Today’s Daily Telegraph carries a Galaxy Research poll of 1000 voters in the marginal seats of Camden, Gosford, Kiama, Londonderry and Menai, which suggests Labor will "almost replicate its two-party preferred vote of 2003 with 58 per cent of the vote after preferences". Presumably the hard copy comes with a table breaking all this down; perhaps one of my NSW readers will be kind enough to send me a scan. The poll was conducted on Tuesday and Wednesday, and thus gives no indication how voters in these mostly commuter electorates might have reacted to Wednesday night’s transport chaos.
UPDATE: No table breakdown – I have been widely mocked by those more familiar with the Telegraph than myself for expecting such a thing.
84 Comments
When is someone going to do a poll on Swansea or Lake Macquarie?
Bogun country – not worth the effort
Breaking news: Debnam has effectively conceded today the ALP will win the election. He is now campaigning for a protest vote against the Iemma government. Apparently, Pete was abysmal at today’s press conference.
Gee, real encouraging for those Liberal voters out there!
Despite Wednesday’s train chaos, I doubt it’ll change the expected election result that much, because those affected would live in safe Liberal North Shore electorates. I’ll stick with my prediction that Iemma loses 3 seats, maybe wins back Murray Darling or South Coast, and it’s still a comfortable Labor majority.
You give far too much credit to the Tele. No breakdown in the hardcopy.
There is a horrific picture of Debnam in his speedos though…
What about Manly, The local paper the “Manly Daily” is giving the Liberal Candidate (Mike Baird) so much coverage that the locals have renamed the Paper to the “Baird Daily”
Jason,
Has the proposed Catherine Hill Bay development become a big issue in Swansea?
I can’t believe a leader would do this. What a bloody goose, and a great testimony to his views about democracy and the will of the people.
You would think he was spinning to catch the protest vote, but if people can’t believe Debnam thinks he’s capable of leading them, they’re not going to vote for him, are they?
# Swinging Voter Says: What about Manly, The local paper the “Manly Daily†is giving the Liberal Candidate (Mike Baird) so much coverage that the locals have renamed the Paper to the “Baird Dailyâ€
Really? See the previous NSW thread for a 1-page summary of what is happening in Manly, including a comment that the Greens are probably getting the best run from “The Doiley”
The article in the Telegraph is headed “Four more years of hard Labor”. Me thinks they are pissed. I like the comments by one of the bloggers. He/she wants to know why the Telegraphs own online polling is so at odds with official polling. Would anyone expect any else?
William said: Presumably the hard copy comes with a table breaking all this down; perhaps one of my NSW readers will be kind enough to send me a scan.
You presume too much sir!
No tables, no numbers other than those quoted above. The Galaxy Research home page is equally useless.
anonymousie Says: I can’t believe a leader would do this. What a bloody goose.
…and…
ABCNet says: there have been reports the Liberal Party has given up and is already lining up its next leader.
When will Fatty O’Barrel strike?
Adam Carr….. in your vast database is there any precedent anywhere in history, anywhere on the planet, for a party leader having been deposed in the last days of an election campaign? Please don’t mention Hayden.
Galaxy research. . . an oxymoron? Out here the Liberals are really working Mulgoa, Penrith and Londonderry hard. Diane Beamer, Minister for Western Sydney is running her campaign out of her electoral office (no sign of any Campaign Office), and has been more or less invisible at local shops and railway stations. However, there is an almost endless amount of Labor and union spam spewing into people’s letterboxes. It looks like a remote-control campaign from Sussex Street, delivered via Australia Post. It looks like the Libs are relying on a small band of volunteer deliverers, and cannot keep up with Labor’s avalanche. I suspect the Liberals are being swamped 8 or 10:1 by Labor and Union spending. As Adolf Hitler once famously said. . . “repeat a lie 1,000 times, and it becomes the truth!”. Modern “Democracy” – he with the biggest campaign chest – wins!
