Adelaide’s Advertiser newspaper today carries a slightly curious poll of voting intention in Boothby, held for the Liberals by Andrew Southcott on a margin of 5.4 per cent. Conducted by phone from a sample of 649, it shows Southcott leading Labor candidate Nicole Cornes by an improbable 49 per cent to 32 per cent after distribution of the undecided. No two-party result is provided, but commenter Matthew Sykes has transcribed the paper’s large volume of generally unilluminating data from the poll throughout the previous comments thread. No doubt the Advertiser’s pollsters do their best, but my mind is drawn back to the final week of the state election campaign last March, when it ran a poll showing the Liberals neck-and-neck in Norwood and set to retain Hartley. Labor went on to win the seats with respective margins of 4.2 per cent and 4.6 per cent.
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Advertiser Boothby poll
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516 Comments
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#Adam 24
Again i agree with you.. National swing and local politics mean nothing. Nonetheless if Southcott does win by a handful of votes than in a small way it would mean something.
Cornes should never have been preselected in the first place, she is a five minute drip.
Joins the party and then becomes a candidate and why because of the name Cornes.. Her ideas and knowledge mean nothing. Another Kirstie Marshall i am afraid… feel sorry for local branches.
Hope Rudd runs with this.
ANZ Bank chief economist Saul Eslake says the Federal Government should have made better use of the revenue it has made from Australia’s resources boom.
Mr Eslake has addressed the Australian British Chamber of Commerce and told the gathering the Government has spent or given away almost every single dollar associated with the windfall gains.
He says it has put upward pressure on interest rates and the money should have been used to address some of the national issues.
The only problem i have is what exactly are those national issues…as Eslake is another economic rationalist who i think wants a deregulated labor market.
37
Adam Says:
September 26th, 2007 at 4:27 pm
I am indeed very tribal, AC, and make no apologies for it. If Howard Hater wants to get rid of Howard, he/she has to get with the program. I don’t care if Cornes can’t count to five, she’s had the courage to do something to get Howard out, and she should be supported.
…..
Way to go, adam!
All I can say having tried and tried and tried to at least get the debate to a level higher than she is a drip in a too small dress, and having failed miserably, is that I hope she wins, and proves to be an excellent member. No matter how good she is she wont have the factional support (I’m assuming as an outside entrant) to make cabinet so that can’t be a test for her.
jasmine_Anadyr What about Garrett and McKew, will they get to cabinet?
Adam: I’ve voted Labor all my life, in every single election(federal, state, local), and I’ll certainly be voting for Kevin Rudd/my local Labor candidate in Berowra.
I don’t think I deserved the verbal barrage from you, but that’s your perogative! I’ll take it on the chin, and move on.
Being a Labor supporter doesn’t mean you can’t be critical of a Labor candidate.
I’ve lived in Boothby for 30 years and most of my contacts are Labor voters in professions such as teaching. Almost unanimously they were appalled by Cornes’ selection as a candidate and are agonising about whether they can bring themselves to vote for her. They regard her selection as an insult, and they perceive her as having values a million miles from theirs. Women seem to feel particularly strongly. At best, they will vote for the Green candidate and direct their preferences to Labor. Personally I’d vote for Paris Hilton in order to get rid of the Howard government, but a lot of people – perhaps to their credit – can’t stomach voting for a candidate they don’t respect.
I tend to agree with the line “that at least she is in it to get rid of Howard” however i don’t like candidates who suddenly appear on the horizon.. without saying Maxine Mckew and Peter Garrett are exceptions because they have a bit of intelligence..
Candidates like Nicole worry me because they may be an embarrassment for the party in an election campaign and that is something Labor does not need.
Strange logic that you vote ALP to get rid of John Howard. There are alternatives to the ALP that will also assist in removing John Howard, some of which are attractive.
The best option is to vote Democrats who are legislators not simply negative protestors, then preference the Greens or the insipid ALP, or even Family First.
Make your vote support a prosperous, educated and healthy Australia that’s fair to everyone, with an excellent environment and a genourous attitude internationally – not simply for a different PM, as attractive as that prospect is in the short term.
I’m with you jasmine.
