A red-letter day for the psephological blogosphere, as The Australian responds with the full length of its editorial column to the barbs of the “online news commentariat”. At issue is the paper’s penchant for putting a rosy spin on the Coalition’s prospects each time Newspoll points to a big Labor win, which reached its apogee with Dennis Shanahan’s analysis on Tuesday. My eyes glazed over a number of times as I pored through the editorial’s dense thicket of self-serving assertions, but the pay-off came at the end:
A guide book recently published by one site demonstrates the extent of confused thinking on how the polls operate. A chapter by Mumble’s Peter Brent says two party preferred ratings are at the same time worthy but unreliable and that an Opposition Leader with a high satisfaction rating has no better chance of being elected than one with a low rating. He dismisses approval ratings and the preferred Prime Minister measure as “embroidery”. Yet the fact is when Mr Howard and Mr Rudd’s offices telephone The Australian to get advance warning on what the following day’s Newspoll will show they invariably want to know two things: The primary vote and preferred PM. Not properly understanding how polls work gives our critics licence to project their own bias onto analysis of our reporting. The Australian is not beholden to any one side of politics and recent election outcomes vindicate our treatment of our polls. So let’s not mince words. We just don’t think many of our critics have any real clue about polling and very little practical experience of politics.
The Australian – sober and experienced voice of reason, or craven mouthpiece of the crony capitalist military-industrial complex? I throw it in for debate.
UPDATE: Do jaws come any glassier? Yesterday, Dennis Shanahan’s blog post addressing his critics (“Cheers to all those who engage in the great, democratic and political exercise of freedom of speech – what do you think?”) was closed for discussion after 16 comments. Today, centre-left News Limited blogger Tim Dunlop’s post on the subject has mysteriously disappeared (please let there be an alternative explanation for this). Fortunately, Poll Bludger regular and occasional Greens candidate Darryl Rosin preserves it for posterity at Larvatus Prodeo:
Who says the mainstream media don’t pay attention to the blogosphere? This extraordinary story relates to this week’s Newspoll results and the way The Australian reported it. Peter Brent runs the excellent psephological blog called Mumble. It’s one of a number of blogs that run analysis and commentary of opinion polls, and others include OzPolitics, Possums Pollytics, and Poll Bludger. Yesterday, Peter Brent noted that he had fallen foul of some of those at The Australian …
The editorial is up this morning and yes, they do “go†Peter Brent. They defend themselves in the strongest possible terms and attack, specifically and generally, just about anyone who disagrees with them, particularly “Australia’s online news commentariat that has found passing endless comment on other people’s work preferable to breaking real stories and adding to society’s pool of knowledge.â€
There are a number of things to say about all of this. The first is that the editorial is as much concerned about charges of bias against The Australian as anything else … If bias is in the eye of the beholder, then there are a lot of “beholders†out there who think The Australian is biased, particularly in its coverage of polling data. The evidence for this is not just to found in the blogosphere but on their own pages where their columns and articles often fill up with criticism from their own readers accusing them of spinning information in favour of the Howard Government. In attacking the “online commentariat†they are also attacking a sizeable sampling of their own readership.
The latest bout of charges of bias were prompted by this week’s Newspoll and many people, including me, were struck by the way The Australian chose to cover the story. For instance, Bryan Palmer at OzPolitics wrote:
“When I first glanced at today’s headlines — Howard checks Rudd’s march — Kevin’s sizzle not snag-free — Howard finds fertile ground for support — I was expecting to read about a polling improvement for the Howard Government. What I found was a flat line.”
What’s interesting is that The Australian seems to believe that only they are capable of objectivity and they reject entirely any charge of bias. This is odd given that Chris Mitchell himself has said:
“Can I say something about The Australian’s contribution to the national political debate. It has made, as a newspaper, a remarkable contribution, I think back over the last 10 years that this government has been in office and I think of the positions taken by The Australian newspaper. It has been broadly supportive, generously so, of the government’s economic reform agenda. And it has been a strong supporter, consistently … of industrial relations reform. Its only criticism of the government is that it might not have gone far enough … I think editorially and on the Op Ed page, we are right-of-centre. I don’t think it’s particularly far right, I think some people say that, but I think on a world kind of view you’d say we’re probably pretty much where The Wall Street Journal, or The Telegraph in London are. So, you know, centre-right.”
It is precisely that “generous†“broadly supportive†“right-of-centre†tilt that people are responding to when they see Newspoll reported the way it was this week. For the editorial to deny that any such tilt exist seems disingenuous.
So I think the editorial is ill-conceived and way off the mark in singling out Peter Brent in the way that it does. His site largely confines itself to interpretation and in doing so, provides a great service. The idea that he can’t comment without the editor of The Australian ringing him up to say they are going to “go†him is disturbing.
Still, I think it is fair to say that News Ltd, including The Australian, has opened itself to comment and criticism from its readership more so than Fairfax, the other major news organisation. They have embraced readers comments and “blogs†more fully, and this site alone is evidence of that. So while most News news stories and columns allow reader comment, the same is not true of Fairfax. You can, for instance, comment on Dennis Shanahan’s and Paul Kelly’s columns, but not Michelle Grattan’s or Gerard Henderson’s.
But having embraced such an approach, they have to accept that not everyone is going to agree with them or buy into their particular take on a given issue or, indeed, their own self-image. The Australian is, of course, completely free to defend themselves, but it might also pay them to reflect on why so many people see them as the “government gazette†rather than just dismiss nearly all such criticism as “a waste of timeâ€.
UPDATE 2 (13/7/07): A column on the saga from Alan Ramsey in the Sydney Morning Herald.
164 Comments
The Australian can claim whatever it likes.
Statisticians on this and other sites have shown more astute analysis of the polls than the Australian ever does.
I actually think the Australian is missing the point,that they are appearing to be a mouthpiece for the Coalition,and their storylines are slanted to favour the Coalition.The Australian has been anti Rudd and runs negative slanted storylines or headlines against Mr Rudd,and has done so for a long time. What most of us see is that the Primary voting intentions for the upcoming elections has not had a significant decrease for the ALP since Mr Rudd took over the leadership.
I commend you for your efforts here.At least you will not close down comments after 16 replies!
The Australian’s problem is that unlike most other observers sceptical of Labor’s large lead is that they can’t simply dismiss Newspoll out of hand. It is, after all, their poll.
So instead Mitchell and Shanahan are stuck trying to invent clues from their own numbers to fit with their own partisan bent.
The irony is that they have the temerity to label the critics of this hackery as biased.
But this disingenuous distortion offends me not as a Labor voter, but as a thinking, mathematically literate person.
The fact that Rudd and Howard’s offices asked for the preferred pm stats does not render Peter Brents views on it as wrong. All it tells us is a couple of vain politicians would like to know how popular they are with the electorate. Thats a shock.
That appears to be their main defence, Rudd and Howard’s offices ask for the preferred PM stats. They don’t even make a counter argument on Peter Brents TPP observations nor the satisfaction ratings.
The editorial gives itself a pat on the back for picking early on that Latham would not be elected and suggests that their critics are the loudest when the heat is on Labor. Mumble was predicting Latham would lose from the time he was elected leader so i don’t know how their bias argument flys there.
It is eleven paragraphs of self servibg twaddle culminating in the claim that online commentators are out of touch with the wider electorate. This from a paper which failed to pick up the warning signs of trouble for the government which have been evident for eighteen months or so for anybody keen enough to notice. The fact that they have spent most of this time peddling the “invincible Howard” line shows a lazy paper with lazy and lousy analysis.
This is quite bizzarre. The Australian’s editorials have been very peculiar the past few months. There were the attacks on Clive Hamilton, followed by attacks on Robert Manne and now attacks on Peter Brent and Charles Richardson.
What on Earth is going on? Apart from Robert Manne (perhaps), none of these people are exactly household names. Why devote a whole editorial to criticism from them?