The PM said he would make him and his ministers’ present felt in this election campaign. Are they there yet or has it already been felt out in the electorate, if you know what I mean?
Badgery Boi
Are you sure it Herr Hitler who said that?
I stand corrected!
It was actually Dr. Joseph Goebbels, Propaganada Minister of the Third Reich who said , ” Repeat a lie a thousand times and it becomes the truth.”
Cheers
Ernie Durack, leader of the NSW (ALP) opposition, resigned on the afternoon he was due to give the policy speech during the 1917 election. This was 4 weeks before the election. I have never seen an authorative reason for his actions but it has been suggested that the Government had information about a sexual indiscretion -either sodomy or illegitimate parenthood.
I wonder if it might help the Libs if they dumped Debnam for O’Farrell right now?
What happened to Costello campaigning to rape Costa over the appalling economic management, Abbott and Nelson using their profile, Bishop helping with education and Vaile running the attack on trains etc?
What a loser Debham got to be, he was a former Naval Officer. If he was in charge of the Navy, he would have surrendered at Pearl Harbour. Those poor Liberal workers, Peter those comments are (not) great for moral. Didn’t the Navy teach you anything about leadership
I disagree. Conceding is a good move.
- It’s true. He won’t win.
- It puts voters in a safe-seat by-election mindset. ie blase and feeling like giving the government a kick without worry about consequences
- It worked wonders in Queensland 1995 (minus eastern motorway)
Without any evidence to support me, I think it’s good for an extra 2%
TS, I don’t know if you’re in NSW (and I have to admit I wasn’t in Vic 1999 or Qld 1995), but it’s not the tactic as such– it’s the way it’s been done. It’s been delivered appallingly. The only way that anyone would vote for the Libs as a result of Debnam’s performances today is if they feel sorry for such a badly beaten man who’s obviously on his way out, not because they want to ‘teach Iemma a lesson’.
From a long distance, Borbidge and Bracks managed to pull off the trick of saying to the electorate ‘we’re huge underdogs, so you can safely give the Government a kicking’ without also saying, ‘we have to concede that we’re hopeless and can’t win’.
Unless something remarkable happens in the last week, I can’t see the sorry state of the current ‘battle’ between the majors doing anything but giving independents a leg-up.
Lake Macquarie (Key Seat)
Hunter Valley and Central Coast
Assessment
A safe Labor seat, but one that will be much more interesting with the decision of Lake Macquarie Mayor Greg Piper to nominate as an Independent. Piper is teaming himself with Maitland’s Peter Blackmore and Newcastle’s John Tate, putting themselves forward as an Independent force in opposition to Labor, playing on local views that the Labor Party takes its traditional grip on the Hunter Valley for granted.
As for people from Swansea being boguns, they hate being betrayed by the ALP, the Australian Legion of Paedophiles, and elect independents following such scandals.
The Daily Telegraph website is hilarious!
Believe it or not, their interactive poll gives Labor a chance of winning Vaucluse and Epping – neither of which will ever happen, while Morris Iemma is supposedly under threat in Lakemba.
Interesting too how peed off is the media in general with the polls, especially the Murdoch press and commercial radio in Sydney.
As for Debnam: pathetic! There must be hardworking Liberals out there scratching their heads in frustration!
I think Peter should resign now and hand leadership over to Pru Goward. A HUGE call, I realise but:
1. Never been done before so it will be hard for the ALP party apparatchik to get into motion to slander Goward like it has done on Debnam;
2. It gives the public a contrast – new fresh blood, vast experience in the public, media savy; sort of “nanna” feel to leadership rather than the Dilemma “roger-a-thon” that NSW have had to endure;
3. What have they got to loose? It can’t get any worse;
4. It means the Labor wankers have spent millions of $$ for nothing (that alone would be worthwhile seeing Dilemma & co’s face!)