Whatever Ms Cornes strengths or otherwise I have no doubt she would not be portrayed in the negative manner that is current if she were a male.
She would be treated negatively because she bungled her first set of questions, she would be treated negatively because the Advertiser is part of the Murdoch empire and she is being treated negatively because they have portrayed her as conforming to a negative female stereotype.
Wont McKew be born with a faction? I would suspect so and Adam will be able to tell us. I don’t know what Garrett has done for a factional support base but he seems to have some early positioning advantages that Ms Cornes lacks. Like he starts the game as one of the boys.
Paul, since we are talking about Boothby how do you equate the 16.9% loss of primary vote for the Dems at the last election.
The Democrats are a spent force, they could not figure out if they were Arthur of Martha.
Paul Kavanagh, although I am not a Democrats supporter.. (Remember G.S.T) your ditty is very much true.. Changing leaders seems at present much the go here and what lies behind the leaders what policies differentiate them.. and that at this stage i don’t know exactly other than a mangled IR policy from labor and perhaps the Iraq war and some Climate change policies but not much else….to help struggling Austrlian households
Fred (58), no doubt there are some sexist attitudes out there, but they aren’t the main issue. The people I’ve referred to would be extremely happy to vote for young women such as Mia Hanshin, Chloe Fox or Kate Ellis because they respect them and share their values. They don’t respect Nicole Cornes.
I agree with the sexist logic… about Cornes and her treatment.. on that score I will suggest that Labor dump Steve Conroy because that guy is an absolute dud…..
According to this week’s Bulletin, McKew and Garrett are both independents.
The S.A. party is run by The Machine, an alliance between the left and the right. Cornes was selected by an agreement between Don Farrell (leader of the right SDA, and soon to be Senator) and Mark Butler (leader of the left LHMWU, and new member for Port Adelaide after the election.
Head office can nominate anyone they like for seats that aren’t considered marginal, so Premier Rann, treasurer Foley, Butler and Farrell got together and agreed on Nicole Cornes for Boothby, and Mia Handshin for Sturt.
Should have realised it was just like everywhere else, local members don’t get a say.. Don’t know why they help the candidates at election times? What are members good for…
Should have also realised that grubby SDA was in on it… This is the group i have heard that has some deal with Big Supermarket Chains concerning competition in the retail industry and the lack of it.. allegedly evolves around not opening up industry to competition so that the members of the union from the supermarkets can be looked after…
@ 45 ruawake Says:
Are you kidding? After all that footage of him with no pants on chasing little kiddies?
At least you know he’s never going to say the wrong thing.
The union for supermarkets needs to be working harder to ensure its girls and boys aren’t being slaughtered by workchoices.
They do, but only for marginal seats.
McKew and Garrett do have the advantage of having spent decades in the public eye impressing the perceptive with their intelligence and analysis (McKew) or advocacy (Garrett).
# 70
I agree but what about supermarket prices, we all get slaughtered by those… and who maybe benefiting a union doing little because it is getting a handout from members who work in them…
The Machine is just another way of saying the factions have had their day.
But he is a John Howard Supporter, there’s a picture on Humphrey’s website which proves it
And I have posted it before but here it is as a reminder:
http://www.humphreybear.com/images/hbb_gall12.gif
@ 72 ‘intelligence’ should be read as applying to both McKew and Garrett.
Apologies for the bad grammar thing.
Sure, but don’t the factions usually compete against each other? In S.A. they seem to strive for consensus agreement. Apparently that has been the case in S.A. Labor going back to the 1960s.
Now i get it the talent goes to the marginal seats in a contest and the untalented the safe seats such as Corio and Gellibrand… Always thought Shorten was a dud…
So Frank @ 75, we’re agreed that Mr Bear would be an appalling celebrity candidate for the ALP in Boothby?
He’d stand a 50/50 chance of loosing the seat despite what is likely to be a 1-in-100 years swing to Labor.
#75
So Frank at least I know which one is human inside.
John
I rememer the SAS 10 Christmas tape when the contents of Humphrey were revealed to all. She was wearing a little less than HBB.
“The union for supermarkets needs to be working harder to ensure its girls and boys aren’t being slaughtered by workchoices.”
That union would be the SDA. Of course like MOST unions they serve very little purpose.
