Highlights of day two

A surprisingly soft poll result for Kevin Rudd in his Brisbane seat of Griffith, trouble for both parties with candidates in marginal New South Wales seats, and some movement from the bookmakers.

With 31 days left to go:

• ReachTEL has published the results of an automated phone poll of 702 respondents in Kevin Rudd’s electorate of Griffith, and it points to a 4% swing to the Liberal National Party – enough to pare back his margin to 4.5%, and raise doubts about Labor’s prospects in Liberal National Party marginals. The primary votes from the poll are 45.6% for Kevin Rudd, 41.0% for LNP candidate Bill Glasson and 8.0% for the Greens.

• Jaymes Diaz, the Liberal candidate for the crucial western Sydney seat of Greenway, has been a big hit on social media over the past day or two, and not in a good way. Quizzed by a Ten Network reporter about the content of his party’s six-point plan to “stop the boats”, Diaz could manage only one, offering only the clumsiest of platitudes in place of the other five. He was eventually put out of his misery when a minder intervened to bring the interview to a close. Heath Aston of Fairfax offers some interesting background on the circumstances behind his endorsement.

• Also earning raspberries has been David Bradbury, Labor’s member for the equally important western suburbs seat of Lindsay, who queried a radio interviewer about being a Liberal Party member and ominously asked him to reveal what his surname was.

• Labor appears to be in a muddle over who it will run in Craig Thomson’s seat of Dobell. Former Gosford deputy mayor Trevor Drake emerged as the only nominee for preselection a month ago, but the party executive has declined to ratify his endorsement. However, Kevin Rudd has been rebuffed in his approach to one his youthful senior advisers from his first tenure as prime minister, current Coles executive Andrew Charlton, who says he is not available due to family reasons. Ean Higgins of The Australian reports the party had been alerted to a finding by Gosford council’s conduct committee that Drake had failed to disclose interests when council considered development applications from a firm for which he acted as a solicitor, although it cleared him of breaching its code of conduct. Higgins also reports concern over “presentational difficulties” relating to Drake’s status as a former Liberal Party member, and the fact that he doesn’t live in the electorate.

• Two agencies have moved their odds slightly in the Coalition’s favour in the wake of Monday’s poll results. Tom Waterhouse has the Coalition paying $1.24, down from $1.27, with Labor out from $3.50 to $4, while Centrebet has the Coalition in from $1.27 to $1.25 and Labor out from $3.60 to $4.

Author: William Bowe

William Bowe is a Perth-based election analyst and occasional teacher of political science. His blog, The Poll Bludger, has existed in one form or another since 2004, and is one of the most heavily trafficked websites on Australian politics.

1,660 comments on “Highlights of day two”

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  2. [Meguire Bob
    Posted Wednesday, August 7, 2013 at 8:14 am | PERMALINK
    around the rest of the country Liberal party vote will be well below Labors , as it was in 2010 election

    labor 37.99% national wide

    Liberal Party 30-31%]

    You are hilarious Meguire Bob!

    Yes, the Liberal party vote was 30.46% in 2010.
    However, the Liberal National Qld vote was 9.12% of the national vote in 2010
    The National party vote was 3.43%
    The Country Liberal party vote in NT was 0.31% nationally
    The National party vote in WA was 0.34% nationally

    So, the Coalition vote in 2010 was 43.66%

  4. http://www.macrobusiness.com.au/2013/08/abbotts-macro-double-speak/
    And we may have a new catch phrase! The Coalition is not going to “chloroform the economy”, Mr Abbott repeats three times. “The economy will always be stronger under a Coalition government. Government spending will always be lower under a Coalition government because we understand the job of government is not to burden but support people

    ===================================================================

    I thought it was called anaesthesia, the other word went out in the Victoria n times

  5. Final comment re: Labor campaign – keep going, it has been good so far. The NBN is far more important to productivity than a business tax cut. You have to be a viable business to pay tax in the first place.

    I am glad Syntheo are gone from the NBN rollout in SA, NT and WA. They had underbid and were behind schedule. It is not a disaster in the overall scheme of things, but had to be dealt with. Using regular local suppliers was what the NBN Co. should have done in the first place.