5. No reason a non-elected person cannot be leader of the opposition!
This is about the future of NSW – not about ego or factions. Lets face it NSW want a moderate conservative leader – in fact they are desperate – but are deeply suspicious of the far-rights control.
Green preferences for NSW election
Preferences:
The Greens preference announcements were greeted with the usual level of misunderstanding by many journalists. To set the record straight, the Greens will be recommending preferences to Labor ahead of the Coalition in 24 marginal seats and recommending an exhaust (no allocation of preferences) in 9 others. In many of these seats we will be going to progressive independents ahead of Labor. In no seats will we put the Coalition ahead of Labor. (see http://www.nsw.greens.org.au/campaigns/statement-on-preferences for more details)
The Greens’ balanced decisions recognise that there are major problems with the Labor government’s performance but that they are at least marginally ahead of the Coalition in some key areas including: industrial relations, maintaining public services, protecting national parks, lesbian and gay (lgbti) rights and creating marine national parks.
Both major parties are bad on most issues, including: failure to seriously address global warming by limiting the expansion of coal mining, biasing planning laws to developers, taking corporate donations, building motorways instead of public transport, compromising civil liberties in the ‘law and order’ auction and continued funding of the wealthiest private schools. The vast majority of conservative legislation passes the NSW parliament with the support of both major parties.
The Greens are not endorsing Labor: our preference decisions acknowledge that however bad the Carr/Iemma government has been, Labor is a better option than the Coalition on a range of issues. The best solution for the challenges facing NSW is more Greens in the parliament and a large Greens vote.
Oh please…….sounds like a regurgitated greenies press release Bill.
As for “balanced” – according to who?
Another question – why did the Telegraph choose these seats as the supposed “litmus” test of the opposition’s chances?
From what I can see they have almost all been safely held Labor strongholds since inception (with the few exceptions of course). I understand that they have all undergone significant boundary changes but…….?
The “tactic” of Debnam basically conceding defeat to encourage a stronger protest vote against Labor doesn’t exactly have the precedent of success Debnam is looking for.
Bracks edged Kennet out with a smaller primary vote, fewer seats, the support of independents and just 50.1% of the 2PP vote. Borbidge in QLD had to wait another 8 months before he could made Premier after the Mundingburra by-election. If this is the best Debnam can hope for then he’s definately clinging on to some desperate and unlikely scenarios.
Paul M said
This is about the future of NSW – not about ego or factions. Lets face it NSW want a moderate conservative leader – in fact they are desperate – but are deeply suspicious of the far-rights control.
I’m not up with NSW politics but starting to learn through Williams great website. Do people want a mod conservative leader? why? I thought your last few governments have been of that persuasion.
Bill Weller
Green candidate for Kingston SA
AMWU delegate
Would you wonder why Peter Debnam has raised the white flag today.
With Alan Jones, Ray Hadley and the Daily Telegraph running his campaign and acting on a daily basis as his adviser has failed dismally.
Just watching an unbelievable interview with Quentin D on Stateline – Quentin asked Debnam if he would resign tonight and hand the leaders job over to Barry O.
If I were an independent I would be going whoopi and turning it into a bye election all the way home.
Bill, there are no swing voters here.
No one is going to change their vote.
Hey I’m in the NSW Greens but most people here can find the political party’s website easy enough, so we don’t need to be copying and pasting what I think was the spiel on our website.
So what would happen if Debnam resigned today?
I reckon a new leader like Goward or O’Farrell would do quite well. It would put everyone off balance. They hate Iemma, they hate Debnam, someone new would probably do well. I doubt they’d win, but minority govt could happen.
As Simon above points out, can someone explain to me why Peter Debnam is so bad ?
To me he is as boring and uninspiring as any other political leader but I haven’t seen him produce any stupid comments or obviously bad policy ala Colin Barnett and his canal in WA.
So can someone please give this Queenslander a summary of “the feeling on the ground”.
I thought Barnett’s Kimberley canal policy was great and visionary. If we had more nationbuilders like him running the country we wouldn’t be suffering from the infrastructure crises afflicting the economy.