David Walsh’s comment is probably right. The Australian is in a bind because they get results from Newspoll that they don’t like so have to desperately scrabble to find some good news in it. They know what they are doing is pretty dodgy. Certainly to have devoted a whole editorial to it suggests they are feeling pretty sensitive about what they are doing.
The Australian is turning into an amateurish rag. I loved the comment “As a newspaper we don’t know who we will support at the federal election. ” Rubbish! Of course they are going to support the coalition.
Did you notice that today’s editorial is basically just a longer, more snarky, re-write of Shanahan’s pathetic column yesterday? As always, such editorials are anonymous, but it doesn’t take much to guess who collaborated on it.
I wonder what Tim “inside the tent” Dunlop will have to say on this?
Perhaps I’m just a bit too much of an optimist, but the editorial looks to me like the last hurrah of the Political Climate Change Delusionist Party. They’ve had their dummy spit at the opposition and with the next Newspoll they can settle down to something more like reality – hence the bits about “we don’t know who we will support” and “Kevin Rudd would make a good Prime Minister”. Perhaps they’ve started to get the message that the anger against them they talk about in he editorial is starting to turn to derisive laughter – and derisive laughter is not a good look to a paper that puffs itself up as a journal of record.
If the Preferred PM & Primary Vote are the only ones that matter, as the Oz claims, why bother with the 2PP, or anything else?
very sorry to have upset the diddums at news wewsy i will make sure that i will not upset the poor dears anymore as they are so sensitive
PIGS ARSE
Yesterday, my non political spouse saw the Australian’s clutching at straws headline and said “They’re sounding pretty desperate.”
Today, when given a quick rundown on the editorial: “Why do they feel they need to say that?”
I also like The Oz’s singling out of the electronic blogs for criticism, which ignores the fact that their own readership (in Letters to the Editor and blog responses) have been saying exactly the same things about the Australian’s bias and Dennis Shanahan’s desperate spinning.
One suspects that they have been building up to this outburst for some time. Finally they had to vent some spleen, and there we have it, culminating in this sooky editorial. Even today they are finding ways of having a dig at Rudd with respect to his announcements on supermarket pricing. They are basically saying Rudd is proposing nothing new. How strange … considering that in the Oz yesterday, the ex ACCC Cheif Alan Fels was saying that Woolies and Coles would be “nervous” about Labor’s proposals. Hmmm …. maybe Rudd is proposing something new after all ? Silly Billies, honestly.
The editorial says they don’t know who they will support at the election!
I know it’s a longshot, but I think it’s even vaguely possible they’ll support Howard.
Do they really believe this rubbish?
If the blogosphere is so discredited that it has no credibility, then why oh why does The Oz run so many blogs??? Are blogs only credible if they agree with the editorial line?
The real reason for the attack on bloggers by Chris Mitchell is the total and utter embarrassment The Oz face as they have become a laughing stock and amusement for most thinking people. If you cannot deduce the meaning that 56 is a whole lot better than 44 than there is no other option other than ridicule.
The only way to read The OZ, is as a sarcastic site with lots of irony which sends up the real news and real meaning of news. It is a laugh a day and provides plenty of entertainment value.
Do they really think of themselves as a serious newspaper with competent journalists? If they do, then they engage in a massive exercise of intellectual dishonesy.
It just gets funnier the more you read it. I am a big fan! Chris Mitchell should be made the Moomba King of Melbourne for best comedian this side of the Equator.
“..no Opposition since World War II has won government without two key indicators 12 months out from the election. These are that the Opposition Leader has a lead over the incumbent of at least five points on the question of who would make a better Prime Minister and the party has a nine point lead on a two party preferred basis.” Is this true and does it matter?
Poor dears.
Unfortunately for them, they have never had to be involved in flame wars before, so they obviously think their little editorial will shut everyone up.
Wrong.
They really don’t understand the fact that the new media is interactive and fairly immediate. You spout bullshit and people will call you very quickly.
Take a seat on a high horse, and pronounce yourself the real arbiters of truth, and watch your horses leg sink quickly in the mud of your own vanity.
In a few words, there little world is being turned upside down and they just don’t know how to deal with it.
Any chance of the Oz listing those articles giving unqualified praise of Rudd and his policies and derision on anything said or done by Howard.
“..no Opposition since World War II has won government without two key indicators 12 months out from the election. These are that the Opposition Leader has a lead over the incumbent of at least five points on the question of who would make a better Prime Minister and the party has a nine point lead on a two party preferred basis.†Is this true and does it matter?”
Bob Hawke wasn’t even the Opposition Leader twelve months out from the 1983 election – as Ironbar Tuckey likes to keep reminding his own party, he took leadership only a month prior to his election win.
For those interested, it appears that Tim Dunlop’s piece at Blogocracy has been pulled – at least it aint there at the moment.
Thanks to Possum via Road to Surfdom for the heads up.
“..no Opposition since World War II has won government without two key indicators 12 months out from the election. These are that the Opposition Leader has a lead over the incumbent of at least five points on the question of who would make a better Prime Minister and the party has a nine point lead on a two party preferred basis.â€
Am I interpreting this correctly? For a change of government to occur the the Opposition Leader has to have a lead over the incumbent of at least five points on the question of who would make a better Prime Minister and the party would need a nine point lead on a two party preferred basis at the twlve month mark before the election.
This is surely a joke.
blogocracys blog on all this has been pulled
so much for freedom of the press
I think this was the para that got Tim’s blog post spiked:
“I think the editorial is ill-conceived and way off the mark in singling out Peter Brent in the way that it does. His site largely confines itself to interpretation and in doing so, provides a great service. The idea that he can’t comment without the editor of The Australian ringing him up to say they are going to “go†him is disturbing.”
So, is the Australian saying that the better PM rating and 2PP only matter at the 12 month mark?
Does that mean that the twelve months before an election don’t matter at all? If that is the case (and I’m sure I must just be misreading it), The Australian should ask John Howard to kick a puppy or something, so they can prove their point conclusively.
Big Deal. They are mad as all it can to do is increase the readership of Crikey and co.
However I note the derogatrive stories in todays The Australian on Rudd’s plan to have the ACCC keep and eye on the cost of groceries. They are trying very hard to sink this initiative. Yet the data/statistics from other sources, published in other papers, makes it clear that food prices are a real problem and are worthy of investigation. How do these companies make record profits in a drought?
This is where the ‘conservative movement’ in Australia is heading, if the facts are bad then damm the facts and create your own reality by force of will (or bitchy editorial). A feature of the Bush presidency with faith-based policy:
http://www.slate.com/id/2095160/
Actually I still don’t get it. Why would The Australian be bothered with this anyway? It is not as though these alternative analysis have a national voice.
A good way to promote the blogocracy if you ask me – which would be a wonderful thing because we would all then get exposed to a myriad of views not just the partisan politics of murdoch type papers.
There was a time when The Australian was a highly respected newspaper.
The term “Glassjaw” comes to mind regarding “The Australian’s” petulant display. Clearly they don’t like being challenged whether it’s by opinion or much, much worse a few facts.
Here’s a few more facts that will expose the assertions by Sol Lebovic regarding 2007 vs 2001 & 1996.
http://www.ozelection2007.info/forums/viewtopic.php?id=94
I was initially quite concerned when Brent said they were going to go him. He isn’t paid to do his online stuff (bar Crikey) and a lesser man could have folded.
Needless to say my concern evaporated about 2 paragraphs into today’s Editorial. Rudd and Howard’s Offices want preferred PM therefore margin of error movement is more important than margin of error primary vote movement…? That is so outrageously specious I won’t bother with year 9-level English showing how farcical that is.
The real question we need to answer was: is it a prank or is it a mea culpa?
I love this bit from the ’slate’ link:
“…. if Bush and his administration “have a theory and a fact, and [the two] don’t coincide, they get rid of the fact instead of the theory.”
Sound familiar to me.
Ironically, Tim was saying that the fact News Ltd tolerates blogs like his is proof that they really ARE fair and balanced!
This is hugely ironic, given how Tim once spiked a totally harmless story from Daryl Mason at Road To Surfdom, and banned him from further posting.
