Another rough weekend for the conservatives (vid. the Fisher by-election) gets even worse with the latest Galaxy poll for the Sunday News Limited tabloids. This one has Labor leading 55-45 on two-party preferred, compared with 51-49 in the last such poll in early October, and 41% (up five) to 38% (down four) on the primary vote. The poll also finds that 41% would prefer Malcolm Turnbull be Treasurer against 21% for Joe Hockey.
Next cab off the rank should be Ipsos in the Fairfax papers this evening.
And, in more bad news for the US Democratic Party, the Republicans won the run-off election for the US Senate seat for Louisiana, making their Senate total for the next congressional session, 54 GOP – 44 Dem – 2 Ind.
The losing Democrat was Mary Landrieu, a three term incumbent. This will be the first time both of the Senators from the state are Republicans since 1876.
I do believe I may have made an error.
It is not the ‘Greens’ at all.
It is ‘Australian Greens’.
After all this time…
Shorten on the same page as me
[Opposition Leader Bill Shorten says Tony Abbott’s promised tweaks to his signature paid parental leave scheme reveal a prime minister in “deep trouble”.
“This is not about Tony Abbott changing his policies because he is admitting he is wrong” Mr Shorten told reporters in Melbourne.
“This is about Tony Abbott changing his tactics because he is in deep political trouble with his colleagues and the nation.”
Mr Abbott has announced his PPL scheme will be restructured, and could include investment in childcare, in a bid to gain cross-party support.]
Although, as somewhat of a testimony of the polarised political nature of the US, some Democrats will be calling it a victory because they labelled her as a ‘DINO’ (Democrat In Name Only) – despite the fact that she has always been loyal to her party and if you want a Democrat representing Louisiana you’re going to be getting someone like her, not Elizabeth Warren.
Well done to Carey Moore who was the only one to even note Labor had a chance in that SA by-election.
Carey is a great contributor on this blog and his local SA knowledge is invaluable.
Even if we disagreed about Romney’s chances in Maine in 2012 — I welcome your SA insights!
Thanks again,
Darren
Interesting comment by BW @328 in his critique of the Greens…
“The reason I whack a few of these statistical things in from time to time is to ensure that Greens Party voters are reminded that their vote is generally flatlining, that in all of the last six elections their vote has gone backwards or stayed the same, that the Greens will not be in government any time soon and that every time they take a bit of skin off Labor they are playing Russian roulette with the chance of the Liberals forming government.”
Obviously he has a short memory because this was exactly the point I made to him prior to last year’s Federal Election when he attacked PM KRudd with much vitriol. He advocated voting “informal” as a protest but of course would not admit that every time he “took a bit of skin off Labor” he was “playing Russian roulette with the chance of the Liberals forming government”.
Methinks sometimes he has good points to make but sometimes he’s a hypocrite!
It’s my common practice, as PB regulars will know, to compose quite detailed posts on matters of public policy that concern me, but I’m not going to do that on this occasion. Instead, I’d like those PB regulars who have the time to take a look at this link:
http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/backgroundbriefing/2014-12-07/5936412
This is Radio National’s Background Briefing — one of the shows in line, AIUI for the axe in the current round of ‘efficiencies’. This particular program, anchored by the excellent Sara Dingle, concerns itself with the childhood obesity problem, and in particular, the public policy failure accompanying it. Type 2 diabetes is now on par with type 1 amongst adolescents — whereas 30 years ago it was a comparative rarity.
What I found interesting as someone especially concerned with the constraints on climate change policy were the parallels between the efforts of those seeking to develop policy on climate change in the face of FHC industry influence and the absolute roadblock effected by the $114bn ‘food’ industry in this country. The NPHA (National Preventive Health Agency) never stood a chance, and has now been completely defunded by the Commonwealth with none of its unanimous recommendations implemented. Most galling of all was the new regime’s minister, Peter Dutton, claiming that he couldn’t justify funding it as it ‘hadn’t achieved anything’.
It seems that Big Filth in resisting climate change policy has a worthy counterpart in the food industry — which I will dub ‘Big Mouth’.
I commend this story to the bludgers.
Thanks Darren, you’re never going to let me live that one down are you? 😛
Although, to be fair, I got the by-election wrong as well and merely conceded there was an outside chance Cook could win. My money was on Woodyatt.
ausdavo
I had to be a bit careful because I understand that recommending an informal vote is actually illegal.
