A relatively quiet week for national polling, with two new results available for the BludgerTrack update:
• The weekly Morgan multi-mode poll, this time enlisting 3418 respondents from its combination of face-to-face, online and SMS polling, recorded a sharp uptick for the Coalition, up four on last week’s primary vote result to 48% with Labor down two to 30.5% and the Greens up half a point to 11%. That came out particularly bruisingly on Morgan’s headline respondent-allocated two-party preferred calculation, which showed the Coalition lead blowing out from 54.5-45.5 to 58-42. The result on 2010 election preferences was a milder 56.5-43.5, compared with 54-46 last time.
• 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.
The impact of the new Morgan multi-mode series on the current BludgerTrack modelling is still very slight, although this will begin to change as more data becomes available for assessing its performance. For now the result on national voting intention is little changed on last week, bringing an end to three weeks of movement to Labor. The availability of new state-level data from Essential Research has sent Labor back two on the seat projection by weakening their position in New South Wales and Western Australia.
Two doses of preselection news:
• The Australian reports on four contenders to fill Barnaby Joyce’s Queensland Senate vacancy, which he will formally create at the start of the election campaign period to facilitate his run in New England. The candidates are Barry O’Sullivan, who has stood aside as the treasurer of the LNP while he considers whether to run; David Farley, Australian Agricultural Company managing director, who caused a brief stir last August when he suggested the Prime Minister was a “non-productive old cow” who might be put to use at an abattoir he was spruiking; Larry Anthony, famously well pedigreed former member the north coast New South Wales seat of Richmond; and Ray Brown, mayor of Western Downs. Mentioned elsewhere were Theresa Craig, a down-list candidate on the LNP Senate ticket; Susan McDonald, “daughter of former National Party president Don McDonald and a member of a family cattle dynasty”; Kerry Latter, chief executive of Mackay Canegrowers; and Julie Boyd, former mayor of Mackay. The preselection will be held on May 25, despite the view of some that the matter be left until after the election to give unsuccessful lower house candidates an opportunity to run. Steven Scott of the Courier-Mail reported “senior members of Opposition Leader Tony Abbott’s team” were of a similar mind, although his public position is in line with that of the LNP state executive.
• Anna Patty of the Sydney Morning Herald reports Labor in New South Wales is “under growing pressure to intervene in the preselection of a candidate for the federal seat of Throsby”. Head office has apparently held off so far to give incumbent Stephen Jones a chance to shore up his local numbers, but the upper hand has remained with local Right forces associated with state Wollongong MP Noreen Hay. This grouping now wants the seat for one of its own, something it has long been denied by a centrally enforced factional arrangement reserving Throsby for Anthony Albanese’s “hard Left” faction. This time however, state secretary Sam Dastyari has been insistent in promising a local ballot. Andrew Crook of Crikey hears the local rebellion is opposed by more senior figures in the Right, who have been “hitting the phones to demand Hay forces back down or face brutal retaliation in the form of damaging media leaks that could cut short the Wollongong MP’s controversial career”. The putative challenger is John Rumble, a local nurse and son of former state MP Terry Rumble. Stephen Fitzpatrick of The Australian reported a fortnight ago that Rumble had not definitively secured the crucial support of Hay, who suggested a third candidate might emerge. Former state Kiama MP Matt Brown, who was sacked as a state government minister in 2008 over an affair that involved him dancing in his underwear in his parliamentary office, told The Australian he had been asked to stand by “branch members”.
Finally, the final results are in from the Western Australian election, with indicative Liberal-versus-Labor two-party preferred counts completed for seats where other parties or candidates made the final count in the formal preference distribution. This reveals that the final two-party preferred vote for the Liberals was 57.2%, a swing in their favour of 5.4%. It should be emphasised that the two-party preferred concept is complicated in Western Australia by the large number of highly competitive contests involving the Liberals and the Nationals, which raises the question of whether Labor-versus-Liberal or Labor-versus-Nationals counts should be used for the electorates in questions. The AEC’s practice has been to use the Nationals count where the party wins the seat, but the WAEC favours Labor-versus-Liberal counts which tend to be somewhat more favourable for Labor. Antony Green has used the Labor-versus-Nationals count for Pilbara to preserve continuity with the calculation for the 2008 election, at which no Labor-versus-Liberal count for Pilbara was conducted. The two-party preferred numbers cited below are entirely from Labor-versus-Liberal counts.
