiving public money for public services should NOT have #auslaw exemptions to discriminate.”
[The govt seems to be picking fights with the state Liberal govts. Here’s another eg.
Federal Health Minister Tanya Plibersek says an incident where a woman was forced to deliver her own baby in a New South Wales hospital should never have happened.]
We can expect more public intervention by the Federal Health Minister on incidents like this. It fits into the Federal Government’s stated aim to bypass uncooperative or incompetent State Governments and deliver money directly to hospitals.
The fact that the incident occurred in ‘western Sydney’ is also relevant.
William,
While on the subject of “lefty bias”, I have to congratulate you on eliminating this from your blog in recent days. The place is much more balanced now.
Yes, during the daytime we may still have a preponderance of rational lefties trying to discuss policy and weigh up the alternative party offerings, but there is now also a reasonable representation from the more rational and educated parts of the right.
Thn to balance this rationality, there are the interminable rants from the greenies who can never seem to understand that just shouting “Nya Nya, told you so!’ from the sidelines will never get them anywhere near the levers of government, and also the myriad postings from the embittered old factional Labor hacks who couldn’t give a rats arse about the opposition, reserving all their bile for the dreaded “enemy within” instead.
But overnight is where PB now really excels! The ultra right finally comes into their own right here on PB! Cries of “fascist” and comparisons with Hitler abound. Name calling and “So’s your mother!” type posts are now the norm. The only sad part is that these posters tend to scuttle off as the sun rises, presumably to return to the night soil from which they grow.
PB is now a true reflection of the Australian political landscape – take a bow, William!
Barrie Cassidy today:
[Troubling for the Government, Fairfax at varying levels has joined News Ltd in baying for Julia Gillard’s blood.
Caucus members will deny it, but most of them are heavily influenced by opinion polls and media coverage.
And while they stress about the poor polls and the increasing number of media commentators calling on the Prime Minister to resign, Tony Abbott is simultaneously starting to get his political act together.
He is using short, sharp doorstop interviews to get out a single uncluttered message every day. For example, “The faceless men cut down Kevin Rudd, and now they’re coming for Julia Gillard. I say it’s time to get rid of the faceless men!”
Abbott too, is refraining from the tackier issues like the AWU scandal, eschewing the worst elements of political dialogue while adopting a more Prime Minister-in-waiting persona.
All the while, those around him are working hard at softening his image with women voters.]
And he lays out the various leadership scenarios:
[(a) Julia Gillard resigns
That of course is not going to happen. She is far too determined for that. Only one Prime Minister since the war has given up without a fight; without a party room ballot. That was Kevin Rudd in 2010, because he knew that about 80 per cent of the caucus had deserted him.
(b) The Prime Minister’s supporters have a change of mind and tap her on the shoulder
They will not do that in the absence of the credible alternative referred to earlier. The third man – or woman – has been mentioned, but who among the leading contenders would want to be Prime Minister for a few months and then almost certainly preside over a thrashing at the polls?
It would be obvious to all of them that the electorate would punish a party that needed to sack two Prime Ministers, in three years.
That leaves (c), a return to Kevin Rudd.
The polls suggest that might work. The trouble with the polls is that Coalition voters get a voice in the Labor leadership. Given a choice between the incumbent Julia Gillard and the hypothetical Kevin Rudd, of course they go for Rudd.
It’s in part mischief making from a solid 30 per cent of the electorate. At the federal election, they’ll vote not for Rudd, but for Abbott.
The situation is further complicated because Rudd so firmly rules out a challenge. Drafting him is the only option.
However, if the party was to do that, some of the most senior ministers would have to roll over and they are showing no signs of doing that. And if they did, who among them would explain why they were bringing back somebody they sacked three years ago; then humiliated again just a year ago; somebody variously described by them as chaotic, dysfunctional, and contemptuous of colleagues.]
And what some of us have always maintained:
[But such a dramatic gesture as a second change of Prime Minister in three years – outside of the election cycle – would only be done if backed by a high degree of confidence that such a change would help. As it stands, that doesn’t exist.
Those in the Coalition who promote the idea and suggest Rudd would be a more formidable opponent don’t really believe it either, otherwise they wouldn’t be promoting it in the first place.]
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-02-22/cassidy-another-week-another-political-show-stopper/4533454
I know this is fish and chips wrapping (yesterday’s news) but I didn’t have a chance to look at the papers yesterday.
I am VERY concerned that I find myself in almost total agreement with Paul Sheehan (is this the beginning of early on-set Tory-ism? – seems to hit many at about my age – 46)
http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/politics/changing-captains-will-not-save-this-side-from-a-proper-walloping-20130220-2ermw.html
particularly:
[Driving all this public speculation are the opinion polls. Who creates the opinion polls? The media. Who drafts the questions? The media. Who promotes the results? The media. Who acts as if opinion surveys are surrogate elections? The media. Who profits from the publicity and the speculation? The media.]
