No shortage of news around the place – starting with polling and the general state of the horse race:
• Samantha Maiden at news.com.au reports on Redbridge Group seat polls conducted for Equality Australia showing independent candidate Allegra Spender leading Liberal member Dave Sharma by 53-47 in Wentworth, and Labor’s Andrew Charlton leading Liberal candidate Maria Kovicic by 55-45 in Parramatta, held by retiring Labor member Julie Owens on a 3.5% margin. Primary votes in Wentworth, after exclusion of 4.3% undecided, are Dave Sharma 38%, Allegra Spender 25%, Labor 17%, Greens 7% and United Australia Party 7% (the latter have been coming in a little high in some of these seat polls for mine); in Parramatta, after exclusion of 11.5% undecided, it’s Andrew Charlton 37%, Maria Kovacic 30%, Greens 12%, and the United Australia Party and Liberal Democrats on 8% apiece. Equality Australia is keep to emphasise findings that 67% in Wentworth strongly agree that “trans people deserve the same rights and protections as other Australians” and 62% in Parramatta strongly agree that schools should not be allowed to expel students for being transgender, although the former question especially rather soft-pedals the issue. LGBTIQ+ equality and transgender participation in women’s sports were ranked dead last in both electorates as “vote determining issues”. No indication is provided as to sample sizes or field work dates.
• Further results from the Ipsos poll published in Tuesday’s Financial Review that previously escaped my notice: Scott Morrison and Anthony Albanese were both deemed competent by 42%, Morrison led on having a clear vision by 41% to 37% and a firm grasp of economic policy by 48% to 31%, and Albanese led on having the confidence of his party by 52% to 44% and being trustworthy by 41% to 30%. Forty-two per cent expected Labor to win the election compared with 34% for the Coalition.
• Two sophisticated new forecast models have been launched over the past week. That of Armarium Interreta “combines voting-intention polling with a sprinkle of leadership approval polling and economic fundamentals” and factors in extra uncertainty when the pollsters are herding, as they certainly did in 2019 but appear not to be this time. It currently rates Labor a 60% chance of a majority and the Coalition 13%. Australian Election Forecasts is entirely poll-based and features probability estimates for each electorate, including their chances of being won by independents or minor parties. It has a 67.2% chance of a Labor majority and 13.1% for the Coalition.
• Kos Samaras of Redbridge Group observes that demographic trends raise concerns for Labor in Greenway, which combines established Labor-voting territory around Seven Hills in the south with newly developing suburbs in the north. The increase in the electorate’s enrolment from 110,343 to 119,941 since the 2019 election will have been concentrated in the latter area: Samaras notes the median house price here is around $800,000, which is around $250,000 higher than comparable houses in Melbourne growth corridors that have been strengthening for Labor.
• I had a piece in Crikey yesterday that looked booth deep and wide at the One Nation and United Australia Party vote, the conclusions of which I riffed off during an appearance on ABC TV’s Afternoon Briefing program yesterday, which also featured Ben Oquist of the Australia Institute.
Local-level brush fires and controversies:
• Video has emerged of Simon Kennedy, the Liberal candidate for Bennelong, providing obliging responses to members of anti-vaxxer group A Stand in the Park when asked if he would cross the floor to oppose vaccination mandates and breaches of “your community’s individual freedoms”. Kennedy responded with a statement to the Age/Herald saying he was “a strong supporter of the COVID vaccination effort”.
• A candidates forum in Kooyong was held last night without the participation of incumbent Josh Frydenberg, who objected to it being staged by climate advocacy group Lighter Footprints. However, Frydenberg and independent candidate Monique Ryan eventually agreed to Ryan’s proposal for a one-on-one town hall-style debate on Sky News after Ryan turned down a proposal for a mid-afternoon debate broadcast live on the Nine Network, which had been pursued by both Frydenberg and Nine political reporter Chris Uhlmann.
• Writing in the Age/Herald, Chris Uhlmann of the Nine Network quotes a Labor strategist saying the Katherine Deves controversy is playing “90/10 in Deves’ favour” in “the suburbs and the regions”. Lanai Scarr of The West Australian goes further, reporting that Liberal internal polling defies conventional wisdom (and the Redbridge polling noted above) in showing the issue is even playing well in Warringah.
Preferences:
• Matthew Denholm of The Australian reports that One Nation will retaliate against a Liberal decision to put the party behind the United Australia Party, the Liberal Democrats and the Jacqui Lambie Network on its Tasmanian Senate how-to-vote card, by directing preferences to Labor ahead of selected Liberals deemed not conservative enough. These are understood to include Bridget Archer in Bass and Warren Entsch in Leichhardt.
