The Australian today offers another editorial on the subject of opinion poll commentary which, despite its querulous tone, is somewhat less absurd than its notorious dummy spit of July 12. The paper nonetheless contrives to exempt itself from its critique of the polling analysis glut, placing the blame on “the rise of the Galaxy Poll and Fairfax newspapers’ attempt to become competitive against Newspoll with its AC Neilson (sic) survey” (to say nothing of the efforts of “a number of internet blogs”). So when its reporter Tony Barrass observes a surprisingly weak Newspoll result for the Western Australian state government and finds federal implications galore, you can rest assured that this is not merely “the reporting of politics as if it were a sporting match”, such as you might get from Michelle Grattan. We should instead consider ourselves privileged spectators to the exercise of The Australian’s mystical power to unlock the hidden secrets behind the only opinion poll that matters.
Reflections on the Miracle of Democracy at Work in the Greatest Nation on Earth
407 Comments
Behind the article is the assumption still that it’s The Australian v Labor supporters… it’s bad journalism.
As soon as I read the word “Howard-haters” I knew it was silly. Just because you’d rather a more balanced observation of polling doesn’t mean that you hate Howard.
Then they go on to give the spurious examples of ‘93 and ‘98 yet again. Honestly it’s very very frustrating reading these things.
Also, the statement “When results favouring the Government have been overtaken by more newsworthy events, our critics have been mute.” is mind blowing since poll results favouring the Government are never overtaken… they’re given front page billing with huge headlines.
Clearly a response to Possums incisive analysis of Pearsons article fromm the weekend GG.
This piece further reveals thier ineptitude in regard to Psephological analysis but also the big old GG does not like losing its sole status as purveyor of the numbers.
Maybe they cannot see their bias? I doubt it.
Just how poweful is the MSM in swaying votes?
I give a nother nod of thanks to the likes of William and Possum and Bryan and indeed many bloggers considering the education I have had this year in regard to poll reading etc.
Perhaps The Australian can’t spell Nielsen because they don’t own it.
However, the editorial’s denunciation of reporting “politics as sport” is eerily similar to the themes of a recent article by Andrew Leigh (http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=6385). A coincidence I’m sure. It’s not like the MSM would ever stoop to being parasitical on the blogosphere for its stories.
Dennis Atkins wrote a good piece in the Courier Snail, which refers to Oz Politics and Possum’s web site and information. At least one or two of the MSM are starting to look and report on the more detailed information other than what the poll’sters are giving them.
http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,22480941-27197,00.html
They ask if the newspapers will question whether money spent on polling was well spent. I am assuming they are referring to papers not including the Australian? This seems odd, because analysis aside, all the polls have shown the same thing. A big lead to Krudd. Swings are never uniform, but that aside, it is difficult to ignore the reality that the polls are representing. The marginal seat polling to come will be of most interest to me, and it will be fascinating to see the treatment given to these by the Australian (and particularly my favourite cretin Shanahan) should Newspoll show what Labor’s internal polling is showing – a crushing lead to the ALP in many marginal electorates.
I have a mate who works in a libs office on the hill and he was pointing to 1998 today to recommend that the ALP would get close, take a few outer suburban marginals, but not quite make it. Do you think they believe that?
On re-reading the Oz’s editorial, there’s also a rather strange and none-too-subtle subtext running through the article:
“We don’t like all this competition, waaaaah.”
By ‘competition’, I mean the formal commercial competitors the Australian has in it’s pollster and publishing rivals. And also the informal competition of other, better things to read.
Like all the loudest free-market tub-thumpers, they believe passionately that competition is a good thing – for everybody else.
This strikes me as reminiscent of Microsoft’s campaigns against its competitors: our product is superior, but only for arcane reasons that are best appreciated by us, and that you consumers are not able to understand without our generous help (i.e., tortuous explanation).
One question that arises, though, is why The Australian would ever report leaked internal party polling? This would just exacerbate the “problem” of too much polling being available to the public, no?
Blogs such as these have taken away the supposed power of the GG Journalists to influence what people think by actually giving credible analysis that doesn’t fit well with the agenda they are trying to push,which is the re-election of John”I’m the messiah”Howard.
Go get ‘em Possum,you have them shaking,rattling and rolling in their inept little boots.
Meng, it certainly is a similar approach to Microsoft. However, it’s hard to envision the owner of the product turning philanthropist and giving billions to charity.
This is absolute rubbish, showing that editorial writers really don’t feel the need to let facts get in the way of an opinion piece. I’ll never buy another Australian, until Rupert sells it and/or they get rid of 80% of their staff.
I just wrote them an e-mail and told them so:
This letter is to let you know that I am fed up with your bias and constant support of the government, no matter what. You are, and have been, complicit in what this government has done to our country, with articles by the majority of your editorial writers showing a pronounced bias towards the conservatives.
Unless this changes in the near future, it will be many years before I buy another Australian newspaper.
From the editorial…
“But polling also shows that people think the country is heading in the right direction”
There is so much tripe in this piece, but then to selectively use a Morgan (!) question to show us why the Coalition will, and should, win is plumbing the depths of opportunism.
But they are desperate.
Boy did that feel good, too. I encourage others to do the same.
I agree with the trust of what you said, but believe you’ve made a mistake in using the word ‘journalists.’ Journalists have ethics, maybe not many, but some, and they are supposedly impartial – reporters of the facts and nothing but the facts. Neither quality can be found in most of the scribes toiling for Murdoch’s coin.
Those scribblers are merely spruikers for whatever line best serves their master’s purpose, nothing more.
The point is surely going to come when the GG will need to make a call – if Howard is going to lose, does it want to go down with him and have its reputation tarnished for years to come? Or will it attempt to step back from the brink and at least try to seem unbiased. At the moment I can only gasp imagining what its editorial endorsement of Howard will look like on the eve of the election…
There is a big call to be made and News Ltd shareholders should seriously consider whether their interests are being served by the current bare-faced barracking for Howard.
The obvious reason for the Oz’s discomfort is that in the past they could control the interpretation of polling figures because only their journos would provide the story accompanying the numbers. Now people more knowledgeable and less biased than them are pulling apart the figures and not letting them spin their story.
The fact that Possum’s amazing analysis of the Crosby-Textor report and the Newspoll quarterly data has gone just about unreported in the newspapers should give everyone an idea of how scared they are of the real story being told by the data.
As sad as the Australian might be with their editorials, a GF of mine who lives in Perth says that the West Australian is worse. She is a Greenie voter and she reads the Australian in preference to her local paper as she says it is better. Yikes!!! ….. Perhaps some of our WA posters would care to comment? I live in Sydney so don’t read the WA unless I am going online to follow up on a specific article or news story.
Big News in Boothby! Voters Shun Cornes
The Advertiser today :
http://www.news.com.au/adelaidenow/story/0,22606,22483082-5006301,00.html
“ALP celebrity candidate Nicole Cornes is facing a humiliating federal election loss in Boothby as voters prepare to abandon labor…”
Thats the first line from an article in todays Advertiser newspaper (linked above.
The newspaper conducted a poll of 649 voters in the seat of Boothby on Monday night, showing that on a 2PP basis in Boothby Liberals lead labor 54 to 24. On primary vote, Celebrity Candidate “Nikki” runs at less than 1/3rd of the vote on 29%.
With these numbers, an 8% swing to Labor would be required required, rather than the 5.4% perviously required, putting Boothby well outside the union claws of Labor.
Tip for Nicole: Stick to the gossip columns.
Tip for Labor: Stick to your Union Bosses.
Matthew: you mean it’s 54:46?
At odds with the latest Sportingbet odds which have Nicole Cornes and Andrew Southcott level on 1.85.
Perhaps the GG will drop Newspoll and start looking for another polling outfit that can deliver them pro Howard polls?
Thank goodness for the internet, where one can get unbiased information from our good moderator William and other intelligent sources.
Re. Boothby.
Memo to the ALP, candidates with substance win votes- celebrity candidates better know for gossip, not so much.
I don’t know anyone in Boothby who thinks Cornes is a good candidate, even those who normally vote Labor. It is a shame that they knifed Linda Kirk, yet preselect a ‘celebrity’ for a seat like this.
Big News in Boothby! Voters Shun Cornes
The Advertiser today :
http://www.news.com.au/adelaidenow/story/0,22606,22483082-5006301,00.html
Extraordinary poll, this…
Total female votes for big two parties add up to 71%!
One huge vote for ‘Others’ here.
What a lot of crap.
bryce, do you mean one huge vote for undecideds of 10 percent? Because according to the poll, others/independents are at 2%.
Strangely enough… the Advertiser article lists the 2PP (in Boothby Only) as 54:24, but that cant be right…. It must be 54:46.
Despite the error, Howard Hater, you have missed the point of the post.
The important thing to note is that Nicole Cornes has not gone down well in the electorate, and this poll only backs it up. Her primary vote is at a measly 29%.
It is just interesting to note that despite a national swing to Labor currently, Nicoles voter popularity is still dwindling.
Mathew
The same article says 7% of labor voters are now going to vote liberal whilst 9% of liberal voters are going to vote labor.
This means a swing of at least 2%, more likely higher to labor.
Well the Australian is about selling newspapers, at the end of the day. So they have to have an angle or story that get’s readers in. If they just supported the line that Rudd had it in the bag, people would stop reading. Similarly if they simply ignored the polls and kept the man-of-steel narrative like nostrodamus, they’d lose credibility (ahem).
The fact that hundreds of anti-howard voters will read this blog and the article shows that it is interesting. If it was more of the same it wouldn’t be news surely?
Yes Julie #14, pity us in the West. The Oz is a NY Times compared to The West Australian. The paper got into blogs a few weeks ago. “Is Perth more boring than Adelaide” is the current top one.
There could well be significant green preferences for the ALP in Boothby, although Nicole Cornes probably needs to be polling more like 35% on the primaries to have a good chance of winning.
I dont know about the processes – is it too late to disendorse her? Ive never heard of her (some ‘celebrity’!) but then Im not from SA.
All I can say is she looks like a complete drongo. Straight outa Sylvania Waters.
I don’t really understand why she was chosen to start with. I’ve never heard of her either but I haven’t been impressed with any of the media I’ve seen of her.
RE: Boothby
I have to agree with B-Mann. None of my neighbors reckon Cornes is a good candidate, but most of them are planning to vote Green or Democrat as a protest, knowing that preferences will flow away from Southcott anyway.
“bryce, do you mean one huge vote for undecideds of 10 percent? Because according to the poll, others/independents are at 2%.”
I think bryce means the Greens/Democrats/others/undecided total is 27%, which is rather high for a poll.
Still, not good signs for the ALP in Boothby.
Julie #14
The West Australian ‘Tabloid’ is so biased in favour of the Tories it makes The Australian look like The Socialist worker news
No I’m not joking either, it is truly a dreadfull rag that knows it can get away with its obvious bias because it is the only player in WA.
Re: WA
Same in Adelaide. You wouldn’t wrap your fish and chips in The Advertiser. Leaves us with The Independent Weekly and the GG.
Re the Boothby poll, there is no indication of who did the poll. Unless we know that it can be disregarded as far as I am concerned.
Probably internal Liberal polling a la Eden Monaro.
Our friend at Oz Politics makes a splash in the Courier Mail.
http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,22480941-27197,00.html
I think it was obvious Labor didn’t think it could win Boothby anyway. No loss. I would have been a bonus seat.
“IT would have been a bonus seat.”
The GG (News Ltd) having fun with the truth again endeavouring to smear Theresa Rein with some falsehood or should I say lie. And they say Murdoch doesn’t run their program?
“Ingeus’s British arm, WorkDirections UK, is now under attack from British unions”
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,,22483796-2702,00.html?from=public_rss
But on ABC this morning the Unions said they had no trouble with Reins or company – there issue was with the British govt travelling the privitisation route.
The problem with the GG sycophants is that they can no longer get away with being as bias as hell, printing total fabrication and engaging in trash journalism without being caught out and criticised and held responsible in a growing national forum (on-line). IT is a real worry for them – they can’t both be an arm of the Liberal Party and also keep Labor voter business. They must know if the keep this nonsense up they will lose readers in the thousands.
They also made the same mistake as last time. In crticising the enemy they promote them.
Because a poll in the West shows a slide in the state government’s vote doesn’t necessarily spell doom federally. But the fact the polling organisation wasn’t named is a worry.
Unicorn at #28, the Boothby poll was commissioned by the Advertiser. I’m afraid to say the Advertiser polls have been quite reasonable in the past. See post #18 for the link to the story.
I’m sure they would have a seat requiring only a 5.4% swing very much on their radar.
I’m amazed at how easily we are spooked by an unsourced poll of only 649 voters. Even if it was a genuine poll what is the margin of error with this size sample 5-6%.
Kina, you’re assuming the GG has readers in the thousands.
The editors at the Oz really do need to grow up. They do not have a monopoly on polling and political commentary… especially when they, by and large, are the worst at it. I love political analysis and have gained so much more from Mumble, PollBludger, Possum and the other sites than I ever did from the Oz (or Fairfax publications for that matter).
Perhaps if the Oz fired Shanahan and Mitchell, then its coverage would be more accurate and we would stop bitching about the poor state of political analysis at the Oz?
The editors at the Australian are under absolutely no obligation to be balanced or impartial. If they think they’ve got a market then they’ll target that market.
If you don’t like it, just don’t read it. No need to whine.
Kina @ 32, Gary Bruce #36
Even on Newsradio this morning the lead-in to hte story was ‘Another investigation into Therese Rein’s business affairs’. Which is equivalent to a newspaper headline. Then as, Kina said, the British union chap says ‘we don’t have a problem with the company at all’ – the interviewer almost seemed a bit embarrassed. anyway, i am seriously and increasingly disappointed with what passes for journalism in this country – having done the interview how can they have that sort of loead-in?
The MSM is giving Howard as much free time as he wants because he eased the restrictions on cross-media ownership. They’re all scared that Labor will turn back the clocks. Thankfully the internet and in most parts the ABC are a place to turn for an alternative view on the MSM headlines.
Boothby traditionally scores a big Democrats vote, and its Greens vote isn’t that pathetic either.
Chances are that’s where are the Laborites are fleeing, giving little to no hit in the primary vote.
As someone who lives in this fine city and after hearing about her candidacy read her column, Labor did bad, real bad — so thanks!
Dunno. But Labor picked up 18 seats in 1998 (not all in the outer suburbs). This time round, 18 seats would be enough.
Gary Bruce at 33
The WA poll is by Newspoll
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/files/wa-newspoll-26sep.jpg
3% swing to state “Coalition” TPP since June.
Of course, there is no Coalition in state WA politics.
The other tables, however, suggest that the state Liberals have no chance of forming government with Omodei as leader.
“The editors at the Australian are under absolutely no obligation to be balanced or impartial. If they think they’ve got a market then they’ll target that market.”
Well obviously.
But that is very different from adopting an approach which actually damages the commercial standing of a publication – the OZ’s market position is, at least in part, based upon being regarded as a serious publication of record. If this is thrown out the window to allow the pursuit of a partisan stance, in denial of the reality (of polling results even produced by a company owned by their parent) this has the potential to damage their commercial standing.
Nicole Cornes first press conference was a total embarassment. I am not surprised she is struggling she looks like a ‘pretty’ lame duck unless she has actually gone to school and can now explain why she joined up with the Labor party and what policies attracted her. They should have got the husband instead – a well know SA football player and coach.
Is it too late to replace her? Ian Chappell? someone anyone else might be better.
The Margin of error for the Boothby poll would be about 3.8%.
At the end of the day, this is a swing to Labor, but a smaller one than expected. I expect that lots of Labor voters will park their vote with the Greens as a protest, before returning to Labor in preferences. The high number of undecided voters is also noteworthy.
Arbie Jay @21.
Yes, according to the poll 7% of Labor voters in 2004 were swinging to Liberal this year, and 9% of Liberal voters in 2004 are swinging to Labor this year.
However from the polling, there is a huge swag of Labor voters who are now swinging away from Celebrity Nicole to the Democrats & Greens.
Matthew Sykes @23 is right, Nikki needed to be polling at 35%+ on the Primary vote to have any possible chance of winning.
BV I can’t recall the Australian ever being a serious publication of record, at least in my eyes.
Kina @ 45
Rumour has it that the Labor party asked her husband (and many other people) first…and old Graham told them that there was no chance… So they targeted the stepford wife instead.
Here’s an interesting one: I just played with Antony Green’s excellent swing calculator http://www.abc.net.au/elections/federal/2007/
If you go the the state by state setting, and set all the states which the coalition won in 2004 to a very modest 50-50 2PP , it shows just how tough this election will be for Team Rodent.
Once NSW, VIC, SA, QLD and WA are set to a dead level outcome, you only have to add the two lib held TAS seats to the ALP column and there’s a hung parliament.
It’s not necessarily too late to replace her – after all, they dumped their candidate in Cowper on the weekend.
At any rate, Kevin Foley should never be allowed near a pre-selection committee again.
The Australian may actually lose a bunch of Hong Kong Chinese readers in Darwin [and there were lots of them]. I have a ‘politics’ discussion with them every Saturday morning at a language school that teaches Mandarin to kids, my wife teaches.
They were surprised to find out that some ‘real’ facts were different from their [impressions] facts and, their facts [impressions] came from the GG.
That they were not happy is an understatment.
These people are familiar with govt interference into Newspapers and have been observing the mainland Chinese media for years. Democracy is the big buzz [hopeless] movement in HK at the moment – so they are sensitive to being manipulated by misleading news. So I don’t doubt the news will spread among the Chinese community to not trust the GG. A guys at the school I dont think will bother buying it again.
But I don’t really think murdoch would care that much about cirulation at the moment – as long as he gets his man back in.
“But I don’t really think murdoch would care that much about cirulation at the moment – as long as he gets his man back in.”
===
This is surely part of the point though – if the GG are going to back Howard to the hilt and he loses, they will take a whack in relation to both credibility (the crazed rants of Shanahan Christopher Pearson on poll movements) AND influence. That would have to hit the publication where it hurts (circulation, advertising revenue and hence $$$).
Circulation has never been important to Murdoch with The Australian. After all, it ran at a loss for the first 20 years. All he cares about is that it’s the newspaper that the political insiders read.
So, what can we do about it? Seriously, the Australian has gotten so bad now that there are few people who fail to recognise the bias – and of those, most are on six figure salaries at News limited itself (or have an IQ of six…..or both). I’m not sure if many people here are familiar with U.S groups Media Matters for America (MMFA) or FAIR (Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting) – they’re net-based media monitors that have broken a number of stories of bias and misinformation in the U.S mainstream media. Sites like these aren’t the be all and end all, but they do a great deal to highlight some of the worst offenders in the vast media lansdscape of the U.S. Perhaps it’s time for an Australian version – goodness knows that Media Watch has gotten very tame in recent times and given the make-up of the ABC board, I can’t see that changing any time soon – we’ve seen how bloggers can do a far better job of reporting than the so-called journos at rags like the Oz – perhaps it’s time to turn those sharp eyes toward just how these clowns operate.
