I’m hearing it, but not quite yet believing it – Labor’s Newspoll lead has apparently widened to a breathtaking 59-41 (from 55-45 last time). Details to follow as they come to hand.
UPDATE: Kevin Rudd’s lead as preferred prime minister has increased from 46-39 to 48-37.
UPDATE 2: Comments thread rumours tell of a Labor primary vote of 51 per cent, against 37 per cent for the Coalition.
659 Comments
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I remember the libs winning control of the senate and their “graceful” behaviour.
McGauran of “horse flu” fame showed the opposition members the finger as the Work Choices legislation was rammed through the senate.
Isn’t that the brother of horse flu guy? You know, the one that jumped the sinking National Party ship to become a Liberal.
Yep, that is indeed correct. Talk about backing the winning side
I’m not calling the election, Glen. I’m interpreting the polls. That’s what we do on this site, isn’t it?
On the issue of Opposition Leaders’ inexperience…I think Latham was a classic case in point. You could also make a case for Hewson.
But there have also been quite a few Opposition Leaders who DID have ministerial experience, who lost elections. Good examples are Kim Beazley, Andrew Peacock and John Howard (initially).
Steve Bracks and Neville Wran are good examples of successful Premiers who came to power in a short time, with no ministerial experience (though they certainly had talent).
It’s hard to generalise. And many on this blig have made the obvious point that no government would ever lose an election, if experience was the key criterion for election.
with some funny irony, I suspect the Nat’s wont do as badly as the Liberals, in both the last Victorian and NSW state polls the Nats did quite well.
i checked out the booths in grey,a lot of towns vote liberal 60%+
i think at best grey could become marginal liberal, as an electorate grey could do with some pork barreling, neither party has spent much money in it
howard is not popular with the local’s whether that converts to labor votes only polling day will tell
Simon it doesnt take a genius to see that most Labor supporters on this blog have begun to get extremely cocky about the supposed Rudd ‘victory’ this year…it may come as a surprise Simon but ive been saying this longer than Downer has…
The Liberals were not cocky about wiping the floor with Labor in 2004 whatsoever Arbie and i can attest to that…hubris is a deadly sin and one that many Labor supporters on this blog should be warned about…
The election is by no means over no matter what Mr Rudd may have you believe…there is something truly wrong with this country if when on a day when the June quarter national accounts were released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics today showed gross domestic product (GDP) grew 0.9 per cent, seasonally adjusted…and yet the Government is still behind in the polls…i wouldnt be expecting a whole lot of economic reforms to come out of that ‘master mind’ Wayne Swan if Labor wins he’ll be the laughing stock of question time lol.
Blig not blog! And Julian not Peter McGauran in the Senate.
Glen,
Wayne Swan is already a laughing stock, the MP for Lilley will no Willy
“Global Warming” is not really an issue in the forthcoming election (whenever that is finally called),since both parties have “got the religion on climate change,” so to speak.
The world hasn’t been warming for the last 50 years or so, if anything it’s probably been cooling. But who cares! Warming makes a much better media and political story.
Carbon dioxide is not a poison, it’s actually essential for human life, and tree life if it comes to that, and an increase in carbon dioxide levels would actually be good for most of us on this planet.
I’m sorry to see that JWH has succumbed to the media and grant-driven hype ( by self-interested so-called scientists) about the issue of “how bad the western world is in creating all these catastrophic greenhouse gases” . Still I suppose that’s not really so remarkable, as all politicians are fundamentally poll driven, regardless of what they actually think!!!
Are you in the poll, Brother?
King O’Malley’s great election clarion call to the miners of Tasmania’s West Coast was “Are you on the roll, Brother?”
Well, on further number-crunching, it would appear that over 1 million Australians have been polled by the pollsters in the last 10 years. That’s about 1 in 12 voters.
Were you in the poll Brother?
Howard has been calling Rudd cocky, and accusing him of hubris since at least May. It’s a common tactic used by P.M.s when they know there government is sinking.
They certainly were cocky, so cocky that they shoved WorkChoices through the parliament without any consultation. That cockiness is going to kill off the government.
This is simply going to lead to more inflation, and another interest rate rise either in October or November. This statistic simply demonstrates the fact the government has wasted billions getting re-elected, instead of investing it wisely in areas that would increase the capacity of the economy. THis is the standard Tory approach, they don’t actually ever have a plan for the country, their only plan is getting re-elected. That sort of do nothing Fraser / Howard approach works for a few terms, but eventually people want better.
More Howard and McGauran consequences.