• In the Australian Capital Territory Senate race, Labor has announced it will put independent David Pocock second on its how-to-vote card. This is presumably based on a calculation that Liberal Senator Zed Seselja is more likely to lose if the last count comes down to him and Pocock rather than the Greens, since Pocock is likely to receive the larger share of preferences. Labor’s Katy Gallagher will be immediately elected in the likely event that she polls more than a third of the vote, having polled 39.3% in 2019 – direction of preferences to Pocock will maximise the share he receives of the surplus.
Campaign meat and potatoes:
• Nikki Savva writes in the Age/Herald today that “Labor insiders tracking Morrison’s movements are intrigued by his visits to seats they reckon he has no hope of winning”, although Savva retorts that “maybe he knows something they don’t, particularly around the Hunter in NSW”. A review of the leaders’ movements by David Tanner of The Australian notes both Scott Morrison and Anthony Albanese have spent slightly more time in the other side’s seats than their own, a fact more striking in Morrison’s case. Only Bass and Gilmore have been visited by both. Morrison has spread himself evenly across the country, but has been largely absent from the inner urban seats where the Liberals are threatened by teal independents, both personally and in party advertising. Nearly half the seats visited by Albanese have been in Queensland, but notably not central Queensland, where Labor appears pessimistic about recovering the competitiveness it lost in 2019. Jacob Greber of the Financial Review notes that Barnaby Joyce has twice visited the Victorian rural seat of Nicholls, where the retirement of Nationals member Damian Drum has the party fearing defeat at the hands of independent Rob Priestly.
• The Age/Herald calculates that the seats most comprehensively pork-barrelled by the Coalition have been Boothby, McEwen and Robertson, which have respectively been targeted with a $2.2 billion upgrade of Adelaide’s north-south road corridor, a $1.2 billion freight hub and $1 billion in rail and road upgrades. The biggest target of Labor’s more modest promises has been Longman, with Boothby in fourth place – the others in the top five are the Labor-held marginals of Corangamite, McEwen and Gilmore.
• Nick Evershed of The Guardian has “written some code that takes the records of Google and YouTube advertising, then converts the geotargeting data into electorates based on the proportion of the electorate’s population covered”. This has yielded data and interactive maps on where the major parties are geo-targeting their ads, including a specific breakout for a Scott Morrison “why I love Australia” ad that presumably plays better in some areas than others.
• The Australian Electoral Commission will not be running voting stations at around three-quarters of the foreign missions where it been offered in the past due to COVID-19 restrictions, requiring those living there to cast postal votes. This leaves 17 overseas countries where in-person voting will be available, which are listed on the AEC website. The Financial Review reports the move “has infuriated some expatriates in cities that will be affected, including Singapore, Hong Kong, Bangkok, Toronto and Vancouver”.
State affairs:
• The result for the South Australian Legislative Council has been finalised, producing the anticipated result of five seats for Labor, four for the Liberals and one each for the Greens and One Nation. Including the seats carrying over from the last election, this puts Labor on nine, Liberal on eight, the Greens and SA-Best on two each and One Nation on one. The full distribution of preferences doesn’t seem to be on the Electoral Commission site, but Antony Green offers an analysis of it.
• In Tasmania, Peter Gutwein’s Liberal seat in the Bass electorate will be filled by Simon Wood, who won the recount of ballot papers that elected Gutwein ahead of party rival Greg Kieser by 6633 (61.0%) to 3132 (28.8%), with three non-Liberal candidates on 1116 between them.
Dr Fumbles Mcstupid @ #647 Thursday, April 28th, 2022 – 5:50 pm
There’s always the Senate votes to harvest for the good guys, Dr Fumbles!
Cronus @ #645 Thursday, April 28th, 2022 – 5:49 pm
I’d call that a GAFFE.
Upnorth says:
Morrison apparently thought beads and trinkets were appropriate at first.
________________________
Or perhaps a nice shiny piece of coal
mikehilliard
You are not.
ltep @ #636 Thursday, April 28th, 2022 – 5:45 pm
I’ve given up drinking since the last election, but if Labor win in 3 weeks I reckon I might indulge in a bevvie or two.
Rocket Rocket
No, they were all the same except for the name of the seaside town. From memory they came in two varieties, spearmint, which was dark pink with a white centre, and fruit flavoured which had a candy stripe (not as popular). They were about 100% sugar.
Biting it could result in lost teeth so the technique was to suck it until it softened. Of course, eating it could also result in lost teeth through tooth decay! I could never work out how they got the lettering (in red) to appear all the way through the stick.