    My only concern at present is why Labor cannot find a credible candidate for a seat like Dobell. It may well be a lost cause, but Labor owes it to the voters after Thomson to give them a choice.

  6. “@Rob_Stott: Kevin Rudd has agreed to a joint 7News/Facebook debate. Just waiting on a response from Abbott’s people. #YourCall7”

  7. Socrates

    There has been so much commentary on the Essendon saga here in Melbourne. My view is that if James is honourable, he will take full responsibility for the sake of the players

  8. my say

    Colebatch thinks there are many people who hang up on robopolls.

    [It’s polling for the 24/7 age.

    I experienced it on Sunday. The phone rang, and it was a ReachTEL robot asking me how I would vote, what I thought of the leaders, then the issue. I was doing OK until the robot demanded to know which party I trusted most to handle effectively the issue of asylum seekers. I wouldn’t trust either of them, but the robot did not allow that option. When I refused to press either 1 or 2, I was disconnected, disenfranchised.

    ReachTEL’s operations manager, James Stewart, is unapologetic about his firm’s use of ”forced choice” questions that allow no third option. ”We don’t allow people to say they’re undecided,” he says. ”Our philosophy is that when you walk into a polling booth, there’s no ‘don’t know’ box on the ballot paper.”

    Others might think that is dangerous when it comes to an issue such as asylum seekers. An Essential poll asking the same question the same weekend, but allowing a wider choice of answers, found 49 per cent of voters think neither big party has the best policy on asylum seekers. That’s a lot of people for a pollster to hang up on.]

    Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/federal-politics/federal-election-2013/robots-cant-vote-but-can-influence-political-opinion-20130806-2rdki.html#ixzz2bELG0g00

  11. Morning all.
    [Bernard Keane ‏@BernardKeane 3m
    Love how Shanahan says @SwannyQLD “abandoned” a corporate tax cut – no mention that the Coalition and the Greens blocked it in the Senate…]

    Not just the Greens, but the coalition.

  17. [My only concern at present is why Labor cannot find a credible candidate for a seat like Dobell.]

    I agree, as I’ve been saying for months now. Why give the Liberals such a head start like this in a key seat?

  18. Morning All

    Are they serious? A $5 billion tax cut to pay for a tax increase (mega PPL) – churn churn churn – just pay for it from government revenue and call it welfare ffs

    Labor has clearly the best PPL imo – it’s far less generous but is affordable and can be topped up by employers. The one missing feature is not paying super contributions. The Greens scheme is too generous as well but right including super

    Does Hockey really think that we won’t do the sums???

    Anyone want to bet that the $5 billion will come from further cuts to the public service – cutshurt.com.au

    Katter was interesting saying he won’t make any preference deals – I wonder what he will do with his how to vote cards???

  21. [RN Breakfast ‏@RNBreakfast 46m
    .@SenatorWong “we don’t think it’s a good thing for Australians to have a company tax cut funded by an increased cost of living” #ausvotes]

    Wong has some of the best lines for the govt.

  22. Stephen Koukoulas ‏@TheKouk 33m
    In the real world; some better economic news from the UK and Europe, adding to the picture of a solid global recovery

    Collapse

  23. “@latikambourke: PM Rudd – the Australian Govt I lead would not increase the GST nor broaden its scope. #Ausvotes”

    Good the steno is on the job 🙂

  24. confessions

    The seat of Dobell has got me stratching my head. I was convinced for a very long time that a well known and respected Australian would be Labor’s candidate.

  25. Many of us were a bit dubious about Politifact’s results.
    This report brings no comfort. Turnbull is being cleverly devious (lawyer-like?). I, for one, always believed that the connection to the house would be free under Labor, but the IP service would be paid for, as now.

    [Mr Turnbull hit out at both claims at a news conference in Sydney on Tuesday afternoon.

    ”That is a lie. It is not free,” he said. ”If you want to be connected to Labor’s NBN or any NBN, whether it’s completed under a Labor government or a Coalition government, you are going to have to buy a plan from a telecommunications company – Telstra or iiNet or Optus or somebody like that. So it’s not free.”