WESTERN AUSTRALIAN ELECTION March 9, 2013 LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY # % Change Seats Change Liberal 559,917 47.1% +8.7% 31 +7 Nationals 71,694 6.1% +1.2% 7 +3 Labor 392,470 33.1% -2.7% 21 -7 Greens 99,437 8.4% -3.5% Independent 34,467 2.9% -1.5% -3 Australian Christians 21,451 1.8% -0.8% Family First 7,039 0.6% -1.4% # % Change Formal 1,184,475 94.0% -0.7% Informal 75,577 6.0% +0.7% Enrolment/Turnout 1,412,533 89.2% +2.7% Two-party preferred Liberal 677,231 57.2% +5.4% Labor 506,623 42.8% -5.4% LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL # % Change Seats Change Liberal 583,500 47.6% +8.0% 17 +1 Nationals 59,804 4.9% -0.4% 5 - Labor 398,260 32.5% -3.6% 11 - Greens 100,624 8.2% -2.9% 2 -2 Australian Christians 23,877 2.0% -0.3% Shooters & Fishers 21,765 1.8% 1 +1 Independent 20,633 1.7% +0.2% Family First 16,760 1.4% -1.1% # % Change Formal 1,225,223 97.2% 0.0% Informal 35,706 2.8% 0.0% Enrolment/Turnout 1,412,533 89.3% +2.7%
[William, do you agree with the my prognosis for the future of the Counil?]
Trying to see a path to a hypothetical left majority, my first impression is a result of four left and two right in East and South Metro, three apiece in North Metro, South West and Mining and Pastoral, and four right and two left in Agricultural. North Metro is easily done (swing of about 2%), and South and East would get to 4-2 with swings of about the size that would be required to win Labor the next election (8% and 9%). South West would go 3-3 with a swing of about 3%.
But Agricultural and Mining & Pastoral are both flies in the ointment. Mining & Pastoral was 3-3 in 2008, but it would take a huge swing, well into double digits, for that to happen off the current result. You’d be looking at something similar to get to 4-2 in Agricultural – although One Nation did manage to win the left a second seat there in 2001. Maybe you could start thinking instead of a four left, two right result in North Metropolitan.
j.v.
[One question comes to mind re Susan Ryan – did the school in 1960 have blackboards or whiteboards?]
What on earth did that question have to do with Susan Ryan??
You’re thinking, I believe, of Ros Kelly, a totally different person. Of course, she’s female, so I can see why you’d get them confused.
[zoidlord
Posted Friday, May 3, 2013 at 9:31 pm | PERMALINK
@Rummel/2696
Coalition and Labor can talk about boats all they want, but they will keep on coming regardless.]
and i think most libs could move on if the Labor leader stood infront of the country and said sorry for starting the boats again. Kevin made a mistake!
Though that would require a swing of over a quota. Basically, it’s extremely hard to see it happening without some One Nation-style disturbance in the force.
Is any more evidence of the immoral, duplicitous, hypocritical and disgusting behaviour of this institution required?
http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/christian-brothers-spent-1-million-to-defend-paedophile-20130503-2iwzx.html
Briefly @9:12pm
So maybe the Liberal-IPA-News Limited coalition’s policy is ‘burn the boats’ whereas they tell the punters they’re going to stop them.
To big business and to corporate executives, labour is an input like raw materials whose costs need to be minimised, along with taxation. Their agenda that they will not be talking about at the election is to wind back employee’s bargaining power and with it their remuneration and conditions. There also seems to be an agenda to load up individuals with debt starting with tertiary education then ‘must have’ consumer goods then barely affordable housing. People loaded with debt don’t protest or agitate and make compliant wage slaves.
A lot of people will vote against their e inimical interests on Sept 14.
Don’t know anything about Western Australia, but I do remember being told that Labor couldn’t possibly win in Victoria in 1999 and that we’d never win seats like Ripon, Seymour, Narracan or Benalla.
2707
The ALP won Benalla at the by-election (lower turnout, dejected Coalition, etc.) after the Nationals leader resigned and then lost it at the 2002 election (the only seat they lost that election). So it is a bit different from the other three you mention.
Tom
which doesn’t change what I said….that it was accepted as fact in the party that we would never win it.
[which doesn’t change what I said….that it was accepted as fact in the party that we would never win it.]