Inside the tent, Tim? Really? I think it’s time you posted your resignation at Road To Surfdom!
The Oz’s editorial criticism of the online commentariat was rather more bitter than their editorial criticism of Saddam Hussein but Saddam Hussein never directly attacked their market share.
In terms of Possum’s Poll Wars this is Episode V The Empire Strikes Back.
I think BigBob is correct but The Oz editorial makes another mistake, by naming their critics they have identified them to a wider audience (as Oscar Wilde said “the only thing worse than being talked about…”
In my view this particular byplay is actually more interesting than the polls at the moment*. We are witnessing a part of a fascinating contest between traditional and new media.
Speaking as a lurker who has avidly consumed the recent online political and psephological commentary (and as someone who knows the odd thing about social science survey design and statistics) I would say I have been rather impressed with the average quality of that commentary and research (of course that average conceals a huge variance).
* By the polls are uninteresting I simply mean that I am calling the election. Only a big bomb, a small war or possibly a violent anti-APEC protest march fronted by Kevid Rudd, Therese Rein, Brian Burke, Dr. Haneef, Joe McDonald and Dean Mighell can save the government now and not even the High Priests of Newspoll can tell us whether any of those things is going to happen (I hope).
Gary Bruce, 9:25am
I’d say it wasn’t true for Bob Hawke… And if they want to attribute Hayden’s 12 month out numbers to Hawke, then it hardly matters that Rudd has only 11 months in the job — 10 more than Bob.
The Australian editorial criticises an online clique which it says does not represent the “mainstream” (meaning, I surmise, a middle of the road view unaffected by partisan and sometimes extremist positions advocated by one or other side of politics). That criticism is neither controversial or for that matter, particularly enlightening. What becomes “self serving” (to borrow William’s pithy expression) is that the opinion contained in the editorial cannot itself represent the “mainstream” because it does not acknowledge that the newspaper’s past reporting of Newspolls but particularly the headline banners and opinion pieces which accompany the reporting, have been unrealistically skewed in favour of the Coalition and JWH.
Should the daily drumbeat of ALP bashing headlines in The Australian help bring about the re-election of the Coalition, the editors and reporters involved only have themselves to blame when their press freedoms are further constrained by a Government that now knows it can get away with anything. No wonder journalists are held in such low esteem. They don’t even know who their enemy is.
Hell will freeze over before the good folks at The Australian turn against John Howard. Thank god for Fairfax: at least SMH/The Age is a little more balanced!
Imagine the headlines in the Aus if Rudd actually wins:
SHOCK ELECTION RESULT
ECONOMY HEADED FOR DOWTURN
EVIL UNION BOSSES ARE COMING FOR YOU!
I get much better political commentary on this site than the biased crap masquerading as supposedly objective News Ltd articles.
Gold! Thank you Australian for your contribution to the debate. However, you could have saved yourself a lot of money by printing it here like any other comment and using the editorial space in your paper for something else.
Kudos to the Australian they actually seem to want to engage with the public.
The Australian’s editorial says:
This is the affliction that has gripped, to a large measure, Australia’s online news commentariat that has found passing endless comment on other people’s work preferable to breaking real stories and adding to society’s pool of knowledge.
Which explains why I can’t find a single story on The Australian’s website about Senator Bartlett’s campaign launch on the weekend, which I covered here, and was also covered in detail by another Brisbane blogger here.
I too am not sure why they would give bloggers the oxygen of attack…if you hate someone who is much smaller than you, you ignore them, you don’t attack them.
Unrepresentative clique eh? Whereas the News coterie of Shanahan and Bolt and Ackerman et al are just plain talking outer-suburban battlers.
What does “representative” mean, in any case? Since when did we get to vote for journos anyway? Will we now get to vote for psephologists – thereby making them “representative”? And will they be barred from talking to each other in order to avoid cliqueishness? Will there be polling for those elections, and, if so, who will comment on those polls?
My head is spinning.
It’s worth noting that, quite objectively, The Australian points out that preferred PM is not a good predictor when Rudd is streets ahead, yet claims that it is crucial when it is close.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,21269816-7583,00.html
To be fair Martin, that is Peter Costello, not ‘The Australian’. And I think it’s fair to say he doesn’t sing from their statndard songsheet, given his pro Labor stance.
Whoops, Michale Costello. My bad
Freudian slip … Given Tip’s performance on 7:30 report last night, I could be forgiven for thinking he’s pro Labor right?
Another memory lapse for Howard…
http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/pm-slips-up-on-memory-test/2007/07/12/1183833643992.html
Why don’t the Australian do a poll on whose analysis is superior? Might not get the answer they want, I suppose.
“To be fair Martin, that is [Michael] Costello, not ‘The Australian’.”
Nonetheless, he is one of their columnists and they saw fit to print that analysis.
Or is there some way of working out which Australian columnists the paper thinks we should listen to and which we shouldn’t?
Don’t answer all at once…
Does anyone know how well OPPOSITION LEADER APPROVAL RATING corelates to primary vote of opposition party?
My guess is thath would be a more important figure than prefered Prime Minister.
Trackback:
http://larvatusprodeo.net/2007/07/12/the-government-gazette-fights-back-ii/
The Oz wants to force Labor to change its policies, particularly on IR. Thus it tries to argue that Labor is set to lose the election, but public opinion doesn’t support this. Hence the agenda of personal attack. This isn’t something apart from their IR crusade it is an integral part of it. It is all about maintaining capitalist property relations. Class power is the fundamental point here.
Far more reliable (and often more readable commentary) here. Possum and Bryan do far more detailed (and objective) poll analyses, so the Australian doesn’t add a whole lot to the debate.
I don’t care about the direction of bias (indeed, even Philip Adams admits a strong Left bias in the Oz of the 90’s) but it does obscure clear analysis.
The +10% ALP TPP seems not to be budging and may now represent some longer term voter intent. I strongly doubt that any one issue will shift this mood. The population seems warming to a change.
Recent gap closing on preferred PM may be due to either artifact or JWH being able to show some PM leadership whilst Rudd in opposition can’t. The indigenous action and recent terrorism reminds Joe punter clearly about incumbency as opposed to inexperience but probably won’t last.
Kevin is looking comfortable right now
Simon, trawl back through possum pollytics. It has some stuff on approval ratings and primary votes for both govt and opposition. Some good statistical stuff.
Martin. yeah there’s a pretty easy way. If they are pro-Labor or neutral, like Michael Costello, Adams or Steketee, you shouldn’t listen. My point was ‘The Aus’ doesn’t have to agree with everything their columnists say. They also quite clearly don’t feel the need to be consistent with their own previous (editorial) positions. e.g. Climate change
One of the longest and most hectoring editorials I’ve ever read.
The Australian clearly fears crikey.com, which has undermined its influence over the political class, and may in time become a more significant setter of the daily political agenda. Peter B has been caught up in the middle, but if all publicity is good publicity, I hope the notoriety bears fruit as his blog is always entertaining.
“They also quite clearly don’t feel the need to be consistent with their own previous (editorial) positions.”
And as has been much remarked here, either the March 20 Newspoll was “artificially boosted” or it was a reliable marker of the beginning of a trend. It can’t be both – but the Australian has claimed it to be both and never told us which interpretation is correct.
Commentators who value fair and truthful political coverage should also incensed by The Australian’s ferocious and relentless hostility to the Democrats since media mergers were blocked years ago.
Both Possum Polytics and Ozpolitics have graphs showing satisfaction ratings. Regarding the 12-month stuff claim, Newspoll was not polling in 83 according to Aristotle at Ozelections, so there’s only actually been one change of govt during Newspoll’s run; that’s certainly not a reasonable sample.
In 1996, Keating was the preferred PM near the election, but his satisfaction rating was very poor. I believe Possum has both voting intention and net satisfaction bias to PM in her model; on this Rudd is well ahead, with 60% satisfied with his performance, only 46% with Howard’s.
