On reflection, my previous post, intended as the first in a series of “Call of the Board” posts reviewing in detail the result of the May 18 election, was deficient in two aspects. The first is that patterns in the results estimated by my demographic model were said to be “difficult to discern”, which can only have been because I didn’t look hard enough. In fact, the results provide evidence for remarkably strong incumbency effects. Of the 12 Liberals defending their seats in the Sydney area, all but Tony Abbott outperformed the modelled estimate of the Liberal two-party vote, by an average of 4.0%. Of the 15 Labor members, all but two (Julie Owens in Parramatta and Anne Stanley in Werriwa) outperformed the model, the average being 3.4%.
The other shortcoming of the post was that it did not, indeed, call the board – a now-abandoned ritual of election night broadcasting in which the results for each electorate were quickly reviewed in alphabetical order at the end of the night, so that nobody at home would feel left out. You can find this done for the Sydney seats over the fold, and it will be a feature of the Call of the Board series going forward.
Banks (Liberal 6.3%; 4.8% swing to Liberal): After winning the seat for the Liberals in 2013 for the first time since its creation in 1949, David Coleman has now scored three wins on the trot, the latest by comfortably his biggest margin to date: 6.3%, compared with 2.8% in 2013 and 1.4% in 2016. In a post-election account for the Age/Herald, Michael Koziol reported that Labor’s national secretariat and state branch were at loggerheads over the seat late in the campaign, with the former wishing to devote resources to the seat, and the latter recognising that they “didn’t stand a chance”.
Barton (Labor 9.4%; 1.1% swing to Labor): Located around the crossover point where the inner urban swing to Labor gave way to the outer urban swing to Liberal, Barton recorded a slight swing to Labor that was perhaps boosted by a sophomore effect for incumbent Linda Burney.
Bennelong (Liberal 6.9%; 2.8% swing to Labor): A fair bit has been written lately about Labor’s struggles with the Chinese community, particularly in New South Wales, but that did not stop the nation’s most Chinese electorate recording a reasonably solid swing to Labor. This perhaps reflected the quality of Labor’s candidate, neurosurgeon Brian Owler, but was also typical of a seat where Malcolm Turnbull had played well in 2016, when it swung 2.8% to the Liberals.
Berowra (Liberal 15.6%; 0.8% swing to Labor): Most of this outer northern Sydney seat is in the outer part of the zone that swung to Labor, barring a few lightly populated regions out north and west. However, Liberal member Julian Leeser is what I will call a half-sophomore – a first-term incumbent, but one who succeeded a member of the same party (in this case Philip Ruddock), so there was no reversal of the sitting member advantage. So the 0.8% swing to Labor is about par for the course.
Blaxland (Labor 14.7%; 4.8% swing to Liberal): The anti-Labor swing suffered by Jason Clare was fairly typical for Sydney’s south-west.
Bradfield (Liberal 16.6%; 4.5% swing to Labor): Apart from the exceptional cases of Warringah and Wentworth, this was the biggest swing against the Liberals in New South Wales. However, given it was only fractionally lower in neighbouring North Sydney, that’s unlikely to be a reflection on sitting member Paul Fletcher, instead reflecting the electorate’s affluence and proximity to the city. The seat also recorded the state’s biggest swing to the Greens, at 2.0%.
Chifley (Labor 12.4%; 6.8% swing to Liberal): Ed Husic suffered Labor’s biggest unfavourable swing in Sydney (and the second biggest in the state after Hunter), after enjoying the second biggest favourable swing in 2016 (after Macarthur).
Cook (Liberal 19.0%; 3.6% swing to Liberal): As noted in the previous post, Scott Morrison enjoys the biggest Liberal margin in New South Wales relative to what might be expected from the electorate’s demographic composition. Only part of this can be explained by a prime ministership effect, as his 3.6% swing ranked only twelfth out of the 47 seats in New South Wales.
