UPDATE (29/4/13): Essential Research is perfectly unchanged for the second week in a row, with Labor on 34%, the Coalition on 48% and the Greens on 9%, with the Coalition lead at 55-45. It finds a seven point drop since last June in respondents who think the economy is heading in the right direction, to 36%, and has 38% expecting the budget to be bad for them personally against 12% good and 38% neutral. Respondents were also asked about preferred revenue-raising measures, with “higher taxes for corporations” towering above the pack on 64%. Reducing tax breaks for higher income earners was net positive (45% approve, 38% disapprove), but reductions in the baby bonus and family tax and any spending cuts were rated negatively. It was also found that 45% believed population growth too fast, 37% about right and only 5% too slow.
New England was created at federation and has changed remarkably little since, at all times accommodating Armidale and Tamworth and losing Glen Innes only between 1934 and 1949. Currently the electorate sits inland of the north coast seats of Richmond, Cowper and Lyne, extending southwards from the local government areas of Tenterfield and Inverell on the Queensland border through Glen Innes and Armidale to Tamworth, Gunnedah and Walcha. Tony Windsor has been the seat’s independent member since 2001, when he ended an uninterrupted run of National/Country Party control going back to 1922.
Windsor came to politics from a background as a local farmer and economist, winning the state seat of Tamworth as an independent in 1991 after unsuccessfully seeking preselection to succeed a retiring Nationals member. Windsor had received the support of seven out of nine local party branches, and his defeat prompted a revolt among local members of the Nationals as well as the Liberal Party, which did not field a candidate at the election. He went on to win election with 36.2% of the primary vote to 31.9% for the Nationals candidate, prevailing by 9.8% after preferences. Windsor’s victory gave him an early taste of life as an independent in a hung parliament, Nick Greiner’s Coalition government having lost its majority at the election. Windsor was at first the most accommodating of the independents in shoring up Greiner’s position in parliament, but he would join the others in forcing Greiner’s resignation following an adverse ICAC finding in June 1992. Windsor polled 82.2% of the primary vote in the absence of Nationals or Liberal candidates in 1995, which came down to 69.4% when the Nationals fielded a candidate in 1999.
Windsor announced his intention to contest New England two months out from the 2001 federal election, having also floated the idea of running against then Nationals leader John Anderson in the neighbouring seat of Gwydir. He duly recorded 45.0% of the primary vote against 38.9% for Nationals incumbent Stuart St Clair, who had come to the seat in 1998 in succession to retiring former party leader Ian Sinclair, and prevailed by 8.3% after preferences. Windsor’s primary vote would swell to 57.3% in 2004 and to 61.9% at consecutive elections in 2007 and 2010. Windsor’s testy relationship with the Nationals worsened in the lead-up to the 2004 election when he claimed he had been offered a sinecure if he agreed to quit politics, telling parliament a few months later that the offer was communicated to him by a Tamworth businessman acting at the behest of John Anderson and Nationals Senator Sandy Macdonald. This was denied by all concerned, including the businessman.
Household name status awaited Windsor after the 2010 election left him and four other cross-benchers holding the balance of power. With independent Andrew Wilkie and Adam Bandt of the Greens declaring early for Labor, Julia Gillard needed the support of two of the three remaining independents to achieve a majority. Each represented electorates that were rural and broadly conservative, especially in Windsor’s case. It was thus an especially bold move on Windsor’s part to join with Lyne MP Rob Oakeshott in throwing their lot in with Labor. All indications since have been that Windsor and Oakeshott have paid a high political price for their decision, in contrast to Kennedy MP Bob Katter who cagily declared for the Coalition as the Windsor-Oakeshott deal made his vote redundant. A Newspoll survey of 500 voters in October 2011 had Windsor trailing the Nationals 41% to 33% on the primary vote and 53-47 on respondent-allocated preferences. In June 2012, at which time it was anticipated Richard Torbay would be the Nationals candidate, a ReachTEL poll of 532 respondents 532 respondents gave Torbay a primary vote lead of 62% to 25%.
Richard Torbay’s name first emerged as a possible Nationals candidate in mid-2011, though it was said at the time that this was conditional on Windsor retiring. Torbay had been an independent member for the state parliament since 1999, when he unseated Nationals member Ray Chappell in the Armidale-based seat of Northern Tablelands. Torbay’s primary vote progressed from 44.2% to 71.3% in 2003 and 72.7% in 2007, before falling back to 63.4%. In the wake of the latter result Torbay complained of “the trashing of the independent brand”, which was easy to interpret as a dig at Windsor and Oakeshott. He also revealed at this time that he had been approached to run for New England by the Liberals and Katter’s Australian Party as well as the Nationals, and that he was taking very seriously the offer from the latter. His intention was confirmed in mid-2012, when the party granting him “freedom to speak with an independent voice on local issues”.
