In a week where only Essential Research reported a national voting intention result, BludgerTrack records a tick to Labor – although it’s actually due to me finally being able to add last fortnight’s ReachTEL to the mix, for which I hadn’t previously been able to get full primary vote numbers, and which was actually a bit of a shocker for the Coalition by the pollster’s standards. As for the state breakdowns, all I can really offer at the moment is apologies for how screwy the Queensland numbers are looking. Whether because of state election static, or simply a freakish accumlation of outliers over a very short period, six of the last seven results I have from Queensland have the Coalition primary vote at 30% or below, compared with 43.2% at the 2016 election. It will be interesting to see what we get from the Newspoll quarterly aggregation, which should be along in a week or two. Essential had its montly leadership ratings this week, which have givenn Malcolm Turnbull a bit of a lift. Full results on the sidebar.
GG
Is Jenny Macklin retiring at next election?
Jaga Jaga may be a little fragile at next election if this is the case. What do you think?
The seat of Batman has a very real prospect of being taken by the Greens.
Good renewal for the alp if they got macklin to give the game away. Vamvakinou is also not the future obviously.
Interesting to see if Kevin Andrews hangs on in Menzies – you would think Kroger would be looking to move him on.
GG:
Batman was a much safer seat for Labor when Marn was parachuted in. Now it’s going to have a high profile media focus and I’m not sure that a failed candidate from NSW would cut it with voters.
Jackol
The main point of the article:
Why the secrecy?
If anyone needs to retire from politics it’s Kevin Andrews and Tony Abbott. Neither offer anything to public discourse or public policy except outmoded, religious happy clapper thinking.
Rex Douglas @ #123 Sunday, December 17th, 2017 – 9:54 am
You clown Rex.
Bill Shorten is not a trade union official and never was one for the SDA.
I thought Burke did well on Insiders, when asked about Bennelong he said to look at the swings booth by booth, some with a large proportion of overseas born voters were very high, others with low swings are very white, Australian born, the seat is quite diverse.
A name candidate was key, KK was an excellent candidate but there were many booths in the seat where she was never going to win.
The message is, as Burke said is that Labor has to continue to work hard toward the next general elections taking nothing for granted.
I encourage Labor to run KK in Batman.
I, for one, would like KK to run in my seat of Reid next time. Smaller margin to overcome and Laundy has been a no show from what I have seen. Similar demographic to Bennelong (very high nesb population) but takes in slightly more western suburb type of voter.
Bemused Shorten could intervene and make the sda stop doing these deals. It could be evidence of a tangible commitment to protect wages and working conditions for families. Yet he stands by and does nothing.
Yup. I’d say the only way for Labor to be competitive in Batman is to focus solely on picking a local(ish) candidate that will appeal to the Greens-leaning public. Feeney is a non-starter for a whole variety of reasons, but they shouldn’t replace him with another drop-in with no connection and without the requisite lefty credentials (and while KK has some great qualities for a politician, she has no record as a lefty apart from her progressive Catholic writing, which isn’t a good fit for inner-city knowledge types anyway).
Why would KK run in a seat in Victoria. It would be counterproductive to say the least.
Edwina – Shorten cannot ‘intervene’ on any union stuff. What a preposterous statement.
He is a political leader not the head of the ACTU, much as the Libs like to try and paint him that way.
Clearly because they knew outlets like Fairfax would run with numpty analysis like:
For a blog where comment posters are supposedly much more engaged in real politics the discussion of personalities in unpacking the outcome of the Bennelong by-election is extraordinarily facile.
Here is my take – and personalities are just not relevant. And may be proven wrong by the flow of postal votes.
There was a small late swing back to the Liberals. In my view this was driven by Turnbull emphasising the ‘bringing Shorten closer to being PM’. But it was not because Shorten was a bogeyman. Rather, it was because enough former Liberal voters saw this as increasing chaos in a time when they had a low opinion of national politics in general and sick of the chaos since 2010 in particular.
In a normal by-election (with the AVERAGE swing of 5%) there is an opportunity for those voters to let the government know how they are going (usually an expression of disappointment). But in this by-election, voters were aware that changing their vote would only increase the volatility of an already volatile and poor government, without changing anything or offering the opportunity to revisit last year’s election result.
For those who are not as engaged in politics as we are (which is most of the population) that is a real turn-off, regardless of what they think of the merits of the main players.
The bottom line is that the result of the by-election is a unique reflection of the implications of the result for government, to a much greater extent than some of the other factors we have discussed (Chinese influence, sitting member standing again, choosing KK as a candidate, etc).
I think that, based on this result, Bennelong will go to Labor at the next election, along with a slew of other seats and a thrashing of the Government is in order. We just need to wait and hope that not too much damage has been done in the meantime.
What was highlighted for me out of Bennelong was the lack of diversity in our media.
Not one Mandarin speaking Journalist was sent out to cover Bennelong so all the picture could be accurately represented.
Jenauthor
The seat of Reid would be a good fit. But for all we know KK may be seriously considering the senate seat
I’m paraphrasing an earlier post…which has a ring of inevitability about it because
they’re not going to let Malky lose.
This is the high point for labor. It is all downhill from here.