Nobody ever said that it was structurally impossible for Labor to win an election in Victoria. The correct analogy is the old Vic Leg Council before Hamer reformed it in the 1970s. It was both malapportioned and franchise-restricted that Labor could never win it. The same was true of both houses of the SA Parliament before Steele Hall reformed the lower house. The fact is that every house of every Australian parliament has now been reformed, except the WA Leg Council, which remains severely malapportioned and unreformable as a result of the corrupt deal the Greens did with the Nats.
It seems the Greens screw up everything they touch.
[Don’t know anything about Western Australia, but I do remember being told that Labor couldn’t possibly win in Victoria in 1999 and that we’d never win seats like Ripon, Seymour, Narracan or Benalla.]
Perhaps I should put it this way: it would take a realignment in favour of the left in regional WA that isn’t foreseeable at this time.
[Coalition and Labor can talk about boats all they want, but they will keep on coming regardless.]
The coalition will be turning back every boat back to Sri Lanka.
And if they try and scuttle their boats then we’ll buy the Sri Lankans a nice shiny coast guard boat and do at sea transfers.
The boats from Sri Lanka will stop overnight. Ones from Indonesia will require a few tweaks to our domestic policy and ramp up of Nauru and Manus.
Rummel @9:29pm
Yes more boat arrivals. I’m sure there were cheers in the proverbial ‘smoked filled rooms’ in the councils of the ‘Liberal’ party as they appeared on the horizon. When all else fails reach for the dog whistle.
The Coalition joined forces with the Greens to block a solution that might have worked, while pretending they can fix the problem. Actually, there are worse problems than living in a country that people are prepared to risk all to get into. But it’s nothing a grown- up country cannot deal with given some intelligence and good will. Unfortunately not in abundance in any of our parties.
pseph
ah! now I get it.
BK
I love this bit.
[Committee member Nick Wakeling: “You spend nearly $1 million defending Best after the previous cases and him pleading guilty to abusing three children.”
Brother Brandon: “Including GST.”]
Thanks for that great answer Brother Brandon. That clears it up.
I am helping out an ALP MP’s office with some volunteer phone polling. I have never done that before. It should be fun.
I find progressives’ attitudes toward the Catholic Church and its sex abuse issues very interesting. Because in many ways the Church’s treatment of the offending priests is actually very progressive. The Church clearly believes that behaviour like this by priests is rooted in childhood trauma and don’t believe that putting a person in jail will solve any problems for anyone.
It seems the only people the progressive left ever want to see put in prison are catholic priests and Wall Street bankers. For everyone else jail is a primitive human rights abuse.
from reading this place, it seems that all he li berals
have is boats boats boats boats
to talk about, as well as their disciples here
well boats boats boats, and no policies
this obsession and no policies on health and education
monetary policy will send aust
in to a depression.
the liberal have no policies to run the country
only run it in to the ground and us with it.
this obsession of abbotts will ruin us.
because he has not got his mind on the financial
policies that must be attended to..
does he lay awake all night
wondering how to turn boats back.
=====================
and I bet as he peddles away at his bike then stays in the best hotels along the way,, dreams of more boats
seantisme
so will you be out in a rowing boat
helping abbott turn back boats
lol
2710
Property qualifications were abolished for the Victorian Legislative Council in 1950 (about the same times as in Tasmania and WA) but SA did persist with them until the 1970s.
From the 1955 election to the 1964 election Victoria used the Federal boundaries, whole federal seats for the upper house (with seats up at alternating elections) and federal seats divided in half for the lower house. For the 1967 election a rurally and regionally weighted zonal system was established. The only change Hamer made, despite committing to proportional representation before the 1973 election (The DLP was very upset they did not cay through with it) only changed the system to change the system so that every electorate got to vote for an MLC at every election but giving each of the electorates 2 MLCs so they were could continue with alternation. The ALP removed malapportionment after it go in in 82.
The ALP won in SA in 65 and then Steel Hall`s LCL got back in in 1968 and then changed the system because it was feared that suburban expansion into the rural electorates could give them a permanent advantage.
[Puff, the Magic Dragon.
Posted Friday, May 3, 2013 at 10:13 pm | PERMALINK
I am helping out an ALP MP’s office with some volunteer phone polling. I have never done that before. It should be fun.]
i give u tickets for getting out there and trying to make a difference in the real world, unlike most of us armchair generals.
Tassie Opposition Leader Will Hodgman has personally endorsed supposedly independent MLC Jim Wilkinson to retain his seat of Nelson on Twitter.
