Essential Research suggests Labor’s recent slump may not have bottomed out yet, with their primary vote down two to 32% and the Coalition steady on 49%. With the Greens up a point to 10%, two-party preferred nonetheless remains steady on 56-44. Further questions relate mostly to the Greens, whose performance in the federal parliament is rated good by 17% and poor by 47%; whose politics are related too extreme by 52% and representative of the views of many by 24%; and whose leader Christine Milne is approved of by 22% (up two since November) and disapproved of by 29% (down four), with 48% (up one) still not knowing. The end of the formal agreement between Labor and the Greens is rated good for the Greens by 33% and bad for them by 26%, while the respective numbers for Labor are 26% and 40%. The poll also gauges firmness of vote, which I tend not to find too illuminating, and has 29% believing the mining tax should be amended to raise more money and 21% believing it should be maintained as is, with only 28% favouring its abolition.
We’ve also had ReachTEL striking while the iron is hot on behalf of the Fairfax papers in western Sydney, with automated phone polls of between 617 and 662 respondents conducted on Thursday in four of the area’s traditionally strong Labor seats. It finds the Liberals with a crushing 63-37 lead in Laurie Ferguson’s seat of Werriwa, a 62-38 lead in Chris Bowen’s seat of McMahon, a 54-46 lead in Ed Husic’s seat of Chifley, and a 54-46 lead in Jason Clare’s seat of Blaxland. The respective Labor margins in the four seats are 6.8%, 7.8%, 12.3% and 12.2%. Further questions on how respondents would vote if Kevin Rudd were leader get the usual response. Less usual is the strength of Tony Abbott’s personal ratings, which are net positive in two of the four seats, and the very weak results for the Greens, who score between 2.6% and 3.6% compared with 8.1% and 8.4% at the election.
ReachTEL has also conducted a poll of 693 respondents in Wayne Swan’s seat of Lilley for Andrew Bolt’s Channel Ten program The Bolt Report. This has Swan trailing his LNP opponent 54-46, almost perfectly replicating the result of another poll ReachTEL conducted for United Voice in January. As usual, it finds things would turn around if Kevin Rudd was Labor leader.
Player One
I must be thick.
If they genuinely wanted the discrimination removed, wouldn’t they have simply legislated, as with every other measure for anti-discrimination?
Don Farrell has told us what they really want.
[Any other PBers interested in small things?]
Labors primary vote
If your branch of the ALP was given a sample of your offerings here, expulsion would be automatic. So, file them. To quote Daffy Duck ‘you’re desssspickable’
Bemused manages to make PB all about himself …yet again!!
jaundiced view@5401
Yes, at least we can agree on that.
markjs@5398
A response to the moronic Finnigans.
as I forecast Bemused .. you are getting the chop !
rummel@5402
Tony Abbott’s honesty?
So just as I thought, the polls were wrong and Labor looks set for a narrow victory in the west.
Player One
Nothing on the issue?
Somrthing to look forward to:
http://seniorcitizenhumor.blogspot.com.au/2013/03/blog-post_8.html?m=1
jaundiced view@5410
I gave you my answer on the issue. You chose to ignore it. Not my problem.
Well at least I have a Labor member again
So, if Labor genuinely wanted to remove the discrimination they would have simply legislated. Yes or no?
Mitt, your IQ
bemused
There you go Julie Bishop is tring to do Ruddstoration. The very image of Labor Party Loyalty
Rummell
Given that you rightists have all the billionaires and corporate power etc. As I am a 7th generation Australian and therefore have no passport to any other country, I would consider an offer, if it was sufficient, to leave the place to all you rightists to carry out your extremist experiments.
Just a trillion or two buy out the place….. bring in “low labour costs” (slave labour}, bobs your uncle.
What do you say?
All those obscenely rich Yanks will pay up to own a great “resource”?
jaundiced view@5414
If Abbott would allow a conscience vote on gay marriage (as Gillard has done) we would have it now.
Continually trying to turn this into an anti-Gillard rant when it is Abbot you should be blaming just makes you look like an idiot.
A serious disaster for WA Labor, I’m afraid, comrades. They might be left with 12 seats.
This WA thing is an excellent opportunity to practise the lines for September 14th. Some starters:
“The MSM caused this and they should be burnt at the stake, especially [***]”
“The LNP did not play fair.”
“Our party leader is not the problem, and should continue as leader until 2030.”
“The right-wing unions with disproportionate power are not the problem, and they should continue until 2050.”
“The party does not need major reform.”
“Everything is OK. This is just the electoral cycle.”
