First the ReachTEL polling. Yesterday morning the Seven Network brought us a big sample automated phone poll of 3018 respondents which broadly corroborated the Morgan SMS poll in returning the Coalition lead to margin-of-error territory. The poll had Labor at 38.3% on the primary vote, the Coalition on 45.1% and the Greens on 8.7%, panning out to 52-48 in favour of the Coalition after preferences. Now Fairfax brings electorate-level ReachTEL polls of Maribyrnong (located in western Melbourne and held by Bill Shorten), Chisholm (eastern Melbourne, Anna Burke), Blaxland (western Sydney, Jason Clare) and McMahon (western Sydney, Chris Bowen), which have Labor’s two-party vote at 58.6%, 55.2% and 58.9% for the first three, with McMahon annoyingly not provided but Labor evidently in front. Earlier ReachTEL polling showed Labor losing all bar Maribyrnong. Now on to a Seat of the Week I’ve been holding back for a special occasion …
Kevin Rudd’s electorate of Griffith covers inner city Brisbane immediately south of the Brisbane River, from South Brisbane east to Bulimba and Queensport, south to Annerley and south-west to Carina Heights. The seat was called Oxley until 1934, the name later being revived for an unrelated new Ipswich-based seat in 1949. Highly marginal historically, Griffith changed hands between Liberal and Labor in 1949, 1954, 1958, 1961, 1966, 1977, 1996 and 1998. Don Cameron won the seat for the Liberals at the 1966 landslide and then had his position strengthened by redistribution, enabling to hold on to the seat through the Whitlam years. A redistribution at the 1977 election moved the seat heavily in Labor’s favour, resulting in Cameron switching to the new Gold Coast seat of Fadden and Griffith being won for Labor by Ben Humphreys.
When Humphreys retired at the 1996 election the Labor preselection was won by Kevin Rudd, the former diplomat who wielded great influence as chief-of-staff to Wayne Goss during his tenure as Queensland Premier from 1989 to 1996. In doing so he established a factional association with the locally dominant AWU sub-faction of the Right, which secured his preselection despite grumblings that the state branch was failing to meet affirmative action standards. However, the statewide rout that Labor suffered at the 1996 election saw Rudd fall it his first electoral hurdle, with Graeme McDougall gaining Griffith for the Liberals off a 6.2% swing. Rudd returned for a second attempt amid the far more favourable circumstances of 1998, picking up a 3.9% swing to unseat McDougall by a margin of 2.4%.
Rudd established a formidable electoral record in Griffith, picking up a 3.3% and 2.4% swings against the trend of the 2001 and 2004 elections. The electorate was substantially reshaped by redistribution at the 2004 election, absorbing inner city areas at East Brisbane, South Brisbane and Dutton Park while its eastern parts were hived off to the new seat of Bonner. In what may have been an early portent of Rudd’s electoral impact, the booths which were transferred out of the electorate contributed to a surprise defeat for Labor in Bonner by swinging heavily to the Liberals in his absence. As his party’s candidate for the prime ministership in 2007 Rudd enjoyed a further 3.8% swing in 2007, and as its recently spurned ex-leader in 2010 he suffered what by Queensland standards was a relatively mild swing of 3.9%.
The Liberal National Party candidate for the coming election is Bill Glasson, former president of the Australian Medical Association. Glasson’s father, Bill Glasson Sr, was a state National Party MP and minister in the Bjelke-Petersen, Cooper and Ahern governments.
briefly
For a moment I thought you were going to say:
‘Like Bill Clinton, I will keep repeating, “I did not have sex with that woman.”
Boerwar
Can I be brutally honest with you? You have used the word “sociopath” about a billion times in the past 72 hours. From here on, every time you use it, the net effect is less than zero. You just look like a guy who is like a broken record.
I know from your many erudite, incisive and amusing posts that you are capable of much, much better.
Go to it.
Labor needs to continue to have control and be on the front foot
Anyway, got to sign off for now. Might look in later.
Please, everyone, Rudd may have annoyed you personally at some visceral level.
But it’s nothing to what Abbott would do as PM.
Really.
Newsltd/abbott will need more then propaganda ,
Can I be brutally honest with you?
In a Kevin Rudd way?
Fran Barlow #997
Posted Saturday, June 29, 2013 at 6:06 pm | Permalink
I don’t know how often the links to the UN Convention and citing Australian law need to be posted or how many times it needs to be explained..but..
seeking asylum is not illegal. it is not illegal to seek asylum and enter a country without a visa..please search and read …save yourself from making silly comments
alias –
What a pompous wanker you are, alias.
It’s true that seeking asylum is not illegal. I get that. The Australian electorate, however, does not give a shit. They want the boats stopped and no amount of International Law 101 will stop that.
Pity about Combet but I could never see what the fuss was about him. People kept mentioning “future leader” but I could not see it. Same applies to Shorten as far as I am concerned.
I suspect 90 out of 100 in the electorate at large would not even know who he is or care less.