See 2007 vs 1996 graphs here:
http://www.ozpolitics.info/guide/elections/fed2007/polls2007/#tpp
Voters have not just stopped listening to Howard’s anti Rudd rants, but those in The Australian as well. Indeed, the more they’re ignored the shriller they become….and the higher the polls go in Labor’s favour.
Actually, it’s here:
http://www.ozpolitics.info/guide/elections/fed2007/polls2007/#1996
What the Australian has shown is its vulnerability to blogs and bloggers’ opinions. They can’t edit what we say and that hurts.
As a result of their editorialising, a lot more of their readers will go to the blogs and have their say.
They are terrified they are losing control of their agenda.
They have been used to being dominant as “Australia’s leading newspaper” and don’t like being exposed for all to see in the blogs.
Ultimately it matters not a whit whose side the Australian comes down on, the Australian people won’t be swayed by their nonsense.
Just take a look at the front pages of the Terror prior to the NSW State election. David and Piers and co did all they could to bring down the Iemma Government, together with the shock jocks, all to no avail.
They have much less influence than they care to admit.
Right now the polls are tracking towards a comfortable Rudd win.
It would take a double Tampa plus a 9/11 equivalent to stop the currently inevitable.
Tuckey is the only one with the courage to speak out. “The king has no clothes”.
Today’s Sydney Daily Telegraph highlights John Howard losing support in Sydney, particuarly amongst the so called “Howard Battlers”.
The Liberals said to be very vulnerable in Lindsay, Parramatta and Bennelong, Malcolm Turnball doing better in Wentworth.
Industrial Relations, the increasing cost of living, Howard out of touch/been in power too long, time for a change – main issues with voters.
That the Australian can, with a straight face, say that preferred PM 12 months out from a poll is a crucial predictor but that preferred PM 9 months or 6 months out is irrelevant is quite breathtaking.
Shanahan has taken a correlation from a very small sample set (are there preferred PM stats for 1948-49? Is 1982-83 relevant?), ignored false positives (1993) and asserted a definitive requiement.
Bad method.
No opposition leader with a repeated consonant in their surname has been able to win since World War II! ALP must dump Rudd now!
(And that’s why Fraser couldn’t just sit and wait for the next election…
Hi Evan,
Does the telegraph mention Macquarie at all? I was up in the Blue Mountains last week with the family, no-one had good things to say about Howard. Kerry Bartlett must be vulnerable here.
I agree with some of the comments here about the apparent fear that The Australian has with respect to the growth in the blogosphere and non-traditional media. This is obvious in having devoted their entire editorial towards painting the blogosphere as having no credibility. They feel threatened – BIG time.
But if they were only interested in objectively reporting the news, then there would be no reason to feel threatened. After all, they have much greater access to the resources required for digging up day-to-day news.
This, however, is not their main agenda. The reason why they feel threatened is because they are not so concerned with reporting news as much as they are in INFLUENCING public opinion. And this is where it has been plain to anyone with half a brain and a good set of eyes that The Australian is acting as a mouthpiece for the government.
But the growth in the blogosphere is threatening their ability to influence. For the first time, politics is being driven back towards the grass-roots, where ordinary people of all walks of life now have a more powerful voice than ever before. And The Australian hates this because it means that their stance, opinion, and agenda is not only being questioned but is being PUBLICLY debated.
And frankly, I think they are embarrassed. Often, it doesn’t take long for a resourceful blogger to dig up some facts or point out a previous article in The Australian to demonstrate that they are wrong in their claims, inconsistent, purely hypocritical, or just plain lazy and incompetent. We saw this yesterday with Possum Pollytics’ analysis of the relationship between “better PM” and “voting intentions”, which completely blew O’Shannessy’s (boss of Newspoll) claims out of the water, and with an analysis that was far more expert than O’Shannessy’s simplistic eyeballing of the data.
No, The Australian are “going” people like Peter Brent and services like Crikey, and most of the blog political commentariat it seems, because THEIR voice is being weakened and their integrity and skill in political commentating is being shown as weak, lazy, and mostly biased. Those who are interesting politics, which makes up a large part of their readership, are no longer relying on them. They are rapidly discovering the blogosphere, which is why The Australian has been keen to set up its own blogs in order to compete.
They are under pressure because they have to lift their game. But so far, they have been reluctant to do so. Instead, we are getting childish retorts and silly tit-for-tat games from what was once an informative and respected Australian newspaper. It has now become a joke, and today’s editorial only further highlights this.
When did Tim Dunlop’s blog entry vanish? I left a comment this morning, which was awaiting moderation. When I checked at lunch, the whole entry was gone. Methinks if even I got around to saying something, lots of other people would have too and they probably didn’t care to post the whole lot of critical comments.
I think many of the leftists here remain resentful over the admittedly conservative tilt of the nation’s most respectable newspaper. Notice there are no crows or howls over the pathetic Fairfax Press and the pro-Rudd / ALP headlines they spruik almost daily.
While don’t find myself in agreement with all of The Australian’s political reports, I thought that they made a very strong point when mentioning the fact that most of the online political commentary is clouded with leftwing bias. When the heat is being applied to the Coalition – this is ok. When it is being applied to Rudd / the ALP it is not.
One needs to look no further than the miserable (and laughable) cries of “push polling” when Galaxy published a poll showing improving government support last month. In March, when the media was examining Labor’s new IR “policy” and the party looked as if it was headed towards a complete meltdown as a result of buckling under pressure many were up in arms over the media’s alleged “unfair treatment”.
I think people here need to realise that it is not a crime for a publication to hold a different political viewpoint from their own.
A-C, I agree, it is not a “crime for a publication to hold a different political viewpoint”. They just need to be more up-front about it. The problem with The Australian is that they continually claim that they are unbiased when they clearly are not.
As for Fairfax, yes, they do run more positive stories about Rudd and Labor than News Ltd., BUT they also run quite a lot of positive stories about Howard and negative stories about Rudd. The Age, for example, seems to have a central-left stance, but frankly, I think they are far more interested in giving a voice to progressive and social justice issues than hitching themselves to one political party.
The Australian has hitched itself to the Liberals – they do not just give voice to a conservative agenda, they seem to glorify anything that Howard and the Liberals do and often play a BIG role in ramping up the government’s scare tactics and manufactured scandals without providing the kind of critical analysis that any dignified newspaper would.
Just done my midday (Perth time) comment moderation cleanout – a bumper crop from this post.
Noocat, The Australian admits it has a rightward tilt. What more do you want them to say? They frequently criticise the government from a rightwing perspective – hence their frequent articles and reports on taxation reform, government spending, the welfare state etc.
A-C I agree with the statement that it is not a crime to have a different point of view.But why would the editor of a National daily ring up the owner of a blog and tell them he was going to “go” them in an editorial.That is silly.
If as it states,it is not a supporter of either political party,then,when the Australian encourages feedback on what it journalists write,you have to expect a diverse range of expression on whether you agree or disagree with what is written.In this electronic age you do not have to take at face value what is written by that journalist as fact.They are not the definitive arbitrators of truth or opinion.You can research for yourself from independent sources and then make a more balanced judgement for yourself.
eg…If I a journalist and was to make a statement that voting for a Government means fuel prices would fall by 25%,houses would be more affordable etc,I would provide the data to back up my claim.But I would also have to take criticism(s) of those statements as well,from whatever sources that infromation comes from.If I give an opinion on something I have to be prepared for unfavorable criticism as well.Even if that criticism is sometimes vitriolic in it’s nature.
Ben C: I haven’t read anything about Macquarie lately, but I think Rudd was campaigning there last week.
BenC – Macquarie is a notionally Labor seat after the redistribution and with the high profile and repected Bob Debus as the candidate, I think that Kerry Bartlett is probably gone.
I havn’t discussed how newspapers report opinion polls for a while, as it’s pointless, however, the Australian’s interpretation of the latest polls was not a disinterested telling of the story on anyone’s interpretation. The facts were that the 2PP margin remained the same and in the preferred PM stakes, Howard went up slightly, Rudd went down slightly, with Rudd just ahead.