Dobell (Labor 1.5%; 3.3% swing to Liberal): The two seats on the Central Coast behaved similarly to most of suburban Sydney in swinging solidly to the Liberals, but there was enough padding on the Labor margin to save Emma McBride in Dobell, a marginal seat that lands Labor’s way more often than not.
Fowler (Labor 14.0%; 3.5% swing to Liberal): Labor’s Chris Hayes suffered a swing unremarkable by the standards of western Sydney, or perhaps slightly at the low end of average.
Grayndler (Labor 16.3% versus Greens; 0.5% swing to Labor): As illustrated in the previous post, Anthony Albanese’s personal popularity continues to define results in Grayndler, where the Labor margin is well out of proportion to demographic indicators. Whereas the Greens hold the largely corresponding state seats of Balmain and Newtown, in Grayndler they struggle to harness enough of the left-of-centre vote to finish ahead of the Liberals. They just managed it on this occasion, as they had previously in 2010 and 2016, outpolling the Liberals 22.6% to 21.8% on the primary vote, narrowing to 24.2% to 23.8% after the exclusion of three other candidates. Albanese cleared 50% of the primary vote for the first time since 2007, helped by a smaller field of candidates than last time, and had a locally typical 1.5% two-party swing against the Liberals.
Greenway (Labor 2.8%; 3.5% swing to Liberal): The swing against Labor’s Michelle Rowland was typical for middle suburbia, and roughly reversed the swing in her favour in 2016.
Hughes (Liberal 9.8%; 0.5% swing to Liberal): Craig Kelly did rather poorly to gain a swing of only 0.5% – as a careful look at the results map shows, the boundary between Hughes and Cook marks a distinct point where Labor swings turn to Liberal ones. The demographic model suggests Kelly to be the third most poorly performing Liberal incumbent out of the 13 in the Sydney area, ahead of Tony Abbott (Warringah) and Lucy Wicks (Robertson).
Kingsford Smith (Labor 8.8%; 0.2% swing to Labor): It was noted here previously that Matt Thistlethwaite strongly outperforms the demographic model, but the near status quo result on this occsion did little to contribute to that. This seat was roughly on the geographic crossover point between the Labor swings of the city and the Liberal swings of the suburbs.
Lindsay (LIBERAL GAIN 5.0%; 6.2% swing to Liberal): One of five seats lost by Labor at the election, and the only one in Sydney. Like the others, Lindsay was gained by Labor in 2016, with Emma Husar scoring a 1.1% margin from a 4.1% swing. This was more than reversed in Husar’s absence, with Liberal candidate Melissa McIntosh prevailing by 5.0%. The 6.2% swing against Labor was the biggest in the Sydney area, and produced a Liberal margin comparable to Jackie Kelly’s strongest.
Macarthur (Labor 8.4%; 0.1% swing to Labor): To repeat what was said in the previous post: Labor strongly outpolled the demographic model in Macarthur, a seat the Liberals held from 1996 until 2016, when Russell Matheson suffered first an 8.3% reduction in his margin at a redistribution, and then an 11.7% swing to Labor’s Michael Freelander, a local paediatrician. The swing to Labor, tiny though it was, ran heavily against the trend of urban fringe seats across the country. In addition to Freelander’s apparent popularity, this probably reflected a lack of effort put into the Liberal campaign compared with last time, as the party narrowly focused on its offensive moves in Lindsay and Macquarie and defensive ones in Gilmore and Reid. Macarthur was one of six seats in New South Wales contested by One Nation, whose 8.6% seemed to be drawn equally from Labor and Liberal.
Mackellar (Liberal 13.2%; 2.5% swing to Labor): Jason Falinski’s northern beaches seat participated in the swing to Labor in inner and northern Sydney, though in this case it was a fairly modest 2.5%, perhaps reflecting Falinski’s half-sophomore effect. A 12.2% vote for independent Alice Thompson caught most of the combined 14.9% for three independents in 2016, leaving the large parties’ vote shares little changed.