This is amusing because when my mother ran for Nelson against Wilkinson with the personal endorsement of former Labor Premier Jim Bacon, the Libs called her an “unendorsed Labor candidate”. So it seems by Lib logic Wilkinson is an unendorsed Liberal.
I have had more fun at their expense in an update to my “What is an independent liberal?” article:
http://kevinbonham.blogspot.com.au/2013/04/what-is-independent-liberal.html
There will be live LegCo goodies at my site http://kevinbonham.blogspot.com from 6-ish tomorrow night. If the site crashes I’ll switch to Twitter at @kevinbonham
If there’s a live thread here, or if not, people should feel free to relay my comments here.
There will indeed be a live thread, Kevin.
2716
I did not think that legal services attracted GST.
Personally I think that legal services should attract a progressive tax, based on their hourly rate, hypothicated to legal aid.
well yes some posters here love talking about the church
any church but mostly the catholic church
its their third favourite subject.
re any subject about the churches they can find
and there are so many atheists on this blog
as well
and christian people here never say well you should not be an atheist.
funny that.
yet I have seen words from the same people
like god speed, for goodness sake ( god sake that means)
o and the one that I don’t get’
is o my dog,
which I presume is god back the front
why say it at all
o dear
o well had my little nigle
My Say @ 10:18pm – the Right talk about boats because it attracts the Alf Garnett vote. They aim to shift a critical percentage point or two from the ALP to their side. Much easier than talking about complex things like economics, defence, sustainability or education, although they have 3 word slogans to cover these topics.
[The Church clearly believes that behaviour like this by priests is rooted in childhood trauma and don’t believe that putting a person in jail will solve any problems for anyone.]
The Church clearly doesn’t believe anything of the sort.
[Much easier than talking about complex things like economics, defence, sustainability or education, although they have 3 word slogans to cover these topics.]
Boats not complex eh! Labor locking kids up in high security detention is not complex? Yes best we not talk about Labors little non complex boat issue.
And as to economics, defence,sustainability or education; how are they going for Labor? lol
William Bowe@2724
Ta. I’ll try to drop in later in the night.
I’m going to be doing booth swing-modelling off the 2010 state election results for Pembroke, Nelson and the Liberal vote in Montgomery. I think Pembroke and Nelson are effectively three-party contests more comparable to the state election than to the last LegCo elections in those seats. So I’ll be comparing Wilkinson to the Liberal state vote, Richardson and Ritchie to Labor, and Willink to Wilkie as he might attract a vaguely similar kind of vote.
Montgomery is a bit trickier because Morgan is sort-of Labor but there’s no Green and Fuller and Vincent are genuine indies who will compete heavily for the Labor vote. I think the Green voters will vote for Fuller.
Worth keeping an eye on regional variation in Montgomery. Hiscutt and Fuller may do best at the east end of the electorate and the other two at the Burnie end.
Dio, leave him be, he’s clearly having fun erecting strawmen.
my say@2726
I do! They’re my favourite band!
*runs away*
In the area of abuse scandals, the Church is behaving in exactly the same way as a multi national corporation faced with a scandal, for example collapsing buildings, bribery or allegations of indentured labor and sweatshop conditions – cover it up and protect the institution at all costs. Not the actions of an organisation that claims as its head Jesus himself (with the Pope as a sort of Governor General).
2718
You forgot the Western leaders who started the Iraq war in 2003.
On a more serious note, the progressive was is to actually treat the problem, using evidence an based approach, rather than sweep it under the carpet and moving offenders about without dealing with the problem. Progressivism also tends to value treating those with little power (i.e. Children) with more care not just those with some power (i.e. priests).
The Catholic Church is a very insular and controlling institution and has been that way for most of the last 2,000 years. It has been on the wrong side of many social and legal battles. It has a long history of supporting religious and political repression. It has recently reduced its opposing science it did not like, of which it has a very long history but still wants to control learning (e.g. Schools).
btw, Jesus Christ is obviously a lefty.
my say
[like god speed, for goodness sake ]
Godspeed is the short name of my favourite band, Godspeed You! Black Emperor
Rummel – yes, boats are complex. Of course the Coalition have a 3 word slogan for them which summarises a solution they know won’t work. They blocked a solution that could have worked so that they could continue to exploit the issue.
2735
He obviously was, if he existed.