I know that this may sound a bit naive or romantic, but people need to be reminded that the role of a journalist in a democracy is a sacred responsibility. A democracy cannot function if the people are uninformed, illinformed or simply misled. Given how sacred that role is, those who perform it need to be held to the highest standards – the question is, what can be done to ensure that the journalists of the future act in accordance with the solemn nature of their democratic tresponsibilities? Is it any wonder that journalists are held in such low esteem in our society? Part of the solution may lie in shaming these people in the way they deserve. For example, given what i have just written about the sacred responsibility of real journalists, I don’t consider people like Dennis Shanahan to be any better than a nursing home employee who abuses and robs a helpless elderly patient – the responsibility is a sacred one, which when abused, rightly draws condemnation from the wider community and sees the perpetrator publicly shamed and punished under the law. We need to figure out how to do more to shame these charlatans; to point out the fact that they are cheap whores who are willing to mortgage whatever integrity they ever had in return for a few dollars more or a title (national political editor, editor at large, senior executive editorial manager and so on) or the respect of people vastly more stupid than they are. Can you imagine the career prospects for someone in big-business who acts as disingenuously in their field as Shanahan does in his? Perhaps its best summed up by saying that Shanahan is about as forthright with his readers as Rodney Adler was with his shareholders – difference is, Shanahan continues to peddle his form of crap.
No it won’t BV. Their readership probably won’t care one bit and will keep reading. People like reading what they agree with, if the Australian was all of a sudden to change to ‘balanced’ journalism they’d probably lose more readers than they’d gain.
People’s perception of ‘balanced’ is coloured by their own political persuasions.
Look, let them be a Tory flagship, who cares. Its the GGs complete disconnection from reality that’s been fascinating me this year.
They really are on board the HMAS Denial, along with several senior frontbenchers.
A paper should have a longer term interest in its own credibility, if nothing else. I think 07 may be prove to be crisis year at the Gazeditorial bunker.
William, I hope that you don’t mind me advertising here.
I hear many pollbludgers complaining about the relentless pro-Liberal advertising that we are paying to subject ourselves to.
Here is a good chance for these friends to pay a small sum to help to expose a very large number of other Australians to some more balanced information presented humorously.
https://www.getup.org.au/campaign/ClimateCleverer&id=126
It also fills a TV advertising slot which would otherwise probably be tax-funded Liberal propaganda.
Advertiser polls are usually around the mark, though clearly the published two-party vote of 54-24 for Boothby is wrong. If it’s 54-46, with 9 percent undecided and a margin of error of about 4 percent, then it’s not quite curtains for Nicole Cornes but she has the job in front of her.
She shot herself in the foot at her first press conference, giving ammunition to her critics who have painted her as a bimbo instead of the intelligent, attractive, hard-working candidate she is. Labor polling had her doing well. But now it seems that women are reluctant to vote for her. Labor is often accused of choosing hacks as candidates. When it does something refreshingly different, it boomerangs. Catch 22.
I wonder if the murdoch press will run a correction to the Reins story. If they don’t then we will know the smear was deliberately fabricated by them.
The new Nationals slogan on billboards and bumper stickers is:
‘Don’t Risk Rudd’.
A nice positive campaign by them.
Howard and Trust?
Don’t Risk Howard
Don’t Keep Howard
Howard Hates Humans
Howard Has Had It
Old Leadership Old World
Howard Belongs To History
Howard Is The Past
Howard – Non-Core Truth
There was a US study recently which concluded that in general, conservative bias in newspapers had no effect and liberal bias had only a very small effect. I am looking for the link but not finding it at the moment.
This study suggests that the audience of a newspaper drives its editorial content far more strongly than its ownership. This correlates with Murdoch’s long history of “backing winners”, which often confuses cause and effect (i.e. Murdoch is good at picking the winner, but he does not determine the outcome). However I struggle to accept that the GG’s audience is as rabidly anti-Labor as its editors.
This paper on the other hand argues that newspaper bias (in the UK) does measurably influence voting patterns, but that that influence is diluted in that country by the availability of biased papers in both directions. In Australia, of course, we are cursed with only one national newspaper.
The real power of the media, though, is in ‘agenda setting’ – what they report versus what they choose to ignore is going to have far, far more impact than the blatantly biased rantings of Albrechtsen and friends. Just look at the leadup to the Iraq war, for instance. If the media had broken ranks and chosen to report on reality instead of the wild claims of Blair, Powell and friends about ‘WMDs’ it would have been extremely difficult for the relevant governments to win enough support to go to war. This was a significant factor in Vietnam, too – once the press chose to actually report what was happening on the ground support for the war disintegrated.
In this election, I see the choices before the press as this: do they report on every scurrilous rumour about Rudd? Do they focus on ‘bad’ unions? Do they critically examine the spending patterns of the current government? Do they continue to focus on the leadership tensions in the Liberal Party?
The choices made with respect to reporting (in ordinary news/analysis parts of the papers) on those issues will have more influence than any editorial.
No, Phil. It isn’t that they didn’t select a hack – it’s that instead they went for a gossip columnist. Labor has looked outside the square with some great success in this election – Maxine McKew, Mike Kelly, Peter Tinley and Melissa Parke are the obvious examples. Nicole Cornes is a miss, however. Apart from the fact that she has a quasi-familiar name and looks great, it’s hard to see what made Foley think she’d have anything to contribute to the parliamentary Labor Party. Nothing against her and I certainly don’t think she’s a ‘bimbo’ – but what has she actually done to suggest that she’d make a decent MP?
The GG has a small percentage of the readership market. I would say even less read the editorial.
I have donated to ‘Getup’ in the past and have just done so again. They want to put their Climate Change ad outing the Govt on during the AFL grand final and are looking for extra cash. $27k so far.
Thanks Dr Good for the info.
Optomist @ 34:
I tend to agree, I have run across some of the ‘independent’ on-line community Newspaper/blogs in the USA which I think are becoming more and more a reference point for people looking for he truth behind the MSM news.
I can see it eventually going that way here, abandoning the MSM newspapers because of their continual bias. But if I am not mistaken a great many more Americans are politically ‘aware’ than here.
Wonder where the Shananananahans and Milnes will get a job then?
The Nationals’ slogan is “Don’t Risk Rudd”. We’ll be seeing stickers, billboards etc. I think Labor needs a punchier sticker than Kevin 07.
Charlie, I reckon a girl from the wrong side of the sticks who has the determination to put herself through uni and earn a law degree while raising a couple of young kids is a worthy candidate. But it looks like the celeb stuff is a turn-off.
For those who like playing with my calculator on the ABC site, there is a new option. All you need to do is set the sliders to the swing and vote settings you want, then hit the ‘Link to this outcome’ option. It will give you a URL link which you can post into blogs such as this one.
So for instance, I have entered the best poll the government has received all year, the Galaxy in which Labor’s vote was only 53%. The calculator generates this link
http://www.abc.net.au/elections/federal/2007/calculator/?swing=national&national=5.7&nsw=0&vic=0&qld=0&wa=0&sa=0&tas=0&act=0&nt=0&retiringfactor=1
That’s as may be, but the reporting is dodgy. Despite claims of a “possible humiliating federal election loss” they don’t bother reporting the 2PP figures.
We have:
Primaries:
Lib 44
ALP 29
Green 9
Dem Other Undecided 18
plus the information that in a straight Lib/ALP swap there has been a 2% swing to the ALP.
With that information alone it is pretty hard to work out what the actual situation is.
Was there any other info or a graphic with the print version?
With the calculator, give Labor swings of 5% in NSW, Vic, Qld and SA and look at the odd results!
What can be assumed is that if Boothby is not recording a weak Labor vote in SA but other polls are suggesting SA overall is very strong for Labor then an unexpected coalition seat may fall instead. That strong vote is coming from somewhere.
Let me try again with that first part of that sentence. “What can be assumed is that if Boothby IS recording a weak Labor vote in SA…..”
24 is the percent of female voters reported to be giving their first preference to the ALP in the poll.
The linked article does not mention a 2PP figure or anywhere contain the number 54.
Is there some extra information, or something that I am missing?
Thanks again Antony. Keep up the excellent work.
Phil @ 67.
Such backgrounds are important in politics, but they aren’t enough in themselves. She seems to have no grounding in policy or even in politics – it’s one thing to have the life experiences, it’s another to be engaged enough to actually use them to achieve something worthwhile. Whatever she was 20 years ago, she’s now a gossip columnist with a celebrity family, designer clothes and what looks, from afar, to be a very typical upper-middle-class outlook on life.
Give me a Julia Gillard – who lives in a little weatherboard house in Altona and speaks with the voice and language of the people she represents – anyday.
The truth is this: Independent bloggers, like Poll Bludger and Possum Pollytics, offer a much more reasoned, rational, and realistic appraisal of polls than The Australian and much of the mainstream media. And the media KNOW it. The problem that The Australian has is twofold: 1) a pro-Howard agenda, and 2) the need to SELL a story.
This ultimately means that every infinitesimal movement in the polls is SPUN into something that fits these two agendas. The margin of error is often dismissed. And the averaging of polls across time periods is neglected. Their agenda compromises their capacity for proper statistical analysis and appraisal.
So, when The Australian tries to suggest that only they know what the polls are saying and everyone else can pretty much go and get stuffed, what they are really saying is that they don’t want to lose the capacity to spin poll results according to their agenda. With the rise of independent blogs, readers now have access to much more balanced reporting of polls. Their sense of influence over the populace is being threatened.
So, all power to the independent blogs and their bloggers. May it be that more blogs appear. And let’s hope that even more Australians start using them as major sources of news and analysis of Australian politics. It is one way of giving back some power to the average voter.
Martin B @ 73: They have “updated” the article and removed the 2PP figure (which was wonky anyway). Interesting…
The editors at the Australian are under absolutely no obligation to be balanced or impartial. If they think they’ve got a market then they’ll target that market.
If you don’t like it, just don’t read it. No need to whine.
The editors at the Australian ache to be taken as a serious and objective presenter of ideas and debate They cant achieve this because they are hamstrung by their history and their consistent anti-labor anti-union agenda. It is a sad reflection that we have one national newspaper and its the Oz and given its woeful circulation you’d think there might be room for a competitor.
Whats really contemptible about the OZ is the crocodile tears about balance and objectivity and the lame arguments it puts forwards to support that view.
Noocat @ 76
Whilst I agree with the political views of most on this Blog, I think you are stretching our view of the world that Poll Bludger blogs aren’t partisan.
We want Labor to win the next election. We don’t like the Coalition government and what they stand for.
Lets’s continue to put the boot into Howard but please don’t delude ourselves that we aren’t bias also.
Pluralism does not live here (or anywhere lese for that matter)
heres Nicole’s reply to the Advertiser poll.
http://www.news.com.au/adelaidenow/story/0,22606,22483082-5006301,00.html
By the way, if you were still unsure whether The Australian has a pro-Howard bias (although it is usually pretty obvious), this is the give-away line:
“We at The Australian have been innundated with complaints from Howard-haters when we have not splashed with every poll result showing a commanding lead to Labor.”
It has become increasingly common for Howard supporters to simply call anyone who disagrees with them a “Howard-hater”, especially when they have no rational argument to back up their own position.
This is, of course, very childish stuff, but it’s what we have come to expect from our only national newspaper.
“Whilst I agree with the political views of most on this Blog, I think you are stretching our view of the world that Poll Bludger blogs aren’t partisan.”
The commenters are partisan, but Poll Bludger (or William) does not make partisan commentary. I think that is a distinction that has to be made.
KT @81.
Totally agree. That is an important distinction. It is our threads (commentary) that have a bias not Poll Bludger. Thanks
KT: thanks. So it did actually once say 2PP = 54:24? whacky.
About all that we can say from the information that is currently available is that the ALP are probably behind, but by an uncertain amount, and that a large proportion of local ALP voters are looking to give their first preference to other candidates such as the Greens and Dems.
Noocat @ 76
I wholeheartedly agree. Blogs are great, and are a very important tool in the media landscape. Don’t be surprised if MSM outlets start attacking the blog movement though, labelling sites such as these as narrow silos of interest for like minded individuals with similar voting intentions.
“Whilst I agree with the political views of most on this Blog, I think you are stretching our view of the world that Poll Bludger blogs aren’t partisan.”
I’m not suggesting that individual bloggers are not unbiased. But COLLECTIVELY, a more thorough analysis of news can come through a politics blog because of the varying views (and biases) of the contributors. Nobody here is constrained by a particular agenda in the way that, for example, an editor of a newspaper would constrain the tone and direction of the articles from its journalists.
And going back to polls, the fact is that various contributors on this and other blogs know a LOT about polling and statistics, and there is a much more realistic appraisal of polls than in the mainstream media because they are not driven to create stories around them that need to sell papers.
Oh, but once you include the 2% election calling bounce, the 3% campaign win to Howard and the 10% shift in the last week you get this:
http://www.abc.net.au/elections/federal/2007/calculator/?swing=national&national=-4.5&nsw=0&vic=0&qld=0&wa=0&sa=0&tas=0&act=0&nt=0&retiringfactor=1
If I could have anythin I wanted from the calculator I would probably ask for the ability to type figures directly into the “swing” or “2PP” boxes.
Here we go ‘round the mulberry bush…
This is going to upset a few people here, but a lot of people have surely been thinking it – just not out aloud:
“The Coalition may just be turning the cornerâ€. So says Bryan Palmer from Oz Politics.
http://www.ozpolitics.info/blog/
How many times over the past nine months have we heard that statement, or similar, from Mr Palmer?
Mr Palmer has ventured too many times around that giant roundabout in Canberra me thinks: he appears to be suffering from a bad case of corners on the mind.
If the Coalition have turned yet another corner, as Mr Palmer suggests, surely they’d have come full circle by now.
If the Australian is looking for a new pollster willing to sing from the Coalition hymn sheet, they need look no further than Bryan Palmer.
Bryan Palmer, like the vast majority of MSM journalists, fails to highlight the high, and remarkably consistent, ALP primary vote.
Delusion appears pandemic among conservative commentators at present; next Mr Palmer will be selling the merits of the highly contagious “soft ALP vote†virus.
Here we go ‘round the mulberry bush…
Yes boys I remember you don’t like female candidates from when she was pre-selected and yes you like to apply a whole different and new range of requirements and standards to ensure the gender imbalance is never addressed..
And yes if the poll is accurate she may not be elected.
But the double standards between her and some of the idiot males, including ones in Parliament and Cabinet for that matter is quite amazing.
That’s a bit unworthy, Jasmine. For a start, I expect a certain level of buffoonery from Coalition candidates – male or female. As for Labor – name one (particularly a ’star’ candidate) that has been as unimpressive as Nicole Cornes.
But of course, we’re all just misogynists rather than people who want Labor to have the best possible candidates not only for winning elections, but for doing something half-useful once they win them.
Adam posted a local report about Corne’s campaigning talents recently which was rather at odds with the (extremely sketchy) poll information and (I agree) rather biased commentary above.
Martin B – There was a heap of tabled data included in the print version that’s not in the Online version. I will try to scan it in and get it hosted somewhere today.
and Yes…. the Article has been updated to remove the 2PP figures. They printed 54-24 which is obviously wrong.
You may also care to note that of all the possible ideal Labor candidates that I could have picked from, I chose Julia Gillard.
Noocat @ 85
“Nobody here is constrained by a particular agenda in the way that, for example, an editor of a newspaper would constrain the tone and direction of the articles from its journalists.”
I agree with your perspective on blogs for the most part, however, there is something about the nature of the internet that makes many assume it is purely ‘democractic.’ User anonymity is a problem online, which makes establishing one’s intentions or agendas rather difficult. So while the traditional gatekeeper has been removed in one instance, it has become harder to identify who is posting what and why.
In saying this, this is the best blog I have come across on the net and people actually engage in informed debate rather than the slanging matches you read over at news.com.au
No one is stopping supporters of other parties from joining in and making their views felt and persumably if enough did then labor supporters would be in the minority.
The Australian offers no such opportunity, it pretends [or maybe it doesn't] to be a premier paper which you would think to mean intellectual, wide ranging and even handed. Of course in the hands of sycophnants it is quickly becoming an irrelevant and low quality.
I heard mention today that Rein’s company was in trouble again or so said a lady here – having not heard the ABC report that said the Unions had no trouble with her British business. Just a GG smear.
Can someone please explain to the Oz that a poll of a state government (in this case WA) is not a poll of the federal election and that voters have more than single digit IQs to distinguish between the two. My guess would be that if Newspoll did a poll on NSW state government the result would be terrible for Labor because Iemma is very unpopular but the recent Newspoll on the federal election shows the state with the biggest swing away from the Libs is NSW. If such a poll was taken in NSW would the Oz trumpet that NSW is a stronghold for the Coalition? I shake my head.
I can confirm that on page 12 in Today’s Advertiser there is a tabular version of the Boothby poll information.
Questions asked were:
1. If a Federal Election for the House of Representatives (Lower House) were held tomorrow, which party or candidate would receive your first preference ?
Labor 29% (Male: 35%, Female: 24%)
Liberal 44% (M: 40%, F: 47%)
Greens 9% (M: 9%, F: 9%)
Family First 3% (M: 2%, F: 4%)
Democrats 3% (M: 3%, F: 3%)
Indep/Other 2% (M: 2%, F: 2%)
Informal/None 1% (M: 1%, F: 1%)
Undecided 9% (M: 8%, F: 10%)
More to come …
Jasmine,
I may have missed something, but what does Nicole Cornes’ gender have to do with anything? Don’t get me wrong, I want to see many more women candidates and MPs – i just don’t see where Nicole Cornes fits in here.
The Australian is the best newspaper in the country. It is far more comprehensive in its coverage and contains far more in-depth analysis than any other.
Its bias is so obvious that anyone can see through it, and I appreciate this opportunity to put the boot in. In the last nine days, I have sent eight letters to the editor in an attempt to counteract a couple of the lines that The Australian keeps pushing. None has been published. Below is yesterday’s:
‘The obvious fact that more spending on education does not necessarily lead to better results (“More is less in the education battleâ€, 25/9) is not evidence that more spending, when properly targeted and combined with other measures, would not improve our children’s futures. The modest steps the states have already taken to lift education standards have been met by accusations of “squandering†their GST revenue, so any state serious about education would face more screams from The Australian.
‘Yet, serious investment is required to attract and retain good teachers. The Victorian Government needs to reverse the pay cut for teachers at the top of the scale of $31,000 since 1975 (relative to average earnings), to return the almost 2,000 missing secondary teachers to reach both the 1981 Liberal Government staffing ratio and the 1992 Labor Government ratio, to restore the 18-hour maximum teaching load and the time allowance pool (deductions from teaching for very time-consuming leadership responsibilities) and to end the short-term contracts inflicted on the majority of new teachers and the limited tenure promotion positions used to exploit senor teachers.
