Morgan: 63.5-36.5

The latest Morgan face-to-face poll has Labor’s lead at 63.5-36.5 – down from the record-breaking 65-35 at the previous such poll early in the month, but up from 61-39 at the phone poll conducted a fortnight ago. Other conversation starters:

• Special Minister of State John Faulkner has announced a package of electoral reforms confirming moves to cut the campaign donation disclosure threshold to $1000 (which the Howard government outrageously lifted from $1500 to $10,000 in 2005), along with bans on donations from overseas companies and various other measures. It is also announced that the government will “kick-start a green paper process to reform and modernise our electoral processes”. The first part of this, to be released for discussion in July, will look at “disclosure, funding and expenditure issues”; the second, to be released in October, will examine “a broader range of options aimed at strengthening other areas of our electoral laws”.

• Morris Iemma has taken talk of reforms to campaign donations a step further by suggesting they be banned altogether, perhaps in conjunction with caps on electoral spending. Jack Waterford of the Canberra Times presents the case against.

• A big week for the New South Wales Liberal Party: charges laid against five over the Lindsay pamphlet outrage, rising star Scott Morrison deemed too civilised for membership of his local branch, and suggestions that Peter Phelps might emerge as a contender for the party’s state directorship. Would it be overdramatic to suggest that the forces of respectable conservatism in the state should abandon the whole rancid operation and start again from scratch?

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.

318 comments on “Morgan: 63.5-36.5”

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  1. marky, ditto, Australia was pivotal in setting up the U.N. post WW2. I suspect that Rudd is trying to get the organisation to tackle some serious global concerns with some teeth. I’ve said it before, I don’t think this bloke goes into anything without some major and multiple goals in mind. He won the election with the OO and a lot of the MSM taking every shot they could at him, and not to put too fine a point on it, the current gov’t look like a heap of darlings vs. the Opposition who look like, well, Brendon, and not much else really.

  2. Mayo @ 295

    Conrad Black doesn’t exactly prove my point I concede! And there is so much not to like about Murdoch, especially on China and Iraq. There have been some other less intrusive foreign owners though: Tony O’Reilly (Irish, owned a lot of regional press), Austar’s owners (US mainly, they’ve changed hands a few times). I worry about Telstra moving into the old media in a big way which is one reason why I want the potential for new foreign entrants. Telstra is too big already, and the disgraceful way it has acted to keep its fixed line telephony monopoly intact really scares me were it to, for example, buy Fairfax.

  4. [After watching Four Corners i come to realise that the next economic meltdown will be a depression, because of our debt. And yep it is the banks and other financial organisations who are to blame. Again why did ever privatise the Commonwealth Bank?]

    There was an article in SMH:
    t’s time we got serious and used the D-word, given that most people seem blithely unaware just how close we came to a catastrophic financial event this month, an event brought about by reckless greed on a reckless scale. Given how close we came to a depression, not a mere recession, it is going to take years to recover from this financial near-catastrophe. Don’t expect your superannuation fund or home value to surge any time soon.
    How we just avoided the big D
    http://www.smh.com.au/news/opinion/how-we-just-avoided-the-big-d/2008/03/30/1206850700844.html

  5. Too tedious, Frank, it really is.

    The article begins with the Japanese being unconcerned, for reasons given, yet the author chooses to carry on about it being an issue.

    It is an issue, for the maggots. Tomorrow’s ooze today. Nothing about Newspoll, by the way. More, though from the old mag, about Kev supposedly arranging a by way trip to Japan.

    I hope like hell that he does not.

    There is no point. The Japanese have their own problems.Kev, in case he is entertaining such an idea as the unpopular press should wish, must not allow himself to be dictated to.

  6. I hope that somone in the Media points out the stupidity of Robb and Nelson over the Japan snub. They have apparently no idea of the cultural faux-pas they have committed that has forced a public statement from the Japanese Prime Minister. I don’t think that there’s any way that the Japanese would have addressed the issue unless they felt very strongly, or felt that they, in some way, caused the problem.
    That they have had to become involved in what is, at most, a national political issue is disgraceful. I felt embarrassed by Howard, and I can now add Nelson, Robb and the sycophantic and culturally inept media to the same list.
    It’s time to grow up in the world people and stop measuring your performance by the column inch.

  7. Kev would do much better in totally ignoring the press as irrelevant and do whatever it is he plans. If he changes due to press rubbish then they will play him.

    But I am sure he and the others are well aware of this.