Im not trying to get people to vote differently. I was just showing the preferences as some have been misinformed
George – I’m a political pragmatist in these things. If voters don’t like it, it’s bad policy, even if it’s good policy.
Plus it was too expensive and poorly costed out.
Anyway back to Debnam, what’s so bad about him ? (Maybe I should refer to my second sentence above)
“I thought Barnett’s Kimberley canal policy was great and visionary. If we had more nationbuilders like him running the country we wouldn’t be suffering from the infrastructure crises afflicting the economy.”
Yerrrr and that JB-P wanted to build a car that ran on water didn’t he? We coulda put water supply servos all over WA and keep those nu-clear powered trucks rolling.
And Alan Jones for Prz I say – once QE2 drops off the twig. Wouldn’t be much of a change… really just replacing a Queen with a queen.
Quentin Dempster’s interview with Debnam tonight was awful: Dempster was terrible, and Debnam was even worse!
Yep, it’s amazing that with the support of one major Sydney newspaper and the Alan Jones/Ray Hadley conglomerate, the Libs aren’t doing much better! In fact, I can’t find any media backing Iemma.
NSW is the ALP heartland after all so why is anybody at all surprised when the state stays faithful to the one true faith. The Tele is a joke (vide the bumper stickers which say “Is that the truth or did you read it in the Telegraph” and the people who listen to Jones and Hadley are cardy wearing rusted on Lib voters anywho.
The Tele has had no cred ever since they reported that the Ruski nuke satellite had crashed in WA when in fact it had landed somewhere in the Indian ocean. They admitted that they had written the story in afternoon and gone to bed as usual before the space junk was due to crash anyway.
The Telegraph opinion poll confirms my predictions for the NSW state election, Labor will not lose any seats to the Coalition. Although Labor might lose say 1-3 to Independents.
Although the Coalition might pick up to 4 seats off the independents, who knows. Debnam being a hard right wing culture warrior, could rally the Liberal vote and depress the independent vote, although not gain any off Labor.
Y’all gonna be eating humble pie next Saturday,
Iemma will win but its gonna be closer than you think –
Debnam’s reaction was real today, I think the Libs cannot believe the polls given the feedback they have had, things might be hunky dory in Herald journo land but something is rotten in the State and enough people sense it for a substantial swing – unlike most of the posters to this site the bulk of undecided voters know what they smell and will vote accordingly.
Resolutely I am sticking to 53-47 – I’ll be happy to pay for adam’s soy latte fo a year if it is any worse.
Don’t forget the Tele only has a circulation of 400,000 whereas at the last State Election, the Liberals alone polled about three times that (which incidentally was a very poor result for them). So no matter how much sway the Tele has sway over its readers, it’s hardly going to have much impact on the final vote.
Not sure how many ppl listen to Alan Jones / Ray Hadley. Chances are they are listening to them whilst reading the morning’s Tele anyway. So methinks the influence that the shock jocks and tabloids have over deciding elections is rather inflated. Even if every listenener and reader backs the Libs, the Libs will still need another 1.5 million votes to get into power.
Edward, if you are right, Iemma won’t lose any seats: the Coalition need a 4% swing to win Labor’s most marginal seat, Tweed. A 53-47 result would be a 3% swing against Labor.
According to ABC News tonight, the Libs have private polling that suggests they are in deep trouble.
Goward for leader!!!
Seriously though … this is going to be an independents election. I’ll come up with my predictions next week but I reckon a whole swathe of seats will fall to indies … Maitland, Newcastle and Lake MacQuarie will all fall to the indies, as will anything else with a decent candidate.
Are the Nationals distinguishing themselves enough from the Libs to make an impact in the marginals they are targeting? The Nats managed this very successfully in Victoria and came away with two seats no one thought they had a chance in. Stoner is a far better leader than Debnam, if he’s appealing to swining voters in Tweed, Murray Darling and Monaro these seats should be gained/kept by the Nats.