“FOR the first time its 150-year history, the Melbourne Show will be without horses because of the equine influenza (EI) outbreak.”
and
“Although EI is rife in Queensland and New South Wales, it has not yet spread to Victoria, where it could threaten the Spring Carnival featuring prestige races like the Cox Plate and Caulfield and Melbourne Cups.”
The Melbourne Cup has been run through two world wars, depressions and recessions if those scumsucking, sleazy, sly souless d*ckheads in the lib party cause the Melbourne Cup to be cancelled for the first time ever I will be seriously p*ssed off and will start actively campaigning against this mob of incompetant a*seholes.
Glen you don’t think I was being cocky with my 9.25am No321 comment do you.
Howard should cheer up, he will get to break some record at least. Not the longest serving PM, or the first PM to lose his seat, but the greatest ever defeat. LOL
Centre i didnt say all i said most so i didnt mean to target you per say Centre…but your 514 post id have to say that some hubris was on display there…
Funny how Rudd doesnt have any plans for the future…the Tory approach is that ‘its the economy stupid’ unless you have a strong economy you can’t spend any money on health, education or infrastructure…the Socialist approach is to make outlandish proposals and spend all the money the Tory’s have saved and bankrupt the country with poor economic management….Ha people want better…how can they get better with Labor…more unemployment…higher interest rates and higher inflation that’s all the Australian people will get more of with our nation being led by one party!
Centre,
Or even worse, the man whoconsigned the L-CP to the scrap heap!
arbie
sbs news showed a trainer in albury whose’ horseys had the flu
bye bye to the Melb Cup last of the aussie institutions to be buggered up by these oxygen thieves
seems all J-HO wants for his legacy is scorched hearts and minds
right bastard if you ask me
We Sandgropers have just had our turn to watch the Julia and Joe show on the 7:30 report. I can’t understand why Joe Hockey is not called on to say what is planned for Nick Minchin’s promised next wave of work place changes. I don’t see a lot of television, but I don’t recall anyone from the Government saying that more significant changes are not planned if they win another term.
Glen, any chance that your statements could be comprehensible (re-read the first line of #515) and not merely repeat the stuff you`ve been coming out with for months (higher inflation etc.) ? Might find you save a lot of space.
Gillard implied it. Look for some attack adds quoting Minchin during the campaign.
The Liberal candidate for Makin is a guy named Bob Day who is a founding member of the H.R. Nichols society. He things it is perfectly OK for juniors to be paid $4 an hour.
Boll i wouldnt expect a socialist to understand the approach of Tory’s…so it doesnt surprise me you dont understand that you need a strong economy first before you start thinking about spending that money…
The only socialists in the Australian parliament are the Greens.
But Simon i thought Rudd said he was a Christian Socialist???
Wasn`t talking about the Tories, Glen, nor the economy – just your often repetitive, sometimes incomprehensible posts.
When you leave that crap out, you`ve often got very pertinent comments to make.
When ever you see Hockey try and defend Workchoices it’s like watching him eat a shit sandwich.
Labor has never been a socialist party, it has always believed in capitalism, but with the hard edges knocked off. Initially this involved extensive market and industry regulation, but later it was realised that the a greater reliance on the market, and competition can be useful.
Painting the party of Hawke and Keating as socialist is comical, it’s a rhetorical tactic that bares little relation to reality.
Rudd was simply expressing the fact religion shouldn’t simply be used as a tool by reactionaries to descriminate against minorities. Rudd is sick of the idea that only conservatives have “family values”, and opposes the idea that progressives were all delivered by storks.
That makes perfect sense to me.
Malcolm Makerras has got it right. Workchoices was never raised in the 2004 election and then it was dropped on the public and it goes to one of our core values – job security (whether its reality or preception). Workchoices is not like privatising Telstra or similar. It is what brings in the $ to the household and combine that with rising interest rates and whamo! It is just so easy for the ALP to argue, you weren’t told about WC last time, what will they do this time with your job security? But Kevin hasn’t just relied upon this line, he is out there saying what he is going to do, accept responsibility (the buck stops with him unlike JWH). Thats why he has maintained his 10 point lead (now 18 and pinch me!) – he isn’t Latham and now the people are comfortable with him (and going to a strip joint helps even further!). Rudd is the family man with christian values whilst Gillard is the aspirational young woman – a good team and they are reasonating with all demographics.
Have said previously that election will see 53-47 2PP, will now say 54-46 and JWH will become the second PM to lose his seat.
Arbie
Anti-Howard rants don’t add substance to the experience debate you bought into. It really doesn’t matter whether you think “Howard’s Experience” is good, bad or ugly. This is irrelevant to the proposition, which was:
Incumbency brings with it political advantage particularly when an opposition is in opposition for a long time and has shadow ministers with no experience.
