UPDATE (ReachTEL): ReachTEL, which had the Coalition ahead 58-42 in its last federal poll on May 3, has published an automated phone poll of 3018 respondents which has it down to 52-48, from primary votes of 38.3% for Labor, 44.1% for the Coalition and 8.7% for the Greens. As noted by Possum, extrapolation of state breakdowns produces a slight Labor majority on seats, thanks to the yield to be gained from a swing to Labor in Queensland. Kevin Rudd leads Tony Abbott as preferred prime minister 51.6-48.4, with Abbott leading Julia Gillard 59.4-40.6. Views on the leadership change are finely split, with 44.1% agreeing and 42.4% disagreeing. A clear majority (56.9% to 30.2%) still believe Labor cannot win the election.
Roy Morgan offers state breakdowns on the no doubt over-analysed SMS poll it conducted immediately after Wednesday evening’s leadership vote, showing Labor’s two-party vote at 47.5% in New South Wales, 49.5% in Victoria, 51.5% in Queensland, 41% in Western Australia, 50% in South Australia and 63% in Tasmania (off progressively less convincing samples). It also provides rare state breakdowns from the multi-mode poll published on Monday, which you can observe by following the link.
In addition to the turmoil evident at the macro level, the week’s upheaval has transformed a number of contests at the electorate level:
Lalor (Labor 22.2%): Julia Gillard’s exit from politics creates yet another Labor vacancy in a plum Melbourne seat, in this case the electorate covering Werribee and Melton in western Melbourne. The Australian reports that factional and affirmative action considerations mean the seat is very likely to go to a woman from the Right. According to a Fairfax report, a “highly likely” nominee is Kimberley Kitching, a former Melbourne City councillor currently tasked with restoring order to the Health Services Union No. 1 branch as its acting general manager. Kitching is also “wife of notorious blogger Andrew Landeryou and a close ally of Workplace Relations Minister Bill Shorten”, and an unsuccessful candidate for the preselection to replace Nicola Roxon in Gellibrand in April. Fairfax reports that while Shorten “may” back Kitching, Conroy “could back another candidate”, as he did in Gellibrand. That could be Peter Khalil, “a former policy adviser during Kevin Rudd’s first period as Prime Minister and now director of corporate affairs at SBS”. Others mentioned are Hobsons Bay deputy mayor Luba Grigorovitch, a possible starter from the Left, and Katie Hall, the unsuccessful Roxon-backed candidate in Gellibrand.
Perth (Labor 5.8%): Yesterday’s retirement announcement by Stephen Smith created a vacancy in the least unsafe of Labor’s three WA seats. Early talk of possible nominees has included Tim Hammond, a Slater & Gordon lawyer who ran unsuccessfully for Swan in 2010, and Matt Keogh, vice-president of the Law Society of WA. Perhaps more speculatively, there are suggestions the opening might be of interest to state Shadow Treasurer Ben Wyatt, whose uncle Ken Wyatt is the Liberal member for the neighbouring seat of Hasluck, and Alannah MacTiernan, the former senior state government minister and unsuccessful federal candidate for Canning in 2010. MacTiernan called on Julia Gillard to resign on the night of Labor’s heavy defeat at the state election in March.
Rankin (Labor 5.4%): Craig Emerson’s exit creates a rare opening for aspiring Labor hopefuls in Queensland, in this case for a southern Brisbane seat which the party will be a lot more optimistic about now the local favourite is back in The Lodge. Tony Moore of Fairfax reports the contenders are likely to include Jim Chalmers, executive director of the Chifley Research Centre and a former adviser to Wayne Swan, and Barbara Stone, who held the state seat of Springwood from 2001 until her defeat at the March 2012 state election. The Australian also mentions Linus Power, a former adviser to Kevin Rudd who ran unsuccessfully in what had appeared to be the safe seat of Logan at the state election.
Kingsford Smith (Labor 5.2%): Peter Garrett is bringing down the curtain on a three-term parliamentary career as member for the electorate centred around Maroubra in southern coastal Sydney. Ean Higgins of The Australian reports Senator Matt Thistlethwaite might see the vacancy as an opportunity to switch houses. Bob Carr and Kristina Keneally, whose old state electorates wholly or largely corresponded with the seat, quickly scotched any suggestions that they might be interested. Carr’s successor as member for Maroubra, Michael Daley, is being “touted” for a possible move to the federal seat, while Keneally’s husband, Botany mayor Ben Keneally, has ruled himself out.
New England (Independent 16.8%) and Lyne (Independent 12.4%): The morning of the leadership change began with the unrelated dramas of Tony Windsor and Rob Oakeshott announcing they would not seek re-election after a term spent contentiously propping up a minority government unpopular with their own constituents. That presumably clears the way for the respective Nationals candidates, Barnaby Joyce and David Gillespie, to straightforward victories at the coming election.
That’s it Can-Do. Cut the red tape!
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-06-28/legionella-detected-at-another-17-qld-hospitals/4788102
[I hate it when I agree with you.]
Resistance is futile.
Puff, the Magic Dragon.@1139
Agree with you Puff.