I’m not sure what people will make of this, but… If they polled those same seats last election, (well they kinda did with a ballot) the 2PP on these boundaries would be 59%.
58% is as bad as it sounds when you look at the recent history in the seats being talked about. It is however not good when they need at least two of those seats to form government.
So what point are people gonna start making final predictions? I’m not quite ready, but maybe early in the new week.
I agree with others that he’s trying to do what Bracks did with Kennett; make out they have no hope so people will post protest votes. I still don’t think they’ll win, but switching leader now will merely reinforce the perception that the Liberals are a split party (which they are) and the Liberal Right will rear it’s head: you might as well put the nails in the coffin now.
Debnam has made no impact and will not last beyond the election. He’s shown his inexperience in numerous things; accusing Bob Debus of criminality based on the word of a convicted pedophile, and he’s done a very poor job of defending their policy of sacking 20,000 workers, among other things.
The real question is whether the Libs will they continue to bicker between factions, or will they oust the problem and reunite? Until an opposition is completely competant and united, governments are much less likely to change.
As far as the telegraph is concerned; you were hoping WAY too much. This is the same paper that announced that the Liberals held 60% of the 2PP, and then 24 hours later came up with another poll that switched 20% towards Labor (which matched what the SMH said the day before).
There are a few reasonable newspapers in this country, but the Daily Telegraph is not one of them.
The telegraph and to a lesser extent the SMH would like a change of government and this seems to color their coverage and predictions.
Re independaents besides those who already hold seats who all have
a good chance of victory again .I would be suprised if anyone else wins
as an independent. Eg Maitland on boundaries the Labor party has a 10% margin, & did not have any problems with the candidate. Mr Blackmore
was a former 2 term liberal member for Maitland. Why would people vote
for him ahead of the official liberal candidate?
I’ve been watching the goings on in NSW and it looks like a very impressive win for the ALP more out of spite for the Liberals than love for the ALP.
All this talk about Independents winning seats while quite common at State level always seems to not live up to expectations.
Without being in NSW, it would appear the Liberal campaign has been lacklustre and would be doing well win 4-8 seats, which based on the Governments performance should be achieved.
ALP to win easily maybe with the lost of just a handful of seats, at least the Federal Election should be closer
Why or why didn’t the Liberals attack Iemma on his record??? Labor is running a presidential campaign so why not attack the president?
Iemma was the Health Mnister for god’s sake – what happened to halving hospital waiting lists? What about the whistle-blower nurses? What about the tragic case of Vanessa Anderson at Royal North Shore Hospital who lost her life as a result of bungle after bungle?
As for Prue as leader hahahahaha! She may have potential, but she has no parliamentary experience. That is a good campaign ploy of hers to attract more votes. A potential leader people will be encouraged to vote for.
As for Debnam, and his team, he was always a puppet, and the people pulling his strings are incompetent idiots.
The Liberals are now in desperation mode. Consolidating what they have. Which is what they should have been doing last year instead of bumping off popular incumbents, suspending old men from the Party and trying to place more right-wing puppets into seats.
What I want to know is – who will accept the blame when it is all over????
Adam does not drink coffee (or chardonnay). Us old Anglo-bourgeois types prefer a nice cup of tea.
No doubt the variety picked by third world coolies on ex-colonial plantations!
Debnam’s current behaviour is either very amusing or quite disturbing: I have to wonder if the bloke is having a nervous breakdown on the campaign trail. In contrast, Iemma was looking very relaxed last night – he obviously saw the latest ALP private polling.
A note about Epping(my seat) – according to an item in today’s Daily Telegraph, the usually invisible Greg Smith was finally sighted the other day, sitting in a car for a hour as he watched intently the Labor candidate Nicole Campbell seated at a nearby table. Ms Campbell described the whole thing as rather weird.