[The only group that takes these polls as seriously as the media is the political class, the group of politicians, courtiers, aides, ideologues, lobbyists and power groupies to whom politics is a career and a living.]
I’m pretty sure he’d find his own by-line on several hundred of the over 10,000 articles he complains about, but, like his namesake he seems to have had a Damascus moment (& his prose seems to have improved, so maybe there has been some form of miraculous conversion)
I’ll be watching him for his next leadershit article – like most of the commentariat he typically has amnesia about what he wrote a week or day ago when it is proven to be completely bogus, but then writes as an authority. Where does one get a job (& ego) like that – where you can be wrong 364 days of the year, but still behave on day 365 as though you are The Oracle?
Jackol @ 4629
Waleed Aly voices what I have been thinking lately.
Probably oil on troubled waters but:
http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/politics/labor-has-lost-the-plot-and-the-narrative-20130221-2eua9.html
I think Aly is mostly right –
I don’t think Wahleed is saying anything new or of importance. It’s yet another hamfisted list of sweeping criticisms as he vainly tries to construct a negative schemata for Gillard’s reign.
Problem is, these constructs ie “narratives’ ?????, such as he has used to describe Hawke’s, Keating’s and Howard’s reigns were never described as such by anyone at the time.
Show me any commentary from the period of his reign when anyone wrote or spoke about Hawke’s “deregulated globalised economy” as his overarching “narrative” (whatever the fark that means) under which all his policies were clustered. And that what a good thing that was.
Ditto, for Keating’s “narrative” …..same as Hawke with “Asia is VIP” added on, and ditto for Howard’s “narrative” expressed by Wahleed as “nationalism, security and the triumph of capitalism over labour”.
Who ever wrote about Howard during 1996-2007 that ” isn’t it great that Howard’s taking us into the Iraq war, and we understand and accept it so much better because it fits under his overarching “narrative” ( did I ask what the fark this means yet?) of “nationalism, security and the triumph of capital over labour”. It’s a nonsense.
IMHO this whole concept of “Gillard is despised because Labor under her has no narrative” is mere creative writing and by the average voter is weighted as about two thirds of five eighths of SFA as they cast their votes. The majority of course neither conceptualise such crap nor bother reading it when some hack creates it.
And anyway, sometime in the next decade when hacks are criticising some other PM for lacking a “narrative” (again, whatever the fark that means) they’ll be lauding Gillard for having a “narrative” ???????? (back in the early 21st century) of “future proofing a socially just Australia,” under which rubric her major policy triumphs of education, NDIS, carbon pricing, MRRT and NBN were all logically umbrella-ed.
What hoo haa about nothing.
[Driving all this public speculation are the opinion polls. Who creates the opinion polls? The media. Who drafts the questions? The media. Who promotes the results? The media. Who acts as if opinion surveys are surrogate elections? The media. Who profits from the publicity and the speculation? The media.]
sf:
And as you point out, who does Sheehan work for? The media.
Apparently I have been here for too long because I’m now a lefty. It’s probably a relative thing though.
davidwh
“I’m now a lefty. It’s probably a relative thing though.”
At last we have found our long lost lefty bro, David!
@Colvinius: Why do boat people want to leave Sri Lanka? @gordonkweiss describes a sinister dictatorship:
http://t.co/yyZvRJTb5k @NickBryantOz
Terrible trip home after picking up daughter from airport, worst today , the depression is going to come ashore about 80 k north of us supposedly and the south is the worst, I can believe that, looked out to sea it is horrible, would like to go and look down on beach 70 metres away but so bad at the moment
I think Waleed Ally is corredct in his comments about Labor’s (lack of) ideology crisis:
[If you’re inclined to take a long-term view of politics, the hand-wringing on whether Julia Gillard should stay or go is really just so much white noise.
Labor is in crisis, but not principally for the reasons that occupy the commentariat.
Labor’s problem is ideological. It doesn’t really mean anything any more, and probably hasn’t since Paul Keating lost power in 1996. Sure, Labor has had its moments – most notably in its campaign against WorkChoices, which jolted its ideological memory and gave it a momentary reason to exist.]
http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/politics/labor-has-lost-the-plot-and-the-narrative-20130221-2eua9.html#ixzz2LZggAHpd
This is entirely consistent with my experience of the party. There are too many careerists in Labor whose only commitment is to achieving re-election. They reflexively tell themselves that Labor in power is good, so any act to achieve re-election is morally justified. But they are afraid to check the evidence to see if that is true. Just as supporting a union must be good, even if that union is corrupt and does nothing for low paid workers.