Macquarie (Labor 0.2%; 2.0% swing to Liberal): A sophomore surge for Labor member Susan Templeman surely made the difference here, with the 2.0% swing to the Liberals being below the outer urban norm, and just short of what was required to take the seat.
McMahon (Labor 6.6%; 5.5% swing to Liberal): The swing against Chris Bowen was well at the higher end of the scale and, typically for such a result, followed a strong swing the other way in 2016, in this case of 7.5%. This was among the six seats in New South Wales contested by One Nation, whose 8.3% contributed to a 7.4% primary vote swing against Bowen, and perhaps also to the size of the two-party swing.
Mitchell (Liberal 18.6%; 0.8% swing to Liberal): Where most safe Liberal seats in Sydney were in the zone of inner and northern Sydney that swung to Labor, Mitchell is far enough west to encompass the crossover point where Labor swings gave way to Liberal ones. This translated into a modest 0.8% swing to Liberal member Alex Hawke, and very little change on the primary vote.
North Sydney (Liberal 9.3%; 4.3% swing to Labor): Trent Zimmerman’s seat caught the brunt of the inner urban swing to Labor, the 4.3% swing to Labor being the state’s fourth highest after Warringah, Wentworth and Bradfield, the latter of which just shaded it. Labor managed a hefty 8.3% gain on the primary vote, largely thanks to the absence of Stephen Ruff, who polled 12.8% as an independent in 2016. The one independent on this occasion was serial candidate Arthur Chesterfield-Evans, a former Democrats member of the state upper house, who managed only 4.4%.
Parramatta (Labor 3.5%; 4.2% swing to Liberal): Parramatta marks the crossover point where the Liberal swing in western Sydney begins, producing a 4.2% swing against Labor’s Julie Owens that only partly unwound the 6.4% swing she picked up in 2016.
Reid (Liberal 3.2%; 1.5% swing to Labor): The Liberals maintained their remarkable record in this seat going back to 2013, when they won it for the first time in the seat’s history, by limiting the swing to Labor to a manageable 1.5%. While the 3.2% margin is only modestly higher than that predicted by the demographic model, it was achieved despite the departure of two-term sitting member Craig Laundy, who is succeeded by Fiona Martin.
Robertson (Liberal 4.2%; 3.1% swing to Liberal): Similarly to neighbouring Dobell, the Central Coast seat of Robertson swung 3.1% to the Liberals, in this case boosting the margin of Lucy Wicks.
Sydney (Labor 18.7%; 3.4% swing to Labor): The inner urban swing to Labor added further padding to Tanya Plibersek’s margin. The Greens continue to run third behind the Liberals, who outpolled them by 26.6% to 18.1%. As is the case in Grayndler, this presumably reflects local left-wing voters’ satisfaction with the incumbent.
Warringah (INDEPENDENT GAIN 7.2% versus Liberal): Zali Steggall took a big chunk out of the big party contenders in recording 43.5% of the primary vote, but the largest of course came from Tony Abbott, down from 51.6% to 39.0%. Abbott won four booths around Forestville at the northern end of the electorate, but it was otherwise a clean sweep for Steggall. She particularly dominated on the coast around Manly, by margins ranging from 10% to 18%.
Watson (Labor 13.5%; 4.1% swing to Liberal): In a familiar suburban Sydney pattern, Tony Burke had an 8.8% swing in his favour from 2016 unwound by a 4.1% swing to the Liberals this time.
Wentworth (Liberal 1.3% versus Independent): Listed as a Liberal retain in a spirit of consistently comparing results from the 2016 election, this was of course a Liberal gain to the extent that it reversed their defeat at the hands of independent Kerryn Phelps at last October’s by-election. There was an unblemished divide between the northern end of the electorate, encompassing the coast north of Bondi and all but the westernmost part of the harbourside, where the Liberals won the two-candidate vote, and the southern end of the electorate, where Phelps did. As noted in the previous post, there was a swing to Labor of 7.9% on the two-party preferred count, but this was testament more than anything to Malcolm Turnbull’s local support.