    Mr Turnbull said new fact-checking website, Politifact, had looked at ”that statement” and found it false.
    However, Politifact actually checked Mr Turnbull’s statements about connecting to the broadband network, not Mr Rudd’s. Politifact concluded that ”at the risk of getting existential, it comes down to what you think a ‘connection’ actually is. Turnbull is talking about getting online. Turnbull says ‘connection to the NBN is not free’. Regardless of Labor’s investment, on being told they need to pay a retail service provider to get online many consumers would probably agree. We rate Turnbull’s statement mostly true.”

    Politifact also found that repeated claims by Labor politicians that households would be charged $5000 under a Coalition government for the fibre connections that would be provided under Labor were ”mostly false”, because it was based on estimates of maximum charges to customers in Britain.]

    Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/federal-politics/federal-election-2013/lies-damned-lies-and-broadband-main-parties-go-toetotoe-over-internets-future-20130806-2rdi0.html#ixzz2bEMMvB98

  26. Katter was also getting very fired up at even being asked about preference deals (and gay marriage).

    There’s Abbott’s “rock solid, iron clad guarantee”!

  27. Guytaur

    If Abbott does not say yes Rudd should invite Milne and Katter to share the spot. However there should be a large cardboard cut out of Abbott. When questions are directed to the cut out there should be a chicken sqwark or UmUm UM! reply

  28. TAX CUTS!

    Huzzah!

    And Australia will end up with one of the best PPL Schemes in the world – who could be unhappy with that?

  31. thank you lizzie

    heard this story a few times, also older people cannot hear
    that included me I really struggle on the phone
    so much so I ask oh to take calls re insurance ect lost my sunglasses,

    there would be many like me , so if you cannot say, ” repeat that please’ your gone because they have moved on

    so why will insists with this lot is beyond me

  32. For those who don’t recall, Bill Glasson is former head of the AMA, and easily the highest profile opponent Rudd’s ever had in his own seat.

    He was also until recently an ‘NBN Champion’ – until he mysteriously quit!

  35. CC

    Let me get this straight.

    Abbott will tax companies 1.5 % to pay for the PPL, and at the same time reduce company tax by 1.5%

    So how is the PPL paid for?

  36. Unfortunately Abbott has a powerful counter-argument to debates of the form Rudd wants. He’ll say that it’s ordinary voters who matter, not the press, so community forums are the go.

  39. “@latikambourke: PM Rudd says plenty of options for candidates in Dobell and the person will be known before nominations close.”

  41. PPL – has to be “affordable” becasue we can’t afford the Rolls Royce, apparently.

    NBN – we have to have the Rolls Royce even if it is too expensive, apparently.

  43. “@wrightgb: .@LoughnaneB Tony Abbott again refused a debate on @sunriseon7. If you’re not ready to debate the PM then you aren’t ready to be PM.#AusPol”

  45. my say

    William will have to take all methods into consideration if he’s doing “proper psephy”.

    However, I agree with you that automatic phone calls are not easy, if the receiver
    * is plunged too quickly into demands for answers
    * is even slightly hard of hearing
    * hasn’t got all the answers at their fingertips
    * is unfamiliar with the demands of the organisation. or the purpose of the call.

  46. CC

    Who is going to pay for the PPL, if Abbott is going to cut company tax by the same percentage as the increase to cover the PPL. Simple question. Do you have an answer?

  47. “Let’s have some REAL debates. You know, select a gaggle of your best and grill the daylights out of us both.”
    Rudd to journos.

  48. Mod Lib
    Posted Wednesday, August 7, 2013 at 8:19 am | PERMALINK

    Yes, the Liberal party vote was 30.46% in 2010.
    However, the Liberal National Qld vote was 9.12% of the national vote in 2010
    The National party vote was 3.43%

    —————

    Yes but Abbott is not the leader of the lnp or national party

    he is the leader of the liberal party

  49. Victoria – I am suprised you don’t understand that ALL companies get the 1.5% tax cut – so the base rate becomes 28.5%.

    Then a select number of the top gross profit makers pay a 1.5% levy – you know like those Big FOur Banks who make far too much profit and should be forced to pay more tax and the big miners and Oil Companies who should pay more tax.

    You aren’t just trying to be obtuse are you?

  50. victoria, he can, but Abbott will still refuse Rudd’s debates. Then we’d effectively have the OL leading the PM by the nose.

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