C@tmomma says:
There’s always the Senate votes to harvest for the good guys, Dr Fumbles!
_____________________
That be true, will make some inquiries to assist, cant be that many of us up here in hostile territory
I got an email through business / lobby group channels saying Labor was going to do OECD / BEPS Pillar 1 and 2 and fiddle at the edges of thin cap. There was something else but it wasn’t even interesting enough to remember.
But has anyone heard /seen the actual labor tax policy, or the corp tax part of it?
The greens candidate for brisbane has put ads up on grindr (gay hookup app) with a tagline “choke on c*ck not coal”
Dr Fumbles Mcstupid says:
Thursday, April 28, 2022 at 5:52 pm
Upnorth says:
Morrison apparently thought beads and trinkets were appropriate at first.
________________________
Or perhaps a nice shiny piece of coal
中华人民共和国
You got that. If he wins and Australia hosts an APEC meeting I guess all the leaders will have to wear Hawaiian shirts for the team Pic.
At the official dinner SfM would bring out the Ukulele.
Personally I’d rather have a blunt pencil shoved in my eye
“The greens candidate for brisbane has put ads up on grindr (gay hookup app) with a tagline “choke on c*ck not coal”
It is lucky the right don’t ever cancel people or things (like Disney) or that candidate might be in for a bit of right wing cancel effort.
@Woke – NGL… love it.
D: mon oncle was until recently King of the Kids at Emu Park Bowls Club.
Long retired from crewing locomotives around QR’s Central Division. One of my earliest memories is standing in the cabin of a steam loco watching him shovel coal into the fire. (OH&S was a bit more relaxed back then.)
In Australia, the 1970s were pretty much in two halves: 1970-74 and 1975-79.
The early part was a continuation of the post-war boom. We had full employment with a few blips when the unemployment rate approached 2%.
During 1974, in the wake of the first Oil Shock, unemployment quickly rose to 4-5% then higher in future years. With a few short dips (including, I believe, the current one), it’s stayed above 5% ever since, with 5% unemployment now being considered “full” employment. The later 1970s also saw the onset of the curse of neoliberalism, the revival of a failed 19th century approach to managing the economy. At one time, Malcolm Fraser, now regarded as practically a Communist by the current “Liberal” party, was seen as a sort of John the Baptist, leading the way ahead of Thatcher and Reagan.
Who wants to choke though.
Any polls due out tonight?
BK
Cracker! I see that Howard’s vertical eyebrows are getting another vertical stretch.
Even the rat doesn’t quite look happy.
Liberal campaign director Andrew Hirst says to Paul Erickson: we’ll do debates hosted by Nine and Seven. See you there.
______
Gutless!
Neither are appealing!
@Dr Fumbles “Sometimes I don’t think we lear anything from the past, the current dropping rates to next to nothing and holding it there is really pulling the slingshot right back, much the same a raising the rates in 89 to 19 percent was, putting a candle out with a fire hose”
I think in this day and age it wouldn’t get close to 19% before the PM of the day did whatever necessary (including emergency convening Parliament) to sack the RBA board and install someone less incendiary.
Dr Fumbles Mcstupid @ #655 Thursday, April 28th, 2022 – 5:56 pm
Thank you. 🙂
Jaeger @ #534 Thursday, April 28th, 2022 – 4:19 pm
More Gary Oldman than Alec Guinness – Though possibly a bit more Jackson Lamb than George Smiley.
Woke-pc-thug @ #657 Thursday, April 28th, 2022 – 5:57 pm
Whatever floats your boat. 😐
Aww, do I get credit for the Smiley emoji?
“The greens candidate for brisbane has put ads up on grindr (gay hookup app) with a tagline “choke on c*ck not coal”
***
Before the conservative hyperventilating gets out of hand, it should be noted that the Greens candidate in question, Stephen Bates, is openly and proudly gay. Good on him.
@BK – what’s wrong with 7 and 9?
I mean, YES, but I don’t think even the ABC is a massive improvement at the moment. It’s two free to air debates instead of hidden away on Sky. Doing these shows Morrison is worried and feels the need to take risks to create opportunities to get back ahead but Albo couldn’t possibly refuse to do debates on free to air. He also needs this opportunity to get seen by the people who still don’t feel they know him (these people do exist in numbers, the Liberal attack line about people not knowing Albo is sourced in reality, it’s just annoying when media parrot it as they’re the gatekeepers who could talk about him instead of standing around saying people don’t know who he is).
It wouldn’t be offensive even if the candidate wasn’t gay.