“The tide comes in and the tide goes out.”
Player One
You don’t accept the ploy as a ploy? You can admit it. Who is listening after all?
Psephos
ABC is saying 16
[ You don’t accept the ploy as a ploy? You can admit it. Who is listening after all? ]
WTF are you talking about? It is Abbott who refused a conscience vote on this issue, not Gillard!
Are you seriously as stupid as you come across?
Well at the moment Psephos 16 at least and possible 19
Ok, the WA Newspoll looks like having been on the mark with a 60/40 result in WA.
I didn’t figure it would swing so badly – the ALP apparently ran a decent campaign, but it mattered for nothing – the anti-ALP sentiment is that pervasive.
Seeing that is obviously disheartening. But more to the point it reaffirms that if the polls are pointing to a 57+ percent 2pp to the LNP then that may well be repeated at the Federal level. Moderate historical results notwithstanding.
If the polls are stuck there in the next month or so (and they’re obviously close to that now) I think the ALP have to go to the election before August. The stakes are too high to gift the Senate to the LNP.
And I can’t help but recall the pain of having to deal with the Senate elected in 2004 (thanks Latham!) all the way through and beyond the first term of the ALP government (Fielding ftw!) – ie losing the Senate badly this year will cause problems for terms to come even if the ALP can get re-elected in 2016 due to LNP crapness, and that is just not worth contemplating.
If the polls are looking that bad, the ALP must let the public vent their anger without having the Senate up for grabs. There is no other option.
Player One
[Continually trying to turn this into an anti-Gillard rant when it is Abbot you should be blaming just makes you look like an idiot.]
You forget, the Liberal Party will never support this, conscience vote or not.
It is right that those who support equality are aggrieved by the the ALP and gobsmacked by the leader-who-follows who leads them.
Take the criticism on the chin and don’t blame the rightist party.
A couple more:
“Policy should be continue to be determined by focus groups in marginal seats”
“The best potential voters for Labor are racists and xenophobes. Eventually.”
“This is proof that empty pragmatism works. Eventually. We’re in for the long haul.”
“If Labor had the progressive vote, our numbers would have been worse.”
“Reform would be a silly knee-jerk reaction.”
Psephos
My dad said the scariest noise everyone ever heard was the doodlebug engine cutting out.
swamprat@5426
What criticism? That Labor allows a conscience vote on gay marriage and the LNP does not?
Ok – I’ll accept this as criticism of the LNP.
[A couple more:
“Policy should be continue to be determined by focus groups in marginal seats”
“The best potential voters for Labor are racists and xenophobes. Eventually.”
“This is proof that empty pragmatism works. Eventually. We’re in for the long haul.”
“If Labor had the progressive vote, our numbers would have been worse.”
“Reform would be a silly knee-jerk reaction.”]
How about
“Keyboard warriors have achieved a lot for progressive causes here.”
[‘We are not fooled we know you are out to destroy Labor.’]
You mean the dog-whistling trashy Gillard ‘Labor’?
Maate… Gillard and her cabal are the ONLY ones destroying Labor…and they have been fairly effective on a number of fronts.
Rudd is probably the only one at present that could stop the rotting of the party by being a means one way or other of excising some gangrene limbs before septicemia overtakes the whole carcass. But of course it requires the the other parts of the body to see the poison that is being spread by those limbs.
Fortunately Darwin’s natural selection will end Gillard/Factional Mafia Labor…de-select something that has become unfit.
Rudd or a thrashing at the next election will be the penicillin that weakens the infection that is the rabid part of the faction. There will be hissy fits all round by them and the mates.
Don’t think Australia requires a sickly copy of Abbot Liberals as the main opposition party, really.
Greens reportedly preferencing Liberal before Labor in some WA seats shows they are devoid of principles ….unbelievable treachery & no wonder their vote is collapsing.
Good riddance….
Player One
So what you are saying is the “equality” is so radical and challenging to the ALP they need a ‘conscience’ vote. But for nothing else??
I seem to remember how hard it was for Labor to get votes in WA. This goes back to Hawke Keating era. So that being the case are commentators reacting to a return of a natural WA vote?
Its an honest question as Barnett came in as a minority and so what were the votes for previous WA Governments that were not minority?
And another couple:
“Philosophy and vision are luxuries a modern party of the people cannot afford. We lost for other reasons, unknown.”
“Ethics is the luxury of extremists, and we would have lost by more had we shown any integrity.”