Torbay’s ambitions became rapidly unstuck in March 2013 when the Financial Review reported he had received assistance from embattled Labor operative Eddie Obeid ahead of his run for state parliament in 1999. Over the next two days Torbay withdrew as candidate and resigned as member for Northern Tablelands, with Nationals state chairman saying the party had received unspecified information “of which we were not previously aware”. This information was referred to ICAC, which raided Torbay’s home and electorate office the following week. Torbay’s loss proved a gain for Barnaby Joyce, who had emerged as the Nationals’ most visible figure since his election to the Senate in 2004 and was widely thought a more promising candidate for the party leadership than low-profile incumbent Warren Truss. Joyce had been open in his desire to move to the lower house, and nominated New England, where he had been born and raised, as his second favoured entry point after the Queensland rural seat of Maranoa.
Not all within the NSW Nationals were quite so keen on furnishing the nominal outsider with what had traditionally been a stronghold seat for the party. In 2011 his opponents sounded out the party’s state leader, Deputy Premier Andrew Stoner, with a view to stonewalling Joyce by contesting the seat and assuming the federal party leadership. Stoner said he wasn’t interested, and the Torbay option would firm in its stead after party polling in early 2012 showed he offered the clearest path to victory over Windsor, including in comparison with Joyce. Thwarted in Maranoa by incumbent Bruce Scott’s determination to serve another term, Joyce reconciled himself for the time being to continue serving in the Senate. When Torbay withdrew Joyce was quick to reiterate his interest, although there were suggestions he might have a strong preselection opponent in the shape of Nationals Farmers Federation president Alexander “Jock” Laurie. However, Laurie instead chose to run in the state by-election to replace Torbay in Northern Tablelands, and Joyce went to an easy 150-10 win in the local preselection vote over Tamworth IT businessman David Gregory.
What and when are two different things, Einstein.
JV
There is no way on earth that on-shore processing can be sold to an electorate that flatly does not want it, unless it is bi-partisan and the electorate has nowhere else to go.
I am pessimistic on this topic and believe the utter worst of my fellow citizens. This is the lot who believed ‘children overboard’ remember, and would happily see AS boats blown out of the water. Be very glad it is only detention we are talking about here.
If Australians did not like the L/NP AS policies they would not have voted them back in so many times. It wasn’t AS policies that got Howard chucked out. It was Workchoices. WIIFM.
And it is not worth throwing away an ALP government over, in my estimation.
davidwh@1800
Labor has obviously fallen for your devious plot!
William
Do you remember a Nielsen poll a year or two ago on refugees that went into more depth than usual, and was the subject of a post by you? I had a bit of a search but didn’t unearth it.
[1757
William Bowe
Feeney, you know how the other day you had occasion to complain that I’m always talking down to you? Well, the reason I do that is that you’re an abject moron.]
Yet another example of understated rhetoric on PB. 🙂
shellbell
what a timely reminder of the dastardly lives led by our own disabled – and their carers.
We need NDIS now.
PS. Thx for your advice the other week. Win-win for me.
Who cares when the Libs stop the boats we take people from the U.N camps, how is that inhumane?
Sure people like SHY will piss and moan… business as usual then.
http://www.smartcompany.com.au/tax/055294-small-business-to-be-hit-by-coalition-tax-hike-as-budget-hole-blows-out-to-12-billion.html
Bad bad Coalition Party.
Bilbo,
That is a bit cruel. Just ‘moron’ would have done, surely?
Sean, the LNP can no more stop any boats than they can swim to Africa.
JV, does this sound like it? I have it down as being from September 2011:
[The latest Herald/Nielsen poll finds 54 per cent of voters believe asylum seekers arriving by boat should be allowed to land in Australia to be assessed. Just 25 per cent say they should be sent to another country to be assessed while 16 per cent believe the boats should be “sent back” and 4 per cent don’t know. When the question was asked a month ago, 28 per cent favoured offshore processing and 53 per cent onshore processing.]
Justice Gilmour (WA), Justice Mansfield (SA) and Justice Siopis (WA) to hear Ashby appeal.
All Howard era appointees but that counts for nowt.