‘This re-investment needs to be accompanied by cost-neutral reforms such as removing the excessive power that principals have enjoyed for the last 15 years and returning the professional collegiate judgment of teachers to the centre of school decision-making, a reform which would meet howls of protest about “provider capture†and “powerful†teacher unions.
‘Yours sincerely,
Chris Curtis
‘e-mailed to: letters@theaustralian.com.au
as More is more – except in schools?’
I will be sending the ninth letter today in response to yet another one of The Australian’s distortions on education. In an eleven-month period over 2005-06, it took me 48 letters correcting The Australian’s teacher-bashing campaign before one was published. You can find an account of my efforts at:
http://pub39.bravenet.com/forum/3280197123/show/601755
I particularly enjoy reading Christopher Pearson and his obsessions. I suspect he is leaving his election-costing killer blow against Kevin Rudd until the campaign itself, but in order to forewarn Labor strategists I can reveal it here and now: Kevin Rudd is not an advocate for the Latin Mass.
Martin B @ 83
I think that the Libs should be more concerned with the 9% drift than Labor with the 7%.
I have lived in Boothby for 30 years, never voted Labor but always TPP Labor (primarily to encourage the minor parties), but this time FP Labor.
Charlie, that is just it, I don’t live in the electorate, but I haven’t seen any evidence she isn’t a good candidate, just a whole lot of abuse, almost all of which I track back to her being a female rather than male candidate.
I will tackle one thing: her first press conference wasn’t great by all reports. I am aware of members who still couldn’t give a press conference and convince you today was Wednesday. But she gives a sloppy first press conference, badly prepared, and shows she is not a party machine person, and definitely not a boy. The assumption this makes her a bad candidate hasn’t been all that cleverly thought out and hasn’t been debated it is assumped. It is either a standard that will always reward machine people (mostly boys) and disqualify everyone else or it is sexest. You chose which Charlile.
I’ve been sent an email by the Climate Change Coalition advising of their new website
http://www.climatechangecoalition.com.au/
and announcing candidates for the election.
Does anyone know anything about this group? Are they a front for someone, or an attempt to divert greeny voters away from the Greens? In the NSW state election, where did they direct their preferences?
Q2 of the Boothby opinion poll: Would you say you are very likely (VL), quite likely (QL) or not likely (NL) to change your vote between now and when you vote in the federal election later this year ?
Note: Don’t know was also an option (DK)
Labor: VL: 3%, QL: 9%, NL: 87%, DK: 1%
Liberal: VL: 2%, QL: 9%, NL: 88%, DK: 1%
Democrats: VL: 7%, QL: 13%, NL: 80%
Greens: QL: 12%, NL: 88%
Family First: QL: 33%, NL: 67%
let us assume that the Adelaide poll is okay and is in league with the newspoll.
This then means There must be some HUGE swings in other seats ( grey anyone) to compensate for the overall swing to the ALP
Optimist:
The argument is that generally speaking, women candidates face additional scrutiny.
A male candidate would be a “journalist” or “commentator”; Nicole is a “gossip columnist”.
A male candidate would be “unremarkable”; Nicole is “lightweight”.
Male candidates would not have their looks mentioned; Nicole is always described as “blonde”.
Without making any aspersions on Cornes’ talents of which I know nothing, I point out that equality means having run-of-the-mill female candidates accepted as well as brilliant ones.
I have no problem with Nicole Cornes’ candidacy. She’s not typical, but isn’t that a good thing? It is nice to see a bit of variety. However, I do agree she needs to work on her media style a bit (the first press conference was a bit of a shocker).
I think Boothby will be close either way, but there must be some rather extreme swings elsewhere in SA if this poll has some accuracy.
Jasmine, why do you automatically assume that it’s got anything to do with being a woman? You actually haven’t made ANY case for this assumption. It appears that I criticise a female candidate and I am therefore, prima facie, sexist.
In this brief discussion on Cornes I have spoken favourably of Gillard, McKew and Parke – you ignore all of these and focus on the one woman amongst four that I am critical of. For the sake of argument, I also happen to think that Penny Wong, Jenny Macklin, Tanya Plibersek and Nicola Roxon will make fine ministers in the next Labor Government. You don’t think you’re the one being selective?
I tend to like my Labor candidates to at least have a history of voting Labor. I like them to be able to tell me why they want to go into politics. I like them to have life experiences doing something a little more relevant than writing a gossum column. I *love* candidates (yep, even female ones!) to come from outside the machine. I just want them to have something worthwhile to offer.
It’s a cheap shot, Jasmine. Usually I think that you bring some very good points to this blog – but you’re painting with too broad a brush this time.
Martin B,
She writes about how ‘men get better with age’, and other pearls of wisdom. Whether it’s a male or a female, that doesn’t qualify her as a ‘journalist’ by my admittedly high standards.
Absolutely, women get judged by higher standards than men. I’m aware of that. Jasmine would no doubt be shocked to learn that this accused sexist supports the ALP’s gender equality rules, and that I’m often the first to leap to the defence of talented yet maligned women like Julia Gillard. However, I think it’s a bit extreme (not to mention downright offensive) to call anyone who dares to suggest a female candidate might not be a good one a sexist.
Mayo perhaps? One can only but hope and dream.
Yes, I suspect Jasmine is correct when she points out the double standard being used against Nicole Cornes. I can’t pretend that I am totally on top of Adelaide’ Who’s Who, but apart from that first press conference (which was a tad embarrassing), I haven’t heard much negative about her. At any rate, how much male dead wood is there on the back benches of either side? I would hazard a guess that it is within the realms of 25% (obviously much higher for the Nats). And there are any number of dud candidates (on both sides, again no doubt higher for the Nats), but why aren’t we hearing about them? I haven’t heard Ms Cornes being critisized regarding policy, more that she is a ‘bimbo dolly-bird’. THis may be true, but such a criticism is inherently sexist as we can’t make equivalent comments about a man. Unfortunately, most contributors here appear to be men, and like white people with racism, most men don’t quite ‘get’ sex discrimination.
For what it’s worth, I’m not sure how much we can read into this poll. If Labor is as far ahead in SA as EVERY other poll has suggested, it seems pretty unlikely, in such a small State, that Labor won’t pick up Boothby. If the Libs do retain Boothby, then we might just be in for a closer election than we are all expecting.
Charlie: Jasmine will speak for herself, but I think the reaction is not to individual comments, but to the barrage of criticism that occurred when Cornes was preselected, and any time there is an unfavourable event for her.
She may not be the greatest candidate the ALP has selected, but the amount and ferocity of criticism that she has received exceeds all other candidates by a long margin.
Sorry that was in reply to 100.
the MOE in the Boothby poll is 3.8%
Hugo, in case you hadn’t noticed I’m getting a tad annoyed at people not bothering to read comments and instead just assuming that I’m sexist.
Why don’t you go back through the thread – you’ll find that in each of my posts re: Cornes, that what I’ve decried is her lack of any real idea of what she wants to achieve in office.
Nicole Cornes first press conference was worse than embarassing and they replayed it a few times :[ Clearly not coached or prepared in anyway. Total loss on each and every question. Rudd must have been secretly fuming about the lack of professionalism of those preparing her. Basically she would have got an instantaneous swing against her from the very first. It was just terrible. I dont know what she has done since but I hope she is out there knocking on every single door. Her husband did come out and ask that people give her a fair go.
That’s as may be, but there are plenty of men who write about such matters in the newspaper, yet “gossip columnists” are almost always women…
Lawrence Money, for instance, who is a gossip columnist as surely as anyone is, is described most frequently as a “diarist” or “columnist”.
“THis may be true, but such a criticism is inherently sexist as we can’t make equivalent comments about a man.”
I think we can, but none of the male deadwood (as far as I can tell) is particularly good looking…
I agree that criticisms of Cornes is more driven by gender and the fact she’s already got some sort of public profile, as opposed to her actual capability. I’m taking a “wait and see” approach.
So is the more to the Boothby poll table?
We still don’t have any 2PP information…
Martin, getting more attention (be it positive or negative) is part and parcel of being a ’star’ candidate. Maxine McKew is getting the same sort of attention, but with the benefit of either natural ability or (more likely) the credibility and experience she has earned from 30 years in public affairs, she is shining.
Someone like Nicole Cornes is always going to get more attention than some no-name machine hack. That’s why star candidates are selected, and it’s why they have to be better than the average. Cornes is a poor candidate, and I don’t particular blame her – I blame the buffoon who threw her in the deep end.
Climate change?
Coalition of bods, including Genia McCafferty, Mayor of Nth Sydney and head of NSW LGA. They got 0.64% at the 2007 NSW LC election. No Tickets and I doubt they handed out HtVs with a 2nd pref, but if so, probably would have been 1,2 CCC,GRN. There is a web-site- Google on the name and McCafferty.
Martin @ 112. You have me at a disadvantage, as the only gossip columnist I could even name is Nicole Cornes, and that’s only because she migrated to a part of the newspaper that I actually read. I have absolutely no doubt that there are plenty of men who write the same sort of thing as Nicole Cornes – I just don’t happen to know who they are.
Martin there is no other 2PP information that that which was mentioned earlier, ie Liberal 54, Labor 24. (That is not my typo, that is the Advertiser’s, and is in the print and online editions). I assume they mean 54-46 !!
There is a 3rd table which shows how the polled people voted in 2004 if anyone wants me to post it.
I don’t see why Cornes’ gender is a factor here. Bottom line is that she doesn’t seem like a very good candidate. Whether she is referred to as a journalist or a gossip columnist is relevant in so much as she IS A GOSSIP COLUMNIST. If a male gossip columnist is referred to as a journalist, my thought is, “bullcr@p, that’s not a journo, that’s a gossip columnist.” It’s basically about calling a spade a spade rather than a spadette or papa spade or any other gender-related description. If you want to look at gender inequality in politics, look at the overall problem of candidate selection in the major parties – women who are clearly the best candidates for the job are often overlooked for a range of reasons. Ultimately it’s as much about ignoring merit as it is anything about sexism.
Too often it’s about jobs for the boys, but the boys are often girls too…….I’d love to see jobs for the best candidates, boy or girl.
My 2 cents worth
Nicole Cornes’ columns in the Adelaide Sunday Mail ARE lightweight, but often make this mere male think. The sheer fact that I continue to read is despite a life time aversion to “gossip columns”.
Her husband, however, comes across as a (Very) faded sports star banging on about the good old days.
Describing her as a political “bimbo” is a bit rich … have you seen or heard Andrew Southcott in action? If he was any lighter he would float away.
Don’t write her off just yet.
From memory wasn’t there some controversy about a tarty dress Cornes wore to a dinner with the State Governor?
My recollection might be slightly off, and I make no judgement of Cornes based on that event but it did come across badly in the press
I think it is prudent to not assume
in which case we really have no reliable 2PP information to go on.
However if we give preference splits of 80/20, 60/40, 20/80 from Greens, Dems, FF to the ALP, and assume that the ind/oth/und break the same way then we end up with a 2PP of round about 54-46
.
However it seems *just* as reasonable to assume that the “undecided” is being inflated by ex-ALP voters (so yes please, post the thrid table) in which case one would expect the margin to be closer.
Nicole Cornes is getting a pasting on The ABC at the moment.
In the end, candidates should be careful not to make too much of name for themselves if possible and try and ride on the uniform swing into office. This means that if a candidate is to be selected for their profile they should be selected carefully, and only in knowing that they’re very likely to be able to pull it off.
In the end, the views of individual candidates are of no consequence, due to the strict party discipline in Australian politics.
They’re hurting real bad in Holt St. Freaking out in fact. This editorial reminds me of a miffed authoritarian parent chiding a free-spirited child whose imagination and allegiance has blossomed and grown beyond the parent’s control. The Pied Piper of Intertube Oz is luring their precious consumer children away.
Sez Eds of Oz: “Too many polls allows political reporting as sportâ€.
What they fail to perceive is that for many people, not only layabout Poll Bludgers, it’s not JUST sport; it’s also about entertainment! Every day from here to E-day is both a pantomime and drama. A sassy blend of The Globe Theatre and Street Theatre. We love to cheer our heroes and hiss the villains. Engagement and feedback is instantaneous. Who wants to hang about while one’s comments to an online newspaper blog are approved and/or edited ? Spontaneity is the soul of wit. Like Oscar said.
Citizen Rupert’s scribes are boring and predictable. Aged air-guitarists doomed to irrelevency and impotence by fora that they can no longer control, let alone comprehend. One-trick ponies on a on-way ride to the glue factory. Yesterday’s agenda setters.
“G’day, Sol’s me name, psephin’s me game†just doesn’t cut it anymore. Notwithstanding the fact that Solly is a human Geiger Counter when it comes to “soft Labor votesâ€.
Christopher Pearson has been vivisected and placed on permanent display (onya, Possum) in cyberspace. A Vlad the Impaler gesture to serve as a warning to Shill “Newspoll, We Own It†Shanahan and all Eddy-The-Expert wannabes( hellooo Matty) who function as Think Tank filters and stenographers.
The old guard of Politics and Media are rapidly changing and each of us here, contributors and browsers alike has the best seat in the house. I wonder how many other people like me haven’t bothered to spend hard-earned dollars on purchasing hard-copy NEWSpapers for nearly two years.
Adam, The first candidate mentioned on the CCC website is Patrice Newell, ex TV host and partner of Phillip Adams. So if she’s a right wing plant, she’s an odd choice for one. No idea on the second one, Phil Johnson – he’s got the same name as a dingbat intelligent design guy, so it’s hard to find stuff on him with Google. The third candidate listed, Michael Kiely, also appears to be genuine. Their explanation for why they’ve formed a separate party is here
Ah, but I tend to descriptivism rather than prescriptivism in semantics, and hence if it is the case that men are rarely described publicly (sorry, your private thoughts don’t count there
) as “gossip columnists” then I must conclude that “gossip columnist” is to some extented a gendered description.
Adam @98
The Climate Change Coalition is the vehicle for Patrice Newell (partner of ABC broadcaster Philip Adams). At the state election CCC refused to provide any direction of preferences other than ‘1′ for themselves (I’m looking at their HTV as I write). They would be aiming at the ‘blue-green’ vote, and what they will do with their preferences is anyone’s guess. The ‘VOTE Climate’ site rated them behind the Greens as they lacked policy detail, which I am assuming they will have brushed up on by now. I would expect them to preference the Democrats before the Greens, but I have no idea how they will deal with other micro’s or even for that matter the major’s. Possibly for extra policy announcements from Garrett they will preference the ALP ahead of everybody, but I suspect you will need to ask them directly.
from that Oz piece: History shows the polls will narrow before election day
I thought this had been shown to be incorrect? Does anyone have pointers to a source of the polling data for the months leading up to the last few elections, I’m happy to feed that into gnuplot and check…
also on CCC – the NSW ticket had Genia McCaffery, President of the LGSA & North Sydney Mayor #2, Matt Noffs, nephew of Ted Noffs #3, and John McInerney, one of Clover Moore’s “Independents” #4.
Boothby poll question 3: Who did you give your first preference for the Lower House in the last federal election in October 2004 ?
First preference Now (2004 election in brackets)
Labor (Nicole Cornes): (ALP: 72%, LIB: 9%, DEM: 28%, GRE: 31%, ONP: 35%, FFP: 19%, IND: 0%)
Liberal (Andrew Southcott): (ALP: 7%, LIB: 81%, DEM: 22%, GRE: 7%, ONP: 35%, FFP: 28%, IND: 37%)
Democrats (Craig Bossie): (ALP: 5%, LIB: 0%, DEM: 39%, GRE: 0%, ONP: 0%, FFP: 0%, IND: 0%)
Greens (Jodie Kirkby): (ALP: 6%, LIB: 0%, DEM: 8%, GRE: 60%, ONP: 0%, FFP: 0%, IND: 37%)
Family First (Andrew Cole): (ALP: 1%, LIB: 1%, DEM: 0%, GRE: 0%, ONP: 30%, FFP: 31%, IND: 9%)
Indep/Other: (ALP: 2%, LIB: 1%, DEM: 0%, GRE: 1%, ONP: 0%, FFP: 3%, IND: 17%)
Informal/None: (ALP: 0%, LIB: 1%, DEM: 0%, GRE: 0%, ONP: 0%, FFP: 0%, IND: 0%)
Undecided: (ALP: 7%, LIB: 7%, DEM: 3%, GRE: 1%, ONP: 0%, FFP: 19%, IND: 0%)
A delightfully refreshing story from the Oz.
Also from the Oz:
… winning 55% of the vote and losing the election would be a little bit trickier, I think.
This is similar to the claim Sol Lebovic made in his Sydney Institute speech. In his mind, that the polls haven’t moved much all year is an indication that people aren’t thinking about politics yet. It’s remarkably dismissive of the electorate, to say nothing of his own polling. And were the numbers reversed, I very much doubt the Oz would be talking about people having “parked their vote with the Coalition”.
While this piece is not the same level of childish as the previous tanty, it’s still very bad.
Regarding Nicole Cornes – interesting that the topic came up, as I was only discussing this with someone last week. In fact, I’ve spoken to a few people who live in Boothby about it, as well as somebody who works for Andrew Southcott. I, like many, was absolutely baffled when the ALP announced her as a candidate, but I’ll get to that shortly
One person I spoke to about this is what you would call very left leaning – thus by definition, a Greens/Labor supporter. Needless to say, we disagree about many policies, but astonishingly it is actually possible to get along with people from the other side of politics. Amazing, I know. Anyway, I quizzed him about Nicole (his candidate) once, he grimaced and essentially muttered about how he felt somewhat gypped by it. He is voting for Labor – but is parking his vote because he wants Rudd over Howard, not Cornes over Southcott. Coming from an ALP supporter, that was pretty big.
Upon speaking to him, I asked a couple of other locals, who aren’t politically minded, what they thought of the upcoming election. Both also said that they felt like they weren’t really being given a choice, even if they wanted an ALP member they can’t bring themselves to vote for Cornes.
Finally, to the guy who works for Southcott. Obviously he would not be the best person to give an unbiased opinion, but I will share it nonetheless. He says from who he has spoken to, on the campaign trail and so forth, many of them (in his words) are offended more then anything else at the choice before them, they feel the ALP has screwed them over. People know who she is, and judge her by what she has written. Also, it is obvious as all hell that this is a celebrity stunt – which people tolerate if the candidate at least demonstrates some knowledge about policies. Which she didn’t.