I question whether many in Labor really understand what social justice is? In my own experience they tend to identify strongly with various factions and intreest groups (tribes), rather than moral principles. Anything that helps a Labor tribe must, by definition, be an act of social justice. But what if the tribe is overpaid, not underpaid? Or, like many workers in Sydney Rail, what if their job could easily be replaced by a ticket machine, or a driverles train, and done better? Too bad. Or what if a new policy to “help” Aboriginal communities actualy increases infant mortality? Don’t interfere, you are just being paternalistic. And so on.
As Ally said, the problem extends way beyond Gillard. It may even extend beyond Rudd’s ability to fix, though he is less tied to those who are the cause. I left the Labor party some years ago now, and none of my friends who were in it still are, so I don’t have recent information on what things are like. But the mere fact that, amoung a group of educated, socially progressive people I know who are interested in politics, and not a single one of us is still in Labor, is in itself telling IMO.
Have a constructive day.
I have heard a lot of arrogant corporate executives in my time, bu this statement is up there with the worst of them:
[CBD’S boss of bosses, Fairfax Media chief executive Greg Hywood, was disclosing strong and long on Wednesday as he announced the company’s latest financial results.
The target of his ire: Pommy rag The Guardian, which has climbed into bed with millionaire Wotif founder Graeme Wood to establish a cybernetic beachhead in Australia. ”The Guardian is an extremely good brand in some suburbs of London, it’s not a strong competitive brand in Australia,” Hywood told analysts.
”The brands that dominate the public agenda in this country are Fairfax brands and, to give our direct competitors credit, News Ltd brands.”]
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/business/tinkler-attacks-til-cows-come-home-20130221-2eu8w.html#ixzz2LZl0KQia
psyclaw@4710
Yes agree.
Far too many people willing to fall for it, unfortunately.
OK Waleed, you’ve made me think.
Surely what Labor is about is “equality of opportunity”?
That seems to cover education, health, social support, even infrastructure.
And of course the NBN.
Lizzie
[OK Waleed, you’ve made me think.
Surely what Labor is about is “equality of opportunity”?
That seems to cover education, health, social support, even infrastructure.]
They have continued to subsidise private health and private schools so that’s a bit tenuous.
Soc
not my experience in the Victorian Labor party, which is why I enjoy socialising with Labor people when I can (including MPs).
The schism, as I see it, is very like the one within my own family. My father, a tradie, was determined that I go to University. When I did, however, he couldn’t accept that (in some areas) I knew more than he did, he resented my independence, and (I think) also resented the fact that I earnt more than he did the second I was employed. (On the other side of the ledger, he thought I was neglecting him, ignoring him and being a smartarse….)
The Labor party’s a bit like that. The older generation are still soaked in the blue collar worker view of the world; the younger are more outward looking. This obviously creates conflicts within the party.
For example, years and years ago I advocated policy to do with encouraging work from home. At the time, it was fiercely resisted by the older, male, union-orientated members of the committee, who voted it down, because it would make the work of unions harder. It’s now fairly well accepted that that’s one of the outcomes the NBN will achieve.
What we’re seeing is a party in transition, as the unionist types power is weakened, and the younger bods start taking over.
(One sign of that change is an increasing emphasis on environmental issues. Again, when I first advocated climate change policies, I had to go through my document and remove any reference to ‘reducing our reliance on brown coal’ before it would be discussed).
That sort of change obviously puts the emphasis on where we disagree, rather than where we do – but just as my father and I still shared fundamental values, so do members of the Labor party.
Laocoon@4717
media not letting go.
More extreme rhetoric needed to try and beat into media head. Its NOT happening. Get over it.
@latikambourke: Kevin Rudd would more likely be ‘Bachelor of the Year’ than become PM, says daughter Jess Rudd: http://t.co/8I9uKIwhVO
I note the usual fence sitters have endorsed the “narrative” (whatever the fark that is) crap put out most recently by Wahleed.
Next they’ll be supporting Richo who spouts equivalent rubbish.
I am surprised though that Jackol endorses Aly.
If anyone is really desperate to be able to nominate a Gillard “narrative” (whatever the fark that is) try “future proofing a socially just Australia”.
That’s what she’s on about (if you want to call that a “narrative’ …. fine) and for to my eye it’s as clear as canines testicles.
@guytaur: @latikambourke Point. NOT happening. Its all MSM and Lib beatup. Some of these people are telling the truth. #auspol #ausvotes
Z
[What we’re seeing is a party in transition, as the unionist types power is weakened, and the younger bods start taking over.
]
Just about everyone in Labors cabinet is either a union lawyer or a union boss.
lizzie
Yes, you’re right – and if you look at any of the speeches by Labor Ministers (which, of course, the media doesn’t) you’ll find that emphasised again and again.