Werriwa (Labor 5.5%; 2.7% swing to Liberal): A half-sophomore effect for Labor’s Anne Watson may have helped limit the swing here in this outer suburban seat.
Guytaur
The whole Emma Hussar thing should not have been in the public eye. Shame on those that leaked it to the public and ended Labor’s chances of winning the seat.
Look for the money
Who is supposed to have leaked the accusations? Who is that person’s father (and grandmother and grandfather)? Who got the nomination? Who was the father of that person’s children?
If i can paraphase LVT; NSW Labor is controlled by 100 families who have an interdependent relationship which puts aside any ideological conflict to ensure that power is kept within their sphere.
Greg Jericho, a much lauded PB Laborite of past:
Labor must lead the fight to increase Newstart. Otherwise, what’s the point of it?
https://www.theguardian.com/business/grogonomics/2019/jul/20/labor-must-lead-the-fight-to-increase-newstart-otherwise-whats-the-point-of-it
lizzie
Its absurd policy. As the Kurds put it. Leave them there and they are guaranteed to become terrorists. Return them to society and they have a greater prospect of not being terrorists.
zoomster @ #143 Sunday, July 21st, 2019 – 11:24 am
Foolish of them, considering the extreme mitigating factors in her favor.
It’s not as if rules exist to cover the case of “factional opponent deliberately leaks salacious and false claims to the media when they realize their slander will go nowhere in the actual investigation”. That’s what discretion is for.
If Husar wanted another crack she ought to have been entitled to it. Normal preselection rules notwithstanding. Attempted character assassination of that magnitude is worth a one-off exception to the rules.
a r
I wanted Husar to stand, too. But she handled the whole thing very badly (which made it easier for those who were agin her).
OC
One of the things that Bemused was obsessed with that I agreed with was a Federal Intervention into NSW.
I know the state has been toxic. I have not seen recovery yet.
Edit: Maybe Jodi Mckay election is such a sign.
Cheers Barney.
As if the National Executive wouldn’t have bent over backwards to accommodate Wayne Swan or Michael Danby had they belatedly decided to keep their butts on the leather for another three years!
z
It appears it is Cat who has galloped off. Some people have no fortitude. It’s hard being Labor.
guytaur,
You have simply proven my point.
You state “ Thats why labor lost. “ That is pure projection on your part. That is your opinion. It is not fact. Until you and other posters here accept you have no idea what the majority of non engaged , “ do not give a ratz about politics “ voters actually consider to be a vote changing priority then you will continue to whistle Dixie.
I really do enjoy your optimism and your belief in what is right but you have no idea what is going on in the real everyday world of the disengaged. BTW, neither do I and it is perfectly ok to admit that even stress reducing.
doyley
Yes you are correct. I am putting forth my opinion. However mine has the advantage of being in line with Labor’s traditional values not going against them by pretending to be Liberals.
Remember I said during the campaign I though Labor was making a mistake not having tax increases and going with tax cuts.
Pegasus says:
Sunday, July 21, 2019 at 11:11 am
Cat @ 8:39
If I had linked to that article re Newstart you would probably have vomited “pity porn” at me as you have already done on another issue.
To my way of thinking it means they don’t really care about the people on Newstart.
Such remarks only demonstrate how warped your thinking really is.
Only Cat and by implication only Labor genuinely care about people in poverty.
To say something like this is shameless indeed.
The Greens exploit the unemployed in their political campaigns. That is to say, the unemployed are a political resource for the Greens. They are useful to the Greens. The labour repression constituted by unemployment, under-employment and casualisation arises because of the policies of the Liberals, who have been in power for most of the period since Federation and have been dominant in the years since 1996.
