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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  1. alias
    Posted Wednesday, August 7, 2013 at 11:15 pm | Permalink
    Rudd v Murdoch.

    At any other time, even as recently
    ========================================================

    spot on did u see my post about twitter kr and albo talking about the nbn but not directly to Murdoch and Murdoch was tweeting about the cost of the nbn

    many of us joined in and said how great the nbn is

    I much admire mr rudd for guts and we all should

    I am going to say KR is a wonderful person and human being
    ‘and people like david who says he a waverer

    really should think about his vote. and so should all liberls

  3. Mod Lib @ 1528
    What you regard as nice work by Bishop was the transparent response of a person lacking cogent answers. Any time she was backing into a corner she’d triumphantly ignore the question and respond “Well what about what Labor did back in 1956” or something equally irrelevant. I’d call this insulting your audience.

  4. NOTE TO ALL:

    If Rudd unfortunately can’t gather support in the betting after their first debate…

    you are going to read it here first…

    it will be over 😎

  5. Yes, because Abbott is treated with such respect, isn’t he?

    “Mad monk”
    “Budgie smugglers”

    LOL 🙂 You guys must be good at yoga…

  6. Well, I’m offering 50-1 on an LNP win! The only catch is Im not accepting bets.

    You can see how ROBUST my odds calcs has to be when I run this way.

    Wait for the polls is my advice.

  8. [smallvox
    Posted Wednesday, August 7, 2013 at 11:31 pm | PERMALINK
    Mod Lib @ 1528
    What you regard as nice work by Bishop was the transparent response of a person lacking cogent answers. Any time she was backing into a corner she’d triumphantly ignore the question and respond “Well what about what Labor did back in 1956″ or something equally irrelevant. I’d call this insulting your audience.]

    Ahem, 1956? You mean the announcement 5 days ago don’t you?

    “The ALP admitted to being 12 Billion out of their budget estimate from 3 months ago” wtte

  9. centre betting

    has nothing to do with elections read the above,

    give it rest please I worked on telephone betting when the int rates where high

    I heard enough and seen enough of betting

    kid cring in the back ground at 10 at night mum saying get off the phone re betting

    really

  10. Centre .. I dont claim to be an expert on the fed election betting Markets, but note that Betfair has matched bets of less than 750k over the last 3 weeks on the Fed election – most of that money for the LNP pushing the odds back from 1:4 to 1:25 – hardly an avalanche of $, noting that a similar amount is routinely wagered on the 2.30 at Flemington.

  11. Player One

    I can assure you that McMahon’s sexuality was the subject of sniggering, if not open questions. Don Dustan too (of course he later came out).

    Yes the Junee Morosi affair was big news – an affair and a foreigner.

    Keating copped a lot of flack for his clothing and his old clocks.

  14. Bishop’s final triumph in her LL interview was to profess concern for Rudd’s mental health. You know how they say the loser is the first person to liken the subject at hand to Hitler? I think hers was the step just before that.

  16. centre only a small percentage of the population
    bets so your saying every one watching will run down to the betting shop and put on a bet

    sorry that make believe land for most of us

  17. 😆

    Do you know what the betting market has done to the polls in this election, do you really know?

    The betting has picked up the polls by the undies at the 20 metre line, 1 metre in from touch and kicked their nuts over the black dot 😎

    The polls v the betting – please 😆

  18. Julie Bishop never comes across as in charge of her delivery. Bit strange for an ex-teacher. I don’t suppose solicitors have to be engaging.

    She either is halting in her delivery or is abusive.

    She would be last on my list of desirable teachers. I did have a crush on my English teacher in my two Senior years. I did get an A for English in Senior. I hasten to add that the marks were allocated by the the bureaucracy and not her.

  20. SMALLVOX

    with that remark I think she handed today to labor

    what silly thing to say a lot of people admire mr rudd

    and cannot stand abbott

    they libs really are so very immature say the first thing that comes in their minds and it usually something nasty or negative

    what horrible country we would have with them

    but nothing I say or we say will make people like david of mod lib grow up

  21. Listen

    The economic statement was a low point for Labor. Unfortunately it HAD to come out so they have handled the toxic issue as well as they can.

    Frankly I have a few questions for Treasury and Swanee myself. How the hell did they get it so very wrong, or was Swan selecting the most optimistic estimates?

  25. daretotread@1561

    Player One

    I can assure you that McMahon’s sexuality was the subject of sniggering, if not open questions. Don Dustan too (of course he later came out).