[Bilbo,
That is a bit cruel. Just ‘moron’ would have done, surely?]
I withdraw.
We needed NDIS years ago, during the mining boom. There was plenty of money for it. Why didn’t Costello think if it?
The intellectual snobs from WA are sticking together tonight.
Puff
Well it won’t be a Labor government going down the gurgler on 14 September in my view. It will be a hologram of the Australian Labor Party. It is precisely the Lindsay test rubbish that has brought on the impending rout, and smoothed the path in the electorate for Abbott to do more of the same. Unconscionable negligence and careerist self-interest by the federal leadership.
The Morgan Poll out today reflecting polling of 3418 people 18+ Australia wide last weekend indicates Labor primary vote down to 29% and the LNP vote up 3% to 48%. The two party preferred vote is a staggering 42 ALP to 58 LNP.
jv @ 1816
I agree.
Due to my intellectual inadequacy, I could not have expressed it better myself.
JV, you might be thinking of this:
http://blogs.crikey.com.au/pollbludger/2011/08/17/of-boats-and-votes/
[Back to polling, has this been missed
http://www.roymorgan.com/news/polls/2013/4889/
Coalition 58 : ALP 42]
It’s a Morgan.. but it’s a goodie.
The LNP, the world of make-believe politics, just making stuff up, the illusionists, look at their faking and their feinting…on the budget and on boats, on climate change and broadband, on jobs and taxes and spending…just so much wishful thinking….gawd they are rubbish. If they were fish, we’d throw them all back.
Bilbo,
On second thoughts, one should be clear in ones communication and I see abject means:
utterly hopeless, miserable, humiliating, or wretched: abject poverty. 2. contemptible; despicable; base-spirited: an abject coward. 3. shamelessly servile; slavish.
So in the interests of accuracy I suggest, as you were.
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/abject
[confessions
Posted Tuesday, April 30, 2013 at 9:43 pm | PERMALINK
ML:
There are more families and AS living in the community rather than in detention now than under the Howard years.
This is a good thing, yes?]
Well I answered your question, care to answer any of mine?
I’ll let you choose which one:
1. Can you name a LNP policy on asylum seekers the ALP has not supported?
2. Do you think it is a bad thing that there are hundreds of children in detention?
3. You correctly stated that the ALP dismantled much of the Howard government policies on asylum seekers at the start of its term. Then they reversed that decision and went back to some of the Howard policies, saying Howard was right. Do you agree with that view?
Morgan is being very bouncy Silky although Essential did indicate a very small increase in the Lib vote. We are probably leveling out again at around 55/45 thereabouts.
Puff
“There is no way on earth that on-shore processing can be sold to an electorate that flatly does not want it…”
AGREED.
Some people like to believe if only Labor would lead on the issue then the repressed progressive impulse inside every Australian would awaken and asylum seekers would be welcomed with open arms, bound together in a common goal of a Fabian-esque Australian future.
This is pie in the sky stuff. Australians on the numbers despise asylum seekers. If Labor ‘led’ on the issue as Rudd tried to do, the public punishes them.
It’s sad but that’s the way it is. we are dealing with a deeply ignorant and almostbutnotquite racist electorate. This is why Tony will win.
58:42 is not so different from 55:45
Just in case there are any conspiracy theorists reading, I’ll get around to covering the Morgan poll in a post later this evening.
Puff…Keating had Costello down to a tee..Indolent, lazy..Bloody hell! in those days with all the selling off of national assets, minimal investments in infrastructure and education…even Philip Lynch could’ve got a surplus!…even Peter Reith and his phone could’ve got a surplus…why even “bone-face” Alston could’ve got a surplus!….Alan Bond would’ve doubled it or nothing with K. Packer…don’t know what the Libs’ are on about!
The main difference between the Libs and Labor on asylum seekers? The Libs want to exploit the issue, the ALP by and large wish it would go away. Both support measures that they know won’t work.
There was a potential circuit breaker on the table – the Malaysia solution. The Liberals were afraid it might work so blocked it. Meanwhile, the Greens, like the impotent, are pure but have no workable solution. No one comes out of this looking good.
William
Thanks – I think that might be another one. The Nielsen post I’m thinking of had a positive comment from you about the quality of the questions, and also a link to them I think.
No I don’t want the medic are level raised withought improving the health system. If the gov can’t afford ndis then postpone it
Mod Lib..; “Can you name a LNP policy on asylum seekers the ALP has not supported?”
Yes!…”strafe the survivors!”