The most important measure here is the 2PP preferred vote, which remained at a historically astonishing high level for Labor. From the changes in the preferred PM poll, the Australian wove its strange story. I suggest that a disinterested telling of the poll results would go something along the lines of:
Howard slightly up, Rudd slightly down, Rudd just ahead in PM stakes – Labor retains a landslide winning result. While the PM has slightly improved his rating as preferred PM, although just behind Rudd, the ALP retains its large lead in the 2PP polls, indicating that the ALP would have won in a landslide if an election had been held last weekend.
http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,22061197-662,00.html
Going by this trend in preferred PM, then Howard in Shanahan’s own words, is stuffed.
I am only visiting this extremely self-indulgent thread once, and only to say three things:
* The Australian is a privately-owned newspaper and is perfectly entitled to present news and opinion any way it likes, as are all other Australian media outlets (except the ABC, which is taxpayer-funded).
* The Australian is not Pravda. It does not have a monopoly. If you don’t like it, don’t buy it. There is plenty of other media out there. I get nearly all my media online for free. (I buy The Age for the crosswords.)
* The sun is shining, birds are singing, and life as we know it will survive the evil Australian. Get over it. There are more important things to expostulate about.
A-C, I think you’re missing the real story re bias in the media, and that’s that Right-wing commentators tend to be less willing to criticize governments of the same ilk. Michael Duffy (of all people) ran a column on this last year. The same cannot be said for Left-leaning writers. Indeed, we on the Left have historically taken inordinate pride in our efforts to tear down governments that we broadly support.
And it’s not like the Howard government cannot be criticised from a Right-wing perspective (big government conservatism, middle class welfare etc), it’s just that I don’t hear those comments terribly often. However, you can bet that a Rudd government will be kicked by both Left and Right.
The thing that really got me yesterday was the critisim from the left of the article written by the head of Newspoll. I see more of the same attitude from the left on this blog. Who do you people think you are? The political editors of the Australian and the head of Newspoll would know more about polls, politics then everyone on this blog put together. Why?? Thats what they DO for a living.
There is a reason why they are the professionals and you mob are just…well amatuers.
You are right of course Adam but they can’t have their cake and eat it too, their are either proud competent journalists, reporting in a fair and balanced way on the news, or they are not.
This argument isn’t about their right to be one or the other, that is undisputed. It is the right of others to criticise and give fair public comment on which they are. Their willingness to consistently find good news for Howard in polls that point clearly and uneqivocally to disaster (ignoring one galaxy effort) for Howard entitles people to conclude it is not journalism, nor fair and balanced comment we are seeing, but advocacy and marketing.
Whether or not they are Pravda is quite irrelevant and if they were to have a real nasty go at someone, merely for forming and expressing an opinion in an open public political debate, it would be a very serious matter.
Frankly if that is a nasty attack on Mumble can smile and be relaxed and comfortable. But if they went further it would be a very serious matter indeed.
I am very comfortable being entirely unimportant and I don’t see how this thread is self-indulgent in anyway. The nature and quality of public debate in a democracy is quite important isn’t it? Isn’t anything that threatens open and fair discussion quite important for our country?
Marco,
twaddle.
So, they can say anything they like, no matter how outrageous and because they get paid to say it, then it is so?
If they “know” so much about polls, how come they make some really basic errors. Go see Possum’s site to see most of the garbage eloquently destroyed by the use of logic and statistics.
Further, if they are so right, why do they feel the need to attack a very small number of people in a National newspaper?
I would give you money to prove to me what political party Peter Brent, Bryan Palmer and William here vote for. Their commentary has been strictly partial for asa long as I have been visiting their blogs.
These are the people vilified by Mitchell et al, not the commenters – who can and do get carried away by their parochialism.
Again, twaddle, piffle and bunkum.
Marco Says:
“There is a reason why they are the professionals and you mob are just…well amatuers.”
That my friend is your opinion, and not necessarily fact.
It seems the staff The Australian have absolutely no idea that they are biased.
There have been times when I thought they did it under orders from Uncle Rupert, or from someone in the multinational News Corp hierarchy. But now I think Shanahan and O’Shannessy seriously believe the spin they give their stories, i.e, they are not conscious of their own bias.
And when someone like Peter Brent accidentally pricks their bubble with a shard of cold, hard reality, it stings. They think it must be malicious and politically motivated, because it hurts so much.
I ask you, in all honesty, how else could they be me making such arses of themselves?
I did not read The Australian’s editorial as referring to Peter Brent, Bryan Palmer or, for that matter, William Bowe. In my opinion, those individuals are indeed to be included in the “notable exceptions” even if the editorial did not expressly say so. On the other hand, the references to “on line news sites” and “self appointed experts” may well embrace the commenters who BigBob (correctly) says get carried away by their parochialism.
That Guy,
I wouldn’t include O’Shannessy in that group. I had a chat with him today, and he’s certainly no spinner from my perspective, and I don’t believe he meant to sound like he was cheerleading – it just turned out that way. The point he was trying to convey in that article was more about how we should watch for the PPM ratings possibly leading to a primary vote recovery over the next few polls, similar too but not exactly the same as has occurred with Howard over the last 3 electoral cycles about 6 months out from the election. It was just put awkwardly with his use of the word “presages†which gave the theory he was suggesting a certain strength he didn’t really mean to convey.
Dennis is a complete goose, but O’Shannessy is a different kettle of fish, and I don’t think you’ll see the CEO of Newspoll have another piece in the media that isn’t of the utmost clarity in the future.
News Ltd may own half of Newspoll, but they don’t own the other half.Newspoll spinning the observable reality they make a living from discovering, would be commercial suicide, just as it would be for Galaxy, Morgan and AC Nielson if they did it. I don’t think any of them are in the business of deliberately spinning piffle, just measuring reality and letting others do with it what they may.
I think we need to separate out Newspoll (and the other polling organisations) from some of the folks at The Oz (and elsewhere) that seem to make their living doing impressions of the Iraqi Information Minister.
In football terms I would call this a win to the blogoshpere over the Australian 3-0. Three own goals in fact.
1. The Australian identified the blogosphere as the target
2. They demonstrated a glass jaw so brittle that it shatters at the faintest suggestion of dissent from their narrative
3. they did not engage with the substance of the analysis conceding the issue on merits to the critics
“The Australian is a privately-owned newspaper and is perfectly entitled to present news and opinion any way it likes, as are all other Australian media outlets (except the ABC, which is taxpayer-funded).”
Commonly argued, but not true.
It is a requirement, by law that owners of broadcasting licences comply with the ACA codes of conduct which require that news and current affairs be reported fairly, accurately and impartially. Commentary must be carefully distinguished as such.
I don’t believe there is a similar legislative requirement for print media, but the APCs self-governing code of conduct makes similar statements so there is certainly a moral imperative for newspapers that profess to subscribe to these to comply.
Adam,
The Australian and particularly its poll analysis has an unwholesome influence on the political class and the tenor of public discussion, and while that remains the case, it is worthwhile to point out the flaws in their analysis – regularly and consistently.
However, we should acknowledge without hesitation that the same unhealthy obsession with irrelevant ‘beauty contest’ numbers permeates the Age and SMH. It is a general journalistic failing; Shanahan just takes it to extremes.
Given the barriers to entry in the newspaper market it is misleading to claim the Australian simply reflects what media consumers want and as well much of its income is derived from advertising revenue, the cost of advertising is a hidden GST on everything we buy. The journalists of The Australian (drunken buffoons also) misrepresent facts in the interests of pursuing their objective which is get the ALP to agree with the government on industrial relations policy and to a lesser extent foreign policy. Read the Sydney Morning Herald from the 1930s its editorials are very partisan but its reporting was objective.
Marco – if only the facts backed up your opinion.
Possum Comitatus,
I agree that a rise in Howard’s PPM rating just might herald a narrowing of the poll gap. It also might not. But it probably doesn’t make a difference anyway, as it seems the Opp Leader has to significantly behind before it really damages his Party’s primary. e.g, Howard’s rating some 5% behind Keating’s, only a week before the ALP was thrashed at the election in ‘96.