I’m sure she is a nice person, and heck who knows, might make a good & fresh politician. Rudd had it right when he said variety is a good thing. But seriously. Cornes wrote a fluffy, back-of-the-paper Sunday Mail column for two years prior to being nominated by the ALP, devoted to tales about women, ‘what men want’ and so forth. She joined the ALP a few days after she announced her candidacy (sorry, a few days after Rudd announced her candidacy, I’m not sure if she spoke at all.) Finally, she specifically asked radio presenters, who interviewed her days after, for ‘no tough questions please’ – something the ’tiser announced to the public via the front page the following day. She was completely unprepared, this was a bungled decision by the ALP. She was literally asked on a Friday night, and announced to the public a couple of days later. It was depressing to watch.
Here’s an article I found:
LABOR’S latest star recruit, Nicole Cornes, is an expert on men (they only want sex), yummy mummies (too much pressure to be skinny) and ageing paramours (greying sideburns can make older men hot property).
But when it came to a taxing issue such as whether the Federal Government should be using its surplus for tax cuts or increased spending on infrastructure, the 37-year-old celebrity newspaper columnist and wife of football legend Graham Cornes was left floundering.
http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/star-recruit-takes-raincheck-on-tough-issues/2007/04/30/1177788057084.html
That’s from the age – and was quite a flattering piece compared to ones from the ’tiser.
Labor will not win Boothby. They might grab some other seats, almost certainly mine, but as I have said before, this will come down to whether or not a party can capitalize on the water crisis down here. However, I’ve already gone off topic enough and won’t bore you any more.
Charlie I think others have answered for me, but I’m still waiting for genuine analysis of her as a bad candidate that wouldn’t apply to 50% of the field.
If you are saying that the only good candidates are going to be gray suit machine people of either sex then that is the kind of politician you want and I’ll confine my attacks to the machine until they start spitting out boring machine people in the same gray suits, but in different genders. But most people don’t want robot machine people they want something else.
I still don’t see any evidence of her being a bad candidate. Maybe not a good one, but not a bad one. That she dared to wear a dress that showed she was a woman to a dinner with the govenor – really I cannot be too harsh with a stupid comment like that – it is entirely stupidly sexist.
Lets not forget that polls of individual seats often bounce around before and during the campaign. I remember a few seats in the last election where 1 poll had 54/46 for ALP and the next 46/54… I’d wait til we get another poll of this seat to make conclusions.
The parties themselves would have a better indication of how they’re going in the seat as I’m sure they’ve been polling consistantly.
Re: the Cornes response:
“But this morning Ms Cornes told ABC radio: “I must at least see 100 or so people every weekend, and that’s not including those I doorknock or speak to on the phone.”
“That’ not the general feeling I’m getting,” she said. ”
Good lord, does every candidate trot out this tired little cliche? I guess so.
Shame that a seat in South Australia with a majority of 5.4% may be retained by the government for no reason other than the candidate sucked.
Is this a tarty dress? My experience in tartyness-assessment is rather limited.
http://www.news.com.au/adelaidenow/story/0,22606,22483082-5006301,00.html
The CCC did not recommend preferences in NSW this year, allegedly because being outside the political system and not having to worry about ugly machine things like preferences was “liberating” for Ms Newell. Which is a harmful thing to do in optional-ATL voting, because it says “If we don’t get a seat, we don’t care if like-minded people don’t, it’s all about us”.
At the federal, it won’t be much of an issue providing they preference parties who have a record on climate change. That would be the Democrats and the Greens, you’d assume, and if they don’t, I would hope the media hound them to death and 0.1% of the vote.
anthony baxter,
“Does anyone have pointers to a source of the polling data for the months leading up to the last few elections?”
Here’s some:
http://www.ozelection2007.info/forums/viewtopic.php?id=297
Some more:
http://possumcomitatus.wordpress.com/2007/09/07/capitulation/
(and yes, I would hope the CCC preference Labor ahead of Liberal. If you’re going to claim Climate Change as your issue, Labor is streets ahead in policy on it compared to the Libs. So Patrice, if you’re reading, you’re part of the machine now, act like it.)
Thanks for the typing Matthew
Charlie (110) – I wasn’t having a go at you personally, nor was I especially defending Nicole Cornes as a candidate, merely that I was backing up Jasmine’s assertions that women candidates (especially ones that don’t have ‘male’ credibility, such as McKew’s journalism) are judged on harsher criteria than the boys are. I have heard nothing about how other candidates dress, for example, and nor should I.
To be fair, I think it’s hard for us white males to appreciate discrimination, primarily because we never experience it, and only by recognising our inherently privileged position in society (because last time I looked, the world was still being run by white men) can we start to see the injustices perpetrated against those who don’t fit that mould. This can be a bit confronting for some – no one wants to think that they are racist and/or sexist – but it is essential to understanding one’s place in the world.
Anthony at 129… Newspoll data is searchable at
http://www.newspoll.com.au/cgi-bin/polling/display_poll_data.pl
You have to click through Political and Issues Trends and then Federal Voting Intention, but eventually you get to enter a date range and woohoo, stats fly.
I think Aristotle has jumped on the head of that 1993 primary come-back line a few times at OzElection2007. But it might’ve been Possum. Has anyone seen them in the same room together anyway? Hmm?
I’ve only met her once but I was actually surprised by how much I liked her (I was expecting a bimbo), so I’m now no longer surprised to hear her say that she gets a positive reaction from the people she meets.
Incidentally, if you take the preference flow from the last election, this poll gives the Libs 53/47 TPP. This represents about a 4% swing to the ALP from 2004.
Sorry, I can’t add up. That should have been about a 3% swing to the ALP.
No problems Martin, it was easier to type out that table than finish the research grant I am currently writing.
The last time I spoke to someone in the ALP in SA, they told me that Cornes was being received well by the voters at shopping centres etc, even though she didn’t know much about much, she was good talking to the mums etc. This may have been over-optimistic, and she has been getting a savaging in the Morgoth press as we would expect.
Having said that, my view has always been that suburban seats will go with the statewide swing regardless of candidate factors. All polls this year have shown a whopping swing in SA, and it’s hard to think that Boothby would be exempt from that swing just because the candidate is, or is thought to be, a dumb blonde. And it’s not as if the Liberal candidate is all that stellar. However, in a small and parochial town like Adelaide I suppose that could be the case.
The media have now decided that Boothby is now a “vital,” “crucial,” “key” seat etc, which of course it isn’t. It’s number 20 on the Coalition hit parade, so winning it would be nice but isn’t essential. If Labor wins Kingston, Wakefield and Makin SA will have done its duty.
I don’t know I could only see a short overcoat and what looked like a harness. I don’t know how strong fetish trends run in SA, but even if fetish wear is not acceptable high-society circles I’m not sure still how it pertains to her quality as a candidate.
Also to help you on this, some of you do seem a little flustered (and my introduction of fetish wear is probably not going to calm your little hearts) you are welcome to debate her ‘electablility’ thereby moving the debate from our sensitive little souls to the question of whether or not the electorate is sexist. I suspect it is and then you can blame the collective masses and not take the fact we have a sexist society so personally.
If elected her job in theory is to make law (something 90% of politicians are completely unsuited for and this is all done by draftspersons) and to represent the people of her seat. Which she can do quite well in a millimeter thick coat of bright pink latex. In reality her job is to do exactly what caucus decides, and stay friendly enough with the electorate to be returned, and if she turned to me as her fashion advisor in respect to being re-elected I might advise her to find a laura ashley shop (if they are still open anywhere).
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,22485063-12377,00.html
Pollies are ‘dog-whistling’ us (as in the average voter, not pollbludger addicts).
“Mr Fear said conservative politicians were more likely to use dog-whistle tactics, while those to the left of centre seeking to distort the truth were more likely to resort to spin.”
68 Antony Green. Brilliant Antony. I would like a feature to wash dishes. Any chance?
Nicole needs to challenge her opponent to a debate then to show she is now up to speed and to overcome that negavtive start.
I like you idea Kina but the headlines would be all ‘blonde celebrity gossip columnist parrot learns lines well’.
It does seem like Labor pre-selected someone dumb, and that this may well cost them the seat. A bit of an aaargh, but they’ll make up for it in other areas.
I give up; but Labor has selected lots of dumb people, we will see on election night how many of them get elected and how many don’t and unlike the dumb liberals wont feature in the inner cabinet.
Too show I have a sense of humor:
Traditional Woman’s Cure for headaches:
Take a lime, cut it in half and rub it on your forehead. The throbbing will go away.
The Working Woman’s way:
Cure for headaches. Take a lime, cut it in half and drop it in a double vodka. Drink the vodka. You might still have the headache, but you won’t care!
Traditional Woman:
Freeze leftover wine into ice cubes for future use in casseroles and sauces.
The Working Woman’s way:
Left over wine??? HELLO!!!????
The Liberal cheer squad are cheap, very cheap. They must be worried that Nicole Cornes is going to win. Gee, in WA we have some really good pollies – Don Randall, Wilson Tuckey, Noel Crichton-Brown, Brian Burke, Julian Grill to mention just a few. No-one ever accused them of being lightweight. Nicole Cornes is entitled to have a go, as much as anyone is.
Jasmine,
Both sides pick dumb people as candidates. There’s countless numbers of federal and state MPs on both sides that would need daily help to put on their shoes. I suspect Cornes gets some additional attention because she’s photogenic and they can then run a photo of her alongside the story.
Yes, I do have low expectations of the Murdoch tabloids.
The feral ABC has certainly done Nicole over again today. But, as a former candidate in both state and federal elections, I can honestly say that she is better than at least 90 percent of people who present themselves for public office. As for the latest poll, Mike Rann said today that the Tiser had Vini Ciccarello losing Norwood three days before the last state election and she “won in a landslide”. Well, not quite a landslide, Mike, but comfortably.
I met her at a party once before she was a candidate. I too was somewhat surprised, but she was very pleasant and did not come across as a bimbo in any way, shape or form.
Her lack of policy knowledge sounds problematic, but I suspect she is just projecting an image which is producing a hostile response.
Incidentally, two Liberal candidates in Victoria (Hamish Jones in Maribyrnong and Cam Nation in Gorton) have had to be withdrawn because of their complete and utter stupidity as shown by comments and videos on their own blogs. I happen to know that this was fed to The Australian, but of course they didn’t report it.
Now I’m off my soap box, Chris, you know I’m a big fan of your expression, your ideas, your research and passion. And more importantly you are correct.
But really you seem to be indicating that you hope the Murdoch papers will give you a run just because they are pursuing a politically biased, logically and factually flawed conservative agenda? And you on the other hand are right and have the future of our country and the education of our children dear to your heart. Why would you even send the email to them they show no signs of caring for the things you hold dear?
has anyone seen this? ive just recieved a wonderful letter lauding the extra money i’ll get on my war widows pension from next march, i’ll smile and accept it gratefully and still vote for Rudd.
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,22482457-5012863,00.html
Now this is clever. My opinion of the CCC just went up. Philip Adams may be an old windbag, but he does understand media.
http://climatechangecoalition.com.au/home/video-filelinks/jack-simmons-needs-your-vote.html
News Ltd is being incredibly biased against Cornes, describing her as a celebrity candidate and constantly showing the picture of her in an evening dress.
Yet Cornes has run a successful small business and is finishing a law degree at Flinders.
It does sound as if they percieve Cornes as a significant threat to try and belittle her so often.
The big thing in her favour is hands on approach to the people in her electorate, doorknocking and regular contact with people, and the positive feedback she is getting.
Cornes old style approach could well pay off and the lib member, Southcott, is on the Work Place relations committe, an enthusiatic supporter of Work Choices. Housing affordability is also an issue in Boothby, yet Howard and Southcott deny there is an crisis.
Pru Goward only got elected to Goulburn because of her old style doorknock approach. Perceptions about people can change dramatically once you meet them in person and I think that Cornes is still in with a chance as is Bailey in North Sydney. Nothing beats the personal approach.
Again, the key question is about the quality of the candidate. My understanding is that it is still technically a judgement of the local party members as to who is the best candidate. I’m very interested to know (perhaps someone with a bit more time than me can find out) how many candidates have been selected by the major parties in defiance of party preselection rules or in clear defiance of the wishes of the local party members. Having said that, I’m not looking for someone to take me to school with a bunch of cut-and-paste paragraphs from Liberal or Labor party rule books (hope that headed off a few of you) – I’m just keen to know about the number of parachute candidates, carpet-baggers and machine people that have been slotted in with scarce attention payed to the procedure that SHOULD be used.
Also, people talk about a “good candidate” and a “bad candidate” as though there was a standard formula for determinig either – not so, in many areas, a good candidate is one who is able to truly connect with the local community and understand their issues fully in attempting to represent them, in others, a good candidate can be considered one who has a bright political fututre, can effect real change at a Government level etc…..
Then you have the problem of the vast gap between what local people look for in a candidate and the political imperatives guiding a party machine in the preselection process machine. I could go on forever………
my main point is that a candidate can be a dud for many reasons and better than they appear for as many reasons – sadly, as ever, in politics its more about who you know than what you know.
Hugo @ 141, I take intimations that I hold sexist views personally, and I think I should. I realised that your comment wasn’t aimed directly at me, but it wasn’t specifically aimed away from me either. I may not be experienced when it comes to racial or sexual discrimination, but I do not what it is like to be harassed and on occasion even discriminated against on account of disability (Asperger’s Syndrome).
It also happens that I agree with the general point on women getting marked more harshly than men in the political arena. However, Jasmine goes further and basically tars any criticism of a female candidate with the *sexist* brush. It might sound good at Emily’s List meetings (and to pre-empt, yes I support the premise of Emily’s List), but it’s just plain offensive when you tell people that their views on a particular candidate are due to prejudice.
Jasmine @ 134, perhaps the best way I can respond is to tell you what I *like* about the candidates that I do like. Perhaps in return in your next response you could acknowledge that your haste in tarring me with the s-word is an unwarranted slur that is not borne out by my comments. Incidentally, you’ve STILL ignored my comments about the other female politicians I mentioned. Perhaps they don’t fit with your presumption of guilt.
Anyway, on to other things. I do NOT want grey men from the machine. Some posters here that know me from another website (David Walsh, Mr Q and bmwofoz) could confirm for you that I am extremely critical of the insular nature of the ALP. In fact, it is one of the reasons that I have thus far not taken the plunge and joined the Party. I won’t comment about them because, by their very nature, they are all more or less the same and we all know what they are like.
To its credit, however, the Party has made a better than usual effort to bring in relative outsiders this time. There are basically two categories here. One is the local community leader and activist – local mayors, business people, members of community organisations and professionals. Due to their essentially local profiles, we tend to know little about them if they don’t come from our area. Examples of this group in 2007 would be George Newhouse, George Colbran, Liz Prime and Damien Hale.
The second and more relevant group are your ’star’ candidates. These might or might not have a high profile, but they usually have a particular identifiable experience or trait that makes them an asset to the parliamentary Labor Party. I will list the candidates that I put in this category, and what I think they offer:
Maxine McKew – 30+ years in political journalism gives McKew both the profile and the credibility to take on Howard and win. She will arguably have more experience of Canberra and the workings of government than any of her parliamentary colleagues if she wins Bennelong, despite not having been in parliament. For that reason – and for her undeniable ability – she deserves to be promoted straight into the ministry.
Mark Dreyfus QC – a quasi-machine man, but one who brings more legal expertise than anyone already in caucus possesses, and he also has a record of work promoting party reform here in Victoria.
Ross Daniels – the candidate for Ryan. Academic, social worker and human rights activist who has been international chairperson of Amnesty International. He’s a long-shot to get elected, but if he does he will hopefully help fill the void about to be left by Carmen Lawrence as the moral compass of the caucus.
Peter Tinley, Mike Kelly and Rodney Cocks – the three soldiers have each been well-selected and will help the Party to wrest back leadership on national security from the chickenhawks in the Libs. All three have put their lives on the line in East Timor, Afghanistan and Iraq (not to mention Cocks distinguishing himself as a hero in the Bali bombings) and have had the courage to speak out about what they believed in. Kelly also brings military law expertise that maybe, just maybe, might help us bring a bit of sanity and morality back into the national security debate.
Gary Gray – I might not agree with him on carbon emissions, but he will certainly be the only member of the parliamentary Labor Party to have been the CEO of a major corporation. Gray will be essential to the Party’s hopes of swaying the resources industries away from their current infatuation with the Coalition. We might not like those industries, but reaching some sort of satisfactory result on climate change and industrial relations is going to need at least a modicum of cooperation.
Melissa Parke – here’s someone that I’d never heard of until Carmen Lawrence retired, but her resume is compelling. She’s only 40 but she brings years of field and diplomatic experience at the United Nations into parliament. She’s a future Foreign Minister – maybe even higher.
Where does Nicole Cornes fit into that group? Err, she’s written a fluff piece in a Sunday newspaper. I’m sorry, but she just doesn’t measure up to the same standards – and I’m not referring to her cup size. Believe it or not, Jasmine, it’s possible to think that a female candidate DOESN’T offer anything of value as a prospective MP, WITHOUT being a misogynist bastard.
Frankly, (and again without casting any aspersions on Cornes’ actual abilities), the suggestion of a backbench full of highly intelligent, driven individuals, fully on top of all aspects of public policy sounds like a recipe for disaster…
Another hint about the election date . I was watching Sky News earlier this afternoon and they had Spiers on talking from Canberra. I missed the earlier part of the report but apparently they had an interview clip with Howard about something or other and he had commented upon the election date I guess. The words apparently were “….. by early December ….. ” because that was the portion Sky had edited out and put on their banner splash across the bottom of the screen. Now, haven’t we all heard here before that the Libs had cancelled their mailouts for November? Putting those 2 pieces together, for a minimum 33 day campaign, he would have to call the election the last Monday in October so yet one more parliamentary sitting. There are too many pieces of information floating around here and it is horribly confusing. Costello, if he knew what he was talking about said we wouldn’t have another sitting of parliament, which would mean an even longer campaign. Yet Howard has never called elections longer than the minimum before.
Libs better call the election soon or they will drive us crazy. The longer they wait, the more votes they leak from anger and frustration >;-(
Er, that wasn’t aimed at Charlie’s post btw, the timing was just accidental.
Hehe the problem with Labor is there are only three types of candidates…
Union Officials, Labor Staffers or Celebrity candidates….how about pre-selecting people from the Real Australia…
One reason why the Libs have been successful is that they pre-select people from all walks of life from different communities….police officers, doctors, defence force servicemen/women, lawyers, small business operators…the problem with Labor is they’re stuck with having to put so many Union officials into the parliamentary Labor Party when they could be putting better people on the ballot paper in the final analysis…
Wonder if the Libs have pre-selected all their candidates yet perhaps when that happens it will give an indication as to when the election will be….i think Parliament could go back in October for a later Nov early Dec poll…
Instead of the Learner Latham the Coalition have again stuck to a familiar and potent formula….Don’t Risk Rudd….perfect!
I don’t have a subscription to Crikey so can’t read the details but this is enough to convince me that the Liberal candidates in affected areas had better be worried …..