Then you most certainly mean this.
http://blogs.crikey.com.au/pollbludger/2011/08/17/of-boats-and-votes/
ML you have to allow for the Morgan bounciness.
Can we PLEEEASSEE have triple digits on the Bludger-Tracker.
It’s torture to only reach 99 Coalition Seats, especially when you take into account Windsor and Oakeshott are probably goners.
55/45 is decimation street. I’m still on track to be out and drinking to the Abbott overlordship by 7.30pm on the 14th. I’ll just clarify that I intend to stay drunk for the 12 or so years the coalition is in power. Hopefully the fools will think twice next time about taking down a first term PM.
Silky38@1817
Comes down to 56.5-43.5 by last election rather than respondent allocated preferences.
Still the worst for Labor from any pollster for a couple of weeks. My rough aggregate went up to 55.2; there’s just no real sign of light for Labor and no evidence yet of anything other than a coming landslide loss.
It might close up. It also might very well not. It didn’t close in the last 6 months in 1996.
———————————————-
Not sure how much has already been posted regarding it but the heavily amended Tasmanian forestry peace deal has finally passed the Lower House and is now law! A highly amusing aspect of the law due more or less entirely to the interventions of key LegCo swinging voter (and “Independent Liberal”) Tony Mulder MLC is that the ultra-greens have to stop protesting now or they don’t get all their reserves. But if a Liberal state government comes in they probably won’t get all of them anyway.
My much-updated article on the shambles had what may be its final instalment today:
http://kevinbonham.blogspot.com.au/2012/12/legco-ices-forestry-peacesurrender-deal.html
The problem with this “The ALP had a solution on the table” stuff we keep getting here is the High Court threw it out to protect the vulnerable people the ALP were threatening.
I know that doesn’t sit well with some here who think they are the protectors of the vulnerable, but there it is. Thankfully, the High Court protected the vulnerable people from the ALP’s plans.
William
[JV, you might be thinking of this:
http://blogs.crikey.com.au/pollbludger/2011/08/17/of-boats-and-votes/%5D
Yes, that’s it! Thanks.
Puff – have a look at that in-depth polling, and be less jaundiced about the voters. They don’t want no Lindsay test.
[joe carli
Posted Tuesday, April 30, 2013 at 10:06 pm | PERMALINK
Mod Lib..; “Can you name a LNP policy on asylum seekers the ALP has not supported?”
Yes!…”strafe the survivors!”]
Give Gillard another term and she might go there.
A good primer on the legal issues the Federal Court of Appeal will need to address with Ashby and Harmers application
http://australiansforhonestpolitics.wordpress.com/2013/04/29/joan-evatts-preview-of-ashby-appeal/
davidwh@1834
Even their Face-To-Face was not as bouncy as a lot of people said. Less bouncy than Newspoll when considering the last-election figures in fact. Just had a nasty habit of throwing a few too many genuine rogues.
The use of respondent-allocated preferences increased the apparent bounciness somewhat.
It does look to me like their new one could be quite bouncy for its large sample size.
[1815
feeney
The intellectual snobs from WA are sticking together tonight.]
Well, confessions and poroti are obviously very gifted, but they are not snobs. They still talk to ML. 🙂
Morgan could be MOE or a signal of wind change.
Cant say Labor’s guaranteed surplus now large deficit followed by threats of Medicare-L hike and other foreshadowing other increases will do it any good at all…in fact that will bring about the twisting knife in the stomach for Labor I suspect.
All because of a long period of the most terrible political leadership.
The Coalition probably cannot believe its luck with the troubles Gillard and Swan keep creating for Labor.
HEY……I AM STILL HERE! :devil:
Silky I agree 55/45 will be ugly if it holds up however I expect things from both sides will ensure things fluctuate both ways until September. I think there is a material number of soft votes out there at present.
Waiting for a Budget Bounce????
[I’m still on track to be out and drinking to the Abbott overlordship by 7.30pm on the 14th. I’ll just clarify that I intend to stay drunk for the 12 or so years the coalition is in power. Hopefully the fools will think twice next time about taking down a first term PM.]
Don’t stress, I have a gut feeling that Abbott will be a oncer.. then we can look forward to 8 years of Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull
Kevin I was referring to the new Morgan method which seems to bounce around more than the others although generally with any apparent trend.
[It’s torture to only reach 99 Coalition Seats, especially when you take into account Windsor and Oakeshott are probably goners.]
If any polling comes in to show these are indeed foregone conclusions (which I expect to happen sooner or later in Lyne at least), I will start including them in the Coalition tally.