Now that the election would appear to be in the bag for Labor (touch wood), it’s worth stating the obvious: This is a shocker of a time to be taking office.
It’s a nightmare economic scenario to be wading into. No easy policy options to deal with runaway inflation, rising interest rates. The sugar hit of the Covid-19 stimulus will fade, with less cash washing around the economy, but all the downside will remain for Labor to try to mop up.
Voters in 2025 won’t be blaming Morrison for the likely economic carnage that will still be playing out, even though they almost certainly should.
Is this a recipe for a one-term government?
Kevin Rudd arrived before the last crisis, not afterwards, so he was able to take very smart and effective steps to ward off the worst effects of the GFC. Taking the reins after (hopefully) the worst of this crisis is a poisoned chalice.
I have a bit of a laugh at smokos leadership methodology .
Todays leadership theory is that the best leader isn’t the person who knows everything and is a centralised figure.
Rather the best leader is the person who accepts his/ her own limitations but is astute enough to recognise the talents in others and the confidence to surround himself/ herself with those talents.
Ring a bell?
So Morrison gave him a ukelele and so Sogovare thought, ‘I’ll give you something you racist pr*ck!’
“It wouldn’t be offensive even if the candidate wasn’t gay.”
And if you don’t like choking you are doing it wrong! 😛
Lucksack Liu should feel very fortunate that she scraped in last time. She only just did so despite blatant cheating and the fact that she got a favourable redistribution. She actually received a negative swing.
Tonight’s radio debate is the first chance for many people to hear her speak. Her grasp of spoken English isn’t at the level expected of an Australian MHR. Not being racist – I know a lot of foreign-born people whose English ARE at the expected level.
She may very well lose her seat.
‘Firefox says:
Thursday, April 28, 2022 at 6:13 pm
“The greens candidate for brisbane has put ads up on grindr (gay hookup app) with a tagline “choke on c*ck not coal”
***
Before the conservative hyperventilating gets out of hand, it should be noted that the Greens candidate in question, Stephen Bates, is openly and proudly gay. Good on him.’
———————————————–
I am sure that that is all very heroic and exculpatory. But why is he advocating sexual violence?
Liu? Gone for all money.
Next, please.
Too obvious with the trolling Freya.
“Not being racist – I know a lot of foreign-born people whose English ARE at the expected level.”
At the very least this sentiment would be better expressed by someone whose written English wasn’t so mediocre.
[alias says:
Thursday, April 28, 2022 at 6:17 pm
Now that the election would appear to be in the bag for Labor (touch wood)]
If the polls havent moved or have increased for the alp in the next week or 2 i may start believing they can win.
I still want to see how the campaign launch, future leaders debates and the 4th/5th week goes.
Scomo and co are desperate and will get more unhinged.
It’s nothing of the sort. There are 3 weeks to go and as we’ve seen in elections past, anything can happen in the last couple weeks.
Bates is unhyphenated as well; definitely non-U for a Greens.
Rnm1953 @ #677 Thursday, April 28th, 2022 – 6:17 pm
It should for a Christian.
Confessions @ #686 Thursday, April 28th, 2022 – 6:24 pm
Abso-bleeding-lutely.
“But why is he advocating sexual violence?”
Enthusiastic consent confirmed and safety protocols engaged, obviously.
“But why is advocating sexual violence?”
***
It simply means the act of fellatio, my dear Boerski. It’s not a reference to sexual violence.
Firefox,
All Greens candidates are a waste of time.
They’re all clocksuckers.
To be fair, I did add the qualifier in brackets (touch wood)!
Someone was convicted of choking somebody just the other day. Used hands instead of a cock this time but the victim is dead.
I would have thought that choking someone with a cock is more or less in the same space but using different tools.
It is all very violent. I am surprised that the supporters of Peace Studies would fall in with it.
I suppose once the violent language has been uttered the Greens tribe will fall in behind it and support it tooth and claw.
Ugh… Of course they re-copied-invented it.
“Fat, filthy, foul-mouthed and flatulent: Here comes TV’s latest anti-hero”
Fair go, citation required.
Firefox says:
Thursday, April 28, 2022 at 6:27 pm
It simply means the act of fellatio, my dear Boerski. It’s not a reference to sexual violence.
_________
Yes it sounds aggressive but it’s just slang for a normal blow job.
‘fellatio’ definitely has a peaceful ring to it. I have no problems with ‘fellatio’. At all.
But you could hardly argue that ‘choking someone with your cock’ is an equivalent.
I live in Chisholm. I would very much like to see the back of Ms Liu. She really is bad news.