  8. And a “New” issue about Dental Reform.

    [CRITICS of the revamped $290 million federal dental scheme have increased their attacks on the program, describing it as “an exercise in spin” that leaves patients with a fraction of the coverage available under the Medicare scheme that it replaces.

    An analysis of the program by academic Hans Zoellner shows that, on a per capita basis, it is worth just $4.69 extra per year on average (on top of existing state spending).

    Under the Howard government’s revised scheme, which started operating in November last year, patients were allowed to claim $2125 from Medicare. Despite funding 20,000 services in January – up from a total of 16,000 in the first two months – the scheme will from today not accept any new applications.

    It will continue paying for treatment until June 30 for patients already enrolled.

    Labor’s Commonwealth Dental Scheme takes over on July 1, paying the states directly. ]

    http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23463903-5013871,00.html

  9. Don’t even need to read the article, Kina.

    Only had to listen today, to the reassurance that one’s earnings as regards super will recover, miraculously, over the course of time.

    Despite the present plummet and gloomy forecast on super returns. This has happened to me. Negative positives. Or is it the reverse. Thanks so much. Despite the fact that the stock market, in which I have no faith, nor desire to be involved, is where I am forced, repeat, forced to invest my money. Worse, that the holders of my money get to reap a profit from me.

    I, for one, am not much interested in holding off for 36 years, apparently the trajectory in which I should stake my faith.

    Not, I suspect, I have that much time up my sleeve.

  10. [They have apparently no idea of the cultural faux-pas they have committed that has forced a public statement from the Japanese Prime Minister]

    Fine point, well made.

  11. “A FORMER One Nation member has been given an official role by the NSW Liberal Party and will direct the party’s campaign for coming local government elections in northwestern Sydney.

    Gordon Reynolds, a former One Nation and Australians Against Further Immigration member, was last Thursday appointed president of the local government conference in Baulkham Hills.

    The move has angered some party moderates who fear the hard right is doing untold damage.

    “Everyone was just stunned,” a senior Liberal member said. “It is absolutely ridiculous in a election year to be taking the advice of a former One Nation official.”
    http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/story/0,22049,23463889-5006009,00.html

    Unfortunately the (gutless) senior Liberal member is in the powerless minority of his party. I’ll tip that the MSM won’t be interested in this issue.

  12. The continual spin and negative stuff from the OO [I am beginning to prefer Liberal Party Gazette as it is more accurate or Liberal Orifice.] gets up my nose even though I almost never read it…just hearing you guys talk about it.

    However I think for Rudd Labor what the are shown doing on TV/radio has the greater effect on public understanding.

    I got out of the share market a few weeks before the 1987 crash, by pure luck, and haven’t been back since except for one renewable energy venture, Geodynamics. I was in banking back then so saw the consequences of all that up close.

  13. [Gordon Reynolds, a former One Nation and Australians Against Further Immigration member, was last Thursday appointed president of the local government conference in Baulkham Hills.]

    They should ask him if he still has that view then ask him about the skills crisis and if he thinks immigrants might be useful.

  14. And, thinking on that, onimod.

    How bad are the Maggots going to look when Kev shows up in Japan? To an hero’s welcome. Why would it be otherwise?

    Much to lose.

    What are the Japanese likely to do, as our ‘most important trading partner’? As the commentators like to say.

    What, tightly wrap their kimonos? I don’t know if the have a term for ‘shove it’ but why would they?

    I do know they have a term for self destruct, but again, why would they?

    The Maggs have got this entirely wrong.

  16. Good lord from Shamaham

    [KEVIN Rudd, under growing pressure for bypassing Tokyo during his tour of the world’s major capitals, is trying to arrange an early, one-off summit meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda.

    Australian officials have intensified efforts to organise a special Tokyo visit before the Prime Minister is due in Japan for the G8 summit in Hokkaido, starting July 7.

    Australian and Japanese officials had tried since January to organise a bilateral summit but had not been able to find a mutually suitable date that fitted the itinerary of Mr Rudd’s current 17-day tour of world capitals.

    However, efforts to organise a special Tokyo visit have redoubled in the past fortnight, as Mr Rudd has come under political pressure at home and concern has grown in Tokyo that he was being seen to snub Australia’s most important Asian ally and trade partner in favour of China.

    Japanese diplomatic sources told The Australian yesterday that Mr Rudd’s prioritising of relations with China was “well understood, though not necessarily welcomed” in Tokyo.]

    http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23464160-601,00.html

  18. Crikey Whitey
    You are not forced to invest your money anywhere, you have super choice. I am sure there is a fund that suits you need and if there isn’t set up your own.

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