For political wonks all these analysing of chooks gizzards here is of vital importance.
Doesn’t count for sod all in the electorate.
For three years I have watched PBers rave about JG’s parliamentary performances, claiming she dominated the chamber.
Well, maybe, but a fat lot of good it did to her and the vast uninterested electorate neither knew nor cared about her daily ‘victories’ in the Reps.
Who really cares about who comes and goes in politics?
In Perth we will have two new candidates for the seat. Nobody knows the Liberal candidate and unless it is Alannah, nobody will know the Labor one either.
People do know Kevin Rudd and Abbott. That is where the contest is in the eyes of the electorate.
While I don’t agree with much of what Emperor Barnett has to say, he was spot on by declaring the contest between the two men is “The Grand Final”.
He recognises the chips are down from his side of politics and he has sufficient sense and experience to know that no Grand Final is over until the final siren.
Bilbo out
OK kids go nuts!!!
[Enjoy this final 24 hours or so of carping.]
A 3 day dummy spit by BW hardly compares with the 3 year spits by other posters here.
Not able to accept that some people won’t agree with you?
Life’s hard.
[997….Fran Barlow]
I was thinking more in terms of legislative changes than vigilantism.
There is no reason we should have to choose between our conscience (the wish to receive refugees and settle them here) and the application of the law (permitting the equal, non-arbitrary treatment of all-comers).
We just need to reform the Act. I think nearly everyone in the country would be relieved if this running sore could be soothed and allowed to heal. We are all disfigured by the divisions and the loss of life that the law now induces.
So we’ve lost Combet now?
That sucks! 🙁
I basically ignore claims that a given politician is or was a sociopath (or similar) unless those claims are made by a person with (i) no political stake in the claim (ii) no stake in being sensationalist (iii) appropriate psychiatric qualifications.
The nature of the job and its environment lend itself to people who manifest some of the listed signs, or appear to do so to lay readers who interpret those signs in the obvious way. But these are diagnostic tools intended to be used by qualified psychiatrists and not by laypeople.
Aussie @ 1007
It should also be noted that there is no queue to jump.
absolutetwaddle@992
I agree with you on this one.
Who rattled your cage Jackol? I addressed Boerwar and I
know from experience that he will offer any retort he deems
appropriate.
I have a more critical take on people leaving politics. Garrett and Combet have not been there long and guess what they walk away with a nice pension for life and other perks.
Garrett’ leaving sums him up, never a Labor person and leaves when the heat is on.
Combet the same. People going to the backbench is simply more petulant stuff.
In life we all have to put up with terrible bosses and other employees everyday but politicians they petulantly have a cry and go for a pension, gee i wish could do that.
[1001
Boerwar
briefly
For a moment I thought you were going to say:
‘Like Bill Clinton, I will keep repeating, “I did not have sex with that woman.”]
Bw…unlike Bill Clinton, I have nothing to hide in that respect… 🙂
absolutetwaddle
Posted Saturday, June 29, 2013 at 6:13 pm | Permalink
It’s true that seeking asylum is not illegal. I get that. The Australian electorate, however, does not give a shit. They want the boats stopped and no amount of International Law 101 will stop that.
—————————————————-
what a shame. its embarrassing when you put it that way.
Vote Rudd, Get Gillard
Vote Gillard, Get Rudd
Vote Rudd, Get Shorten
1000/1000 It is actually the economy stupid, unless the opposition is even worse, that is how Major beat Kinnock in the UK in 1992 and Obama beat Romney/Ryan last year, both in recessions. Anyway, Rudd’s economic credentials are extremely strong, he avoided most of the impact of the GFC hitting Australia and no-one would expect him to trun around the economy now in a matter of months before the election, but even if the economy does slow down, against Abbott he still has a strong chance
[Combet . . . Now that is a serious loss to Labor.]
Nup. Not whatsoever. He was a bad naughty stinking rotten Trade Unionist who ran the party into the ground.
[Combet co-ordinated many union campaigns, including the ‘Cavalcade to Canberra’ of 19 August 1996. He rose to further prominence during the 1998 Australian waterfront dispute. Combet participated in campaigns to secure entitlements and compensation for the staff of the collapsed airline Ansett Australia and asbestos victims of the James Hardie company. In his capacity as Secretary of the ACTU, Combet led the campaign against the Howard Government’s WorkChoices industrial relations law changes.]
What a shitty record.
Ergo,for the screeching anti-Unionists of the ALP, and all the workers whose basic wage depended on unions, absolutely no loss there.
Less than 15% if the Australian workforce is now represented by a union. The sooner the ALP rid themselves of the stench of unions and union factionalism the better.
Vote Abbott and get Workchoices and a double dip recession.
[1022
Sean Tisme
Posted Saturday, June 29, 2013 at 6:23 pm | Permalink
Vote Rudd, Get Gillard
Vote Gillard, Get Rudd
Vote Rudd, Get Shorten]
Vote Abbott, get Pell.