I did not want to get William into trouble for providing a platform for lawbreakers thus inadvertantly perhaps running into some sort of trouble himself which would not have been very fair.
However, you appear to have apprehended the gist.
All that said, if there is a party that is worth supporting to form a government, I will vote for that party; if not, not.
Comrade, think of it this way. We had two rotten apples. One gone; one to go.
@328
For the Victorian election, it looks like the greens got their first lower house seat and another 2 upper house seats.
CareyMoore
[Although, as somewhat of a testimony of the polarised political nature of the US, some Democrats will be calling it a victory because they labelled her as a ‘DINO’ (Democrat In Name Only) – despite the fact that she has always been loyal to her party and if you want a Democrat representing Louisiana you’re going to be getting someone like her, not Elizabeth Warren.]
However that may be it does show that dressing up as someone from the other side isn’t even a guarantee of the win, particularly when as is the case in non-compulsory voting, more liberal democrats can not bother showing up. If you are probably going to lose, you might as well run someone who will get the home crowd to the ballot box in the absence of coercion.
That said, the US is excellent at voter suppression. They have nothing like the equivalent of the AEC.
FB
Yes.
I alluded recently to the disinformation role of elite sports and their coverage in distracting from what it very often really means to be an Australian sport supporter: overweight or obese.
Carey Moore and other commenting on SA – The result in Fisher is huge and really cements my feeling that SA is swinging a lot more against the Government than the bludgertrack shows. If the swing holds then I’d reckon that Sturt, Hindmarsh and Boothby are all in danger for the Libs.
Fran, she’s a three term US Senator and comes from a family who are a Louisiana political institution. She knew what she was doing and wasn’t just merely cynically dressing herself up as the other side.
JimmyDoyle, I agree.
Hindmarsh is definitely gone. I think Boothby is also in grave danger and Pyne will also have a huuuge fight in Sturt.
Things go right, all three will be gone. Pity we don’t have 10 Liberal marginals here…
So she really was the other side Carey?
Fran – indeed. If one wants to talk about ‘confirmation bias’ one has to look no further than US politics. The voter suppression that has become routine in the US, made manifest and worsened by the US electoral system whereby each state is responsible for apportioning the congressional districts and for how votes are counted, while each of the more than 4000 counties is responsible for the actual counting, has come about because Republicans think that any vote for a Democrat must have been been a fraudulent vote. Republicans live in an echo chamber of their own nonsense, but it is Democrats, particularly Democratic minorities, that suffer.
Carey Moore – I think if Labor really wanted to invest the time and money, they could probably give the Libs a scare in Grey as well.
Correction to my post at 367 – the US has 3144 counties.
rr /bw
[good to see that at least Typhoon Hagupit (Ruby)]
They’ve seemed to have got a lot better at preparation and also compliance with the evacuation orders are much better.
They are coming for me
http://www.bom.gov.au/products/IDR713.loop.shtml#skip
Boerwar@352
Shouldn’t that be ‘Australian Greens Party’?
[So she really was the other side Carey?]
She is a loyal Democrat. Unlike other conservative Democrats, like Joe Lieberman, she has not waivered. She just has views that other Northern and West Coast Democrats disagree with but Louisiana Democrats support.
But, having said that, she’s pro-same sex marriage, pro-choice, disliked by the NRA and voted for Obamacare (a vote which she stands by). So for a “Democrat In Name Only”, she’s taken quite a few liberal (I am using the American definition of the word because this is about American politics) positions representing a really conservative state.
Carey Moore@373
But.. but..but… she lacks the absolute ‘purity’ and impotence that Greens find so appealing. 😀
[It is not very often that governments gain seats at by-elections. The examples I can think of all took place during first terms of government, not the fourth term which is the current position of the Weatherill government in South Australia.
The first term examples I can think of are Labor under Neville Wran winning the Earlwood by-election in 1978, in his first term, and incidently defeating the political aspirations of the Liberal candidate Alan Jones.
In 1996 the Carr Labor government in NSW won Clarence from the National Party at a by-election in its first term, increasing the government’s tenuous one seat majority to three.
The minority Bracks government won two famous by-elections in its first term. In December 1999 they gained Jeff Kennett’s former seat of Burwood, and in May 2000 won the rural seat of Benalla, previously held by National Party Leader and Deputy Premier Pat McNamara.
The newly elected Beattie government in Queensland achieved majority in late 1998 by winning the Mulgrave by-election following the resignation of the elected One Nation MP.
