Reflections on the Miracle of Democracy at Work in the Greatest Nation on Earth

Newspoll: 52-48

Tuesday, March 16, 2010 – 12:37 am, by William Bowe

After delaying feeding the chooks for a few hours, The Australian has unloaded its full Newspoll results. Labor’s two-party lead is steady on 52-48, while the Prime Minister’s personal ratings are 48 per cent satisfied and 41 per cent dissatisfied – his worst results yet on both measures. His previous nadir was two surveys ago, when he scored 50 per cent and 40 per cent: in between the figures were 51 per cent and 40 per cent. Labor is down a point on the primary vote to 39 per cent while the Coalition is steady on 41 per cent, with the Greens up two to 11 per cent. Tony Abbott’s approval rating is down a point to 47 per cent while disapproval is steady on 38 per cent, which means his net rating has edged ahead of Rudd’s. Rudd nonetheless holds a steady 55-30 lead as preferred prime minister.

Better news for Labor from Essential Research: Labor’s lead is up from 54-46 to 56-44, which as Possum notes is their best result this year. Also featured are questions on parental leave (Labor’s scheme is much preferred, which would disappoint Tony Abbott); a question on “attributes of the Labor Party”, which finds them going backwards across the board since July; and the same question for the Liberals, which shows mixed trends. Labor nonetheless remains much better favoured overall. There are also questions on attitudes towards and usage of the media, with the ABC brand maintaining its lustre and “internet blogs” remaining very much the media’s ugly kid brother.

Finally, Possum has some fascinating leaked polling on voting intention across five Queensland state seats, which was commissioned by six unions from UMR Research. It confirms the trend of other polling in finding a disastrous plunge in support for Labor, and finds the unheralded post-election announcement of government asset sales has done most of the damage.

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EMRS: Liberal 39, Labor 30, Greens 29 in Tasmania

Monday, March 15, 2010 – 1:35 pm, by William Bowe

Details of yesterday’s EMRS poll published in the Launceston Examiner have been frustratingly hard to come by. The full release has not been published on the company’s website in the usual fashion, presumably due to some sort of exclusivity arrangement with The Examiner. The only figures published yesterday were of raw responses to the first question on voting intention, which remarkably had the Greens ahead of Labor. However, this excludes the follow-up pollsters invariably ask of the undecided as to who they are leaning towards. Today, courtesy of Felicity Ogilvie on the ABC’s AM program, we learn that the latter figure brings the results up to Liberal 30 per cent, Labor 23 per cent and the Greens 22 per cent, with “almost a quarter” still undecided – a remarkably high figure. The normal practice is to exclude the undecided from consideration: whether we take almost a quarter to mean 23 per cent or 24 per cent, rounding gives us results of Liberal 39 per cent, Labor 30 per cent and the Greens 29 per cent. However, there is little doubt that this figure flatters the Greens, who have a tradition of over-performing in EMRS polls in any case, and who tend to do less well out of disengaged undecided voters who tend to view politics in Labor-versus-Liberal terms. The poll also went so far as to query voters in each electorate as to the candidates they favoured, but the sample sizes are so small that I’m not inclined to read much into them. Nonetheless, it should be noted that Scott Bacon apparently rated at least as well as David Bartlett in Denison. We also learn that Greens supporters – a sample of about 220 – favoured a Liberal over a Labor minority government by a margin of 51 per cent to 43 per cent. Of all respondents, 29 per cent would prefer a majority government led by the Liberals compared with 26 per cent by Labor and 12 per cent by the Greens.

UPDATE: More from Kevin Bonham at the Tasmanian Times.

Other news from the campaign trail:

• Labor suffered ill-timed bad news on the economy on Thursday, with the release of figures showing unemployment in the state up from 5.3 per cent to 6.4 per cent. Matthew Denholm of The Australian notes that the state’s north-west – i.e. Braddon – has been hardest hit, with the loss of 190 jobs at McCain’s vegetable processing plant in Smithton, 250 “going or gone” from the PaperlinX mill at Wesley Vale, and a further 150 jobs threatened unless a buyer is found for its Burnie plant.

Sue Neales of The Mercury has run an excellent series of articles which have provided a goldmine of local intelligence on each electorate:

• In Bass, Labor “privately admits it has no idea” which of its candidates is most likely to win a second seat, the re-election of Michelle O’Byrne being a foregone conclusion. CFMEU forests division secretary Scott McLean was presumed to be the front-runner due to his basis of support among logging workers and the organisation clout of his union, but he “has not been campaigning hard and seems not to have established a high-profile presence in the minds of Bass voters”. Brian Wightman, “the preferred candidate of Premier David Bartlett”, is thought unlikely to rate outside his home base of Winnaleah. That leaves Beaconsfield mine disaster survivor Brant Webb with a serious chance of riding off his famous exploit on 2007 into parliament. The remaining candidate, Michelle Cripps, was apparently not thought worth a mention. The article also assess the state of play for the Liberals, arguing the health-related withdrawal of Sue Napier “threw the party’s high hopes of winning three seats”. Former federal MP Michael Ferguson is rated a near certainty to take the second seat.