To relieve the oppression of labour it will be necessary to change the government. But the Greens do not campaign to change the government. They campaign for its perpetuation. The Greens are sentries for one-party rule. This suits them. It suits their parliamentarians, who mostly sit in the powerful but utterly futile chamber, the Senate, where gains are made by intransigent obstruction. This is their game.
Effectively, Green Senators dine on the misery of repressed labour. If there were no unemployed, the Greens would invent them.
guytaur is campaigning for the continuation of single-party rule by the Liberals. It’s his calling.
guytaur,
Thanks for your reply.
briefly
You are deluded.
My thinking is very simple. Labor is going to be attacked no matter what it does as the big tax and spend party.
So introduce a tax. Get the attacks on Labor’s battleground not the LNP’s
Edit: An example for you. Being Labor’s choice. Raise the Medicare levy to pay for Universal Dental Care. Realistically as Nicholas will tell you the government doesn’t really have to do that but it would dominate election campaigning on a ground Labor would win.
Guytaur
No I would say that is more a sign of desperation than reform.
The last Labor Government in NSW was based on the Russian Doll model; within each layer was a smaller controlling group. Unfortunately in this case the last doll was a crime syndicate.
Governance within the NSW right had been based on the model of the Soviet Nomenklatura since the days of Bruvver Ducker. Each layer of the party apparatus appointed the layer below them but in doing so ensured that those people were less competent than themselves so that they were not a threat. As in the Soviet Union such a system must eventually collapse due to ineptitude. Look at the competence of the Labor premiers and leaders since Joe and Eddie knifed Maurice Iemma
lizzie says:
Sunday, July 21, 2019 at 11:28 am
Yep!
I like the idea of Labor focusing the next campaign on the integrity of the Parliament and Parliamentarians.
Federal ICAC, ministerial accountability, including real time publishing of Ministerial diaries and any contacts with lobbyists, clear open tendering processes, Parliamentarians fully accountable for their expenses, real time publication of donations and the like. (Feel free to add)
Policy questions would be push to reviews and enquiries after the election.
It would be an agenda which should cut through with disenfranchised voters and would meet little resistance from the crossbench.
There is a back story to Emma Husar’s retreat. The facts were not political but were personal and private. The back story is the real one. Fortunately for Emma and the others involved, it’s a story that will remain unpublished.
Anthony Albanese
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@AlboMP
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Heading to Dubbo for @dailytelegraph
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It is rare for me to knock Labor or the leader of the labor party but this makes me sick
This bloke is looking like a media and Murdoch puppet each day , when are those in the labor party going to wake up to themselves, the media and Murdoch cronies self interest is in the Liberal and national partys
guytaur says:
Sunday, July 21, 2019 at 11:52 am
briefly
You are deluded.
Ohhhh…..Anyone who thinks you can win elections by campaigning from Opposition for tax increases is clearly a fantasist. But go ahead. Break a leg. Campaign for that. Campaign for the continuation in office of the Liberals.
Barney @ 11:54
Yep! All sensible Greens’ policies.
The Greens campaign for the defeat of Labor. This has been rewarding for the Greens. Their Senate Seats have been won at the expense of Labor and the result is conservative Senates continue to be elected. This means the Liberals will repeal social democracy. They are doing it. The Greens are the midwives in this.
The LNP just won an election saying Labor were going to introduce a range of taxes, all of which were fake or exaggerated. Labor would NOT have done worse, and may well have done a lot better, with an inheritance tax proposal.
Lizzie,
That well could be the answer.
I was a strong supporter of Shorten and the policy suite labor took to the election. Sadly, not too many in the real world thought the same as I.
Perhaps, in hindsight, labor should have listened to the advice of Sir Humphrey ( Yes, Minister ) and his “ courageous decision” opinion.
Cheers.