A reformer and supporter of equality. Not things that the Catholic Church has historically been very strong on. Most religions tend to be started by reformers and then taken over by religious authorities that ossify their rules to the time they were founded.
well I am hoping both liberals
loose
The real Dreyfus Affair
__________
For the last decade of the 19th century into the early years of the 20th century France was convulsed by what some see as the greatest political scandal ever in any Europeaan society…bigger than Profumo…on a par with Watergate..The “AffAIRE” had it all…in a work of fiction the plot would have seemed too far-fatched to be true
In the end it divided France in a way that lasted until WW2..and beyond
In a short summary
!…A French military officer was selling secrets to the German Embassy in Paris around 1890
2…It wasn’t Dreyfus,but a French-Hungarian Colonel Esterhazy
3…Dreyfus was wrongly charged by the Army and sent for life to Devil’s Island in South America
4…The family of Dreyfus led a long campaign to see him given a new trial
5…This was finally won after the great novelist Zola(a kind of French Dickens…but also a socialist)famously accused the Army of falsifying documents to back up a wrong decision Zola was tried for his attacks on the Army and fled to Londono..He later returned to Paris
He died in what was thought to be an accident but later was found to be the work of a fanatical young-right winger
(5) ..A senior Army Officer now suicided bringing the real facts to public attantion
6…But the army having granted a new trial ..still refused to give Dreyfus a fair trial…Now the crisis moved into the political world…The Left supporting Dreyfus..The Right..and notably the Catholic Church ..opposing justice for him
&…Then the President died(in bed at the Presidential Palace in the arms of his Mistress one Paris weekend while his wife was in the country visiting her sick Mum
(No I am not making this u !!!)
…Now in quick succession some on the Right planned a coup to restore the Monarchy(having a Bourbon Prince at the ready.(whose son BTW had a celebrated affaire with Nellie Melba…a bit of Australian input)…but failed to get the military to act on the day of the Presidential funeral
Now the Left Govt went to the polls and won a landslide victory and Dreyfus was released and came back to a top job…in the military…and later served in WW!
The Left cracked down on the Catholic Church..closing down Religious Orders/expelling the Jesuits,and taking measures to limit the Catholic education system…and made France a strictly secular Republic..ands that still exists today
The Right never forgot the event or their defeat ,and some of those young men of the anti-Dreyfus camp lived on to be a part of the Vichy regime in 1940..and some of these went to the gallows or prison after the Liberation
The French Right had been very anti-semitic and many welcome the Nazis in 1940
In pre- WW2 war France the Socialists came to power in 1936 under the leadership of Blum,who was a socialist and a jew…and many on the right said”Better Hitler than Blum”
…and that just a brief summary with lots left out…but there is a raft of great books and some great French films on the matter…SBS recently ran a serial on The Affaire
Trust the French to have a great scandal…I don’t think we could manage anything so grand in Oz
Jesus said things like ‘it is easier to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of heaven’. Obviously a Communist.
deb
What is the best book on it for the uninitiated?
Tom
[the progressive was is to actually treat the problem, using evidence an based approach, rather than sweep it under the carpet and moving offenders about without dealing with the problem.]
I think there was definitely an element of reputation protection involved in some of the actions of the church. But I don’t think you can deny that they moved abuser priests around and gave them cushy administrative jobs or generous retirement payouts because they honestly have an extremely progressive and christian attitude towards sinners. They empathised with and forgave the abusers for their human struggles with temptation and sin.
Ironically one of their mistakes was making a typical progressive’s error in caring more about the perpetrator (as a victim themself) than the actual victim, in this case children.
don’t run away]]kev
there my and my oh favourite bad to’
in fact we taped them
what them often,
very often
======================
my post was muse at the funny things people say
that comes from their sub conscious
they don’t believe in god
but still say o my god
it cracks me.up
well
voting tomorrow is so annoying
but has to be done
yawn
suppose the upper house does something
if only to keep newman type people in check
will want get much through
I am hoping people vote in the upper house with the thought in mind that
will . will be premier, I suppose”
but I hope not
the forestry agreement will help lara”
don’t think the liberals where happy about that
go Julia thanks for the help in settling that
also
only labor gets things done
Steve
There was all that turn the other cheek and love thy enemy stuff as well.
sorry about the spelling my eyes are very droopy
Up goes another one! We’ll have a whole army of them at this rate.
jesus would of very much liked
n d is the good Samaritan comes to mind
gee tony ,re read the bible,
On Lateline now
“@HydecomLorraine: Wow Judith Sloane advocating a recession. Do we need further proof of what Abbott and Hockey will do?”
then there is walk on water
tony will do that when he turns back the boats
lol
nite