That’s what Gillard is talking about when she talks about education policy, what Swan talks about when he talks about mining taxes, what they say when they’re talking NDIS, and so on.
But again, note the focus is always on the Labor party, when the same criticisms could be made with equal force (and probably more justification) for the Libs.
Of course there are divisions within the party. There always are. And that’s a far healthier situation than a party which walks in lockstep, without ever debating the issues.
It’s another sign of the failure of our media that policy debate and discussion is seen as negative.
psyclaw
This was my point. Opposition leaders form a narrative. PMJG has been governing from day one.
No need to craft a narrative when your actions in governing form the narrative.
I notice that the usual Labor lemmings disagree with Waleed.
Waleed Aly is on to something but he makes too much of a meal of it. Labor does have a good story to tell – the economy, the Murray-Darling Basin Agreement, carbon pricing, plain cigarette packaging, marine parks etc etc. It’s just that it doesn’t tell its story well.
Nobody’s listening any more. They’re more interested in gossip and gaffes. They’ve made up their mind on Julia and nothing’s going to change that.
Diog
That’s largely a perceptual thing – I had great fun using the Liberals’ definition of ‘unionists’ against Sophie Mirabella, because apparently being a member of the student union (in the days when everyone had to be) qualified you as a unionist.
Conroy, for example, was only employed by a union for a brief period of time. It was immediately prior to his taking up his Senate position, but that’s precisely why he was given it – it was a stop gap arrangement because he couldn’t be an employee of the Crown for that period.
Diog
no, people who actually are involved in the Labor party – rather than ignorant outsiders who don’t know what it’s like internally – disagree with Waleed.
You can either listen to the experts or the amateurs. If you listen to the first, you learn; if you listen to the second, you don’t.
I’m sure you would say that, as a surgeon, you can give insights in to the world of surgery that a journalist can’t.
Z
Those involved in the Labor party are hardly unbiased in their opinion.
They would be the first to be in denial.
Z
We could list the number of union lawyers or union bosses in Cabinet.
I’m betting more than 50% are.
zoom
[What we’re seeing is a party in transition, as the unionist types power is weakened, and the younger bods start taking over]
If that is true in Victoria then good for you. But in my experience it is not true in NSW, Qld or SA.
Diogenes@4727
Looking more broadly at caucus look at where they came from –
http://www.crikey.com.au/2012/08/06/get-fact-which-labor-mps-are-working-class/
Z
A narrative is forming. See Toff’s post on good case to sell. I expect the narrative to be told during campaign mode.
Diog
I say this and I am not a Labor insider in any way.
And good journalists often provide valuable insights into medicine.
Any expert in any field can be accused of being ‘in denial’ if criticisms are made of their area.
Labor’s big story is future-proofing Australia – a modern economy, new infrastructure (the NBN) and environment (carbon pricing,Murray Darling).
Diogenes
I agree with you over the subsidies to private schools, but that argument was apparently lost years ago.
zoomster
That definition of “student unions” by the Howard govt was dastardly.
Diogenes@4730
Is it mandatory in ‘Dio World’ to agree with Waleed these days?
I don’t appear to have received that memo.
Indeed one would be a leeming to agree with much he says.
I see Waleed Aly has now been enlisted to provide clickbait for the Herald. He asserts that Labor has lost the nrarrative by…ummm…perpetuating the narrative.
The MSM is like an abusive husband who smacks his wife in the mouth and then says, “See what you made me do!”
Z
[Any expert in any field can be accused of being ‘in denial’ if criticisms are made of their area.]
True, and they often are.
We know the Green narrative.
We know the Labor narrative formed out of Government.
We can guess the LNP narrative is return to Howard Era.
Dave
It was a paraphrase of Psyclaws comment actually.
I thought Grattan read better (without Tony-love) in this assessment of the Greens in the Senate, except for this para.
[At this Senate election the stakes will be very high for not just the Greens but the major parties. If the Greens retain sole balance of power and Labor joins with them to block the carbon tax repeal (which would be a big decision for the ALP), there would be a double dissolution. Despite Labor’s claim that Abbott would retain the tax, he would not have a shred of credibility if he did not keep his word.]
Some student of Macchiavelli can no doubt explain to me why Labor would not try to block Abbott’s wrecking of the carbon price legislation.
Okay great Waleed.
Now, try and imagine the wasteland that would be Australia without, well lets just go from Chifley, Whitlam, Hawke, Keating, Rudd, Gillard.
Seriously, be fair take away the achievements of those administrations leaving only those monumental achievements of Menzies, Gorton, McMohan, Frazer and Howard.
Recognise the place anymore?
How’s that for a narrative.