Social democracy, economic justice, the environment….they will all perish in Green Valley. It is happening while we watch. This is not a prediction about the future. It is an account of the past and the present. Everything that made modern Australia possible is in the process of being revoked by the Liberals with the assistance of their shotguns, the Greens.
briefly @ #170 Sunday, July 21st, 2019 – 11:59 am
One might say the same of anyone who thinks you can win elections by campaigning as Coalition-lite. If there’s no real point of difference what reason can there be to vote Labor?
And since when did opposing tax cuts for the rich become “campaigning for tax increases”? The left loses partly because it keeps letting the right get away unchallenged with this sort of rhetorical nonsense. Don’t appropriate the Coalition’s hyperbole; remember how to fight back and argue a point, ffs!
The delusion is flowing here atm.
Briefly
Y0u don’t get it. Labor wins when the campaign is on health. So making every tax debate about health helps Labor.
Until Emissions Drop, Nothing Has Been Accomplished: The Climate Resistance Handbook Is Here.
A new guide to activism aims to inform and inspire a new generation of global climate campaigners
by Greta Thunberg, Daniel Hunter:
https://www.commondreams.org/views/2019/07/19/until-emissions-drop-nothing-has-been-accomplished-climate-resistance-handbook-here
doyley @ #177 Sunday, July 21st, 2019 – 12:07 pm
Like thick thick molasses….
Reform is very hard-won on Australia. Anyone who thinks it’s not is engaging in wishful thinking at best. We have a very conservative electorate. It’s possibly more conservative now that at any time since the 1880s, so difficult has it become to enact and defend policies that would relieve the repression of labour. It’s very doubtful that any of the great Constitutional reforms of the 1940s would pass now. It’s inconceivable that a program like Gough’s would win a majority. None of the very pressing matters in the economy, society and the environment can be dealt with. None of them.
Those of us who want change have to begin with the reality. We are in a very weak position. We have weakened ourselves and we have been weakened by our reactionary opponents. Unless we first deal with our own failures and incapacities, we will change nothing in this country. Rather, we will find nothing but heartache.
The Greens are an expression and a cause of our weakness. The Red divided by Green = Blue. This is the arithmetic.
guytaur says:
Sunday, July 21, 2019 at 12:07 pm
Briefly
Y0u don’t get it. Labor wins when the campaign is on health. So making every tax debate about health helps Labor.
You clearly think voters are as thick as you are. You are mistaken. Voters are quite capable of thinking about two things at once.
With the current ALP positioning to the right of the Govt in child’s pose, the greens have a real opportunity to double, or even triple their support.
They just really need to focus on positive community improvement and creating jobs, rather than just proposals to stop things and destroy jobs.
briefly
Yes like no access fee to see a dentist and no insurance fees to pay for or a loan to take out. Great appeal to the wallet.
Just like the Medicare levy is for all other bulk billing and why Labor wins with the Medicare levy
A whole lot of voters are disengaged and didn’t think about anything thing at all, let alone two things at once.
Pegasus says:
Sunday, July 21, 2019 at 12:02 pm
And Labor ones too, with Labor actually in a position to implement them.
It’s not a pissing war Peg, it’s about establishing a progressive government, so change can start to happen.
The only option now is Labor.
I do think that every time a poll is taken as to what respondents consider to be “ important issues” or “ issues they support “ there should also be a accompanying question as to whether it would be a vote changer for the respondent.
SSM, climate change, better treatment of AS, increase to Newstart etc etc etc all rate highly when polled and such polling is used by many to claim labor needs to support them or perish. However, this does not mean voters would reflect on them when pen hits the ballot paper. Perhaps Australians are fair minded people but simply consider protecting their jobs and hip pocket would enable them to sleep better at night.
Then, we come to the issue as to whether any polls are now worth a pinch of shit.
a r @ #176 Sunday, July 21st, 2019 – 12:06 pm
Exactly!