    Yes the Junee Morosi affair was big news – an affair and a foreigner.

    Keating copped a lot of flack for his clothing and his old clocks.

    Of course – and I’m not claiming any of them was not gay. In fact, I couldn’t care less whether they are (or were) or not.

    The point it that none of them was ever asked such personal questions to their face, at the time, while in public life. It would have – rightly – been unthinkable.

    What they were asked later, or themselves admitted once they had left public life, is entirely their own affair and of no consequence to anyone except those with a particularly purient bent.

  30. “with that remark I think she handed today to labor”
    I thought it was a Turnbull senior staffer telling a blogger to get fucked which handed the day to Labor

  31. OK, i hate twitter, but my need for constant info and tidbits overwhlems my distaste.

    What are the best Aus politics hashtags, bludgers?

  37. Player One

    I think you need to divide the world from about say 1980 (before and after).

    The media and Australia’s defamation laws were such that NO journalist would touch ANYTHING that detracted from a woman’s reputation, because it was a very big damages award in the making. Obviously suggesting openly that someone was gay would have also been very, very risky.

    It was only after the free love era of the 60s has settled as the norm or acceptable and divorce was common, that it became acceptable to discuss sexual matters in the media in anything but the most careful way -ie jokes and innuendo.

  38. Mod Lib @1558
    Bishop was asked about a discrepancy TODAY (or maybe even yesterday) between Abbott and Hockey. Because she couldn’t answer she deflected by saying well what about what that other lot did last week. Playground stuff, hardly brilliant, obvious that she couldn’t answer the question and so the anomaly between Abbott and Hockey’s answers remain. She used other references to other things in the past to fob off questions she couldn’t answer (I was making up the reference to 1956).

  39. Centre, no doubt, seriously, I think the betting markets currently reflect what a small number of punters think will be the outcome on Sept 7. A bit like the Melbourne Cup market 3 months before the event. The betting market in the last few days is a different thing entirely….

  40. lefty e@1585

    At least its funny, yes.

    But to hang an entire front page off whether the beer they drank was German or not?

    Seriously? This is the level of political commentary that their readership is willing to pay money for?

    We’re in much deeper shit already than I ever thought possible!

  41. The polls effect the betting market much more than the betting market effects the polls.

    The only useful information that could effect the betting market, but not the polls, would be that which would cause a major blow to one side or the other when released during the campaign. This would likely show up as a sudden unexplained movement, like happens on the sharemarket when insider trading is noticeably going on. Only in that case are the betting markets more useful than the polls.

  42. [Yes, because Abbott is treated with such respect, isn’t he?

    “Mad monk”
    “Budgie smugglers”]

    You forgot :monkey: 🙂

    And in context i think its quite respectful.

  44. [I think you need to divide the world from about say 1980 (before and after).

    The media and Australia’s defamation laws were such that NO journalist would touch ANYTHING that detracted from a woman’s reputation, because it was a very big damages award in the making. Obviously suggesting openly that someone was gay would have also been very, very risky.

    It was only after the free love era of the 60s has settled as the norm or acceptable and divorce was common, that it became acceptable to discuss sexual matters in the media in anything but the most careful way -ie jokes and innuendo.]

    What’s your point? That radio announcers were just itching to gossip about PM McMahon on air but couldn’t because of the legal situation?

  45. I think Murdock has declared open season

    Hope Labor is clever enough to counter attack.

    Must be done, very, very, very very carefully

  46. I thought it was pretty funny that the Libs demanded to know what Albanese and Thompson were talking about, in an open and public place. Are we in a police state now? And THAT was headline news, at least online.

  47. daretotread@1587

    Player One

    I think you need to divide the world from about say 1980 (before and after).

    So, all those in public life after the 80’s were fair game, but it took the media till 2013 to work up the courage to actually ask such ridiculous questions?

    Yep, sound’s about right.

  48. [We’re in much deeper shit already than I ever thought possible!]

    Well, shit has a 70% market share.

    they wanna watch out they dont make the ALP seem more entertainign than the Addams family rerun that is the coalition frontbench. Are people aware RUDDOCK is still alive, and on it?

  49. I’m not sure why anyone would buy the DT. It’s funny but it hardly belongs on the front page of a serious newspaper.

    Mind you Labor are crazy to have the DPM being seen drinking with Thomson particularly at this time. What was Albanese thinking?

  50. [Must be done, very, very, very very carefully]

    It has to be done cleverly, sure, but Murdoch has never takne on a PM who bites back.

    Maybe Murdoch needs to be careful.

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