• Neales reports that Labor has understandably abandoned hope of retaining three seats in Franklin, with a 2-2-1 result reckoned a certaintly. Labor MPs Daniel Hulme and Ross Butler are mounting highly visible campaigns to retain the seats they acquired mid-term on the vacancies of Paul Lennon and Paula Wreidt, notwithstanding a general perception they will lose. O’Byrne has been running a “high-profile campaign heavy on expensive TV advertisements, much of it funded by interstate unions”, with Hulme in particular complaining he “has more than $100,000 to spend from union funds”. Hulme has been endeavouring to inherit the logging industry vote from Paul Lennon, with whom he is closely associated, partly be establishing his electorate office in Huonville. Liberal candidate Tony Mulder “is expected to poll well”, but Jacquie Petrusma – a former Family First Senate candidate and ally of Right faction warlord Senator Eric Abetz – “is more likely to help Ms Petrusma across the line than to win a third seat in his own right”. Mulder was told last week to withdraw advertisements focusing on his past career as a police commander, which featuring images of him in uniform. The police force has deemed it a possible breach of the Public Service Act, an offence carrying a $2400 fine and a maximum of two years in prison.

• In Denison, Neales reports Labor internal polling shows David Bartlett is “not popular in Glenorchy, Rosetta and Claremont”, owing to his “bike-riding, iPod values”. Furthermore, public servants and teachers who predominantly live in the south of the electorate are “fed up with endless education reforms, worried about cuts to public service jobs, concerned about the Government’s poor governance and decision-making record and distrustful of Labor’s promises that front-line services will be protected”. That being so, Labor is rated next to no chance of retaining its three seats, with Graeme Sturges an almost certain casualty. The Liberals’ plan has been to “run five candidates who each in their own right attract and command different segments of votes in Denison”: however, beyond that fact that Elise Archer is targeting the business community, details of this are vague. The Liberals made what seems a contentious political gambit in the electorate last week by promising a $25 million feasibility study into a cable car up Mount Wellington. Labor seemed on electorally safer ground when it made the showpiece of Monday’s campaign launch a plan to buy back and expand the Hobart Private Hospital, although it expects the federal government to pick up 60 per cent of the tab. Sue Neales noted that elsewhere that the policy was pitched “particularly in its battler heartland northern half, where cost-of-living pressures and concerns about health and education have sent voters flocking to the Liberals and Greens”. Labor was facing a particular problem among women voters, hence the promise for a dedicated new $180 million women’s and children’s hospital wing. For its part, the Liberal Party has promised to spend $250 million on a new central wing at the hospital.

• In Lyons, a gain for the Liberals is rated so certain that some in the party are talking of winning a third seat: the two scenarios in play being 2-2-1 and 3-2. Jim Playsted is reckoned the strongest newcomer, but the identity of a third winner would be anyone’s guess. Neales rates Tim Morris the most likely of the four sitting Greens to lose their seat, in part because of the redistribution which has transferred the West Coast region to Braddon and added the blue-collar northern Hobart suburbs of Gagebrook and Bridgewater.

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Galaxy: 51-49 to Liberal in South Australia

Sunday, March 14, 2010 – 12:20 am, by William Bowe

It appears today’s Galaxy poll in the Sunday Mail shows the Liberals with a 51-49 lead on two-party preferred. Mystifyingly, we learn the Liberals are ahead from the paper’s editorial as carried on the Herald-Sun site: and thus have to fill in the blanks ourselves. The two-party preferred figure was provided to me by a reader who also says Isobel Redmond has a 49-42 lead over Mike Rann as preferred premier. It can be presumed Galaxy has followed its usual practice of polling 800 voters, and that the margin of error is thus about 3.5 per cent. Be it noted that this is exactly the result they produced a week out from the Western Australian election, which came in nearer the money than either Newspoll or Westpoll.

UPDATE: Big thanks to Inner Suburbia in comments for relating the following:

The poll is of 800 people.