“The equine influenza outbreak is becoming an increasingly awkward issue for the Coalition with the natural reaction of people affected by it being to blame someone for their economic and social hardship and the Federal Government being a logical candidate for the venting of spleen. [further details only for subscribers]
The fatal flaw in the “Don’t risk Rudd” campaign is people actually don’t believe it. Its policy or bust from now on.
Is there a chocolate frog for the person who correctly guesses the election date – I mademy prediction for a 1 december poll about six or eight weeks ago now and I’m not sharing with any Glen-come-lately’s who wanna piece of my freddo.
I just spoke to a bank teller who asked me if Labor was the party of Kym Beazley or Kevin Rudd.
I somehow don’t think the electorate is 100% switched on yet.
Glen @ #179
One could argue that the Coalition’s rehashing of an old slogan is just like their policies. Always looking backwards; never looking forwards. I think that’s the perception that the Coalition has presented to the electorate, and that is what is sticking. This slogan will just reinforce that perception. The Government appears to be at war with the ghosts of the past.
In contrast, I expect the ALP’s slogan’s will be positive and forward thinking. This will further reinforce the distinct advantage Ridd has over Howard.
Tomorrow’s leader versus yesterday’s hero.
Optimist,
If there was, I missed out on it. I was hanging my hat on the last Saturday in October and I don’t think I will get it now
. Howard is an absolute [insert appropriate word] for waiting until after the Reserve Bank sits in early November!
ahem
“Ridd” should read “Rudd”. Obvious I’m sure.
Poor Nicole. I’ve just heard her asked on ABC radio to explain Labor’s IT policy. She did not sound much like she knew what IR or AWA’s or Workchoices actually referred to.. stumbled, lost for words…Oh no, not good….
Southcott is a SA ugly. A global warming sceptic and very pro Iraq. He had a 2% swing against him last election moving Boothby into the marginal zone. In 2001 the ALP could only get 25% of primaries.
So it is amazing that the ALP is even competitive, don’t write Cornes off just yet. Humphrey B Bear could win once the election is called.
Thanks for the tips Glen. And Charlie don’t take this personally, it wasn’t meant personally and my comments were based on the thread when she was pre-selected.
But please – even given you long post I still do not know what is wrong with the candidate except she was a gossip columnist and wears too little clothes. So you’d prefer political journalists to fluffy ones but I don’t get it as a genuine criticism. That is what I’m asking for. Something about her that makes her a bad candidate. Not that you don’t approve of her appearance or previous job.
The difficulty you are going to have is there is no real explanation for the these pretty nasty attacks on one candidate in one seat other than she wore a small dress and isn’t as smart as a UN lawyer. If you are just a liberal battler feel free to have a go but if you are shooting for considered independent analysis you are going to have to find criticisms you are making of 1/2 the field or things that apply to her that do not apply to every small business / real estate hack who has branched stacked the local chamber of commerce done a stint as a chamber president before being wedged into a liberal seat ‘as a real local businessman’ not withstanding he, to borrow a quote above, needs help putting his shoes on in the morning.
hehehe this is why you run the risk of putting political novices in important positions Nicole and Mike Kelly are no Maxine because they will struggle in the campaigns compared to someone with a fair knowledge of politics i dare say many of us would do a better job than Nicole at explaining Labor’s IT/broadband and IR policy than her hhehehe Andrew Southcott must be thanking his lucky stars he has been given a political ‘dunce’ to try and take away his seat…
After all it would be a shame to see Southcott go after all he is the Liberal Dorothy Dixers asker!
Even the questions she is being asked, I challenge anyone to ask Stuart Henry in Hasluck to explain the Liberal Party Policy on anything more complex than graffiti (his pet local issue) – he doesn’t even get asked.
But I understand she is a smart attractive woman with most of a law degree and still in with a chance. Smart attractive women do need to be 4x as good as Stuart Henry in pretty much every area to get a go and there is a word for that sexism.
“Libs better call the election soon or they will drive us crazy. The longer they wait, the more votes they leak from anger and frustration >;-(”
I agree Julie. Since APEC ended, it has become increasingly common to hear people saying that they wish Howard would just call the election and get it over with. In fact, some seem to think that he already has and that election day is coming very soon.
I think the media are holding back on this issue because they know it has the potential to cause a lot of anger in the electorate. But even so, I think the impression that Howard is being selfish is starting to take root.
Of course, Howard supporters want him to wait until any improvement in the polls. But Howard won’t want to piss off the swinging voters too much.
Anyway, it is increasingly looking like a late-November poll now.
Charlie,
i take issue with your description of Mark Dreyfus. He is a total machine man and while he might have more legal expertise than anyone currently in caucus, that doesn’t change the fact that a dozen other people would be better choices than him – for two simple reasons. The first is that Bob Debus is coming in in Macquarie (i think) and as a former NSW AG, i rate him as far more useful to the ALP than Dreyfus. In looking for legal expertise, the ALP dropped the ball BIG TIME in failing to push the preselection candidacy in Blaxland of respected constitutional lawyer, Professor George Williams – would have brought serious legal and academic firepower to the ALP caucus.
The second reason (and this goes back to my earlier post about the many and varied things that make a “good” or “bad” candidate) is the fact that Dreyfus is a risk to the ALP retaining the seat of Isaacs in future elections. He is steadily earning a reputation as a lazy campaigner and his refusal to move into the seat has not been welcomed by locals.
Dreyfus is in Isaacs for one reason only – a power grab by the right faction of the ALP. No news there, but the concern is that someone like Dreyfus is a careerist who will be more concerned with his position on the front bench than with building support in the community – watch that seat over the next couple of elections – my bet is that Dreyfus will look for a safer seat before long or he will lose Isaacs within two elections after this year. This is a perfect example of how short-sighted the preselection process can be when it is dominated by factional rivalry. Oh, and before Glen starts, there are plenty of examples of it among the libs – perfect example – Alex Hawke in the seat of Mitchell (watch this piece of work in coming years – i bet his maiden speech is the biggest thing since Hanson).
Don’t risk Rudd is really just a play on L-Plates Latham.
They are fightling the last election all over again.
It won’t work because it is backwards, it is old, it is boring and no one is listening or believing it anyway.
I think Labor should run:
Don’t Risk WorkChoices Mark II
Don’t risk climate change?
Don’t risk education?
Don’t risk infrastructure?
Don’t risk the status quo?
Don’t risk the future – Act Now! Vote Rudd!
Labor’s “I have a plan for the future” to me is only slightly less dumb than Iemma’s campaign slogan.
179 Glen Says: September 26th, 2007 at 1:35 pm
The problem with the conservatives, is there are only three types of candidates…
Lawyers
Bible-bashers
Xenophobic red-necks
She’s a bad candidate because she’s illiterate on ALP policy, let alone government policy. There are others in that boat, sure, and if you wish to name some (rather than just lumping them into an amorphous ‘half the field’) I’m happy to discuss their credentials or lack thereof. She’s out of her depth, through little fault of her own, and as a result Labor looks unlikely to win a seat that with a typical candidate they’d be strong favourites to gain.
Also, my Labor sympathies and disdain for the Liberals is so well known that it is surely a waste of William’s bandwidth for me to catalogue the reasons why I think Nelson, Hockey, Bishop, Andrews, Turnbull et al are buffoons. I hold Labor to a higher standard because I *know* there’s no hope of a government I could support coming from the Coalition, but I still hold out hope for the ALP. So let me make this clear: I’m not interested in who the Coalition is putting up. I want good LABOR candidates.
Finally, you say that I have not made the case why she’s a bad candidate (although I think I have made the point repeatedly – she’s incapable of telling us why her ideas and beliefs are worthy of voting for her). You have NEVER given any supporting argument for why my criticism of her is supposedly based on her sex. It seems, Jasmine, that you’re pretty good at throwing the mud but not so good at justifying it.
Oh, and you are calling me a sexist. You might think it’s just a word to be thrown around willy-nilly with no harm done, but it IS personal, it IS a slur and you should damn well know it.
Here is the full Newspoll details for the WA Poll, which I can assume are due to a couple of high profile law and order cases being raised in the local media.
http://www.newspoll.com.au/image_uploads/0907%20wa.pdf
John Howard has revisted the debris of previous campaigns and kicked over the dried turds laying around about, picking out a few here and there to breath life into.
The Children Overboard turd was a bit dried and white by now but he picked it up anyway and called it Haneef. Unfortunately no matter how hard he threw it against the wall it wouldn’t stick. STRIKE 1
Then he chanced upon an old favourite interest rate turd that he loved to keep in the draw next to his bed. But upon throwing that against the wall it evaporated into a cloud of dust smearing his face. STRIKE 2
The there was that old ‘no ticker’ turd, a bit small but worth a go. He threw that up against the wall but having got caught in the wind it land fair in the middle of Costello’s face. STRIKE 3
Never fear the Oz is here. Scraping together the remnants of the racism, xenophobia intolerance turd [calling it the nasty evil Labor muliticulturalism turd], always a Howard favourite and one he likes to produce anew every night in the privacy of his widefronts, gave that a fling against the wall and there it stuck. But no one noticed, the walls of the OZ being already thouroughly blackened with sundry turds.
There gathered the entire Cabinet, on their hands and knees, giving CPR to every little turd of elections past. One little skinny turd remained which Abbott had beathed life into after constant stroking and kissing, they called it ‘dont risk rudd’.
Without fear, racism, xenophobia, intolerance, greed, deceite, spite, malice, smear and dishonesty the Howard govt would not have survived.
AND now once more they pull out the same rubbish that Australians have moved on from and are sickened to remember. ANOTHER negative campaign by Howard will fittingly add votes to Labor as it reminds everyone of how Howard and his people operate, and it is a unpleasant memory.
Optimist,
You probably know more about Dreyfus than me, as my impressions are almost entirely second-hand. Also, I had forgotten about Bob Debus.
Jasmine,
Nicole Cornes is copping it as a weak candidate. Now IIRC, you’re here in WA, and thus you’d note there were five winnable seats available for new ALP candidates in WA at this election – and women have been pre-selected for three (Melissa Parke – Fremantle, Sharryn Jackson – Hasluck and Liz Prime – Cowan), the other two being very good candidates in Gary Gray (Brand) and Peter Tinley (Stirling) who should be the candidates regardless of their gender.
In SA, Mia Handshin doesn’t seem to be copping the same crap in Sturt, nor Kate Ellis (who I’ll grant is a sitting member which would help). I think you’re focusing too much on Cornes being attacked for her gender, and not enough for her percieved deficiencies. She did bollock up her initial public appearance. Compared to the other candidates I’ve mentioned above she does seem a little underwhelming in both her dedication to the cause and her prior qualifications for the role. I’m not for one moment suggesting she’s incapable of the job – hell, if Wilson Tuckey can do it, anyone can.
Don’t get me wrong, I hope she wins the seat because it’s one more seat the Coalition would have to win back at a future election. But to suggest that her critics are only criticising her for her gender is (in my opinion) a bit off the mark. If anything, the criticism seems to be aimed as much at those that put her in the position.
I’ve just read the Oz editorial (busy at the day job).
As I said in commentary to Dennis Shanahan’s piece before the infamous July 12 editorial, ‘could you guys be more transparent’. The fear and frustration is papable. Yes, the polls are likely to narrow. Yes, there are ways for Howard to win. But, the balance of probabilities are that he won’t and if so Peter Brent, Possum et al will come out looking better, more professional and more objective than the Oz staff. A scary prospect (for them) likely to get them noticed by Head Office (insert here Gilliamesque imagery of arcane torture devices).
Oh, and yes Nicole Cornes was a mistake.
I don’t want you to take it personally, feminist social theory bores the hell out of me it is going to bore or offend you.
Let me explain it simply. She has a profile. Apparently she almost has a law degree. This makes her a reasonable candidate prima facie. She is already ahead of 25% of the candidates if not more. Consequently any fair, non-sexist systematic of review of candidates and quality needs to work through the preceding 25% less qualified before getting to her. I consistently question the capabilities of Don Randall and Stuart Henry. I don’t see many others doing it either locally or nationally. Why would two threads now run a full frontal assualt on her? Most logical reason is she is a female candidate. You have other celebrity candidates who are not getting this level of scrutiny, therefore it is fair and logical to exclude celebrity as the key distinguishing factor.
But furthermore, and notwithstanding the preceding, and further and in the alternative, she is running for office in the actual Australian political system, not a utopian each candidate on their individual merits / vision for Australia. Yes she did one interview poorly. She seems, without knowing her personally not to be a Carmen Lawerence or Julia Gillard intellect but that is not a crime. Nor does it put her at the front of the please abuse me for the dresses I wear and the kind of journalism I did queue.
Yes I would not have dressed her that way if I was in charge of the campaign (but that says nothing about her or I it says more about our society).
If you must take it personally then know you are in really good company, a lot of whom I respect. But evil prospers when good girls say nothing on important blogs.
Shrek has done a dog whistle over plans for a State Funeral for the late Bob Collins, which btw was offered by the Federal Govt.
http://www.news.com.au/perthnow/story/0,21598,22484989-949,00.html
just back from hols
actually near howards xmas retreat-
word is that he has bought a home there
methinks the exit strategy is uppermost now
everything else is just smoke and mirrors
ps check out fort tomaree (ww2 coastal battery)if ever you are in the region
Things must be bad for the Coalition, they have to ‘drop’ the nuclear policy since it’s so close to the election. In reality they’re not dropping the policy, they’re just delaying any proposals until after the election, i.e. another WorkChoices style of ‘you know we want to do something, so if you vote us in then we will assume we have a mandate for it even though we didn’t campaign on it’.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/nuclear-laws-held-until-after-election/2007/09/25/1190486311879.html
I think John Howard has withdrawn the offer of a State Funeral.
Again, I make the point that I have no disagreement with you on the likes of Don Randall. If you think it’d be fun to have a competition to see who can disparage Liberal dills more, then all power to you. I happen to be more interested in what my side of politics is doing.
Again, she has received more criticism than other candidates because she is high-profile, but by far the least impressive of all the high-profile candidates. Is it fair that she cops more than some unknown National with a brain the size of a pea? Perhaps not, but that’s what happens when you’re a high-profile candidate in a marginal seat. There isn’t *one* distinguishing factor, there are two: she is BOTH high-profile and unimpressive.
Again, you’re simply CHOOSING to believe that her gender has anything to do with the criticism of her. You have not made any case whatsoever for this being the case and you’ve simply ignored the repeated explanations of that criticism. ‘I knows what I knows and don’t you go tellin’ me any diff’rent!’
Finally, you’d quite rightly be offended if I started calling you a man-hating feminazi (or whatever the fools on the other side call Joan Kirner these days). I don’t happen to believe any such nonsense, but why should you feel free to call someone a sexist without expecting them to react badly to it?
You might think you’ve got some inalienable right to slur other people without accounting for it, but you do not.
If you lived here in the Blue Mountains you’d be hard put to forget or overlook Bob Debus. The man not only carried a load of big State portfolios: Attorney General, Environment, Arts and, at one stage, Prisons but he nurtured his local community and many here have benefited personally and collectively from his assistance. Bob has led the way in many big-ticket initiatives but my favourite is the work he did in getting the Circle Court (for young indigenous offenders) up and going.
Bob will sweep Macquarie (once the home of Ben Chifley) by 10% or more and will be a real positive in the Rudd Government and, almost certainly, in the Rudd/Gillard Cabinet.
Crikey chaps, cold bucket of water time me thinks !
that is bullshit
Dreyfus is NOT machine man he had work all his working life in the real world .Dreyfus is a TOP candidate and he is not a lazy candidate. Dreyfus and his campaign team have been working Isaacs hard over the year.
Isaacs is a LABOR seat the only reason the margin of 1.5 % is because of the dud mp
[Corcoran} the margin should be between 6 to 10 %
Another disaster with Foley’s fingerprints all over it, to be precise, Robertbe.
Rule number one of candidate selection should be NEVER PRESELECT SOMEONE WHO IS NOT A MEMBER OF THE PARTY AND WHO HAS ALSO RECENTLY VOTED FOR YOUR POLITICAL OPPONENTS.
It was never going to work and it’s a pity, because this might have been a winnable seat with a half decent candidate.
Chinster
Tell that to Brendan Nelson.
So is Nicole a dead duck now with no chance? If that is the case she ought voluntarily stand down for someone with more chance.
And how Nicole not know Labor’s basic policies now, even in their basic form? Especially after being humiliated for knowing nothing in her first press conference.
“So is Nicole a dead duck now with no chance?”
Despite the carry on in this thread, I don’t think this is the case. There are certainly impediments, but I think a big swing in SA would be more than enough to win it for her.
Adam @ 172: That ad was done by the Climate Institute about 2-3 weeks ago. It’s got nothing to do with CCC as a party (and it’s a bit rich for them to embed the image without proper sourcing!)
Oh, I think she’s still a chance of winning. I just think that the result is in considerably more doubt than it would have been with a better candidate. If she does get over the line, she’ll have at least three years in which to prove me and her other doubters wrong – and I would love to see her do so.
Matthew Sykes is right. Let’s go back to beating up the Oz. It’s much more fun.
#183 Zenk
A very interesting observation about low involvement voters and we who like to predict election results disregard it at our peril. My experience is similar with the woman who cuts my hair (pleased to say I still have some hair to cut!). She didn’t seem to care when the election is called and yet, as I see it, the votes of people like her will ultimately determine the election outcome when each of them has the blunt pencil in his/her hand on polling day. Is it not a paradox that the votes (although not necessarily the perspectives) of the politically engaged (many of whom frequent these online sites) are irrelevant to the result of the most important event in the political process?
Lets agree to disagree Charlie, I don’t think you’ve made a case for her being ‘unimpressive’ on any fair level basis that applies to all candidates. You don’t think I’ve made a case for two full frontal attacks on her here being based at least substantially on her sex. I am not suggesting anyone, other than liberals, were playing unfairly or deliberately, my case rests on their being a deep-rooted cultural bias. I will be forced to rethink this view when slightly over 50% of politicians at all levels and business people at all levels are women. Until then the macro-evidence is firmly on my side.
To repeat a bit of micro-evidence for you. I’ve worked for big partnerships. And if I had money for everytime at the entry level I heard the expression ‘ok now we need to balance up the intake, who was the next best boy’ I’d be rich. When they start ‘balancing up the intake’ into the partners offices I’ll stop complaining. Until then it is sexiest whether or not it offends people.
That is my whole argument, and you can call me that if you like but the real feminists don’t like me much, apparently I score too lowly on the man hating scale, and not high enough on the rabid scale.
Don’t you love our beloved Medical Fraternity, they have a lovely Union to protect their interests
http://www.news.com.au/perthnow/story/0,21598,22485682-5005361,00.html
Cornes is not a dead duck, have any of you heard the whole Matthew Abraham interview? She did well.
As I said previously Labor got a staggeringly stupendous 25% primary vote in 2001.
They improved this by 10% in 2004 (at the expense of the Dems) but only gained 2% on TPP.