The O’Farrell government in NSW also gained a seat from an Independent in 2013, again in the first term of a government, by winning the Northern Tablelands by-election following the resignation of Richard Torbay.
The final example I can think of is the 1994 Helena by-election in Western Australia, gained by the Court government in its first term in office. The Labor candidate at that by-election was Joe Bullock, whose recent election to the Senate was made easier by factional deals that delivered him the lead position on the Labor Senate ticket.
My records on by-election swings for fourth term governments are limited to NSW, but the average swing against Labor in the fourth term of the Wran/Unsworth government 1984-88 was 7.9%, and the average swing against Labor in the fourth term of Iemma/Rees/Keneally Labor government 2007-11 was 21.0%.
In complete contrast, the swing in Fisher is around 9% towards the Labor government.]
http://www.abc.net.au/elections/sa/2014/fisher/commentary.htm
[Lest I bore Adrian and offend PB, I will not repeat the detail of my logic. It addresses your point. If you want to address the logic, go back over the past several thousand posts.]
So in other words you got nuthin. (Not even a link.)
[To sum up: You have come up with one original substantive point: the ‘Greens’ are called the ‘Greens’ and not the ‘Greens Party’ to save on typing.]
Its a far more substantive point than you’re willing to credit. The Greens call themselves “the Greens” as a form of branding. Its quicker to type, say or to mentally process the term “greens” as opposed to “greens party”. That second term is lumpy, takes twice as long to say or think and gets stuck in your mouth, the first rolls off the tongue easily. Its the same reason we say “the libs”, “the nats”, PUP, “the Dems” or “the ALP” or Labor instead of their official titles when referring to them.
Everyone knows they are a political party by virtue of them being in politics. And everyone knows they do deals cos the Gillard govt (probably) wouldn’t have implemented an ETS in the 10-13 timeframe if the Greens hadn’t done a deal with them. I can’t believe you don’t already know this and are just trolling.
You have a point about the way they try to play off the whole “we’re not like other parties we don’t do politics” thing but so what? All parties do that, its how they differentiate themselves and none of them are truly honest about how they present themselves. So really – yes we know, we heard you the first time.
CTaR1
Yep. A lot of the 7,000 who died this time last year were reluctuant to leave property unguarded.
The balance of that particular cost/benefit equation of that decision has altered: not only because a lot of people died, but because, in hindsight, there was nothing left in the surge zone for people to steal.
[I do believe I may have made an error.
It is not the ‘Greens’ at all.
It is ‘Australian Greens’.
After all this time…]
Well there ya go BW
On another note entirely, have you ever seen this:
http://thestringer.com.au/
Its called The Stringer and has some good coverage on the aboriginal issues including the consequences of the theft of WA Homelands.
Did the Fisher by-election really happen? Watched Insiders to see what they had to say about it and not even a mention. Only a minor state by-election I know but surely has serious implications at a federal level.
In contrast to the Abbott crew the NASA Pluto probe has successfully woken up.
[An American probe that will explore Pluto has woken from its slumber, after a nine-year journey to take a close look at the distant body for the first time.
New Horizons begins its exploration of Pluto in January ….The craft carries seven instruments, including infrared and ultraviolet spectrometers, a multicolour camera, a high-resolution telescopic camera and a space dust detector.]
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/technology/news/article.cfm?c_id=5&objectid=11370328
jules
[You have a point about the way they try to play off the whole “we’re not like other parties we don’t do politics” thing…]
Thank you. My point exactly.
You may recall that I was responding to PB who rather thought it was an ‘affectation’ on my part to call the ‘Australian Greens’ the ‘Greens Party’.
I responded by pointing out that it was perhaps an affectation on the part of the Greens Party to pretend that they are not a Greens ‘Party’ when, in fact, they are engaged in sordid party politics just like everyone else.
Most recently I understand that in Fisher the Greens Party did not seem to care overmuch whether their preferences went to Liberals.
Jules
I hadn’t seen it before but have bookmarked it now. Thank you. The painful thing about looking at some of those articles is that I sort of know what is in some of them before I read them.
There is a peculiar irony that Barnett has apparently ordered an in-house investigation into Aboriginal deaths in custody in Western Australia.
Hello? Who the eff does he think he is kidding? The recommendations of the RCI ADICare still sitting there, waiting to be implemented. The over-policing is still there. The deadly impact of dispersing and concentrating people against their will are well-known.
I suggest that he is responding specifically to the young woman who died in prison for a penny’s worth of unpaid fines.