Wow, so a potential stalker is running for the Liberal Party in the seat of Epping? LOL LOL LOL
I should hope so. Where else does tea come from?
The Speaker: Why is Debnam so bad? A few quick ones.
1. He is the leader of a faction ridden party
2. He came to office with the support and control of a shadowy and reportedly extreme right faction and with bad memories of how his predeccesor was dumped
3. He will form a coalition with a National Party rump led by a leader who is even more under the influence of the religious right than he is. The comment made about Stoner above must have been made by someone who has confused no profile with good profile
4. No costings
5. An admission to no overall transport policy
6. He may have other comprehensive policies but I read and listen a lot and I don’t know what they are with the following exceptions.
7. On the first day of office he will instruct the police commissioner to arrest 400 “middle eastern thugs” on “whatever charges the commissioner can think of”. If the commisssioner refuses to do so then he will be sacked.
8. 26,000 civil servants to be sacked. Now down to 20,000 to be removed by natural redundency. These civil servants are apparently high end administrators who do nothing and do not impact on front line services ( I could almost believe that, but of course these public servants have 80 – 100K friends and dependents – a large number of voters to piss off)
9. Support for JH’s industrial laws
A hung parliament due to independents? At present, with the possible exception of Sydney, all the independents have “natural coalition” seats. For a hung parliament Labor must loss seats. Which ones?
Newcastle -possibly but the 2 independents are Labor exs/supporters.
Maitland – Blackmore lost the seat as a Liberal and he I suspect his arrest for sexual assault has resulted in mud sticking
Lake Macquarie – No
Swansea- No
Any other suggestions?
You forgot Goulburn – no guarantee Pru Goward will win!
Just read the transcript of Peter Debnam’s interview on lateline. I cringed just reading it. Must have been a disaster. Dempster was no better. The wheels have obviously really fallen off.
Make that stateline
Strange that a party so opposed to Middle Eastern thugs should have eight candidates in Sydney with Middle Eastern surnames…
Oakshott country is really showing how far he is away from the Hunter Valley when commenting on Hunter Valley/ Central Coast seats.
Labor may indeed lose at least 2, and possibly 4 seats in the Hunter.
Newcastle to independent Lord Mayor Tate, who is certainly NOT ex-ALP or an ALP supporter.
Maitland to independent Blackmore who was popularly elected as Mayor AFTER his two scandals which amounted to nothing. No mud stuck.
Lake Macquarie to popularly elected independent Mayor Piper, who is no supporter of the ALP.
These are 3 seats which may fall, and a fourth is Swansea, which went independant in 1988 over the Swansea bridge, which is still not fixed, and which elected an independant Mayor after a 1993 sex scandal involving an ALP man who was later convicted of a child sex offence.
I agree Newcastle is possible/likely -btw Tait was being touted as the Labor candidate prior to McKay’s pre-selection.
Maitland still requires a 10% swing and Lake Macquarie is 11.5%, both have high profile independents but 10% swings are not common.
Swansea needs 17% and the only independent is Laurie Coughlan. The loss by Labor was in the Greiner landslide, when the Bridge was a major issue.
Adam, I am sure Debnam like Fred Nile draws a distinction between Christian and Muslim people of middle eastern appearance. Particularly as the religious right faction is alleged to have drawn on the Maronite community during its branch stacking. I still don’t know how he got away with the arbitary arrest policy.
I’d still like nominations for other seats that Labor will lose to independents, which given the likely poor performance of the coalition, will result in a hung parliament
When I suggested that these candidates were Maronites who were the fruit of Liberal branch-stacking, I was accused of “smearing” them. I assume Sarkis is a Maronite since the Sarkises are a well-known Lebanese political family (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elias_Sarkis). I know nothing about the others.
The Four Corners research on it was pretty clear cut. The transcript is here; http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/content/2006/s1688866.htm
Hi Adam, it has nothing to do with them being Maronite, and everything to do with assuming how they got to their position.