Just heard Penny Wong on PM defending Nicole Cornes, following some snippet from the earlier interview. Unfortunately, Nicole did sound as though she had only a minimal grasp of Labor’s IR policy; she sounded quite anxious. Penny Wong, on the other hand, handled the interview with great skill; clearly a superior performer.
ShowsOn: I think the situation is more that the role of the factions in SA diminished earlier, symbolised by the prominence of the Centre Left. I think that is the significance of these ‘celebrity’ candidates, they rob the factions power of pre-selection one of the most important holds they have. The appointment (and likely promotion) of Garrett is a sign of the weakness of the Left faction, in my view. These lot owe more to the leadership than to factions for their survival. Rudd is creating his own ‘faction’ above the traditional power-brokers.
Penny Wong is an excellent performer. But I would not underestimate the effectiveness of Cornes ‘ordinariness’. I think there is a lot of anti-professional politician sentiment out there.
82# Thommo
Although i may have sounded anti union this is quite the contrary… i am anti SDA… The shoppies who within the Labor Party have a quite a right wing agenda… concerning abortion, enthuanasia, and stem cell research and for those members of the union such an agenda seems quite innocuous…
Marky, unions are supposed to stand up for their members, that’s what they’re for. The poor old SDA can’t win – they get slagged for not protecting their members and now you slag them when they try to. Typical of the extreme left.
‘Rudd is creating his own ‘faction’ above the traditional power-brokers’.
But will Rudd do anything about the power brokers… i highly doubt it… the machine will see to him if he does…
Adam what does abortion, enthusasia and other such views have to do with helping their members?
Besides Adam all of what i have mentioned came from a member of the right- Mark Latham and i am extreme lefty… no what i want is a party doing things for its supporters..and enacting policy which is traditionally Labor, sorry Adam it is people like yourself that is sending the party to the extreme right.
Marky, I don’t agree with the SDA on those issues. But you were attacking them for negotiating with the supermarkers to strike a deal in the interests of their members. That I will defend, because that’s what unions are supposed to do – work within the industrial and political system to protect their members. I don’t agree with many of the “left” political positions taken by the ETU or the CFMEU either, but I acknowledge they are good unions in terms of fighting for their members.
I thought it was a joke that Senator Kirk lost her pre-selection because she didn’t vote for Beazley. Having said that, she was offered pre-selection for Boothby as a consolation prize.
What I don’t understand is that now the factions aren’t even really ideological. They are more based around personalities and personal alliances.
Can’t believe the vitriol poured on Nicole Cornes by alleged Labor supporters. Former critics who meet her are invariably won over.
Adam
i have nothing wrong with unions negotiating deals and agree that is what they should do… totally agree… but i allegedly made reference to no deal concerning working people it was about retail competition policy… and supposedly the lack of it so that members of the union who work in two big supermarkets can be protected… if this is about helping workers than sorry i have issues… why no competition in the supermarket industry … Cheers..
Just heard Nicole make a goose of herself.. as i said she may lose more votes than gain for the ALP due to her stumbles…her gaffe was embarrassing and although they point has been made “good on her” i think she has bit of the Mal Meningas’ about her in that she has no idea about politics…
@ 93 Phil Robins Says:
Here’s hoping she can meet enough of her would-be constituents to win her seat.
I think what everyone here seems to be saying is that the pre-selection of Mrs Cornes is a plus for Labor, just as long as you don’t have to be represented by her
Whats’ best for Nicole Cornes and the ALP, stay away from interviews nicole.. radio, television, newspapers and local and you may have a chance… sorry not to seen as sexist instead take every photo opportunity you can that way you may have chance…
RE Boothby
Labor to win this seat would need the best vote they have had in SA federally for 30 plus years……. but never the less It appears very likely
Labor will poll very well in SA maybe a 10% plus swing is the opinion
polls are correct… the info in this site suggests so
If that is indeed true then this seat will not defy the swing… irrespective
of the candidate….. I suggest the current MPS for Hughes and Lindsay
are less than outstanding but never the less they were popular till
at least the last election
I think we have exhausted this topic. William can we have a thread to beat up on Danna Vale, or Alex Hawke?
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