Even this dodgy poll done by who knows, published in a paper that cannot even get the results printed correctly, shows a further 3% move to Labor.
Labor will win Boothby in a canter and the Libs know it, that is why the poll was done.
I suspect that some of us are getting a bit carried away on this Cornes business, not least because the main cause of this blather is a highly questionable poll in the ‘Tiser. Statewide polls put Labor a million miles in front, and in urban seats, the actual candidate does not matter (I challenge all of you in Lib-held seats to ask all of your neighbours who the Labor candidate is; I have no doubt that the answer – ‘no idea’ – would also be common in Boothby). If Labor wins the election on the back of a national 7% swing (as is looking increasingly likely), then Cornes will more than likely be elected on the back of that. It’s only people like us on sites like this who actually take any interest in our local MP, not to mention an Opposition candidate.
I think the likelehood that Cornes will sit on the backbench for the entirety of her putative parliamentary career is not especially relevant. Labor has pre-selected an impressive raft of candidates (as outlined by our good friend Sexist Charlie – haha only joking!) who will join what is already an impressive front bench, so just because Cornes will be stuck up the back (actually she is more likely to one of the women that both parties put behind the leaders in an attempt to show that Parliament is not the boys’ club that it is) shouldn’t matter. After all, governments need Indians as well as Chiefs.
Excellent! The coalition’s going with a negative slogan (or is it just the Nats?).
Guaranteed vote loser. Their near-infallible sense for the campaign blunder continues.
Honestly, could the Libs be any more rubbish at this?
Perhaps we can agree to disagree, Jasmine, once you acknowledge that my comments on Cornes were based on my view of her performance as a candidate (regardless of whether you agree with it), rather than her gender.
Done charlie my soap box is away, but I got 5 points extra in man-hating and 10 in rabidness, I might be invited to the next gathering of the sisterhood after all if only I put my heels away and by doc martins.
This thing about Cornes – calling her a bimbo, focusing on her appearance, the fact that she writes fluff for a living – all irrelevant!
The fact that after several months of prep time, she can come out and sound that muddled on policy is a big bloody issue – i think the issues become confused when the media comes into play – let’s look at it step by step.
1. Cornes is pre-selected out of the blue and in a climate that reflects great scepticism about so-called “star” or “celebrity” candidates, particularly within the ALP.
2. On her first outing as candidate, she chokes on almost every policy issue.
3. Opponents of Cornes/ALP seize on this and start pushing the “airhead” angle.
4. Most people shrug this off as they are basically decent and willing to give people a bit of a go – things calm down and its smotth sailing for a while.
5. Cornes comes out and again stuffs the policy in her public appearances.
6. Step 5 feeds into the impression that they were trying to establish in step 3.
7. Media pick up on this and run with the story – Cornes gets roasted.
At the end of the day, the issue is whether the brand new ALP candidate for Boothby is across some of the major issues for the imminent election – her gender is, at most, peripheral to this issue.
A “star” candidate is only a problem if they demonstrate a lack of knowledge or ovbious and immediate hypocrisy.
Look at the case of Peter Garrett – he got pinged for a dozen different things when he first ran for Kingsford-Smith.
He wasn’t a long term party member.
During the 80’s he held positions that he no longer endorses.
He ran for another party at one time.
For several years, he was not enrolled to vote.
His primary occupation was as a singer.
While people could go at him day and night about these things, there is one thing about Garrett that could not be disputed; he has demonstrated a long lasting interest in a range of important policy issues over the years and has worked hard to keep himself informed on those issues over time. He understands the policy development process and has been a player in that process for many years.
Cornes has not made a single statement about policy or principle that hasn’t been scripted by the ALP – that is just not a sustainable postiion for a brand-new candidate.
I think that the glaring point here is about the assumptions we make about candidates without listening closely. Someone here said earlier that having a law degree basically constituted a prima facie case for the legitimacy of someones candidacy – that sort of logic is about as sophisticated as saying that someone without a law degree is not a good candidate – nutty. The bottom line is that people actually need to listen closely to what a candidate says – in the case of new candidates, more scrutiny should be applied because the person is yet to prove themselves worthy in the voters minds and for many party members, the candidate needs to prove they are a worthy representative of the party in question – in my opinion, Nicole Cornes has failed both of those tests.
People wanna be sceptical about “star” candidates? So they should be, but when the candidate shows a grasp of the issues, it’s time to move on and make judgements about the substance that exists – pick a candidate with no substance and you won’t even get that far.
Don’t know if this Nicole is a bimbo or not, sounds probably not, but I do know there is a particularly nasty streak in libs and their cheer-leaders in the media when it comes to female politicians. What was it, “deliberately barren” in regard to Julia G? It’s gutter stuff and the tabloids love it. So the libs dish it up. Disgusting.
James, you need to be clearer when you are quoting people. Most people who read your comment would not have made it to the end, and would have concluded Optimist’s comments were your own. I have put it in blockquotes for you.
William Bowe
http://www.pollbludger.com
And by process of elimination, we can figure out which type of conservative Howard is ;-D ……. (good one, Pi)
Anyway I am sure if there were a disaster in progress Labor would be doing something about it – they are leaving nothing to chance this time around.
Glen, I try to avoid predictions here, but I predict with absolute confidence that Mike Kelly will win Eden-Monaro with a majority of primary votes. Nairn is an utter fool. Having your chief of staff call an Australian Army colonel a Nazi and not sacking him is the biggest piece of political stupidity I have ever seen.
*sighs softly*
3 points – new ALP candidates, if I’m running their campaign SHOULD NOT BE MAKING UP STUFF – that is what the frigging scripts are for. Mama mia who the hell would want candidates thinking for themselves .. they are there to get elected they can think later. Now they must must must stay on the script … it would be nice if they could make it sound like they made it up … just so long as they didn’t.
The law degree stuff I think I’m the only one that discussed her law degree (or almost law degree) and thanks for the personal abuse, but yes I’m sorry having an academic degree takes a bit of work and at least two brain cells. And you might not have noticed they make law in parliament. So having a law degree is not going to hurt with that whole making law thing. It seems a fairly basic observation. I did not say any politician needs a law degree (that would be stupid) just observed it was a qualification that pulls her out of the ‘without merit’ pack.
The idea of the population listening to what individual candidates say is fascinating … do you know somewhere this happens. I don’t.
The Democrats primary vote in Boothby absolutely tanked in 2004 (-16.89%) and the ALP got 9.92% of that. Overall, Southcott only lost 2% of his margin, but he will lose a further 3% based on this bad Advertiser poll.
HOWEVER, if you factor in the state-wide swing to the ALP – currently at 9.4% – then Boothby will fall, regardless of this “the women hate Nicole” spin The Advertiser are trying on.
I suspect that on election night the actual result will be closer to the 3% than the 9.4%, but how close it gets to Southcott’s 5.4% margin will be dependent on how Nicole performs from now onwards.
More grist for the anti-Workchoices mill
http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/arrests-as-workers-storm-gates/2007/09/26/1190486365444.html
The ”women hate Nicole’ spin may get her some sympathy votes then.
It should be noted that the three “types” are not mutually exclusive.
My take on it is not, “that women hate Nicole” but rather “men think she is a bit of all right”.
Never underestimate the “horny punter, male vote”.
Indeed that is correct.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/pm-to-scrap-collins-state-funeral/2007/09/26/1190486364140.html
some facts about Nicole Cornes, she grew up in the Boothby area, she and her siblings were reared by a single mum, she left school at fifteen to go to work and help her mum financially, she met and married husband Graham when she was working at radio 5AA, after marriage inbetween having two children she started up and ran a small business, she finished her schooling and has just finished her law degree at uni, i dont think anyone could describe her as a bimbo, by the way Wakefield will definately go labor, our candidate has sent around flyers about street corner meets he having.
#42 Call the Election please
I’m not suggesting that the Oz should be ‘balanced or impartial’. They don’t need to be, obviously. What they should be, however, is accurate… or at least aspire to accuracy.
and they’re the ones whining that people like us dare have an alternative view…they go so far to editorialise against these very sites.
Is Nicole Cornes the Anti-Christ? You mgiht think so from some of the comments.
I remember the first time some of Howards new candidate’s in the 1996 election spoke on camera and how they stuffed it up, and lots of people then said how much better were Keating’s candidates than the new Libs trying to get in and take over government. Those same Libs are pretty slick in front of the cameras today. I especially remember Peter McGauran completely stuffing up some questions and asking reporters if he could do the interview over again. People weren’t very impressed by then.
In a democracy anybody and everybody has a right to run for Parliament. You can say the ALP should have found a better candidate but you can’t say she shouldn’t run.
On the weekend I was at a popular pub in the Boothby electorate and I can confirm that the area is very, very conservative. Especially the women – we’re talking about the “ladies who lunch” here. The margin for Boothby is probably greater than 5.4%, Labor got a good vote last time because their candidate was Chloe Fox (a well known local whose mother is the author of Possum Magic). It’s probably where the ALP got the idea of a celebrity candidate.
The Advertiser has got stuck into Cornes – see this article.
http://www.news.com.au/adelaidenow/story/0,22606,22485074-5006301,00.html
Overall I think she was a bad choice.
I can’t imagine she’d be any less intelligent than a lot of the members we’ve already got.
Many can’t do anything but repeat the party’s script over and over again… I swear if I have to hear about the Greenhouse Office one more time I’ll scream.
It might, Kina. It will also depend on how these sorts of things are managed by the Party and how hard The Advertiser decides to run on it.
The irony of all this Nicole-bashing by The Advertiser is that she used to write for its stablemate, The Sunday Mail. I’m not entirely sure why they have suddenly turned on her. Maybe someone else could enlighten us.
James (#211),
wow, that was quite a spray. I’m not sure why you’re getting that worked up over Dreyfus and Isaacs. I’m basing what i said on a number of contacts in sth east melbourne along with some Crikey tips and rumours comments about the Dreyfus campaign and a couple of articles that were published in the aftermath of Victorian preselection battles last year. I’m wondering why you have made such a vitriolic refutation of what i said there – you can be honest – if you work for the Dreyfus campaign, please say so. At the end of the day, I want the ALP to retain Isaacs. I don’t see where the logic is in what you’re saying – surely just a little of what i said might have some credibility – or are you seruiously saying that it is ALL bullshit?
Even Roy Morgan is being stupid and over-stating the case with Rudd not memorising the tax scales. A trivial thing yet the omit Downer’s embarassment on the 7.30 report, Costello major slip in not even understanding how the tax scales were applied and Howard not know the scales back in May. Sounds like they are targetting someone?
Even the LNP supporters thought it was a trivial thing. The press tried to make a big deal out of it while the rest of Australia simply yawned.
“Australians really didn’t react strongly to Kevin Rudd’s embarrassing slip when he failed to name the tax breaks and floundered answering the question about tax breaks..”
http://www.roymorgan.com/news/polls/2007/4216/
Re Kina
As I’ve said for a long time, I think day-to-day events are very inconsequential to voting intentions. It takes major events to shift people’s voting intention, in this case I believe the only major event that’s likely to shift voting intentions at all is an election being called.
If the Liberal Party’s internal polling is so great stop fooling us around and call the election already.
Jasmine,
sorry if i sounded a bit aggressive over the law degree thing, but i can’t stand the sort of thinking that automatically gives points (however many or few) to someone with a law degree. The idea that having a law degree takes you out of the “without merit” category is simple thinking – if we all thought that way, we’d end up with Denis Denuto for P.M.
David Jones is stepping in to the debate about election date, the longer it’s called the closer it gets to Christmas shopping time, and if DJs doesn’t want that, you’d bet small businesses won’t either. It’s probably a non-issue, but I’m betting that it will be Nov 24, gives them the first week of sitting in Oct to get major coverage due to QT and then a short election campaign.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/09/26/2044129.htm?section=justin
We did up with a Denis Denuto for PM.
is my comment at 247 still being moderated or is that a typo?
Call the Election Please @ # 248:
Pretty transparent, isn’t it, that the Libs internals are just nowhere as good as they’re having us believe? If they were, JH would have been off to Yarralumla by now, surely.
Well optimist all I can say is at law school they told me over and over and over and over and over and over and over again that a law degree was the new arts degree – not much use on its own but a real door opener. Now there are complete clowns like me that passed, but really (and I pick their candidates because I don’t mind our equivalents that win) even the stupidest of us with a law degree is going to give the country more than Randall and Tuckey; even just in the campaign. Yes call me a man hating elitist feminazi …. could you teach me how to spell it as well.
Dreyfuss/Isaacs differ from Hawke/Mitchell in a number of respects:
1. Isaacs may one day change sides. Mitchell cannot and will not, at least not if the electorate continues to cover the parts of Sydney it currently covers.
2. Dreyfuss may or may not be a good candidate for a marginal seat, and may or may not bring legal and intellectual firepower to the ALP front bench. However, Hawke is not a good candidate for any seat, although given the state of the NSW Libs, I spose they were going to put him somewhere. But there can be no doubt about what he’ll be bringing to Canberra.
3. Dreyfuss, as a barrister, should have formed some judgment about what to say and when to say it. I can see Hawke being told to STFU, especially by his colleagues in less socially conservative, more marginal seats.
So I did a quickie plot – massaged the newspoll data (thanks for the link) and plotted the primary vote vs days before the election. Result can be seen here:
http://www.interlink.com.au/anthony/images/elections-closing.png
If you look at it, you can see that in a couple of cases the vote got closer – 87 and 93 are the obvious ones. But this is hardly a full list – in the other 5 in the plot, this isn’t a clear cut case.
If you want to play with the data yourself (the newspoll data is in an annoying format with the dates), let me know.
Dreyfus only has one S
Jasmine,
hold on one bloody second ok. Where do you get off suggesting that i think any of things about you? Man-hating, elitist feminazi? WTF????
I’m hoping that you have me confused with someone else because if you’re really trying to characterise me as someone who would use that kind of language and base argument, well I’m afraid I’ll have to tell you to stick it up your arse. I thought i was discussing the issue of what makes a good candidate, not getting into a slinging match with someone who appears to view me as little better than pond scum and slightly worse than Andrew Bolt – spit right in my face, why don’t ya?
Ultimately, what i’m saying is that the standard of representation in Parliament is pretty crap – part of the reason for that is the incredibly superficial judgements people make about candidates. It is stupid and superficial to discount a candidate based on his or her appearance. It is equally stupid and superficial to give a candidate credit simply for having stuck it out to finish a bloody law degree – am i not making that clear?
You are right that law degrees are the new arts degrees:
any dimwit with cash and time can pick one up in between marathon sessions of daytime t.v and waiting for the next shipment of pot.
Forgot to mention – the points on the plot are newspoll, except for the final point at X=0 which is the election result. The sudden spikes at the end of each line (upward or downward) are Newspoll getting the wrong result
Josh,
my mention of Hawke in Mitchell was only to highlight the short-term thinking of factional power-bropkers in deciding on candidates. Your analysis is interesting – i just wanna make it clear that the parallel lies in the fact that candidate selection by factional powerbrokers (like those who selected both Dreyfus for ALP and Hawke for Libs) is often short-sighted and can present problems for the party dowen the track.
It will be interesting to see if Hawke does STFU – if he doesn’t, more problems for the NSW Libs which will hurt their party on a wider level and more proof of how damaging that short term factional thinking can be.
Sorry optimist I was encouraging you to do it prospectively if you wish, I’m guessing now you don’t. Wasn’t telling you off for having already done it. And other than the nazi reference which bit of that is bad??? I’m confused?
anthony@255:
Having trouble reading that graph (but thanks for the effort). Are you saying the ALP gained 15% of the primary vote in the 1983 election campaign? And that Keating in 1993 was going onwards and upwards all the way until the election campaign, whereupon his vote collapsed (but he survived anyway)? That’s not my recollection of events… so I’m probably reading the graph wrong.
Jasmibne (170),
It’s because I am determined, not, as others say, stubborn.
Optimist @ 257. Suggest you reread the post at 253 with your irony detectors switched on. She wasn’t having a go at you. Sounds to me like a tongue-in-cheek self-deprecating comment at the end of her post =-)
Chris (262) – all I can say is – I wish you well wise person.
Jasmine,
the man-hating bit and the elitist bit – those were the bad bits. You don’t go around pre-empting peoples views by suggesting that they will mount that kind of argument – it is really offensive. Read the first two lines of my last post responding to you – it sums it up.
One more thing on the candidate issue – there is NO question that our parliament needs more women. At the same time, we need more quality candidates of both genders. We should not be sacrificing one to achieve the other – the ALP could find any number of great female candidates that would put Cornes to shame – if you have difficulty grasping that, I suggest that you go to the parliament website and look up the valedictory speech that Carmen Lawrence gave last week – it is one of the finest speeches by a member of the House that I have ever read! It breaks my heart to see someone like Dr. Lawrence leave the parliament only to see candidates like Nicole Cornes put up as replacements (and yes, I know Cornes isn’t running for Freemantle). It is about quality candidates – some of the best performers and minds that the ALP has are women (don’t get me started about Penny Wong), but while people like Cornes are the only ones making it into Parliament to help build the numbers, things aren’t likely to change anytime soon.
Juz, no, the number is the difference in primary vote, with +ve meaning the coalition was ahead. So in 1993 the graph shows the coalition getting further ahead in the polls until just before the election proper.
In 1993, 2 weeks out the ALP was behind in newspoll 46 to 42.5 on primary, 2 days before newspoll had them behind 45 to 44.6, and the result had them with a primary vote of 44.8 vs coalition’s 44.3.
If someone can suggest a clearer way to show the data, I’m all ears
I’m all for having more women in Parliament but can the ALP please weed out the air heads!
How hard is it to study a cheat sheet on Labor’s policies before going on air…she has no chance of winning now the stigma is attached and she wont attract any extra votes despite a SA swing…after all look what happened when Jan McFarlane mucked up on radio over taxes and Keenan smacked her in 2004.
Optimist at 259
I agree with what you say. Although, whilst Dreyfus (no wonder I couldn’t find him on Wikipedia – thanks Adam) may be a tool of the powerbrokers, Hawke IS the powerbroker.
I think the initial preselection of Towke is another example (and in a seat the Libs could possibly lose)…
Longer term the practice of preselecting people who really can’t claim to represent their community/Australia in outlook, philosophy or attitude will be a huge problem for the majors. Sometimes the hardheads from head office can interfere to fix the perceived problem (as they did with Towke). More often the hardheads are themselves the problem (which I think is your point).
As to what makes a good candidate? Well, at least looking like you represent mainstream opinion in your electorate, can talk to issues and seem/sound reasonable, is a start. From what I’ve seen Dreyfus can at least manage this. I have no idea how hard he will work or how the electors of Isaacs will take to him. For his part Hawke says he DOES represent mainstream opinion in his (and my) electorate. I beg to differ…
Glen – I’m going to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you mean “weeding out” the male and female airheads…let’s not start another debate about unfair targeting of female candidates.