Primary votes: Liberal 42, ALP 36, Greens 10, Family First 6, Other 5
2PP: Liberal 51, ALP 49
Better Premier: Redmond 49, Rann 42, Uncommitted 9
“Which party, Labor or Liberal, do you believe would be best for SA’s economic prosperity?”: Liberal 49, ALP 43, Uncommitted 8

Then some questions comparing the leaders:

Arrogant: Rann 70, Redmond 13
“More talk than action”: Rann 61, Redmond 23
Understands SA’s problems: Rann 40, Redmond 45
Easy to understand: Rann 38, Redmond 48
Committed to their beliefs: Rann 34, Redmond 45
TELLS THE TRUTH: Rann 21, Redmond 52
Inexperienced: Rann 8, Redmond 79

Then some questions on policy alternatives:

Labor’s Adelaide Oval redevelop: 47, Libs new stadium: 33
Labor’s stormwater plan for gardens: 36, Libs stormwater plan for everything: 59
Labor’s new hospital: 34, Libs keeping RAH where it is: 61
Labor’s national ICAC: 43, Libs state ICAC:46.

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Morgan: 55.5-44.5

Friday, March 12, 2010 – 5:19 pm, by William Bowe

The latest Morgan poll combines two weekends’ worth of face-to-face polling, and shows Labor with a lead of 55.5-44.5 on two-party preferred: down two points on the poll conducted on the weekend of February 20/21, which was in turn down a point on the poll from the two previous weekends. Labor’s primary vote is steady on 45 per cent, the Coalition’s is up one point to 38.5 per cent and the Greens are down half a point to 8.5 per cent.

Preselection news:

• Damien Madigan of the Blue Mountains Gazette reports Blue Mountains mayor Adam Searle has suffered a further blow in his bid to succeed Bob Debus as Labor candidate for Macquarie after the party’s credentialing committee voted down a bid to have 30 out of the 143 preselectors ruled invalid on grounds of branch stacking. Searle had been thought unlikely to get the nod in any case after the national executive allowed the matter to be determined by rank-and-file preselection, as the local numbers are believed to favour Susan Templeman – partly due to the 20 per cent loading in favour of female candidates. The report further relates that “sources close to the Searle camp say it is very difficult for him to win”; he is “seriously considering his position”; and there is “no truth to media reports last week suggesting Clr Searle was willing to accept the Labor Party’s candidacy for the State seat of Blue Mountains in exchange for losing out in Macquarie”. Madigan also reports of an unsuccessful a challenge to Searle’s presidency of the Mid-Mountains branch by a staffer of Blue Mountains state MP Phil Koperberg.

• The Sydney Morning Herald reports sitting member Craig Thomson won Labor’s preselection vote in Dobell with 66 votes against 21 for challenger David Mehan, the candidate from 2004. Soraiya Gharahkhani of the Camden Advertiser reports Nick Bleasdale’s winning margin over wheelchair athlete Paul Nunnari in Macarthur was 40 votes to three.

• Louise Hall of the Sydney Morning Herald reports last weekend’s New South Wales Liberal state upper house preselection, which doled out winnable positions to Catherine Cusack of the Left and Natasha Maclaren-Jones and Peter Phelps of the Right, was the result of a “wide-ranging factional deal designed to keep the peace within the Liberal Party” – presumably the same one that locked in moderate support behind David Clarke.

• Menios Constantinou of the Wentworth Courier reports five candidates will contest Liberal preselection for the state seat of Coogee: “clear favourite” Bruce Notley-Smith, a Randwick councillor and Malcolm Turnbull staffer; Edward Mandla, who ran in Sydney in 2007; and David Shaloub, Bruce Morrow and Justin Owen, of whom no information is provided.

• The Northern Territory News reports mango farmer Gary Higgins has been preselected as Country Liberal Party candidate for the Darwin outskirts seat of Daly, which Rob Knight holds for Labor on a margin of 7.8 per cent.

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Advertiser: 55-45 to Labor in Bright

Friday, March 12, 2010 – 1:02 am, by William Bowe

The Advertiser’s latest marginal seat poll covers the southern coastal suburbs electorate of Bright, and it finds Labor incumbent Chloe Fox set to be easily re-elected against a Liberal swing of 2 per cent. After distribution of the 4 per cent undecided, the primary votes are 44 per cent for Labor, 41 per cent for Liberal, 9 per cent for the Greens, 2 per cent each for Family First and Save RAH, and 1 per cent for the Fair Land Tax Party. Nonetheless, Isobel Redmond is found to lead Mike Rann in the electorate as preferred premier by 47 per cent to 45 per cent. Interestingly, the poll finds Fox – who had a baby in January and has declined to publicly name the father – trailing among women voters, although the margin of error on the gender breakdowns is around 5.5 per cent. The margin of error overall is around 4 per cent.

In other news, the upper house preference tickets have been published, and can most easily be viewed at ABC Elections. I hope to get an upper house election guide happening at some point next week.