Just to be clear: I am not accusing newspoll of bias.
I am accusing The Australian of bias, even though everybody has bias. My only real complaint here is their angry and precious response to anyone who (like Peter Brent) dares to try and compare their interpretation of things to reality. My complaint is that it seems so petty as to make them look like a joke.
I completely agree with your view about the Australian, I was just trying to stop the poor sods at Newspoll from getting dragged down with Baghdad Bob and his dummy spitting editorial team.
The Newspoll folks seem to have been sucked into this silliness by the shenanigans at The Oz.
“Commentary must be carefully distinguished as such.”
So what they need to do is shift Shanahan’s zany Newspoll interpretations to the Opinion pages!
Adam,
I think bloggers have a right to defend what has been a rather infantile attack by the Australian on the ‘online commetariat’, as we are now known. I think the collective wisdom of all these blogs and their bloggers dwarf whatever knowledge Dennis Shannahan believes he has to impart, which I feel is minimal at best. Yes it’s self-indulgent, but ultimately quite fair.
One thing I hate about the Australian is their state political commentators.
The reason they irk me is they always seem to get basic facts and details wrong. It always troubles me when a political commentator gets the names of an electorate wrong. If they call someone the member for XYZ when they are the member for ABC or seeking selection etc and the commentator is getting the basic facts of politics and elections are wrong, how can we trust their analysis?
David Charles – if the editorial isn’t pointing at people like Peter Brent et al, then why do they refer to him by name in their reference to confused conclusions and statements?
And they’ll all be looking foolish when the Government is re-elected and they’re flapping around trying to explain how these ridiculous polls got it so wrong.
just heard from a source that tim dunlop has resigned from news ltd. due to them pulling his blog today.
Don’t be too smug Steven Kaye, the polls aren’t exactly pointing to success for your mob.
“Still, I think it is fair to say that News Ltd, including The Australian, has opened itself to comment and criticism from its readership more so than Fairfax, the other major news organisation.”
Above quote from Dunlop’s article before it was pulled illustrates how “open” News Ltd is.
Stephen Kaye, if the Government is relected it will not mean that the discussion here is wrong and it does not mean that the Australian has it right.
If the Government wins, it will be because there is a change from people’s opinions (poll results) to an actual act (election results).
The argument here is not whether the government will get returned, but rather the analysis that says notwithstanding anything else to the contrary, the ONE bit of information I choose to examine is THE ONE factor that can predict an election result.
In addition, the discussion here is about the response of the Australian to criticism (in a positive and negative sense) about their analysis.
Wow, big news on Dunlop if it’s true. Good on him for sticking to his principles and walking away. That kind of ‘editorial control’ by News is just appalling. If he needs help setting up his own independent blog I’m sure there will be plenty of people willing to help out.
If that turns out to be true I might block all News Ltd sites from my network. If enough people blocked them they would soon find out who feeds of who.
Does anyone know anything about the suggestion that Peter Macdonald intends contesting Warringah again?
im not saying that this is fact dario just this bloke works for news ltd. and is usually pretty correct in what he says. apparently in his words ” mitchell is going ballistic at the moment” waiting to get it confirmed
Adam please stick to your promise to post once. Enough already
Hmmm … this saga would make a good tip-off to Media Watch, if they aren’t aware of what’s going on already.
If Blogocracy goes it would be a real shame. Along with Matt Price’s blog it is valuable because, apart from Tim’s verve and productivity, the comments are obviously drawn from a slightly wider selection of the community than tends to inhabit more “specialist” sites like Poll Bludger or John Quiggin.
I dunno if I am the only one who thinks this… but I reckon the Govt. will engineer a terrorist incident of some kind during the ASEAN in Sydney.
A nice big bang in Sydney with some collateral damage and bingo JWH calls a poll and gets re-elected in a landslide.
We know that the only two terorist incidents in this neck of the woods (Hilton and Rainbow Warrior ) were the work of governmental agencies – so they’ve got the form.
“Albert Ross Says:
July 12th, 2007 at 8:44 pm
I dunno if I am the only one who thinks this… but I reckon the Govt. will engineer a terrorist incident of some kind during the ASEAN in Sydney.”
I’m anti-Howard but even I do not think he or any of it’s agencies would stoop so low.The backlash against him and the government should any form of attack occur would be enormous.The government claims it has the high ground on the handling of national security.Any “event” during Apec would undermine them.Remember JW Bush is going to be here as well.
Edward
ditto with spades
Albert Ross Says:
July 12th, 2007 at 8:44 pm
I dunno if I am the only one who thinks this… but I reckon the Govt. will engineer a terrorist incident of some kind during the ASEAN in Sydney. A nice big bang in Sydney with some collateral damage and bingo JWH calls a poll and gets re-elected in a landslide.
Albert that is rediculous- JWH may be many things but to suggest he would construct a terrorist stunt is infantile at best; He is no saint , who is, but that suggestion is just plain stupid. Move on… PS: It was viva la France people who sank the Rainbow Warrior, at least get that right.
My contribution to Denny’s latest blog. Of course, it won’t see the light of day. But it might here.
_______________
What do we think? What you tell us to, if past and current history is anything to go by. Comments cut and blogs disappearing. Gee, those pesky dissidents are tough to control, eh what?
I remember a debt truck that used to run around Australia with scary figures, around 1996. But I don’t see that truck any more. Maybe its just not as good a stunt now as it used to be. But it got attention back then. So will Rudd and its about something people want something done about. Even if he is seen to be doing something, as opposed to probably not doing anything in the long run, he is actually seen to be doing something more than a certain little Man of Steel has done over the past eleven or so years.
Face it Dennis. If Howard had come up with this, you would be writing about the ingenuity of it and how it will add a few points to the all important preferred PM numbers. Are we allowed to talk about that any more – dad told us we didn’t really know what we are talking about…
I agree with Adam – This is no big deal. Freedom of Press, Free Speech and Democracy in action.
The fact that Peter Brent could annoy them this badly should be taken as an endorsement of his power to sway opinions and speaks highly of the blogosphere’s influence.
Peter Brent should be proud of himself – it’s a big (backhanded) compliment.
Albert Ross said:
Someone make sure and remind me to ignore this guy if I accidentally reply to one of his comments some time in the future.
Albert i’m with you on that one, Howard and his war criminal, neocon mates have got form.
The only way the war criminal mouth piece Murdochcan keep his puppet Howard at the helm is to enginer such a catastrophy.
When rodents are cornered they will strike out in a dramatic way.
I looked up the Rod Sawford election formula tonight – his grandad reckoned if 2 out of 3 of inflation, interest rates and unemployment went up the government was toast and this formular had got every election right since 1961 meant for this year.
So I looked up CPI knowing unemployment went down and interest rates went up – Basically CPI was 2.4% annually when Latham went down and annually in March it was 2.3% – Costello predicted it would come in lower this quarter.
Basically the formula at the moment predicts a line ball result (given CPI is about the same) and if the CPI goes lower or higher (when the results are released in July) a Rodent victory/loss.
Who would have thought the price of cucumbers etc would decide it all? The vagaries of fate eh? So for all you one eyed Laborites etc start buying heaps of fruit and veg in spivvy suburbs of Sydney and Melbourne if you really eant to do your bit.
Well, what about the story on News.com.au that says dairy foods are likely to increase in price by a fifth or a quarter in the next 6 months:
http://www.news.com.au/business/story/0,23636,22063057-462,00.html
The Speaker,
This thread is about the way current affairs is being reported in this country. That effects politics, ergo it is a political issue. Media bias can make or break your chances in an election for one thing. It’s certainly no small deal.
Very silly formula EdStJn. So wages, wars, drought/climate are irrelevant and always have been.
Back to the topic of the day. We graffitists in the blogosphere delude ourselves if we think the ‘MSM’ generally or the Oz in particular care about blogs. The Oz’s dummy spit is part of its ongoing tussle with crikey.com, a commercial rival for insider-influence.