Can we also have the airheads in the coalition weeded out as well please Glen? Yes, I am looking at Brendan Nelson.
I can assure you Diana there is alot of air going round in Parliament from both sides male and female…but seriously how hard is it to get a candidate who can comprehend basic policies…why on earth would someone want an airhead as their local member?
I can say without any doubt that at least half of the MPs in Parliament shouldn’t be there because they are hopeless, stupid, have no chance of promotion or remove the possibility of bringing some talented people…
The Advertier is anti-Cornes because she used to write for the Sunday Mail. Her candidacy was announced on the front page of the Sunday Mail, which has been sympathetic to her. It’s a matter of two machoi editors being hairy chested.
And ESPECIALLY Danna Vale.
Nelson is not an airhead, he is a medical graduate and a GP by definition that makes him an intelligent person…perhaps you were thinking of Kevin Andrews or Chris Ellison….
I also think the Advertiser (and the ABC) are against her because she does not act like an ordinary politician. I think that is her strength.
On Labor’s side Garrett, Swan, Albanese are all airheads
On the Coalition’s side Andrews, Ellison, Truss…
Here’s a question for everyone: given that there are no specific criteria for politicians, what qualifications/attributes should they have? I wouldn’t agree that some kind of degree, law or medicine or anything else is a pre-requisite. What do we expect our politicians to have backgrounds in?
There is a dedicated Nicole thread if anyone has missed it.
Perhaps because she had the temerity to leave the fold and go over to the ‘dark’ side. Anyway, Murdoch never has been big on employee loyalty.
At least the voters of Boothby know who the Labor candidate is. Here in Mayo it could be next door’s cat for all I know. Not so much as a whisper from whoever it is.
I assume they chose a party hack with few expectations given its normally considered a safe Lib seat, but with the party’s strong polling in this state there might have been a chance if they had a well regarded local standing.
The Dems gave Lexy a fright in 1998 by fielding a well known candidate, folk singer John Schumann. From memory the margin was less than 2%.
Intelligent
Potential Leadership/Promotion prospects
Represent diverse background not just Union members
Those are my 3
All I want for Christmas this year is Johnnie’s concession speech ;-D
While we are at it, lets just weed out the whole cabinet
….
Optimist perhaps my humor was too dry. I wasn’t pre-empting anything I was giving you permission to call me names in what I thought was a self-effacing humorous way. Obviously something went wrong with my humor. I don’t know what I’m sorry. I will note that the rest of your post highlights almost exactly what I consider to be wrong with the attacks on Ms Cornes.
You can’t defame someone who is dead.
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2007/09/25/1190486310966.html
Just another terrible Labor Party man.
Wash this mans mouth out with soap and make him listen to 24 hours worth of Midnight Oil.
Glen, I would point out that members of unions are not one type of person. Union members come from all walks of life, from all kinds of professions. OK, they’re likely to be ALP supporters, but under the circumstances, I hardly think that is a problem!
As for promotion prospects, that really isn’t an issue for me. My local member, Rod Sawford, was never promoted and he was elected to Port Adelaide in 1988 (by-election), but he’s been a well-liked and able representative of his electorate. Not everyone can be promoted, there’d be no backbench.
http://myspace.com/meetthepeople
I would like a local member who listens to all of his electorate, someone who does try to make things better, someone who will reply with rational answers, someone who cares.
But I get a fridge calendar, and The Somlyay Report once a year. A 61 year old time server who has delivered nothing.
Anyone who thinks Nelson is intelligent hasn’t seen him interviewed on Lateline. http://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Aabc.net.au%2Flateline+brendan.nelson
This one was a spectacular highlight:
http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/content/2007/s1846174.htm
I know he has a medical degree – clearly that’s not a guarantee of smarts.
Remember that when he was Education Minister, he came out in favour of teaching intelligent design. I’m sure the lecturers who taught him biological sciences back at University must have felt particularly proud that day.
I know that Diana i am not an airhead i merely point out you could put non-union, centre-left people in parliament they dont always have to be Union officials despite their different occupations…but inspite of this they only represent 20% of people yet 100% of Labor’s Parliamentary Party in Federal Parliament.
Ruawake all i get from Michael Danby is a fridge calender too and i dont see Melbourne Ports getting better under his watch.
But Glen we will win Fairfax
Diana (284) – I’ve heard it said that some 40% of union members voted Liberal in 2004, so maybe Glen has a point!
In all seriousness, though, that figure (if true) is the reason in a nutshell why Labor is so far ahead. When Howard brought in WorkChoices, he said to those people (some 800,000 people, most likely concentrated in marginal mortgage-belt seats) that they had to choose between Howard and their union. I suspect those people have made their choice.
What are you going on about? The ALP is the political wing of the trade union movement, don’t you know anything about Australian political history? What you merely point out is airheadish.
I’m glad I’m not the only person who thinks this. Nairn’s response to the questions in parliament on this matter were absolutely breathtaking, and I was astounded that his side of politics seemed so relaxed about the matter. Regardless of what else happens during the campaign, Eden-Monaro will definitely not be leaving my “Labor gain” column.
*puts her tongue in her cheek* didn’t you get the memo William, boys are allowed to say things like that it is ok, it is really dud female politicians we need to get rid of first.
The Nairn was also the person who was only too keen to confirm, that the former member for Charlton, had a complaint lodged against her by a comcar driver.
Oops – blockquotes improperly nested.
Hmm, Mumble’s website had a comment up about Tony Barrass’ piece, but it’s disappeared. Has Mitchell threatened to “go” Peter again? Or perhaps it’s simply discretion being the better part of valour …
Either way the GG should remember the adage: if you’re in a hole, don’t try to dig your way out.
For the record, I predicted a Nov 24 election back in July, amid some ramblings about hanging on till January.
link
Haiku, I believe Peter has simply removed a factual error. His comment stated that the poll was a repackaging of last week’s quarterly federal figures, when it was in fact a new poll of state voting intention.
Hi,
As I’ve been overseas for the last couple of weeks (with limited access to Australian news), can someone explain to me how the Government seems to have the momentum in the election pre-campaign?
Was it just the Rudd tax gaffe? Or was it a combination with the 55/45 newspoll? I would have thought that a Galaxy 56/44 a month ago would have been considered a disaster for the government…
Glen @ 292
Your views might be a little more credible if your claims weren’t so unrelated to the facts.
Neither Rudd nor Gillard, the leader and deputy leader, come from unions. Neither does Garrett, nor (I think) Swan (Shadow Treasurer), McLelland (Foreign Affiars), nor a whole bunch of others on the front bench.
Have no doubt, the AMA is the best little union going around, and it’s full of small business types who are absolutely raking it in under Howard’s regime. I have a lot to do with them in my line of work, and while some of them are intelligent and compassionate, there’s a substantial number who are simply venal, incompetent and not very bright, even in their supposed area of expertise. I could tell you stories that would make your hair stand on end, but will restrain myself, in case you throw up on your keyboards. The good ones I know tend to get out of the AMA and join the Doctors Reform Society, if they can, i.e., what you’ve got to do in terms of employment. The AMA, in my view, and interestingly in the view of some of my medico mates, should be smashed, but probably won’t be. Goodness, all things are relative aren’t they, me suggesting smashing a union!
Swing Lowe at 303, for what it’s worth, I think it’s about either the text or subtext going through a good deal of the discussion about how the MSM, particularly the GG, operates in shaping the narrative of the election. Personally, I think there is a concerted effort going on within the Murdoch press and a subtly shifted ABC, that, for example, pointedly ignores Costello’s inability to talk about something central to his portfolio vs. Rudd being caught on the back foot when asked about an accountant type question about tax scales. Costello’s statement and its import is ignored, Rudd’s is latched onto and amplified. In my ‘waters’, as it were, despite the polling, I’m most concerned about the effect that the twists and turns that Rove type tactics will have on the election.
Swing Lowe, the 55-45 Newspoll was a 4% fall from a 59-41 blowout the fortnight before. The commentariat all said the govt had had a good parliamentary week. The 56-44 Galaxy would indeed have been a disaster, but it was a 1% drop from a 57-43 Galaxy four weeks ago.
Adam @ 233 & William @ 296 I suspect that you are correct re Eden Monaro. The Phelps issue was more or less the lead item on local radio stations for the entire day it broke & Nairn/Phelps were absolutely hammered in talkback programs on those same stations. If there is a swing on in that electorate their efforts on this issue will probably confirm & compound it.
Swing Lowe – welcome back.
All I can say is that any momentum the government has is perceived and nothing more. They are trying their hardest, but achieving very little change in the electorate. News Ltd papers are also doing their absolute best to help the government, but having no luck either.
Business as usual, pretty much. Obviously you’ll have noted that the election hasn’t been called yet.
the coalition shenanigans have already started, trying to tie Rudd in with union problems.
http://www.news.com.au/adelaidenow/story/0,22606,22487007-5005962,00.html
#296 on Gary Nairn and his chief of staff.
I agree with you William. Perhaps you will also understand why on your previous threads I have asked that contibutors eschew any comparisons to fascists or fascism when commenting on the policy positions of our present parliamentarians however much the contributors might disagree with those paliamentarians’ positions. Apart from being offensive, such comparisons are also inaccurate and demonstrate an (alarming) lack of understanding of totalitarianism and its fascist manifestation.
Yep, Judy, heard the Fed. rep. for the union on PM this evening saying it’s all been properly accounted and audited. It’s just more faux electioneering rubbish. Like no one is pursuing those earlier reports about the supposed fracas between Ms. Rein’s U.K. company and supposed stoush with U.K. unions. Utter rubbish. You can bet that this was dropped like a hot potato because it had nowhere to go; same with this. Watch out for the MSM, particularly the GG and ’shifted’ ABC, courtesy of the Howard stacked Board. Unless Labor get in this election, this country will be no better than Russia under Putin.
According to Godwin’s law it’s only a matter of time…
Glen, it sounds like you are stuck in Melbourne Ports?
For the last two elections the libs have been ahead on Primaries in this seat. Labor has only got through on preferences from the Greens.
And for the last three years, there has been the biggest influx of lib voters, either into Port Melbourne (believe me I work in an industry where the word is to go find a home in Port Melbourne) or some of those giant residential towers on the south side of the Yarra that have just been completed.
IF there is one issue that has been completely missed in the pre-election analysis, it is how the seat of Melbourne Ports is grdually transitioning from a safe labor seat to a potential gain for the libs at some point in the future.
Keep swinging Glen
Well, well, well. The Oz has reported on their “union power” poll. The resulting article will hardly surprise:
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,22487254-11949,00.html
The figures seem to match the Coalition primary vote.
Laurie oakes was gong on about a push for Julai to be treasuer
what rot
IF there was a push from the left, surely it would be for the guru himself, Lindsay Tanner.
Anyhoo it was just to sell more copies of the Bulletin
[Well, well, well. The Oz has reported on their “union power†poll. The resulting article will hardly surprise:
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,22487254-11949,00.html
They’re really seem to be running out of things to write about when they use a non-randomised poll as the basis for an article.
But hey, they are the experts when it comes to polls, so I guess I can’t argue with their un-scientific methods.
Fagin @ 315:
Funny that. Last night when I went to bed there were 1800 votes that had 47% saying unions will have no effect and now that is suddenly 28%?
15% said all encompassing influence last night and now that shows 39%.
Can there be a worse form of journalism or a worse basis on which to base a story? Quite obviously on-line polls are nonsense rigged by those with the desire and will power, as we know most are. It is amazing that the supposed premier paper uses nonsense data to write a story it wants to write to run down Labor. Why bother with the pretence of a poll? If they were truly serious they would make them hard to manipulate – tie them to IP number and not cookies.
More trash from the new rubbish dump of newspaper.
Jeez, werent the Gaezeditorial bunker just whining about the proliferation of mickey mouse polls?
Another demented low in ‘late Reichstag’ journalism.
Just watched Gerard Daffy, head of Sportsbet, on Agenda. He doesn’t believe his own betting stats. He says that because “the PM” (as he kept calling Howard) came back in 2001 and 2004 he wouldn’t be surprised if it happened again. He came across as a real Howard cheerleader. In fact I came away thinking I had just watched the TV version of The GG.
Perhaps our wonderful Possum could do an article beating up the GG about this online poll and ask the GG how they can simply wash away the 28% of people saying there will be no influence. If the GG has to come out defending itself saying that people were spoofing the online poll, it would make the whole article useless.
Well if he believes that how about giving us better odds on Labor?
What do we expect our politicians to have backgrounds in?
Diana 279
Life.
Nelson was in the AMA
BX Tom 299
Even worse, Nelson was HEAD of the AMA!
Re: Labour having a high percentage of union people. Doesn’t the conservative side have a high percentage of lawyers?
And Alex Hawke is a mistake the Libs are going to come to deeply regret if they let have much real power. Hardcore nutters and thugs like him can easily scare off voters for several election cycles.
# 320
Gary, why was it significant that Gerard Daffy referred to JWH as “the PM”?
The lefty in me is pleased by the rise of people like Alex Hawke in the Liberal Party. He’s seriously unpleasant, and I hope the remaining stub of the Coalition after the election makes him an opposition frontbencher. Someone like him needs to get all the media coverage he can, just to make clear how bad he is.
The Australian citizen in me is dismayed. His chunk of the liberal party is more than happy to bring the nasty culture-war type politics of the US here. Suddenly instead of worrying about things that matter, we’ve got a bunch of heavies screaming about abortion and homosexuality and getting media coverage for it.
“You can catch our repeat on Friday night after Alexander Downer makes an arse of himself on Lateline again.” – The Chaser
Garrett will be on Lateline tonight.
“Nelson was HEAD of the AMA!”
And thats the question noone is asking: how many other former union bosses are there on the Lib frontbench?
hmmm??!!
The problem with that is when they learn how to project to the public what they are not. Just remember Howard has managed to trick the public for so long whilst hiding what is really driving him.
Left E,
And you think this NT ALP Bob Collins is any better than Brendan Nelson?
If you are interested in ecstasy MDMA, then I am interested in your intelligent views, and platform for substance law reform.
If however you are just commie/socialist trash like Gillard, then Australia has no further use for you.
All this leaking of “polls”- advertiser, internal & online- is all to generate faux momentum for the government, whether it is successful is yet to be seen.
I just don’t buy them.
“Well, well, well. The Oz has reported on their “union power†poll.”
The Australian really has become a joke. What about all their talk about how they are the best at correctly interpreting polling data?? The chances of this poll being hijacked by a bot or just abused in some dodgy way is very high. It is nowhere near being reliable.
This rag of a paper cannot be taken seriously. I actually feel quite embarrassed for them. Would they have written the article if the results showed that most people thought that unions would not have such a huge influence on a Labor government?
It is becoming increasingly apparent that Rupert Murdoch is planning to back Howard for this election. Well, good luck to him. Fortunately with the level of cynicism in the electorate as high as it currently is, I don’t think his influence is going to decide the election.
If only we had an alternative national newspaper…
It’s not just me who’s noticed the ABC doing its best to get Howard reelected. Has the Rodent promised them extra funding if they’re nasty to Mr Rudd? Tonight’s 7PM News was extremely biased in favour of the Rodent.
With phrases like “socialist/commie trash” Nafe, you have just excused yourself from any intelligent, informed policy discussion.
Thanks for those puzzling non sequitir remarks Naff.
I see a bright future in local government.
Which is probably just as well, come December!
The Howard govt by its hand picked mindless sycophants are in the process of turning the ABC into a TV version of the Govt Gazt – a murdoch station. Howard dirties everything he touches.
Like I said earlier Jones, O’Brien and Brissenden may as well quit a pre-select somewhere – or run for the Senate next year.
Kina are you seriously calling Kerry O’Brien a sycophant?
No dont let those three go from the abc, their editorial influence is essential to stem the declining balance of the national broadcaster.
No I am calling O’Brien, Jones and Brissenden the only remaining humans. They may as well as escape. We all know who the overseers are.
Nafe,
Looks like you should be looking closer to home for communists.
http://andrewlanderyou.blogspot.com/2007/09/no-friends-howard-dumped-from-right.html
320 Gary Bruce Says:
Probable says alot about the state of their book ( they lose if Rudd wins) and not much else.
Howard and his Cabinet drifted further to the right leaving the centre for Rudd and has forced his former right-wing factions futher to the right – now the extreme right.
Howard a communist…hehehe
Howard Hater, when you see the ABC working to re-elect Howard, you are experiencing a paranoid delusion. Seek medical help now, this will be a six week campaign.
Glen sez:
Well Kackie Jelly is gone and so is her little mate in Lindsay. How’s that for starters.
And for some reason despite a putative 11% margin in Greenway, Markus is still in the plum seat in parly just like she was before the redistribution, so someone thinks she’s in trouble.
But maybe she’s stuck like Pooh was.
It is not just the ABC Howard Hater, your delusion has now extended to include the Sydney Morning Pravda.
Dental policy failure shows Opposition is still teething
http://www.smh.com.au/news/opinion/dental-policy-failure-shows-opposition-is-still-teething/2007/09/25/1190486312426.html
And the letters to the editor they let through, well they are definite evidence of a media conspiracy to re-elect Howard:
http://www.smh.com.au/news/letters/the-liquor-industry-is-truly-ugly-and-politicians-are-its-puppets/2007/09/24/1190486221305.html
It’s a scary thought that in the 21st century, an avowed socialist such as Julia Gillard can become Labor’s deputy leader, as exposed by Paul Sheehan. John Howard and Peter Costello have delivered economic prosperity based on free-market principles and capitalism – a proven and highly successful formula that Labor rejects. The fact that a radical leftist like Gillard can rise to such heights within her party while remaining committed to the intellectually and morally bankrupt failed ideology of socialism demonstrates once again that Labor is not fit to govern.
Nigel Freitas Roseville
kina@329: I don’t think it’s fair to compare Howard to Hawke. I don’t like Howard, but he’s nowhere near the lunacy of the hard-right of the NSW.
345 Nafe Says: September 26th, 2007 at 11:28 pm
It’s a scary thought that in the 21st century, a leader of Australia can be re-elected on the back of demonizing helpless refugees as terrorists, pandering to the xenophobic tendencies of the ignorant.
But that’s the kind of world we live in, isn’t it?
Me… I’d prefer to be called a socialist by an ignorant xenophobic red-neck, than take pride in the fact that I was, in fact, an ignorant xenophobic red-neck.
Here’s a non-randomised poll for The Oz and other tories to suck on.
GetUp! is close to their original $100k target for the Climate Change ad.
As for Gerard Daffy (what a name for a bookie’s tout) – think of him in same way that you think of a spokesperson for the real estate institute discussing mortgage costs (or anything really).
Wow… at about 4.00 they were at $26k
I’m curious about Matthew Denholm classing Lyons as a “safe” seat without comment in his analysis of Rudd’s hospital porkbarrelling in today’s Australian. Psephelogically (assuming the more or less inevitable swing back to Labor in Tassie) it may well be, but not notionally – Denholm should have explained his reasoning there.