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South Australian election minus nine days

Thursday, March 11, 2010 – 3:42 am, by William Bowe

Noteworthy happenings from the past five or six days’ worth of South Australian election action:

• Antony Green summarises the preference tickets which have been lodged for purposes of South Australia’s unique provision to save incomplete ballots, which in other jurisdictions would be ruled informal (it does not necessarily follow, but can reasonably be inferred, that this will reflect the how-to-vote cards handed out on election day). Labor has done very well out of the Greens, who are not only directing preferences straight to Labor ahead of the Liberals across the board, but are also favouring them over independent and one-time Greens member Kris Hanna in Mitchell, as they did in 2006. Hanna’s own preferences will be split between Labor and Liberal, but the Liberals are unlikely to be competitive in the seat. The Greens are also favouring competitive independents and Nationals candidates over Liberal in Mount Gambier, Frome, Chaffey and Flinders. Whereas Family First cut a deal with Labor in 2006 which resulted in split tickets in the key seats of Mawson, Light, Morialta, Newland and Mitchell, this time they favour the Liberals across the board – not only in Labor-versus-Liberal contests, but also where independents (Mitchell, Frome and Mount Gambier) and Nationals (Chaffey and Flinders) are in play. Karlene Maywald is directing preferences to the Liberals in Chaffey, which will not be electorally significant but might be seen as a useful pointer to her attitude. Save RAH, Dignity for Disability, Gamers 4 Croydon and the DLP also seem to be directing all preferences to the Liberals ahead of Labor. The Free Land Tax Party has not lodged tickets. Mount Gambier independent candidate Nick Fletcher favours the Liberals over independent Don Pegler; Chaffey independent David Peake favours the Liberals over Karlene Maywald; Stuart independent Rob Williams in Stuart favours Liberal over Labor; Newland independent Ryan Haby favours Labor over Liberal.

• David Bevan and Matthew Abraham’s Mornings program on ABC Radio yesterday featured an interview with the three re-contesting independents about their likely attitude in the event of a minority government. Mitchell MP Kris Hanna said he would present the parties with “detailed policy imperatives” concerning water, democracy and pokies, and “projects for his community” including Glenthorne Farm and the Oaklands railway crossing. Frome MP Geoff Brock said he would be seeking upgrades of natural gas pipelines into cities in the upper Spencer Gulf, and commitments on water security. Fisher MP Bob Such said he would not be asking for specific commitments in his electorate, but would instead do as he did in 2002 and write to constitutents to gauge their views. However, he said he was not expecting the matter to emerge as he believed Labor would win. All were pressed by the presenters on their attitude to an Independent Commission Against Corruption; none said it would be a “deal-breaker”.

• Graham Young of Online Opinion wrote in The Weekend Australian of qualitative polling he has conducted in South Australia, which found only 36 per cent of a sample of 252 (which he freely admits was likely to have had a Labor bias) believed the state to be ahead in the right direction, against 44 per cent who felt otherwise. The sample was particularly concerned about water, followed by health – which loomed as a negative for Labor as the Royal Adelaide Hospital relocation was “wildly unpopular”. Underlying both concerns was a perception the government was concerned with “spin over substance”. However, the Liberal Party continues to be viewed as “extreme” despite positive perceptions of Isobel Redmond, who voters feel they do not know well enough.

• At the Liberal campaign launch on Sunday, Isobel Redmond promised $47 million out of a claimed $1 billion in savings from rebuilding the Royal Adelaide Hospital on site would be used to return obstetrics services to Modbury Hospital, located in the electorate of Florey and of significance to its marginal neighbour Newland. Redmond also promised upgrades to the hospital’s paediatrics, intensive care and emergency departments. Labor responded by promising a $44 million upgrade including a new emergency department at the hospital. In 2007 the government removed obstetric and pediatric services and had pathology and radiology services at the hospital downgraded, while adding more elective surgery and palliative care. Redmond also promised to spend $75 million on country health services.

• Paul Collier, the lead upper house candidate for Dignity for Disability, died yesterday after suffering a brain haemorrhage. Since nominations have closed his name will remain on the ballot paper, but votes for him will be passed along to the voter’s next preference. In most cases this will mean the second candidate on the party’s ticket, Kelly Vincent. If any of the 73 remaining candidates dies between now and polling day, the entire upper house election will be deemed to have failed, and a separate election will have to be held at a later time.

• Brad Crouch of the Sunday Mail reported Liberal internal polling of 14 marginal seats conducted at the start of the campaign showed 49 per cent found Isobel Redmond the more trustworthy of the two leaders, compared with 25 per cent for Mike Rann. A repeat of the exercise after the debate found Redmond’s rating had risen to 54 per cent while Rann’s remained steady. A question on whether respondents were confident in the government elicited a 57 per cent negative response in the first survey, rising to 66 per cent in the second.

• Mike Rann has called for the second debate which both he and Isobel Redmond have agreed to in principle to be held on pay TV. Redmond wants it held in Port Augusta or Renmark, in an environment where audience members can ask questions, but Greg Kelton of The Advertiser writes that Labor “will not have a bar of that”. Sky News says it is engaged in discussions and hopes to screen the debate.