I am happy to take any topside rudd produces and also put the boot into any downside he attracts.
Do not trust him and it will take a heap to change my mind.
Rudd has got no choice to to (further) lurch to the right on boats. If you don’t believe me, stop 10 people on the street and ask them what the biggest problem facing Australia today is.
I’d bet my bottom dollar at least a plurality mention boats as problem número uno.
If you thought Rudd was going to go back to onshore processing you are dreaming.
Psephos , did’nt think it likely ,just hoping I guess haven’t seen the all out attack mode I expected , thanks anyway Fairfax is something at least.
Puff, a lot of people were saying even before the events of the past few weeks that Rudd was neccessary to “save the furniture”.
[Rudd has vacillated between pandering to Murdoch and railing against him, but neither has changed Murdoch’s determination to get Labor out. Rudd’s attempt to give the ABC’s Asian TV service to Murdoch was an attempt to appease him, but it didn’t get him far.]
Again I agree with you (very disturbing for you too I’m sure) but like working with business and slapping down those liberal clowns in the industry bodies it is an innately difficult balance, the your Goddess Julia struggled with as well.
6 boats. See http://www.crikey.com.au/2011/11/07/the-consequences-of-turning-boats-back-siev-towback-cases/
Not sure where the 30% number comes from.
displayname
Then the odium is doubled. What a bunch of cowards!
Certainly not the AFR based on today’s copy as I mentioned earlier.
Mainly wall-to-wall attack on Rudd and a supreme belief, come what may, in three months Abbott and Hockey will be running the affairs in a “market friendly government”.
There is also sort of cheery news that once there is a change of government that somehow “sentiment” will pick up. While a new “boom” is not predicted there is the implicit assumption that things just have to be better under the conservatives.
One piece of “evidence” today was to state that under conservative governments since the war the stock market has gone up an average of 13% odd and under Labor 9% odd. Ipso facto, under a conservative government the stock market will always be higher.
To think intelligent people actually read this crap and worse, believe it.
Murdoch owns Rudd.
[Resistance is futile.]
I’ve done ok so far.
[the your Goddess Julia struggled with as well.]
I said many times that I was not wedded to Gillard, and that she made some serious mistakes. If there had been a viable third candidate, I would have supported them. But there wasn’t. On balance, I thought sticking with Gillard was the better of the two available options. My views on Rudd are on record, and I think restoring him is a high-risk venture that may well end badly, but for better or worse he is now the leader and I will work for a Labor victory.
Psephos
And that is the right thing to do!
[Murdoch owns Rudd.]
Then Murdoch should be charged with cruelty to pets, it is such an absurd proposition I don’t know how to counter it except to say Abbott’s turn back the boats policy is more compelling than that quite silly claim.
[If there had been a viable third candidate, I would have supported them. But there wasn’t.]
Why not Smith?
Regarding the Murdoch and Fairfax attitude to Rudd just remember they have a business to run. Think of what they do before the State of Origin or a Grand Final or the Ashes. They have to build up the contestants to make the game more interesting. The usual dynamic is to print scare stories about the favourite and positive stories about the underdog.
It is a marketing tactic, nothing more.
[Murdoch owns Rudd.]
Not much evidence for that thesis so far. If you are correct, we can expect Rudd to announce that he is scrapping the NBN. Do you think he will do that?
What happens to the Senate terms if a DD is called in say late May or early June but flooding or some other natural disaster forces the election to be delayed in a state or 2 until after the 1st of July. Do the Senators in that/those states have terms starting that 1st of July or the previous 1st of July like the rest of the Senate?
What a piece of slime. He had all these showboat abilities, cutting through kissing babies tickling the fancies of the masses, and he never used them for the last three years except when he could take the sails out of Prime Minister Gillard.
If K Rudd is a catalyst for a big bounce in the polls whenever he programmatically specifictates at people, please explain why he kept this magic glow under wraps until it benefited himself, instead of his party?
And Boerwar has dibs on the word ‘sociopath’ so use something else, please?
1163
So no informal vote, like you said you you would if Rudd returned, then?
WeWantPaul.
Scores nightclub.
@Psephos/1168
No chance of that happening, both SSM and NBN are what mentioned today by Rudd, as he talked to “young people”.
[Why not Smith?]
If had put his hand up I would have been keen, but he made it clear he wasn’t interested.
On this subject, do we not think it’s curious that Combet resigned, without any statement as to why? I think it’s notable that of all the “possible next leaders”, Combet is now the only one who is not in the Rudd government. If Rudd fails, Shorten and Clare (who flipped at the last minute) will go down with him. Only Combet will be able to say I told you so.
NBN will end up being owned by Murdoch.
[ One piece of “evidence” today was to state that under conservative governments since the war the stock market has gone up an average of 13% odd and under Labor 9% odd. Ipso facto, under a conservative government the stock market will always be higher.
To think intelligent people actually read this crap and worse, believe it. ]
They tried this same crap in the US.
The facts are that the markets there have done better under democrate Governments. More people employed. More people spending.
Who would believe a word they say or print.