Peter B was caught up in this because crikey.com headlined one of his contributions two days back, in a way that was very unflattering of Shanahan/the Oz’s spin.
That the Oz won’t name crikey.com in its editorial shows they don’t want to give it oxygen or admit its jealousy.
What makes this most interesting is that the Oz is disappearing into a conservative haze; whereas crikey.com was primarily neo-liberal. Both will be battling for the entrails of the Liberal Party if/when the Howard government collapses.
But doesn’t the ALP go into every election campaign assuming that News Ltd. will be at best neutral, and most likely for the Coalition? This is partly negated by the support they get from some of the Fairfax papers, usually The Age. So does it really make a difference in the long run?
The thing that I find more startling is the fact Channel 9 has been such a strong supporter of the Government since 1996, yet that is rarely mentioned. People are much more likely to accuse the ABC of fostering anti-Government bias, whoever the Government is.
Graeme,
I don’t think this is some business savvy attack on crikey.com.au, nor is it a direct attack on blogs. It’s a flame at Peter Brent, because he hurt the feelings of their political editor. That he was hurt is pretty clear from his last blog entry on the subject. It’s a dummy spit, pure and simple.
I must concede that the Australian’s editorial defending Dennis Shanahan and the judgment of their paper and criticizing online bloggers was the funniest and most self-indulgent, hypersensitive opinion piece I have ever read. They must have very thin skins in that paper.
Obviously they can’t take objective analysis of their articles. Peter Brent, if anything, analyzes Dennis’s pieces with an amount of wry cynicism that is both very refreshing and on the mark. He’s not nasty or vindictive. The same is true of Charles Richardson (whom I notice they didn’t name)
The Australian was once a respectable broadsheet despite being owned by Murdoch. Unfortunately, ever since Paul Kelly was dumped as editor and confined to being an “editor-at-large” or whatever consolation position he is in now, it has well and truly jumped the shark. Even the Tele has more credibility than this paper and that is saying something
There is no question in anyone’s minds that The Australian is a right-wing newspaper. I think it’s generally accepted amongst the masses and taking a look into some of its articles will prove that for any literate person. They don’t know how to be objective, even when trying to give the impression that they are.
Fortunately, it’s an elitist paper that 90% of Australia does not read. But it would be awfully nice for the population to find out about The Australian’s silly antics in the past week.
PD1981, I have never really considered The Australian to be a very respectable newspaper anyway. At least the SMH does a good job at covering any bias and seeming objective.
Michael Proud – I look forward to reading the response to The Australian’s editorial which Peter Brent says he is now “formulating”. I have nothing more to add to my prior posts which (apparently) prompted your rhetorical question to me (12 June at 5:30pm).
Strop sez “It was viva la France people who sank the Rainbow Warrior, at least get that right.”
Indeed it was dear boy but the point that I was making, and it seems to have been lost on you, is that it was the security agencies of “legitimate” governments that were the perps of these incidents.
We have to remember that the “security” agencies have a real vested interest in maintaining the status quo here in Australia. They can all play at spooks, build their little empires, get draconian legislation passed at the raising of an eyebrow, get sh*tloads of money thrown at them.
And for what outcome? As today’s news revealed fully six years after the commencement of The War of Terror we are not checking the passports of incoming visitors against the Interpol database of lost, stolen and forged passports. The Swiss, it seems, are picking up 100 attempts a month to use dud passports at the border using a real time database look up. But for Oz – nah it’s too hard. So much for being Strong on Security.
And to draw that Strong on Security point out a bit it should be noted that Ford are ending motor vehicle engine manufacture in this country. Now I can tell you that it is almost impossible to find a toolmaker in this country and if you need a casting or die made you have a problem. The guys that are left are all getting old – in some cases very old. And without these sorts of skills in this country which are nurtured by the motor vehicle building industry we are going to be very vulnerable indeed.
Anyone seen the latest Newspoll state by state summary indications in the The Oz today? Labor miles ahead in 4 states, NSW primary vote over 50! Gilmore, Hughes and Robertson potentially gettable now?
Re: Consolidated Newspoll
On these figures I count the ALP to pick up 45 seats
16 in NSW
8 in Vic
14 in QLD
5 in SA &
2 in WA
Plus 2 in Tassie
Re: Phillip Coorey’s article in SMH?
“Another minister said the task was to convince one in 20 people telling the pollsters they will vote Labor to change their minds. That would produce a 10 per cent swing back to the Government and push it over the line.”
Actually, that’s simply not true – on a 2PP of 56%, convincing one in 20 would result in a 2.8% swing back to the Coalition – close but still not enough. To get the 10% swing back to the government, they would need to convince one in 6. The minister’s task is more than three times greater than they realise.
Timbo
surely you jest??
Labor leading 61-39 in N.S.W? If that was the actual election result, even my own seat of Berowra would be nearly going to the ALP.
I don’t believe it – the result will be much closer than this, but I think Rudd could pick up Parramatta, Macquarie, Lindsay, Dobell, Patterson, Eden Monaro, Bennelong(?), Wentworth(?).
In fairness, I think that today’s Australian’s report of the state by state breakdown has been presented without any attempt at spin.
In NSW Rudd would be aiming for Parramatta, Eden Monaro, Lindsay, and Dobell to fall, anything more would be an absolute bonus.
and Macquarie – knew id missed one
Possibly the tiniest of jesting going on,
but I’m still only going off what the figures say, a 12.2% uniform swing in NSW would yield 16 seats.
Won’t happen though.
Still Howard picked up 29 on 5% in 1996, So why the hell not.
I think what really stung Shanahan and Mitchell was Brent’s lead-in headline
“Great news for Howard:Labor to win in a landslide!”
Which at once summed up the poll, and ironically pointed to Shanahan’s desperate attempts to find something, anything, remotely positive for the PM.
Shanahan’s acrobatics have been something to behold these past few months, but this took the cake. It took me back to “David Copperfield” when he was summoned to the headmaster’s office. The headmaster’s address went something like this:
“I have news from your mother.” (pause, slightly raised hopes by David.)
“She is not well.” (pause.)
“In fact, she’s very ill.” (pause.)
“Very ill. In fact, she’s dead.”
No Grooski, you can’t claim both Parramatta and Macquarie. On the new boundaries, Parramatta is a notional Liberal seat with a sitting Labor member, and Macquarie is a notional Labor seat with a sitting Liberal member. Labor can claim one or the other as a gain, but not both.
Timbo,
Don’t forget Solomon, Tollner had a public rally last nigh 40 people were there, at least 20 were staff from either side and a few locals holding up the bar. (it was pay day and tollners forum was blocking the bistro at the home of the Mighty Tigers).
You could see he was looking a little edgy.
Adam, quite right – you have proven without fail that I really need another coffee
A weighty matter of the Margin of Error.
http://jackman.stanford.edu/blog/?p=255
All the experts keep telling us Labor’s vote has to go down a bit, but I don’t buy that. At the state level, Labor’s won HUGE landslides with 56%+ of the 2PP in SA, Vic, NSW and Qld. This implies that there are more people prepared to back Labor when they present themselves reasonably. At the Federal level, the Coalition hasn’t dominated like Labor at the state level, even when Latham was Labor leader.
Lord D, you can’t say that, it won’t sell newspapers.
That Guy: the point I’m making is The Australian couldn’t be bothered with bloggers. They reacted violently to a piece published on crikey.com, with whom they are in an ongoing tussle.
They then threatened to attack both Peter B and Charles R, but rather cowardly then only publicly attacked the fellow who is not paid for his writing, and did it sniffily in the guise of anti-amateurism. Why? Because they know he has less scope to retaliate, and because they don’t want to give crikey.com any more oxygen, precisely because as an alternative model of commercial/wide circulation journalism, crikey.com threatens the very essence of a broadsheet that has only ever existed to set the agenda.
Ironically, their thin skins about crikey only reinforces the point that upsets them: namely crikey’s influence in the beltway.
One thing’s for sure. If during the election campaign proper Howard puts on the same sorts of dithering performances like he has this week, then a massive ALP landslide of record proportions is not out of the question.