Time and time again when Labor cedes ground to the LNP, from its use of language, to its policies, it cannot hope to sway voters.
This article by Ben Eltham is worth a read, even if you don’t like the headline:
“ScoMo’s miraculous victory has been accompanied by a noticeable malaise on the left of politics. Progressives are despondent. The Labor Party looks clueless, the Greens irrelevant, trade unions impotent, GetUp embarrassed.
Not for the first time, the left in Australia has fundamentally underestimated the resilience and the organisation of everyday conservativism, in a small-holder democracy more concerned with housing prices than atmospheric carbon concentrations.”
https://newmatilda.com/2019/07/10/labor-now-a-party-of-capitulation-and-parliamentary-irrelevance/
I’m a long time Labor member, but there is no way any sane person would describe them in anyway as ‘progressive’. And I’m not just referring to the terror and cowardice that has the Australian Leader of the Labor party too scared to function, look at Labor in WA and Qld, these aren’t progressive govts, these are excellent versions of pre-GFC LNP Govts.
Oakeshott Country @ #140 Sunday, July 21st, 2019 – 11:20 am
You may be pleased to know that I stood up and said exactly this at our last FEC meeting when the motion was brought to immediately re-endorse her for the next election. I was howled down, of course, but I pressed on and stated the simple fact that I couldn’t see why we should re-endorse a 2 time loser who had a 3.1% swing against her. Our Central Coast Senator was there so she heard me directly. We’ll see how it pans out.
WeWantPaul says:
Sunday, July 21, 2019 at 12:18 pm
Yes, a very important distinction.
It’s a major issue for Labor, just as it is for the opinion pollsters.
If Labor can start to gain their attention then that will be an important step towards winning.
Apathy seems to favour the Right.
Zoomster I don’t recall Husar declining to put her name forward for pre selection, after she had decided not to run initially. She was probably not sure of the rules regarding automatic endorsement of sitting candidates. Regardless, it was a blunder of Sussex st to disendorse her.
This morning’s contributions make me yearn for the good ole days of yore, when Greentaur would pontificate that Neoliberalism was dead. As a scientific certainty.
How’s that working out for you, Comrade?
Barney
Too true. :sob:
WeWantPaul says:
Sunday, July 21, 2019 at 12:24 pm
So, you’re questioning Doug Cameron’s sanity as well?
Yes I think there is a false comfort taken from the fact people must go to vote, and so Labor continually tries to appeal to a disinterested fictional center, rather than to engage and energize its base. It assumes we are energized and prepared to campaign, hand out how to votes and scrutineer for them. And we did, although for me it was a line ball decision. Our base was in no way engaged or energized.
Surprisingly, when I finally got to hear Albanese speak, on Insiders this morning when they showed clips of his press conference, I thought he did well to articulate Labor positions.
If you don’t like it, and I was prepared to be sceptical after the bollocking he regularly receives here, then you don’t really like Labor, because he isn’t doing a half bad job considering what he is up against, as the Ben Eltham article posits. He appears to be articulating Labor positions well, within the national paradigm. If a few malcontents here don’t like it, then too bad. He has an electorate to win over and it looks like he will never get the PB whiners and grinders vote anyway, no matter what he does or says.
Now back to improving my mental health by looking for whales out in the ocean. 🙂
AE
So there we have it. Labor has bought the neo liberal line of no taxes. We can’t increase the Medicare Levy. This despite Paul Keating’s campaign of not wanting an American Health system. All the polls tell us Americans don’t want their health system.
We know Paul Keating won on campaigning for Medicare. That won in the LNP attempt by Hewson to make the campaign about taxes.
The problem for the LNP with such debates is every voter has experienced bulk billing they know how much they save and how much better their wallet is with bulk billing. Half the battle is won before you even start
I didn’t realise the jury was still out on Doug’s sanity, but if he describes the current WA Govt as progressive, he is either lying for political purposes or batshit crazy.