When it comes to the US, this says is it all for me –
[ There is nothing unusual about the six surviving heirs to the Walmart fortune possessing between them the same wealth as the bottom 42% of Americans – that’s the country’s default setting ]
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/19/decline-fall-american-society-unravelled
Quick thought.
There is a clause in the constitution that the meeting of the senate will not be disrupted by the failure of a state to select its senators.
However that may be one of the transitional clauses that expired on 9 May 1901. I will look at my constitution app.
fess,
I like the idea of using K Rudd for the election and kicking him out afterwards.
Sounds fair to me.
[So no informal vote, like you said you would if Rudd returned, then?]
“He gazed up at the enormous face. Forty years it had taken him to learn what kind of smile was hidden beneath the dark moustache. O cruel, needless misunderstanding! O stubborn, self-willed exile from the loving breast! Two gin-scented tears trickled down the sides of his nose. But it was all right, everything was all right, the struggle was finished. He had won the victory over himself. He loved Big Brother.”
Yes bemused have helped burke, cream, symond before. When the help will they get rid of thomson? The Vic one (and the other one)
Re Psephos @ 1144
That’s right. The people smugglers seem to have ramped it up into an industrial-scale operation over the last couple of years. the ‘Pacific Solution’ was a bluff that won’t work again. TPVs won’t work now – they never did. The Malaysia Solution might have served as a circuit breaker if implemented promptly but I think it would now be quickly swamped in the way Nauru / Manus have been, unless it could be extended well beyond the first 800.
So what do we do? I have no idea. Neither do the Opposition.
Do we have any new policies yet? I assume the ministery and policy settings were all worked out on the kitchen table before the knifing?
Section 11
11 Failure to choose senators
The Senate may proceed to the despatch of business, notwithstanding the failure of any State to provide for its representation in the Senate.
[If had put his hand up I would have been keen, but he made it clear he wasn’t interested.]
Yeah I noticed this, I was hoping there was some faceless person willing and able to talk him round.
[On this subject, do we not think it’s curious that Combet resigned, without any statement as to why? I think it’s notable that of all the “possible next leaders”, Combet is now the only one who is not in the Rudd government. If Rudd fails, Shorten and Clare (who flipped at the last minute) will go down with him. Only Combet will be able to say I told you so.]
Interesting point …
Steve777
K Rudd will have all the answers. He is genius you know.
Combet might just have a principle or two in his knapsack, as well as the universal marshall’s baton.
has any government won power after gough, without Murdoch’s support, serious question? Not as knowledgeable as most on this blog.
@Puff,
It’s sounds like your a Coalition Supporter now.
[Do we have any new policies yet? I assume the ministery and policy settings were all worked out on the kitchen table before the knifing?]
Bitter much but I’ll play: the kitchen table just wasn’t the same without Julia and Wayne at it, brought back sad memories of when they were an inseparable team that did everything together. You would have noticed that Rudd very carefully (as Julia would have skipped the silly lines she used three years ago if she had better political senses) said very very little negative about the Gillard government.
[On this subject, do we not think it’s curious that Combet resigned, without any statement as to why? I think it’s notable that of all the “possible next leaders”, Combet is now the only one who is not in the Rudd government.]
I wondered this at the time.
He does seem to be taking a strategic position, and good on him. I hope he is there to resurrect things after the People’s Princess and his coterie fails.
Psephos
That is shortly befor it is implied Winston gets a bullet in the hangman’s joint.
[Not sure where the 30% number comes from.]
Simple really, between 2002 and 2007 Australia was getting about 2 boats a year.
So turning back 6 boats would be around 30%
[So what do we do? I have no idea. Neither do the Opposition.]
We withdraw from the Refugee Convention, and we announce that no-one who enters Australia by boat without authorisation will get a visa, ever. If we do that, and stick to it, the boats will stop within six months as word gets around the migration industry that Australia is closed. Then we can increase our intake of genuine refugees, such as the excellent Somalis.
Puffy:
It’s the one thing that keeps me in my membership.
Tables can be turned etc etc.
[WeWantPaul.
Scores nightclub.]
Other than it being on every Aussie males tourist ‘to do’ list now I’m not sure you have a point, unless you are reinforcing mine
[That is shortly befor it is implied Winston gets a bullet in the hangman’s joint.]
Of course, but he accepts that. “I ask only to be shot while my mind is still clean.”
[What a piece of slime. He had all these showboat abilities, cutting through kissing babies tickling the fancies of the masses, and he never used them for the last three years except when he could take the sails out of Prime Minister Gillard. ]
This sounds like Leadershit to me.
Gillard is yesterdays Fish n Chips wrappings
PTMD (all posts). See Housman:
“Her strong enchantments failing,
Her towers of fear in wreck,
Her limbecks dried of poisons
And the knife at her neck,
The Queen of air and darkness
Begins to shrill and cry,
„O young man, O my slayer,
To-morrow you shall die.“
0 Queen of air and darkness,
I think ’tis truth you say,
And I shall die to-morrow;
But you will die to-day.”
@Sean/1192
So stopping the boats is a lie then.
Where is the apology?
http://m.youtube.com/#/watch?v=RQ_s6V1Kv6A
I just love this. I hope they do a new one