Sean Tisme
Posted Saturday, June 29, 2013 at 6:23 pm | PERMALINK
Vote Rudd, Get Gillard
Vote Gillard, Get Rudd
Vote Rudd, Get Shorten
=====================
Vote Abbott, Get shafted
alias – anyone apart from William who makes pompously wanky directions like “I’ve given you till Monday” to other commenters is a pompous wanker in my book.
Damn those petulant fellows Faulkner and Tanner, what crybabies they were.
Evening all.
Very sad news about Combet.
The circus continues. 🙁
I can’t imagine that Boerwar would take even the slightest notice to demands and deadlines. We breed them tough out in QLD country.
Sean Tisme
Posted Saturday, June 29, 2013 at 6:23 pm | PERMALINK
Vote Rudd, Get Gillard
Vote Gillard, Get Rudd
Vote Rudd, Get Shorten
=====================
Vote Abbott get Murdoch, Gina, Packer, Pell, Howard
[1023……Simon Baker]
The point is that popular resentment of the incumbents emanates from financial stress. For all the focus on political theatre, the real source of weakness in Labor’s position has been the erosion of household financial security on the one hand, and the political failure to acknowledge it on the other.
People are numerate. They do know whether they are finding it easier to manage their incomes or not. It is really very unwise to tell voters they everything is going really well when their own experience is that money is inexplicably and unavoidably tight.
Household surveys show that financial stress is quite elevated, especially among those that intend to vote LNP. This is not complicated….but it has been widely and repeatedly ignored.
Don’t call Alias a pompous wanker please, Jackol.
[Evening all.
Very sad news about Combet.
The circus continues. ]
I’m not sure it is such a loss, lets hope we bring in lots of good talent. Build the future.
I found..
vote Abbott get Abbott a bit scary
Sarah Roberts
Posted Saturday, June 29, 2013 at 6:24 pm
Less than 15% if the Australian workforce is now represented by a union. The sooner the ALP rid themselves of the stench of unions and union factionalism the better.
—————————————————–
The Labor Party is the political arm of the Union movement. It was formed by the Union movement.
marky marky
[Garrett and Combet have not been there long and guess what they walk away with a nice pension for life and other perks.
Garrett’ leaving sums him up, never a Labor person and leaves when the heat is on.
Combet the same.]
You have no idea what you are talking about. Both men spent many years working for justice in different ways before they entered Parliament.
Briefly@1020: do you mean that you are out in open about having had sex with Monica Lewinsky?
What was she like?
[We breed them tough out in QLD country.]
Tough as they are thick.
As you command, William.
I kind of like vote Abbott get Rudd/vote Rudd get Abbott. Egos on steroids.
[1030
confessions
Evening all.
Very sad news about Combet.
The circus continues. :(]
Hi confessions. The casualties keep accumulating, sad but true.
Labor, Kevin Rudd and ministers quitting… It’s lonely in the saddle since the horse died…
[marky marky
Posted Saturday, June 29, 2013 at 6:19 pm | PERMALINK
I have a more critical take on people leaving politics. Garrett and Combet have not been there long and guess what they walk away with a nice pension for life and other perks.
Garrett’ leaving sums him up, never a Labor person and leaves when the heat is on.
Combet the same. People going to the backbench is simply more petulant stuff.
In life we all have to put up with terrible bosses and other employees everyday but politicians they petulantly have a cry and go for a pension, gee i wish could do that.]
Prior to the 2004 election, Mark Latham got the rules changed. Howard fell in lock-step. Remember?
Since then, the rules have changed again.
http://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Parliamentary_Departments/Parliamentary_Library/pubs/BN/1011/SuperannuationBenefits#_Toc274224145
I can’t be bothered wading through them, but I think from a discussion I had today, to gain generous entitlements an MP has to serve three consecutive terms.
Applies to Garrett but not Combet.
[1039
meher baba
Briefly@1020: do you mean that you are out in open about having had sex with Monica Lewinsky?
What was she like?]
Far too young for me!!
BW – Night Parrots?
Over there I have Perigrine Falcon’s on top of the next Tower Block.
Watching them on the updraft while I’m out on the balcony indulging bad habits is very pleasing.
Since the pair of them moved in about 5 years ago the numbers of ducks on the ponds below on the Podium and in the private gardens seems to have decreased.
I must take a walk around the lake…fresh air in my lungs, blue sky and fresh thoughts!!!
KB
Quite happy to have the Party call in someone who is qualified to do a diagnosis…
I can just imagine Rudd’s response to a suggestion from Caucus that, before they consider him for the position of prime minister, they would just like to have him clinically assessed by a qualified psychiatrist.
How hootment.
Instead of doing that, Caucus has given him the job of running Australia.
So, until we have a proper diagnosis from a qualified person, we just have to do the best we can.
Galaxy tomorrow confirming Morgan and Reachtel. Our Libearl friends must be packing the proverbial.
[Expand
Mick Carroll @sundayteleed 2m
First national poll since leadership coup has @KRuddMP well ahead of Abbott for preferred PM #auspol
]