• Also in the aforementioned Greg Kelton article, Labor strategists are reported saying momentum to the Liberals had stalled, such that they believed Labor might only lose Morialta.

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Newspoll: 50-50 in South Australia

Tuesday, March 9, 2010 – 3:19 am, by William Bowe

With less than a fortnight until election day, Newspoll has finally come good with a poll of South Australian state voting intention, and it will hopefully provide a wake-up call to betting markets which continue to have the Liberals at an absurdly inflated $3.60. The two parties are in fact shown at level pegging, with the Liberals leading 39 per cent to 36 per cent on the primary vote. Most alarmingly for Labor, Mike Rann’s personal ratings are behaving exactly as Alan Carpenter’s did during the 2008 Western Australian campaign, with his disapproval rating (up ten points to 48 per cent) surging past his approval (down five to 45 per cent). Isobel Redmond by contrast is up seven points on approval to 58 per cent, with disapproval up two to 20 per cent. Rann nonetheless maintains a 44-41 lead as preferred premier, but this is down from 48-31 at the last poll. The Greens’ primary vote is down two points to 10 per cent. It should be noted however the period in which the poll was conducted extends back to January. Past experience suggests Newspoll which conduct a new poll over the weekend for release at the end of the campaign.

UPDATE: You can read my mid-campaign match report in Crikey.

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Nielsen: 53-47

Monday, March 8, 2010 – 12:10 am, by William Bowe

The latest monthly Nielsen survey, published in the Fairfax broadsheets, has Labor’s two-party lead at 53-47, down from 54-46 last time. Labor and the Coalition are equal on 42 per cent of the primary vote, with Labor steady and the Coalition up a point. The Prime Minister’s approval rating is down three points on a month ago, and nine points on two months ago, to 57 per cent; his disapproval rating is 37 per cent, compared with 33 per cent last time and 29 per cent the time before. Tony Abbott’s approval rating has bounced six points to 50 per cent, while his disapproval is steady on 41 per cent. Over the past three surveys, Kevin Rudd’s lead as preferred prime minister has gone from 67-21 to 58-31 to 57-35. Following last week’s health reform announcement, 79 per cent of respondents supported a greater funding role for the federal government. The poll was conducted from Thursday to Saturday from a sample of 1400.

A fair bit of legislative action to report:

• Federal parliament is currently considering a piece of legislation called the Electoral and Referendum Amendment (Close of Rolls and Other Measures) Bill, which looks likely to give effect to a number of changes in time for the federal election. Three measures in particular have the support of the Coalition: treating pre-poll votes cast within the electorate as normal rather than declaration votes, so they can be counted on election nights; allowing enrolment to be updated online; and preventing parties’ registered officers from nominating multiple candidates in a single electoral division. The latter measure will prevent a repeat of the Bradfield by-election, at which the Christian Democratic Party was effortlessly able to complicate the process by indulgently nominating nine candidates. The party would now be required to find 50 nominators for each candidate after the first, as is required of independents. Two further measures are opposed by the Coalition, both of which seek to reverse unconscionable amendments made by the Howard government in 2005. One is a return to the seven-day period after the issue of writs allowing new voters to enrol or existing voters to amend their enrolment, against which no reasonable argument can be raised. The other seeks to repeal the requirement that those casting provisional voters provide identification to the AEC after polling day, which many neglected to do after the 2007 election. Antony Green reviews the closure of rules issue specifically here, and the legislation in general here.

• The Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters has completed its inquiry into the New South Wales parliament’s automatic enrolment legislation. The government shares the bipartisan enthusiasm for the concept in New South Wales, but a dissenting report has signalled that any similar move at federal level will be opposed by the Coalition in the Senate. This has not impressed University of Queensland electoral law boffin Graeme Orr, who runs through his concerns with the Coalition’s position in Crikey.

• Legislation abolishing tax deductibility of donations to parties, members and candidates, and limiting deductions for gifts and contributions by businesses, completed its passage through parliament on February 25.

And as always, a whole lot happening on the preselection front:

• Saturday’s much-publicised Labor preselection ballot for Robertson saw the defeat of incumbent Belinda Neal at the hands of university lecturer Deborah O’Neill, by a margin of 98 to 67. A prescient article on Thursday by Andrew Crook of Crikey indicated Neal could rely on only 66 votes from the three branches she controlled – Woy Woy, Kariong and Mangrove Mountain – whereas Deborah O’Neill had the support of “at least 100” preselectors UPDATE: This is disputed by a commenter who says the Kariong branch voted unanimously for O’Neill.