Looks like Tim Dunlop is definitely gone. No new articles on news from him today.
Timbo, your analysis of a 47 seat gain looks correct based solely on the Newspoll data. 107 ALP, 47 Coalition and Independents.
Losing almost half of your seats is an annihilation. But I suspect that this will not happen.
Of course, as Lord D points out, Labor can get huge 2PP votes at state levels, outside of WA, and so it is possible (if not feasible) for these states to do the same at Federal level.
K David Says: July 13th, 2007 at 10:48 am
LMAO. Thanks for that.
C’mon, the Oz is a giggle a minute. I loved that “Howard stops Rudd………” headline. Everyone reading the article and poll result’s would have nearly wet themselves. I love there ongoing defence of (dare i say it’s name) WorkChoices. When will they just stop all pretence and allow Christopher Pearson, Andrew Bolt and Piers Ackerman to take it in turns to write the morning headlines?
Anyone checked out Howard & Rudd’s Myspace pages?
Rudd has got over 2000 friends, Howard only 8 – Labor voters are more likely to be nerds/internet users?
Unless there’s a major terrorist attack in the next few months, I assume Howard and Costello will revert to their tried and true strategy of targeted bribes, personal attacks, and scare campaigns, no doubt aided by their mates at News Ltd/Channel 9. But, is it all too late? Maybe the horse has already bolted?
In all honesty it’s not the bias at the Australian that annoys me. I know it’s biased and find it quite amusing in reality.
What truly annoys me about the Oz is the utterly hopeless analysis of polling. It’s inept. That editorial is also inept, continuing the grand tradition of Oz ineptitude relating to analysis of public opinion polling and politics.
While the Pro-Howard headlines were unrealistic and poorly justified by the numbers, I think most people understand that the Oz needs an angle rather than saying ‘Nothing has Happened!”
It is obvious what the angle will be.
Spot on, melbalp!
It is as if the Coalition is trying to forestall panic in its own ranks, or those of donors, by spruiking dodgy figures that reflect double counting.
It’s a bit like telling the turkeys that Christmas is 11 months away. No wonder the Minister did not want attribution.
For the benefit of Coalition MPs reading this, here is a table that may come in handy.
Four columns:
A is the notional intending 2pp ALP vote
B is the notional intending 2pp Coalition vote
C is the percentage of intending 2pp ALP voters needed to change their minds to bring the Coalition 2pp to 50 percent
D is x, as in “one person in x is needed” to change their minds to bring the Coaltion 2pp up to 50 percent
A B C D
57 43 25 4
56 44 21 5
55 45 18 6
54 46 15 7
53 47 11 9
52 48 8 13
51 49 4 26
50 50 0 0
Ummm, Evan, sorry to burst your bubble, but Mr Howard doesn’t have his own MySpace page – in fact, very few Coalition MPs do, recognising it as just another silly gimmick.
For the benefit of all interested pollwatchers, here’s a little reality check on Newspoll’s state by state breakdowns.
http://www.ozelection2007.info/forums/viewtopic.php?pid=1635#p1635
As for Dunlop – good riddance! Why was News Ltd publishing his blog in the first place? Anyway, I’m sure the morons at Crikey will greet him with open arms – if they can run Alex Mitchell’s drivel, they’ll run anything.
here it is:
http://www.myspace.com/johnwinstonhoward
The reolies to bloggers are particularly good.
The ALP may well top its Qld figure.
Most states top was prior to 1983 but Victoria`s was not probably due to the DLP deflating the 61, 69 and 72 figures.
There is a myspace site for John Howard. But I’m pretty sure it’s a fake. It’s at http://www.myspace.com/johnwinstonhoward .
Ummm, Steven, he has a page for his whole government, and still only has 8 friends
http://www.myspace.com/howardgovernment
I got it slightly different Timbo, but almost the same. Not sure why, I used Bryan’s calculator.
Hope this spacing works: The 2nd and 3rd columns assume an equal move back to the Govt in each state of the size stated (on TPP):
Raw -2% -4%
NSW: 15 12 9
VIC: 7 5 0
QLD: 13 8 5
SA: 5 5 4
WA: 2 2 0
My guess is ALP will pick up 2 in Tas and maybe 1 in NT (any polling?)
Here’s another Morgan phone poll: 57.5-42.5 Labor from July 11/12 with 600 voters. Morgan has undecided’s at 3.5%.
http://www.roymorgan.com/news/polls/2007/4187/
Due to small samples, it’s better to average the last two Morgan phone polls; that gives a sample of over 1200, a Labor primary lead of about 48-36 and a Labor 2PP of about 58-42; great for Labor!!!
Richard Farmer has a list of seats that would change hands given the latest Newspoll – good article.
http://www.crikey.com.au/Politics/20070713-Bennelong-gone-and-Kooyong-now-marginal.html
Black Jack,
Can you please explain how you derived those figures, for example by using 55-45. I would have thought that to get this back to 50-50 would have need 5 out of 55 to change their mind. That is 1 in 11 or 9%.
Am I missing something?
I think Martin’s correct.
If anything, this little episode with the Oz tells us that bloggers can make a contribution to public discourse, and can call out the egregious asshattery of spinners like Shamaham. This saga has been widely documented across the Australian blogosphere, and I think the political and psephological bloggers (such as Mumble, Possum, OzPolitics, and the present site) are to be congratulated for offering opinion and analysis far superior to that peddled by NewsLtd’s partisan hacks.
Kudos to all: Bloggers 1, The Oz, 0
Taking average of these two early July Morgan phone polls vs average of two early June ones has Labor up from 45 to 48 primary, Coalition down from 40 to 36. On 2PP, Labor goes from 55 to 58. It’s yet more evidence that Labor’s primary has increased since June, and also evidence of loss of Coalition primary, though that is yet to be verified by other polls.
Joins Mr Speaker in not responding to the ‘Howard to bomb APEC in terrorist plot to win votes’ conspiracy theorists, Envy you surprise me in joining that club. Whatever floats your boat, but that one is already sunk in my mind.
I will send details of this to media watch. Hopefully they will do a story on this, as it is a disgrace.
A column on the saga from Alan Ramsey in the Sydney Morning Herald.
Kooyong becomes Marginal, and Higgins falls to ALP.
With the performance of the ALP candidate in Higgins Costello is safe, while Pedro is a no show type of MP the very sort whom would be in trouble if the electorate went into meltdown
the other Victorian seat that caught my attention was Dunkley, I would expect Bruce Billson will be returned for he is a good hard working local member and the local ALP is somewhat a joke.
Aristotle – thanks for the reality check. I
I don’t quite understand invoking the claim that ‘Labor has only twice been elected from opposition’. Is it a caveat that these ‘records’ are based only on two samples and hence relatively meaningless? Or that governments since about the 1920s have been very stable – existential crises (depression, world war) aside – and so we should realise that changes of government are v.unusual?
It is equally true -but rarely noted – that the Liberals have only twice been elected from opposition: 1949 and 1996 (Fraser was caretaker PM in 1975).
If we need comparative hurdles, why not look at state results? There we find a similar incumbency advantage across the century, but have a much better range of instances where oppositions have won, especially Labor ones, and we find a much greater spread of results. I accept the caveat that Labor is more attractive at state level due to focus on services, and less so at federal level due to focus on economy/security, but that configuration is largely a recent artefact (certainly the withering of state powers).
The under-researched question is why such an incumbency advantage? The staple explanations are a relatively prosperous and benign social/economic environment, breeding a ’she’ll be right’ attitude, plus the professionalisation of politics. A deeper explanation, needing some deeper research, is simply that compulsory voting brings out the apolitical govt supporters who otherwise would not vote.
If I’m right, compulsory voting reinforces the status quo, which by historical accident as much as anything, has been conservative federally and Labor at state level. And if that is right, Labor’s araldite commitment to compulsion is not a partisan benefit to it, and conversely the likes of Minchin do the federal Liberals no favour in opposing compulsion.