But surely he can’t be that short-sighted? Surely his scope of vision can’t be that narrow?
Boerwar@381
They are actually worse than the other parties as they lie about not engaging in such behaviour.
It is kind of like Abbott’s lying about lying. It is more annoying than the original lying.
p
Nine years…phew.
bemused
We need to persuade people not get their backs up.
Let’s be nice.
Well, OK then, a little bit nice.
rossco
My thought exactly.
The Guardian is carrying news about Galaxy and Fisher. From what I have seen or heard in Melbourne the ABC seem to be keeping both well hidden on radio and web news.
shellbell
[They are coming for me]
Litigation lawyers are targeted.
CTaR1
Whistles and chapatis… any connection?
What do you reckon?
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-12-07/whistlers-alert-residents-to-burglaries/5948184
bemused
[But.. but..but… she lacks the absolute ‘purity’ and impotence that Greens find so appealing.]
I think this response misses the point as much as Fran’s does. The error is in the simplistic partioning (of people and their values) into easy-to-define “sides”.
rossco:
There hasn’t been much mainstream media coverage of Fisher result anywhere that I’ve seen. Which is surprising given how the media loves to pile on when a govt is brought low.
[Thank you. My point exactly.
You may recall that I was responding to PB who rather thought it was an ‘affectation’ on my part to call the ‘Australian Greens’ the ‘Greens Party’.]
Yes but isn’t everything any political party ever does an affectation?
Look even Greens supporters know they are a political party and play political games. How could they be a political party and not do that?
Does this go back to the CPRS?
Anyway i gotta go my pager is buzzing
Oh Lord, Jules! Why would you bring up the CPRS??
Whilst all the talk today about sa another developement http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-12-07/independent-senator-nick-xenophon-to-launch-political-party/5949534 -sorry if it’s already been posted.
I am in WA and I wouldn’t know a thing about Fisher except for PB.
Full primaries for the Galaxy: ALP 41 L-NP 38 Green 11 PUP 4 Other 6
[Kevin Bonham
Posted Sunday, December 7, 2014 at 4:10 pm | PERMALINK
Full primaries for the Galaxy: ALP 41 L-NP 38 Green 11 PUP 4 Other 6]
Kevin
Do you agree with the 55-45 2pp coming from that? looks a bit high to me. More like 54-46. (but as I’ve said before, I’m no psephologist).
DisplayName@390
I am clear about what side I am on.
As for the Greens… what can one say? Confused? Misguided?…
7 News seems to think Fisher is too close to call with a lot of pre-poll and postal votes to count.
https://au.news.yahoo.com/a/25704666/fisher-by-election-race-to-replace-bob-such-too-close-to-call-as-counting-continues/
[The result of the Fisher by-election in South Australia remains too close to call.
The Liberal Party had been expected to win the seat, but Labor has polled strongly and leads on a two-party preferred basis.
It could be days until the result is known with about 7,000 postal votes to be counted on Tuesday.
About 24 per cent of people cast postal and pre-poll votes, which are likely to determine the result.
The Liberals need more than half of the postal and pre-poll votes to win the seat.
Opposition Leader Steven Marshall said it was going to be an anxious wait until postal and pre-poll votes were counted.
“This was always going to be a complicated by-election,” Mr Marshall said.
“Our early polling showed that it was marginal, it was complicated and it just goes to show {that} nothing is for certain in politics.”]
But good news whatever the final outcome… 😀
[Adelaide University political commentator, Dr Clem McIntyre, said there would be recriminations within the Liberal party, even if it wins the Fisher by-election.
Dr McIntyre said dissatisfaction with federal Coalition policies played a part in the way people voted.
He said even if the Liberal candidate Heidi Harris won, it was a bad result for the Liberal party.
“They’ve had a huge fright here, even if they just snatch victory on the flow of preferences,” Dr McIntyre said.
“I think there’s some real concerns for the Liberals about why they’ve not been able to convince people in a seat like Fisher, which we think of as a traditional Liberal seat, that they pose an alternative government.”]
[New in-house research into Liberal Party attitudes to female candidates has found the odds are stacked against women winning or even seeking pre-selection because they’re treated less fairly than male candidates. How about a quota system? No way. The research found 79 per cent of party members were against it. After all, somebody has to make the chocolate crackles for branch-meeting suppers. ]
http://www.theage.com.au/comment/the-age-editorial/and-another-thing-20141206-121r0i.html