Racial profiling of political candidates is perhaps interesting statistically, but is more just an expression of Multicultural Sydney.
Eg. In the Last Election the Liberal party had Greek, Chinese, Maronite and other background candidates picked because of their merit. Things haven’t changed that much in many of those areas, except the commentary.
Can someone with more technical knowledge than me tell me what is wrong with the WA Liberal Party’s website and why I can’t access the “federal candidates” section? http://www.waliberals.net
A rough ethnic breakdown of the Liberal Party’s 73 declared Assembly candidates
* Anglo: 49 (one of whom, Mr Rohan, looks Indian in his photo)
* Greek: 2 (Peirides, Paxinos)
* Yugoslav: 1 (Bilic)
* assorted European names: 13 (Schmiegel, Majewski, Paag etc etc)
* Arab/Lebanese: 8 (three Mansours, Mannoun, Sarkis, El Khouri, Babakhan, Chedid)
* Italian: nil
* Maltese: nil
* Chinese: nil
* Vietnamese: nil
This is a representative selection of the population of Sydney/NSW? I don’t think so. Obviously the Lebanese, apparently led by the Mansour family, are getting a big look in.
oakeshott country (should we nickname you The OC?): Thanks.
Morris Mansour, the Liberal candidate in Lakemba is a regular Lib candidate. He was Lib candidate in Grayndler in 1996 (thanks to Adam’s website) and he contests every election for Ashfield council (unsuccessfully on at least the last 2 occasions).
His son, Phillip Mansour, is the Liberal candidate in Canterbury.
I agree with WSM about multicultural Sydney. Lakemba has 8.39% of population born in middle-east and Canterbury 4.47% born in middle-east.
The NSW Parliamentary Library produced a report showing “NSW State Electoral Districts Ranked by 2001 Census Characteristics”. The report uses the new electoral boundaries.
Warning the file is about 1mb in size.
http://www.parliament.nsw.gov.au/prod/parlment/publications.nsf/0/a9a7e65a4767e41aca2571cc000a4c5a/$FILE/CommentaryFINAL&INDEX.pdf
Oakeshott country, an interesting appraisal of The Dead Man’s performance from a Labor partisan. What is your opinion of Morrie ? By the way, what will you call yourself when Rob (eventually) is no longer the member for Port Macquarie? Do you suppose, one day, your country might become the country of the Australian Labor Party?
Apologies to those whose comments were held up in moderation – Politically Correct at 10.37am, Brad at 4am, and anyone else I’ve missed.
The OC is a Labor partisan from Port up North?
Can you even buy the Newcastle Herald up there? – let alone watch the 3 local commercial tv stations? The independent candidates in the Hunter Valley are buying huge blocks of tv advertising time.
If the OC is a Labor refugee in Oakshott country, no wonder he would try this futile attempt @ defending ALP members in the Hunter Valley and Central Coast against popularly elected Independent Mayors and Councillors running as Independent State candidates.
Firstly, Maitland is not a 10% swing required to defeat the unknown ALP candidate, since ALP John Price is retiring. What was the margin in 1999 or 2003? 1 or 2%? Blackmore has demonstrated his capacity to win a popular contest again, as he did as Mayor.
In Newcastle, Independent Tate certainly played the media game of potential ALP bride, and this can’t hurt him, but in the end he refused to turn up at the church. “Kindergarten teacher” style ALP candidate Jodi McOC will be trounced by either Tate or dumped former ALP member, Independent Gaudry, with the support of resigned former ALP life members.
As for Swansea, if the OC had been reading the local media he would have seen the Swansea bridge is still a major issue. Can you imagine a bridge on the Pacific Highway collapsing? Read the disturbing reports from the RTA! Coughlan is an Independent Lake Macquarie City Councillor, elected first in his Ward, and has the support of former ALP branch members who hate the Swansea ALP candidate imposed on them.