Player One @ #150 Sunday, December 17th, 2017 – 6:11 am
So what does winning Bennelong give Labor?
There are a lot more lower hanging fruit to more realistically chase.
The only reason Bennelong became important to Labor was that was a potential means to immediately destabilise the Government.
If Labor won Bennelong in a general election it would be, wow! we won! that’s now 30 more seats than we needed to win Government!
And as GG points out any subsequent swing against Labor and it’s probably the first to fall.
So, KK running again in Bennelong, a pointless waste of resources and tallent!
Voters would turn on Keneally if she abandoned the seat she dedicated herself too.
It’s Bennelong or nothing.
Jenauthor
Its a shame that Reid was not won last election by Labor (surprising given how many other seats in NSW fell). However I feel like Banks its trending away from Labor and is now more of a high mark seat than a safe one.
If KK does accept a Senate seat the LNP should be very worried.
A former premier who has gone through the fire of corruption and putting a fellow party member in jail will be formidable in Estimates.
Jen:
Reid would be perfect.
I am on the no more KK ticket.
Unfortunately she will always be tarred with Obeid whether rightly or wrongly.
Good morning all,
Those frothing at the mouth re the Fairfax ” exclusive” on the Woolworths pay agreement may need to take a deep breath and think about a few things.
Firstly, the agreement has been approved by Fair Work which means it meets the ” new” interpretation of the BOOT ie the agreement leaves no worker covered under it worse off than under the award at any time.
Secondly, if you actually did some research into the conditions negotiated under the agreement you would see that the agreement does include benefits shove the award.
Thirdly, it must be remembered that the ” journo” responsible for the story has been on a crusade against the SDA for a long time.
Go to the SDA site and get done detail.
Cheers.
Tell me guytaur which party member did KK put in jail?
That’s right Doyley when a union screws a workforce it’s ok.
Rex Douglas @ #171 Sunday, December 17th, 2017 – 6:24 am
4 weeks and she doesn’t live there, she has certainly sold her soul to it!!!
🙂
Maybe Labor could run KK in Wentworth ?
ESJ
Mr Obeid
Edwina StJohn @ #161 Sunday, December 17th, 2017 – 10:20 am
Read what Jackol said.
Also, I don’t think monitoring all negotiations by the SDA is part of his job description.
Now that it has emerged and he has knowledge of it, he may well inquire into it.
I think the left should toughen up and stop pandering to attacks from the other side, which in my view makes you look more guilty than standing up for yourself. Don’t give in to the politics of smear, even if they do get a helping hand from the MSM.
As well, the comparison between the so called ” dark stores ” and supermarkets is bullshit.
The ” dark stores” are in fact distribution warehouses that pack and send online orders. Any comparison should be between like for like.
Once again it should be made clear yet under this agreement aprroved by FWA no worker will be worse off than under the award and in fact a number of conditions included are above that of the award.
Cheers.
Guytaur – what r u smoking? Eddie was KK’s patron and sponsor and went to prison under a Liberal government. I doubt the prosecution would have got off first base under a KK government.
Edwina,
Where is your proof that workers are being screwed ?
A sign of the times to see ‘Labor’ people going in to bat for Woolies over low paid workers.
ESJ
Go tell that to Quentin Dempster and the ICAC prosecutor
Ides:
What did you make of Savva’s comments about how KK should’ve responded to attempts to tar her with Obeid and co?
Doyley exhibit a – coles
Rex,
Where is your proof workers are being paid less than award rates and other conditions worse than under the award ?
The agreement has been approved under the BOOT by FWA.
Cheers.
ESJ
https://thenewdaily.com.au/news/national/2017/11/14/kristina-keneally-smear-campaign/
If SDA is so great at securing workers’rights, pay, etc why was the Retail and Fast Food Workers Union formed in 2016?
http://www.raffwu.org.au/
Morning all,
On a completely different topic has anyone used the au version of Amazon?
Thoughts? Reviews?
Guytaur, so what ? It’s hardly profiles in courage , this is the person who put Ian McDonald back in cabinet after all.
Edwina,
The Coles agreements were thrown out because FWA applied a more strict interpretation of the BOOT than previously applied. A good outcome.
This new agreement has been approved by FWA under its new more stringent application of the BOOT.
That means in no individual case at any time will a worker be any worse off than if that worker was employed under the award.
No worker is being ripped off.
Cheers.
guytaur says:
Sunday, December 17, 2017 at 10:22 am
What was highlighted for me out of Bennelong was the lack of diversity in our media.
Not one Mandarin speaking Journalist was sent out to cover Bennelong so all the picture could be accurately represented.
Apart from roping in KR for the job, I would think there are very few mandarin speakers in the Fairfax or Australian newspapers stable of journalists.
Could be done by employing on special assignment one of the mandarin speakers from a Chinese newspaper in Sydney, such as the Epoch times:
http://www.epochtimes.org.au/
Fess
Didnt watch Insiders.
Don , epoch times is Falun gung, can’t see labor giving them accreditation given their anti Beijing stance.
Don
Could be done by employing a few Asian reporters out of Journalism school.
The ABC has been getting better with presenters on 24. Not that hard for outlets to do.
For an outfit like Crikey they could indeed have a guest reporter for such occasions