“Leadership is a nostalgc concept of the twentieth century. It has no meaning for modern Labor, and we would have lost by more had we lead on anything.”
markjs
Fair is fair Labor started that game. Lots of attacks in Media stating Labor would put Greens last.
Yes the Liberals did the same. Just do not blame the Greens for trying to do what Labor does. Maximise their vote.
markjs@5404
How on earth do you figure that?
I believe that WA has many white Seth Afrikens….. it is naturally rightist.
jaundiced view@5420
Its an excellent opportunity to bear in mind that –
jaundice = envy, prejudice and hostility.
Thats pretty apparent from your posts though.
You are going to Luuuve what abbott does though.
Enjoy!
[“Policy should be continue to be determined by focus groups in marginal seats”]
Like Melbourne?
swamprat@5433
I know you may find this hard to understand, but stay with me on this just for a minute …
[ Not everyone agrees with you – whether in the party or not. So we have this thing called “democracy”. I know it’s a novel concept to some people here, but Labor has it. The LNP does not.]
… there, now that wasn’t so painful, now was it?
dave
Yes, I’m going to hate what Abbott does. I’m going to hate the current Labor bosses more though, for betraying every progressive person in Australia with their ridiculous gamble on copying the Libs; their conscious decision to ditch all good policy if it required leadership to make this a better place – for the sake of power alone. They have made awful policy the norm, and given Abbott the green light for more of the same on refugees, welfare, taxation, equity and much more.
They and they alone are responsible for what is to come. Do you want their names?
Guytaur
[I seem to remember how hard it was for Labor to get votes in WA. This goes back to Hawke Keating era. So that being the case are commentators reacting to a return of a natural WA vote?]
In the last thirty years Labor won 6 and Libs 4
[ They and they alone are responsible for what is to come. Do you want their names? ]
Yes, please!
[They and they alone are responsible for what is to come.]
“I don’t have to show leadership myself because I can blame the government for it’s lack of leadership.”
[‘Be loyal to the leader elected by Caucus as a loyal Labor Member should.’]
Ah, another Wankerism. A statement that is conditional on the preference of the wanker. Thus it wouldn’t apply to PMKR, but instead to the next page with a more pretty picture…more suitable to their activity.
Elected by Caucus is a bit of a wank in itself, as we all know that it isn’t caucus but a handful of people that control the votes at the threat of De-selection. Maybe the first place they should enforce conscience voting is the Labor party caucus. lol
Although, talking about stereo-types I also believe that:
Queensland has many people uneducated and many old rightist migrants from southern climes, and is naturally rightist.
and
The Northern Territory is just a large shire and is naturally rightist;
and NSW is the heir of the Rum Corp and naturally Labor and rightist (both of the grubby kind);
and
Victoria (I know nothing about but they hanged Ned Kelly) enough said;
and
Tasmania should have remained Dutch as Van Diemens Land and would be much better off in the European Community than in the Commonwealth;
and
South Australia
know nothing about it, probably could lease it out as nuclear test site.
jaundiced view@5442
Shorter JV = a hater.
As we are in repetition mode at party HQ:
“As we know too well, Labor is ‘allowing’ a ‘conscience vote’ because the catholic/ACL wing running it refuses to legislate to remove the discrimination (unlike all other anti-discrim measures before), and knows that with the Libs voting against, enough Labor catholics will vote against because of church loyalty to see it defeated. A strategic ploy.”
it is OK to be honest. It’s out there anyway. It’s really all about the Roman Empire. Why didn’t I think of that?:
Left-wing convenor Doug Cameron said recently the conscience vote was a political tactic to ”satisfy some of the more extreme views on the right of the party”.
Victorian Labor MP Martin Foley said Gillard’s position was ”very disappointing and slightly disingenuous”, while Senator Gavin Marshall said she was ceding power to the “minority conservative element”.
In an op-ed published in the Fairfax press Mental Health and Ageing Minister Mark Butler wrote that he would be opposing a conscience vote and pressing for change.
But powerful SA Right convenor Don Farrell does not support same-sex marriage, preferring to maintain the status quo. He’s joined by fellow Catholic Right powerbroker Shop Distributors and Allied Employees Union head Joe de Bruyn in arguing vehemently against change.
“Whenever the institution of marriage broke down, as it did in the Roman Empire, society did not survive,” he told the Victorian state conference recently.
http://www.thepowerindex.com.au/head-to-head/who-s-saying-what-on-same-sex-marriage/20111116706
Labor in WA did very well under Beazely and Hawke.
http://www.aec.gov.au/Elections/australian_electoral_history/House_of_Representative_1949_Present.htm