• New South Wales Labor Senator Michael Forshaw has made life easier for his party by announcing he will not contest the next election. This leaves a vacancy for outgoing state party secretary Matt Thistlethwaite, who needed to be accommodated after he agreed to go quietly from his current position on the condition a Senate seat would be available to him. Both Thistlethwaite and Forshaw are members of the Right. A report by Imre Salusinszky of The Australian suggests he was pushed as much as jumped, saying the result was determined by “a meeting of right-wing unions and party officials”. The sequence of candidates will be John Faulkner, Matt Thistlethwaite and Steve Hutchins, the latter managing to cling on to a winnable-yet-loseable position because of “strong support from the powerful Shop Distributive and Allied Employees Association”.

• South Australian Liberal Senator Alan Ferguson has announced he will not contest the next election, and will retire when his term expires in the middle of next year. This was foreshadowed in reports last year which suggested the vacancy was likely to be contested between former Wakefield MP David Fawcett, who like Ferguson is associated with the Right, and state party president Sean Edwards, a moderate.

• I learned from Joe Hockey on Insiders yesterday morning that Office of Aboriginal Health director Ken Wyatt has won Liberal preselection for the marginal Labor seat of Hasluck in eastern Perth. Hockey pointed out that if elected, Wyatt will become “the first Indigenous Australian to sit in the House of Representatives”. I’m wondering if he might be any relation to state Labor rising star Ben Wyatt (Shadow Treasurer and member for Victoria Park), who is part Aboriginal and the son of the Liberal candidate for Kalgoorlie at the 1996 federal election.

• The New South Wales Liberals have finalised preselections for those state upper house candidates who are chosen centrally rather than regionally (David Clarke being an example of the latter). The three winnable positions have gone to incumbent Catherine Cusack; Natasha Maclaren-Jones, state party vice-president and adviser to Senator Helen Coonan; and Peter Phelps, an adviser to Senator Michael Ronaldson and formerly to defeated Eden-Monaro MP Gary Nairn. Out in the cold was Dai Le, an ABC documentary producer who will have to content herself with a second tilt at unwinnable Cabramatta. Phelps has his admirers (“a very smart chap”, reckons politically moderate former party identity Irfan Yusuf), but they don’t include many who place a premium on standards of decency in public life. Highlights of a dangerous life include an appearance at a public forum at which he heckled Mike Kelly, soon-to-be Labor member for Eden-Monaro, comparing him to a Nazi concentration camp guard on the basis of his distinguished service in Iraq. In October, an email he wrote on media strategy with the candid subject heading “digging dirt” was released to the media: it recommended MPs pursue stories about “fat cat public servants not caring about taxpayers, pollies with snouts in the trough, special interest groups getting undeserved handouts from tax taken from hard-working Aussies, a favoured pro-Labor contractor who seems to be getting all the work for a particular job etc”.

• Margot Saville of Crikey writes that Leichhardt mayor Jamie Parker is expected to win Greens endorsement in the state seat of Balmain, where the party appears a better-than-even chance of toppling Labor incumbent Verity Firth.

Plus some other stuff:

• The process for a redistribution of Victorian federal electorates has begun, but with an expected date of completion of December 17, it is very unlikely to take effect before this year’s election.

• Simon Benson of The Daily Telegraph reported on Wednesday that “the chance of Australia going to an early election has lessened with internal Labor research exposing a negative shift in mood towards Prime Minister Kevin Rudd in key marginal seats in Sydney’s west” – namely Lindsay, Macquarie, Greenway and Macarthur. In particular, we were told that “women had begun to sour on Mr Rudd and that mixed messages were now starting to show up on the Government’s climate change policy”. Labor national secretary Karl Bitar wrote on Twitter shortly afterward that the story was “not true”.

• Peter Brent at Mumble urges the government to caution over the question of holding a referendum concurrent with the next election: firstly because history suggests referendum results bear little relationship to the question being posed, and secondly because there is reason to believe referendums on election day drag down support for the government.

• Gareth Griffith of the New South Wales Parliamentary Library has published two very interesting papers on the the record of minority government in Australia and the prospect of recall elections in New South Wales (the latter with Lenny Roth). The former covers similar territory to a paper I presented on minority government and the Greens at the Australian Study of Parliament Group conference in September, which will be published in the next edition of the Australasian Parliamentary Review.

• Owing to a public holiday in Victoria, Essential Research will publish its weekly survey on Tuesday, and not today as it normally does.

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Five easy pieces: Braddon

Saturday, March 6, 2010 – 7:47 pm, by William Bowe

Guide to the Tasmanian state electorate of Braddon here. Two down, three to go: with only a fortnight to go until polling day, I might have to lift my work rate. UPDATE: Denison now up as well. UPDATE 2: Franklin too.