Arbie, you don’t decide elections. Nor do most people on this site. We are political tragics who know more than one minister in government. Joe Average, the swinging voter decides who gets power and can (and has) been convinced to stick with a government (even one it hates). Queensland did it for Beattie in 2006 and NSW did it for Iemma in 2007, Australia did it for Keating in 1993, Victoria did it for Kennett through most of the 1990s.
I have said all along this thread that I don’t actually think JWH will do it this election (at this very early stage) but I wouldn’t count on states like WA swinging Labor just yet, if only because of the incumbent effect.
Now many have railed about how evil Howard is here and how shocking his experience is but you’ve missed the point entirely. The ones that hated Beattie last year (for Hospitals, Energex, Rail, Road etc etc) that swore to take him down, “Baulked at the troph” and let him in.
Interviews afterwards in the Courier Mail to explain it simply said, “no credible opposition”, “untested”, “what if they stuff it up worse”. These all reveal an incumbent effect.
Glen, sometimes you are hilarious. If I thought for one nanosecond that, if the coalition wins on election night, you wouldn’t be rubbing it in the faces of many a poster here I’d take your comments on winning with dignity seriously.
David -510 – I try not to feed trolls. However, please post with references, including explaining in full why thousands of scientists and more than a hundred, if not hundreds, of organisations, are incorrect in believeing climate change is occuring. If you don’t have anything to add beyond what most here have probably already read at wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_change_debate
I’d suggest you’re wasting your and everyone else’s time.
Generic Oracke,
Victorians did not “stick with” Jeff Kennett for “most of the 1990s”. They “stuck with” him once, in 1996. They removed his government in 1999 and they have never looked back.
Housing Affordability is always, I find an interesting premise and Australia is perhaps the only developed country in the world that more or less sees this as a “right”. Europeans just don’t understand our entitlement mentality with land acquisition.
I am certainly perplexed when they blame governments for housing issues. Australians did it to Keating in the 1990s when house prices went DOWN and now to Howard when house prices go UP. I think the main issue is that Aussies always want to be able to move on housing NOW.. not have to wait. It is not a hard one, really..
1. If owning a home costs more than renting, then rent until it doesn’t.
2. If renting is more expensive than owning a home then try buying one.
3. If you are really smart, buy two cheaper houses, rent them out, then rent yourself a really cool house with the extra money/Tax savings and you also have two assets not one fat liability! ( A very NON Australian dream)
Ironically, there is a party that has suggested:
1. Tax breaks for first home buyers (like investors get) which would save a family $96 a week on average and cost 2.5 billion over 5 years.
2. Fairness for workers with Penalty rates back in, public holidays, redundancy and meal breaks but leaving the unfair dismissal laws as is to help out small businesses (and no changes to union rules under WC)
3. Killing predatory pricing and the squeeze of supermarket giants
4. Making banks accountable for outrageous fees.
Sounds like a party that might make it easier for all kinds of households to manage housing affordability a lot more sensibly!
Actually Chris Curtis the people of Victoria didnt remove him from power the independents did Kennett in when they said they wouldnt support his minority Government…
Now we have a reject as our Premier…wow we sure havent looked back eh…
Chris Curtis
Actually, overshot my experience there (you can tell I’m not Victorian!) Sorry, I thought he survived two terms!
Personally, Ill be winning with as little dignity as possible.
Viz, legless, possibly wearing a toilet seat, running naked through the streets yelling etc.
Waking up in park optional.
Generic Oracle – the thinking man’s Glen.
Did anyone else notice that the PM looked too relaxed today despite the poll results? Methinks that he will be stepping down for family/health reasons soon after APEC.
Glen,
Nice of you to finally admit that the Libs under Howard have swung to the hard right. If Menzies had wanted the Libs to be far right wingers he would have name the party after the Conservative Party in Britain instead of naming it after Britain’s Liberal Party. Menzies would be mortified to hear his party call Tories by anyone who supported the party.
Glen, if your man Howard was leading 59-41, I bet you’d be crowing loudly and attacking Rudd supporters. The most arrogant people tend to be members of the Howard government – it’s that “born to rule” mentality.
Not all Laborites are getting cocky! I’m heartened by the polls, but I’d never underestimate the capacity of the rodent to find one more political wedge or mount the greatest dirty tricks campaign ever.
Generic @528
“Interviews afterwards in the Courier Mail to explain it simply said, “no credible oppositionâ€, “untestedâ€, “what if they stuff it up worseâ€. These all reveal an incumbent effect.”
actually i think you meant incompetent ala debnam et al
incumbency is great when their is no credible opposition other than that it is fallacious in the current tumult
i actually think some marginals eg dobell will stay with the libs but some ‘blue ribbons” will fall so in part i agree with some of your analysis but the mood is there and actually the “aspirationals” are going to bite the libs on the bum
Fulvio
I did laugh! … though I’m not sure I want the “honour”, nor would Glen want the competition, LOL
We’re not back on the shadow cabinet with no experience again, are we? This is a very dead parrot.