And don’t forget the general public in Swansea, who are wary of the ALP after 3 of them have had child sex scandals as elected representatives, and more as rank and file members. ALP takes on a whole new meaning as Australian Legion of Paedophiles in Swansea and Lake Macquarie City. And the Catherine Hill Bay development gives new boundaries to the extremities of ALP arrogance.
Edward StJohn is a bogan twat if he thinks the ALP will hold all these seats.
Hi David,
I think Iemma was the only one who had a chance of getting Labor across the line. He had impeccable right wing credentials, had been quiet in the ministry and had no major black marks. The rumour is that the other likely contenders (Knowles and Scully) withdrew when polling showed they were unelectable. The claims of tired, corrupt and incompetent would have been indefensible with either of them.
When he was first elected I thought he was Unsworth without the pizzaz. However, I think he has grown into the job and is the type of premier to win a fourth election. He does humble (he has a lot to be humble about) and “I am listening” very well. If he is reelected it will be interesting to see how he developes as the memory of Carr fades.
My fearless predictions for Port Macquarie: Oakeshott to get more than 85% 2PP (Adam must know what the record is), Labor to get less than 5% (possibly to come 4th behind the greens). If Labor wins the federal election, Vaile will resign from Lyne, Oakeshott will stand and win. I used to think he would do this as a Liberal and thus be in line for minor office but he may do it as an independent. In the subsequent bye-election for Port Macquarie, Labor will not stand a candidate and some sort of contest or deal will be done in the coalition.
The demographics suggest this should be an eventual Labor seat but the party no longer has an infrastructure after tacitly supporting Oakeshott for years. Many sea changers come from a Labor background but they feel that the sniff of sea air separates them from the hoi-polloi and they vote conservative.
I don’t know any records for NSW elections, alas… don’t tempt me into new areas of obsession, please.
In *federal* elections, the largest two-candidate majority in a House of Represenantives contest was 44.0% (that is, 94.0% of the vote after preferences), polled by Albert Thompson (ALP, Port Adelaide) in 1954. He was opposed only by a Communist. The largest two-party majority in a House of Represenantives contest was 35.8%, polled by Josiah Thomas (ALP, Barrier NSW) in 1910. The largest two-party majority for a non-ALP candidate was 33.4%, polled by Henry Turner (Lib, Bradfield) in 1966.
Adam,
The Parramatta Liberal party is mainly made up of Anglo-Saxon Aussies (including myself). We pre-selected John Chedid because he was the best candidate, not because of any Lebanese branch stacking.
Wasn’t the largest federal margin Beasley for Labor in West Sydney in 1929 with 86.5%?
Quite right – very slack of me to miss that.
My spies tell me the Liberals have preselected Ken Aldred for Holt. They must be quite mad.
Care to elaborate for those of us not from Melbourne?
Which probably indicates that, despite its slender margin, the Liberal Party will not be making a serious play for Holt.
I notice that Aldred has previously been the member for Henty, Bruce and Deakin. So in the unlikely event that Aldred a) has his preselected ratified and b) wins the seat, he would equal Billy Hughes’s feat of holding four different federal seats. I presume that is the record.
Ben – Andy Landy has gone to town on Aldred. He was disendorsed prior to the 1996 election. So I think it’s likely that this preselection will be overturned.
Jason,
Price defeated Blackmore in 1999 by 1% 2PP
Price defeated Geoghegan in 2003 by 8.9% 2PP
The subsequent redistribution has taken the ALP notional margin to 9.8%.
I agree with you that this margin wont mean a lot with Blackmore running again and Price retiring, but the interest will be which of Blackmore or Geoghegan comes second, and the preference flows from the 3rd place candidate.
I think we’d better take a discussion of Aldred to the federal thread – people from NSW will start to get annoyed.
Hi Evan
I think Prue will win Goulburn. Funny story, I believe half the electorate got to see daughter Kate and the other half were cheesed off at missing out!
Are the people of Epping going to vote Greg Smith?