Highlights of the past fortnight on the Tasmanian campaign trail:

• Sue Neales of The Mercury reports Greens leader Nick McKim saying any negotiated agreement for Labor or Liberal to govern in minority “would not involve ultimatums, threats or even demands for ministries”. Specifically, McKim told Matthew Denholm of The Australian last week that he did not rule out backing a party that would continue to back old-growth logging, fuelling complaints from environmental groups that the Greens were giving conservation issues short shrift. McKim said the Greens would be ready to favour whichever party negotiated “honestly and in good faith”, and did not accept David Bartlett’s notion that whichever party won the most seats (or failing that, votes) should be allowed to govern. McKim also rejects the stated desire of both Labor and Liberal to govern in minority without a specific deal or agreement as “inherently unstable”. Peter Tucker at Tasmanian Politics weighs in on the possibility of a Green being given the Speaker’s job, as has happened in the Australian Capital Territory.

• The Greens’ decision might be made easier by David Bartlett’s apparent declaration he would not seek to stay in government if Labor won fewer seats than the Liberals. His particular formulation was that “the party that won the most seats or the most votes (would) be able to form a government first on the floor of the House of Assembly”, and that being so, he would “not be moving no-confidence motions and those things that have the potential to send the electorate back for another election”. However, there seems to be a few holes in this: the capacity of either Labor or Liberal to form a government in minority on the floor of the House would be entirely down to the actions of the other parties, and a no-confidence motion need not cause a new election if an alternative government could be formed. For his part, Will Hodgman claims he was misquoted when reported in The Australian as saying he would consider all options, insisting there would be no coalition with the Greens.

• The not-quite-dead canal estate development at Ralphs Bay was back in the news last week when the Tasmanian Planning Commission granted developers Walker Corporation a second extention on its response to the October draft report which declared the project “inherently unsustainable”. Both David Bartlett and the Greens have complained that a final decision before the election would have been preferable.

• The issue of water toxins in the east coast town of St Helens has continued to develop a life of its own since being the subject of an episode of the ABC’s Australian Story a fortnight ago. Local doctor Alison Bleaney claims, with support from independently conducted tests, that the George River is contaminated by toxins from upstream plantations, which Bleaney believes may be responsible for health problems in the town. Last week, Sue Neales of The Mercury wrote that the government believed the issue to be a “bomb deliberately timed to go off during the election campaign, lobbed with the full knowledge and agreement of the Tasmanian Greens”. Today, The Australian reports David Bartlett complaining Bleaney had also emerged in the lead-up to the 2006 election with “a whole range of concerns proven to be completely false”, describing her return as a “a happy coincidence for the Greens”.

• Labor, Liberal and the Greens will all hold their campaign launches next week: Labor at the Baha’i temple in inner Hobart on Monday, the Greens at the Mercure Hotel on Wednesday and the Liberals at Launceston’s Boathouse function centre next Sunday.

• A nifty new website called iElect seeks to pool collective wisdom by inviting participants to pick who they expect to win in each division, as well as offering useful details on the candidates.

Finally, there have been a number of incidents in which Labor candidates have attracted the wrong kind of headlines, two of which illustrate the friction that can develop in a party when declining electoral fortunes leave fewer pieces of pie to go round.

• Two Labor candidates for Denison, incumbent Graeme Sturges and newcomer Madeleine Ogilvie, were at each other’s throats last week with the latter accusing the former of telling voters she was “not really Labor”, reportedly promting a sharp telephone call from Ogilvie to Sturges. Sturges did not help matters when he explained he had “just been telling them to vote for a Labor bloke”. According to Sue Neales of The Mercury, “much more likely to be the intended target of his lovely message to voters that only the ‘blokes’ count is Sturgo’s fellow Labor minister in Denison, Lisa Singh”.

• Michael Stedman of the Sunday Tasmanian reports an ad by Labor Lyons candidate Rebecca White, “poking fun at the elder statesmen of her own party”, went “viral” on YouTube. The ad prompted two long-serving Labor incumbents in Lyons, David Llewellyn and Michael Polley, to complain to David Bartlett – and it now appears to have been discreetly dropped from White’s You Tube page.

• The Mercury this week carried reports of unpleasant behaviour by Labor Braddon MP Brenton Best after his daughter was dropped from an amateur theatre production for failing to attend dress rehearsals due to illness. Best reportedly threatened to sue the Hobart Music Theatre Summer School, and told the director of the program he would “sort him out”. David Bartlett said after discussion with Best he was satisfied he had not acted inappropriately, but The Mercury later reported the director’s account had been confirmed by a teacher who was present.

• Labor Denison MP was red-faced last week after reporters overheard her complaining of media reaction to the party’s asbestos policy announcement: “This is a f**king good policy, why do they always have to f**king pick negatives”. While this has prompted much tut-tutting, and was followed by an apology from Singh, I would expect voters to be more struck a politician being so so passionately convinced of the merits of their policy than by the fact that they chose to swear in private.