* Shadow cabinets almost by definition lack experience. If we accept this logic no government would ever change.
* Being a minister isn’t all that hard – lots of people with no experience do it perfectly well. Being a union secretary is just as good training to be a minister as being a lawyer or a farmer is – in some ways better.
* There is no way of knowing in advance who will be a good minister and who won’t.
* The current shadow ministry is no better or worse than any other. I know most of them at least slightly, and some of them quite well. A few are brilliant, a few are dopes, most are average folks.
* In any case, the voters couldn’t care less – 80% vote for their party regardless, and the remaining 20% vote for or against the two party leaders. The floaters, who decide every election, couldn’t name either the ministry or the shadow ministry to save their lives.
This issue won’t fly no matter how many times you rattle its cage.
Gus
Well, yes, I think I agree with you. In the current Federal sense, we have a very real (and I think great) option for an alternative PM in Mr Rudd, so it is not the lack of credible opposition with Kevin’s case.
However, in Australia we do get Labor/Lib migration over time. In the 90s, we had fairly solid coalition support from voters for their state governments. For aspiring Labor politicians, the place to go was Canberra.
Now, we have the reverse. If you really want a tilt as a coalition, you go federal, so finding the quality candidates you need to challenge the Premiers is difficult. Again, add to this incumbent effects and you really have a hard job breaking in.
If Labor begins a new Federal reign with Rudd, then I’d expect it to become easier to topple the states with coalition governments.. Aussies (particularly Queenslanders!!) like this polarity in their governments.
I remember the libs winning control of the senate and their “graceful†behaviour.
McGauran of “horse flu†fame showed the opposition members the finger as the Work Choices legislation was rammed through the senate.
Arbie Jay 501
And I recall that arrogant bullyboy arsehole John Moore’s behaviour on the ‘96 election night in the ABC tally room. It accurately forewarned the nature of the new Howard government.
Personally, Ill be winning with as little dignity as possible.
Viz, legless, possibly wearing a toilet seat, running naked through the streets yelling etc.
Waking up in park optional.
Lefty E 534
LOL. You will not be alone.
Glen, you seem to have a problem with Brumby because he once lost an election to Kennett. (Now we have a reject as our Premier…wow we sure havent looked back eh…)
What do you think of Lazarus with a triple bypass?
Have you got any idea what you are arguing or do you just write the first illogical thought that comes into your mind?
Lefty E: I’ll have to stay very sober on the night of a Rudd victory, so I can actually believe it’s happening. OK, who am I trying to kid? I’ll be completely plastered HA HA
Pauline…
Brumby is no Howard…
Howard would have given Hawke a good shake in 87 had it not been for that idiot Joh! Also Howard had been a Minister and Opposition leader for longer than Brumby was before taking over…i rest my case.
Baz (529)
There are many skeptics about global warming. You might care to logon to some of the following sites and actually read them. That is if your mind is not already made up.
http://www.oism.org/pproject/s33p36.htm
http://www.friendsofscience.org/index.php?id=3
http://www.stanford.edu/~moore/Boon_To_Man.html
http://mysite.verizon.net/mhieb/WVFossils/ice_ages.html
http://www.uoguelph.ca/~rmckitri/research/WegmanReport.pdf.
I could give you a a lot more!
The Oregon Petition was signed by over 17000 scientists, doctors, professors, PhD’s etc, who disagreed with the proposition that man-made emissions of carbon dioxide were likely to cause catastrophic consequences in terms of temperature increase, melting glaciers, sea level rises, etc. i.e. the litany of the Al Gore clique.
Who knows? Al Gore and his followers (mostly other politicians, media people or pseudo scientific people looking for a research grant) might be right. On the other hand they could be perpetrating the greatest scientific fraud since the “discovery” of the Piltdown man!
David
He gave it as good a shake as he could, and promptly lost by 24 seats.
And don’t forget his time as a failed treasurer in the failed Fraser government.
Your case always rests very quickly as you never finish the arguments to their logical conclusions. You usually bail early and never concede when you lose. In any case your argument is purely based on bias and tribalism as a Howard Hugger and not on the logic of whether someone who has lost an election or the leadership can be an effective leader. Remember Kennett and how many leadership and elections he lost until he finally won. Your argument is so weak you can drive a truck through it.
No more global warning please, unless directly relevant to the election.
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