As before, this thread can be used for general discussion of the Tasmanian election campaign.

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Advertiser: 53-47 to Labor in Newland

Friday, March 5, 2010 – 1:01 am, by William Bowe

The third electorate-level Advertiser poll of the campaign (hope they correct that headline soon) is again consistent with the conventional wisdom in showing the Liberals performing less well in Newland than the neighbouring marginal Morialta, where a poll on Sunday pointed to a 10 per cent swing and a 52-48 margin in favour of the Liberals. This poll has Labor incumbent Tom Kenyon with a 53-47 two-party lead over the Liberal candidate, contentious former federal Makin MP Trish Draper, compared with a 5.2 per cent post-redistribution margin. Primary votes after distribution of undecided and informal are 43 per cent Labor, 41 per cent Liberal, 5 per cent Family First and 4 per cent Greens. Mike Rann holds a slender lead over Isobel Redmond as preferred premier, 45 per cent to 43 per cent. The sample size is 524, which produces a margin of error of around 4 per cent.

Highlights, such as they are, of week two:

• Mike Rann has said he is prepared to have another debate with Isobel Redmond following Wednesday’s encounter, dispensing with the campaign strategy rule which says incumbents should agree to one debate early in the campaign only to prove they’re not spooked by their opponent. Redmond has responded by calling for an “old-style town hall public meeting” in a regional area. Wednesday’s debate was screened on Channel Ten at the difficult time of 5.30pm, and seems to have been highlighted by an apology from Mike Rann to Michelle Chantelois and her family for any distress their friendship may have caused. Like most debates it was universally perceieved as a nil-all draw, although Michael Owen of The Australian reckoned a sharp-dressed Redmond scored a style win over Rann, who was “a victim of the Ten Network make-up artist and looked drawn and washed-out”. Chat on ABC Mornings with Matthew Abraham and David Bevan suggests he may have been suffering a cold.

• Pia Akerman of The Australian reports Isobel Redmond has “revived Liberal plans for a new hospital in the Barossa Valley, bolstering her bid for key marginal seats in the region”. Redmond announced $35 million would be spent on a new 55-bed hospital at Tanunda, on which they promised to spend $12 million in their unsuccessful bid for re-election in 2002. This would replace existing hospitals at Angaston and Tanunda (47 beds between them), which would respectively be demolished and converted into an aged care facility. While located in safe Liberal Schubert, the 30 kilometre radius it would serve covers parts of Light (Labor 2.4 per cent) and Stuart (Liberal 0.4 per cent). Health Minister John Hill complains the funding comes from the $1 billion the Liberals say they will save by rebuilding Royal Adelaide Hospital, a figure the government hotly disputes. The government is “yet to release departmental findings on the business case for a new hospital in the Barossa”.

• ABC Mornings presenters Matthew Abraham and David Bevan complain that after successfully staging candidates debates for Hartley and Mawson in week one, this week they have been rebuffed or had no response from Labor’s Morialta MP Lindsay Simmons, Norwood MP Vini Ciccarello, Mitchell candidate Alan Sibbons and Unley candidate Vanessa Vartto.

• The Labor launch on Sunday was light on for showpiece election commitments, being highlighted by a vague promise that 100,000 extra jobs would be created over six years. This would be achieved with help from $194 million on 62,600 extra training places and apprenticeships. Michael Owen of The Australian noted this “mirrored a re-election promise by Anna Bligh a year ago”, although the time-frame then was three years. The Liberal launch will be held on Sunday.

• Mike Rann has given the federal government’s health plans the most enthusiastic response out of the state premiers, saying he was “prepared to strongly support the direction of these reforms”. Isobel Redmond said she “would not be interested in handing over our health system to a federal Labor Government that has so badly mismanaged the home insulation scheme”.

• The odds on a Liberal win have narrowed, albeit from a high base: Centrebet is now offering $3.60 compared with a starting price of $4.50.

UPDATE (6/3/2010): Nominations having closed yesterday, the election guide has now been updated with full candidate lists in ballot paper orders, photos for all major candidate and campaign updates. Antony Green offers a systematic overview of nominations by party (South Australia’s fairly liberal party registration laws being what they are, there are a couple of little-heralded minor parties in the mix). Labor has got the better of the ballot paper draw in Bright, Hartley, Light, Newland and Stuart, while the Liberals have been favoured in Mawson, Morialta and Norwood. The Liberals have the top position in Mitchell, which is bad news for independent member Kris Hanna; Chaffey favours Karlene Maywald over Liberal candidate Tim Whetstone; and Frome favours Liberal candidate Terry Boylan over independent member Geoff Brock.

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