Don’t worry Howard Hater, Nafe@243 has what you call cognitive dissonance. He only sees what he wants to see and disregards the rest. Hardly the person to be dispensing psychiatric advice, me thinks.
But he appears to spell his tag incorrectly. Shouldn’t it be naif?
More Heiner Dirt Digging from Tassie Parliament.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,22489289-11949,00.html
I know we’re supposed to respect a QC, but David Rofe QC was (maybe still is) Pauline Hanson’s lawyer – enough said about where he stands politically.
Even the Nats in QLD have said the Heiner affair is over, and it’s time to move on. There have been countless CJC and Senate enquiries.
In the last sitting of parliament Rudd said that if there really is anything in the report other than just throwing mud, then they should go to the police and not use parliament.
Now the question remains, why are the Libs using the Tasmanian parliament for this? They too gutless to bring it up in the federal or QLD parliaments where it should be, even if it should be tabled.
Another Rudd Attack from the GG.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,22487464-7583,00.html
RE: 347
Well, it would seem perfectly clear to me that the left are still adamant in promulgating the notion that anyone who disagrees with their world view is ignorant.
What a surprise…….
That is a pretty lame and desperate smear attempt by the Liberals. Because Rudd was a senior public servant at the time of the Goss govt which shreddded some documents came from an issue that occurred under the previous govt when Goss was not the govt nor Rudd yet a Public Servant. What? They accusing the Goss govt of trying to protect the previous govt they just defeated in an election? Weird. Poltical through and through and all the way through, by all the participants trying to smear Rudd now.
They think the people going to impressed that Rudd might have been advised that it was legal to shredd documents and he passed on that advice, or some other Dept gave the advice; and who gave the legal advice and how long was that chain and so on – and it was the decision of the govt anyway. Kinda of weird that when it suits the Liberals they think the Public Service is the Govt, and public servants are ministers?
And there have already been 6 enquiries. They want another 6 inquiries? How many is enough?
Talk about desperate – this will look terrible for the Liberals simply because it so obscure and rediculous that no one is going to buy it except to think how stupid and desperate the Liberals must be.
No wonder Howard and Co didnt want anything to do with it – it would lose them votes. It is only their desperate sycophant supporters that are squealing to make something of it.
It was Ackerman I think that tried to get this rolling – talk about desperate.
Yes we all know Rofe.
The Australian can’t help itself carrrying a number of negative pieces against Rudd and Labor. “Rudd’s pledges are on the never-never”
Just imagine if they actually did some real journalism on the Govt – probably all the Cabinet would be out and Howard living in shame.
I wonder if these sycophant journalists ever worry about running across pissed off Labor supporters in the street? They have to be upsetting a lot of people with the electioneering they seem to be doing for Howard.
Obviously murdoch has sent out his instructions to turn their trash journalism toward sinking Rudd anyway they can.
Speaking of One Paper Towns and Bias, here is a parody site dedicated to “The West Australian”
http://www.westaustnews.com/index.htm
kina, the one thing you’ve forgotten in your endless tirade against The Australian is the fact that no-one is forcing you to read it.
Furthermore, much of the criticism is voiced against opinion writers which are under no obligation to observe non-partisan views given that opinions naturally warrant partisan views.
NSW Pork from Vaile.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/09/26/2044481.htm?section=australia
But people do read it and that is the point – the GG writes this anti-labor stuff to undermine the Opposition. So it is relevant to all Australia that there are papers trying to influence the course of an election through partisan reporting. AND it is multiplied if it is used across all State papers by say one newsgroup.
Papers should not be campaigning for anybody – it is a corruption of democracy when the media chooses sides. The public only have the media for their information and analysis and opinion. It is a major issue.
The papers have an obligation to balanced and fair reporting – running continual negative opinion pieces against one side of politics is wrong.
And a deliberate attempt to sway votes. If they were honest about it they were run equal pieces for both sides of politics at the same time.
There ought to be a law against partisan papers – papers that basically take up electioneering for one side of politics. Journalists should not be allowed to hide behind their owners. A few months in prison for deliberately dishonest politcal reporting – that might teach them to be balanced.
They dont call the Oz the Govt Gazett for nothing.
I’m sorry kina, but an opinion piece necessitates an opinion from its author. If you disagree with the opinion, that is your right under our democracy. Opinion pieces are distinctly different from regular news items wherein typical non-partisan opinionless facts are reported. As such, it is really a nonsense to argue that there is some conspiracy to corrupt democracy.
As for your proposed law to outlaw partisan papers, weren’t you just spruiking for democracy and balance? Make up your mind. It seems yet again that the left are intent on chastising those whose opinions differ from theirs, by deeming them ignorant and tantamount to a criminal injustice. It’s pathetic.
Pardon me, William, may I post same again? Missed the change of thread, obviously.
Copy and paste from Boothby thread:
Must chip in. From the electorate of Boothby. Despite my still simmering outrage over Mick Keelty, William. Thanks for tempering.
The Advertiser poll lacks credibility, goodness knows what model was used. Mike Rann pointed to a similar Advertiser poll three days prior in a State election, which was totally opposite to the actual landslide result for Labor in Vinnie Cicarello’s seat of Norwood.
Notwithstanding, Nicole was totally at sea on radio this morning in her knowledge of Labor’s IR policy, I am sad to acknowledge. She copped a talkback hammering as a result, even from Labor oriented callers. My sister, as I have said, the notorious swinging voter, likes her, but also commented she thought Nicole an ‘airhead.’
The radio interviewer, Matt Abraham, was gentle with Nicole, to his credit. He could have gone in very hard, as he has with the very high profile, such as Mark Latham.
I was initially outraged at the choice of Nicole especially over another hardworking candidate. Thanks, Kevin Foley.
Nicole’s profile despite this questionable poll, has improved. I thought that her initial ignorance of anything political, leaving aside Labor, would have been sharpened. Apparently not.
Still, as we all know, the polls narrow once the campaign starts. SMILE.
A separate observation.
Chloe Fox, the now State member for Bright, was unsuccessful in an earlier attempt at Boothby. Had Chloe been the current candidate for Boothby, would have romped it in. Will do so, beyond this Federal election. I have no doubt Chloe will run.
Just not needed ….. I live in the general area and the Great Western Highway is enough. NO need to destroy the enviroment to build another duplicated freeway.
“Federal Transport Minister Mark Vaile says the money will fund a detailed planning and engineering study for the connection to link Sydney and the central west.”
I thought the Govt has just spent the past two weeks attacking Rudd for setting up “studies”.
Nafe 345
You are quoting a Tony Abbott opinion piece as some sort of neutral, objective assessment of Labor’s dental plan? Excuse me while I roll on the floor with wild hysterical laughter.
And which government was it that completely gutted the public dental program when they came into office? And who hasn’t exactly solved the increasing shortage of locally trained dentists? Hint: It wasn’t Labor.
But he appears to spell his tag incorrectly. Shouldn’t it be naif?
Peter Fuller 352
No, it should be NFI. No F*****g Idea.
Dr Karl is running for the Senate. Talk about a celebrity going in to politics. He is standing on the Climate Change Coalition’s Senate ticket.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/National/Karl-Kruszelnicki-to-run-for-Senate/2007/09/27/1190486439737.html
Meanwhile in the real world GetUp!’s “Put’ yer money were yer mouth is” poll is running at $116k plus
It will be interesting to see how Trumbull spins this.
I suspect that he is a victim of circumstances in that his dept full of party apparatchiks who have been serving time since Robt. Hill did his purges back in late 1996 and 1997.
CCC can have all the celeb candidates it likes but at the end of the day a single issue senate ticket is probably just going to disrupt things on the left.
I can’t understand how Dr K. can run for CCC. Like he is a scientist and the mad harpy that dreamt up CCC is into beef farming bio dynamically ie. she’s really into geomancy.
Remember the union influence poll? Read how the paper has spun it.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,22487254-2702,00.html
Opinion pieces are written by two groups of people: 1) “Experts” in a particular field; 2) People paid to have opinions -not necessarily their own.
I have a problem with ‘journalists’ doubling as opinion-writers. RCCandelori says we can choose not to buy The Australian. Unfortunately, where I live, that only leaves the West Australian.
The Australian or The West Australian, what a choice.
News article which strongly hints that inflation will be up yet again in a few weeks time, making the chance of interest rate rises all the more likely the first week of November. When they have raised rates earlier this year, in every case, a large portion of the inflation was due to food prices.
“Eating out will also cost more if the price of raw produce increased as predicted, the peak body representing Australia’s 37,700 restaurants said.
Grain prices have risen during the past few weeks from a three-month average of $290 per tonne, to a peak of $492 per tonne on Monday – an increase of $202, or 70 per cent.
The cost of producing a dozen eggs increased by up to 50c – or more than 20 per cent – in the past three months, the Australian Egg Corporation said. ”
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,22489835-2,00.html
As I have said earlier in the week – Howard is already in way over his head and will lose the election, HOWEVER, if he gives us an election date 10 November or later, he is a bloody [insert appropriate word(s)] and will make the election debacle worse because of the interest rate rise. And if that isn’t enough to worry them, how about everyone affected by the horse flu crisis with their bats moving in on parliament looking to take out their anger on someone.
The longer he waits, the more frustrating it is for those of us who are waiting, but WHY can he not see how he is even going to make it worse by waiting?
Counting down the days to his concession speech
:)
Personally I think everyone’s overestimating the impact another interest rates rise will have and the impact interest rates will have on the outcome of this election.
Labor will never win an argument on interest rates, much the same as the Coalition won’t win one on industrial relations.
All the arguments that Howard must go before the Reserve Bank meets I think are a bit desperate. In his shoes I’d be willing to risk it.
Labor don’t need to win an argument on Interest Rates and the economy, only neutralise one
100% correct Dario.I think Mr Rudds’ “economic conservative”move was the right one to make.Also stressing he won’t outspend Mr Howard was another good move as well.He can truthfully point out what Mr Costello really thinks about the PM’s efforts on spending and the economy.
Speaking of wasting of Taxpayer’s money, I’ve just recieved a personally addressed letter on official letterhead from Stuart Henry, Member for Hasluck announcing a new Australian Technical College here in Midland WA, along with an “issues†survey.
Small problem, I’m in the neighbouring electorate of Pearce – Safe Liberal.
Ok, another set of loose lips on the front bench. Abbot was out in force today talking about the tragic case of the woman who miscarried in the toilets here in a Sydney hospital and linked it to the election saying “don’t vote for Rudd or you will get more of the same”. How insensitive !!! ……
So let’s see, this all happens after 11 years under Abbott’s government’s watch, but he says “don’t vote for Rudd or you will get more of the same”??? Wow that’s about the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard.
Optimist @247
I will not stand by and see good candidate attack for being lazy when this is not the case because Isaacs campaign is one of the better campaign in vic. Dreyfus is one on the best’s candidates that the Victorian ALP have seen years left or right and this is reason he is the candidate for Isaacs, because deadwood current mp that has seen the margin go from 6.2 in 2001 to 1.5 last time. All I try to say is that Dreyfus is not a machine man yes machine man got him the seat last year. No I am not working on the Isaacs campaign but I know many people who are
Dario @ 379,
Here is the quote. Seems that he was blaming the states for the problem, but insinuating that the Federal Labor party would do no different. Nonetheless, I still think that using the lady’s tragic experience trying to make a political point was very tactless.
â– Federal Health Minister Tony Abbott said: “If you don’t like what’s happening in public hospitals now, don’t vote Labor, because state Labor has created this problem and I think federal Labor would just make the problem worse”.
No mention from Tony of course that fed funding to the states is at 30 year lows…
I know this thread is practically dead, but can someone inform me why, when there is a nasty, petty, grubby, trashy gimmicky little anti-Rudd story to be written in the GG it is ALWAYS bloody Sid Marris who writes it?
They have just moved the “Gillard for Treasurer?” story to the front page on the web site, when Rudd has specifically denied in the last couple of hours that Gillard wants to be or will be Treasurer.
Q. And why was this ever a story at any time? Do we know who would be – in complete detail – on Howard’s front bench if he wins?
A: Sid’s writingthe story.
James,
your line about the deadwood current MP – if the sitting MP was the cause for the narrowing of the margin, why wasn’t Anthony Byrne replaced in the seat of Holt? Holt is right next door to Isaacs, has a very similar demographic and suffered an almost identical swing to the Government in 2004. Surely Byrne should have lost preselection for the exact same reason you believe that Corcoran did in Isaacs right? Hmmmm, what is the stark difference between Ann Corcoran and Anthony Byrne…..what could it be? Oh yeah, maybe it has to do with the fact that Byrne and Dreyfus are backed by the Right faction and Corcoran was a factional independent!
Listen carefully here because i want you to understand what i am saying about Dreyfus (please refer back to my last post to you if you need to) – I think that Mark Dreyfus would be an excellent member of the ALP caucus, however i worry about the ALP retaining the seat in future years because from all that I have heard (people outside the campaign who are less likely to spin things) indicates that he is not a strong campaigner and that there are a number of things hurting him there. Without question, Dreyfus will win Isaacs in 2007 – what I am saying is that when you look at what has been said in places like Crikey, the local rags of sth east melbourne and a number of articles published in the aftermath of the preselection process indicate that Dreyfus is a problem for the future. He HAS refused to move into the electorate and I have seen at least two local news articles that refer to him as the elusive candidate – now, before you get as passionately defensive over this as you did earlier, you need to understand that I’m talking about the big picture here – Dreyfus does not look like a solid local campaigner and unless he learns mighty fast, Isaacs will be in serious danger before too long. He would be an ideal Senate candidate for a range of reasons, primarily because he wouldn’t have to worry about local campaigning and could devote more time to where i believe his strngth would lie – policy development.
I’d be very interested to know which of his campaign people you have been talking to because they are blowing smoke – I repeat, Dreyfus will win Isaacs, its the next two elections after that which will be worries and unless this guy does some serious work to connect with and buil;d support locally, he will lose the seat – this problem is almost unique to Dreyfus in Victoria as all the other newbie candidates (Shorten, Marles etc..) have been given very safe seats – Dreyfus is a risk – end of story.
Loi,
is that you?
Well you don’t have to sit and take it.
You have the right to go visit Sid Marris in his office and confront him for an answer.
You can do it individually, or as a group and, can choose a spokesperson if you so desire. IN fact I think maybe this is the way to go with some of these reporters who think they can write their stuff and hide away. If they know they will be confronted on a regular basis to explain the motivation behind their work they might start to write no partisan stuff.
IF The Australian does put a piece in their paper tomorrow about Gillard being Treasurer (now that Rudd has said Swann will be Treasurer should they win) then it will be a deliberate lie. AND if they do their only possible reason to publish a deliberate lie is to work on behalf of the Liberal party to promote Howard and create doubt about Labor. In otherwords – it will be misleading the public, coning the public, lying to the public for partisan reasons – making itself a disgraceful disgusting trash paper. SO keep and eye out for what they put in tomorrows paper.
ALSO News ltd published a story about Theresa Rein’s company being attacked by British unions. The ABC interviewed the union yesterday morning and the story was false – they had no beef with her or her company. DOES anyone know if News Ltd published a story today setting the record straight and also explaining how the managed to publish a story that was not true. The Australian needs to explain to the public how it managed to publish a untrue story.
But of course – dont jump the gun.
All retractions contain :
1. A repetiton of the offensive remarks.
2 An assertion that it is is all a big misundertstatement
3. A promise to repeat the offensive remarks whenever given the opportunity.
“# 298
ruawake Says:
September 26th, 2007 at 6:22 pm
The Nairn was also the person who was only too keen to confirm, that the former member for Charlton, had a complaint lodged against her by a comcar driver.”
.
.
.
Obviously as the Minister responsible for Comcars, Nairns’ office knew about it, perhaps even the much maligned Peter Phelps knew about it!
However, it was the factionally unalligned dumped hereditary member for Charlton, The Lady Charlton, that deserved and received punishing by the ALP factional chiefs.
She dared to oppose and whine about her Rudd risky mortgage, her teenage family, the disabled husband, and her unemployability.
She should have gone quietly on her parliamentary pension, a multiple of the pension for the sole parent mentally deficient pensioners.
How dare Kelly Hoare demonstrate a union thug like Greg Combet, was involved in the ruthless sacking of such a disadvantaged woman.
It was the ALP, and only the ALP that smeared Kelly Hoare with the story of her drunken proposition of a comcar driver.
.
.
.
Combet will suffer a backlash, perhaps as much as 8% for his involvement in the shafting of Hoare. Charlton very marginal.
Combet will win easily
Charlton ranks low in the national income electorate scale.
There are many single mums, disabled pensioners, and unemployed people in Charlton. Why would any of these people vote for Combo?
A Combo of union boss thuggery, ALP factional expediency, and lack of empathy for middle Australians.
Because they don’t buy the kind of silly rubbish you espouse
Re Cornes in Boothby
Dud !
She can and should be replaced A.S.A.P if Labor thinks they have a shot at this seat, might make the difference between a hung Parliament and a majority.
It is never too late to replace someone who can’t tell you anything more than what nail polish is in fashion in Hindley Street this month.
Re The Australian Newspaper
The only reason I read the GG is the notion that you should keep your enemies close and your freinds at a distance in politics. They will print whatever sells newspapers and their readership is NOT the moron swinging voter who decides the election outcome anyway
The Tory Newspaper in WA is not much worse than the Courier Snail or The Advertiser, but they have more influence because they are the only newspapers in town and people get bored riding public transport to work.
These Tory papers are the one’s to get ‘worried’ about if at all, since Qld is still redneck territory politically speaking, SA is stuck in the 1980’s for the most part and WA WA land is riding an economic boom wave which will hold most Tory seats in place for fear of ’scaring the horses’ of prosperity over there.
At present I am told Labor is realistically aiming at 5-8 seat gains in QLD, 4 in SA (Cornes screwed it for Boothby),1-2 in WA WA land and 1 of the 2 in TASWEGIA and not much enthusiasm in Victoria:perhaps Corangamite or McMillan. Forget Solomon (NT), it ain’t gonna happen.
That leaves NSW as the key State to watch with at least 6 gains required in NSW this time around to offset ’surprise’ Labor losses in other States.
Im also told that Nov 3 was and remains a hot ‘tip’, but some are wavering now and pointing at the other extreme (Nov 240 as the likely alternative.
We have alot more debating and speculating and whingeing about the GG to acheive yet before JWH tells us its time to go home and hugs the kids.
Read Nov 24 for Nov 240, Duh !
Why don’t you keep kicking the poor woman?
Interesting note on the Therese Rein story. Piers wrote a total dummy-spit about her yesterday. Called her for every name in the political book. He even put in a bit about how the lefty bloggers would try to tear him apart over it (the article was not a blog article, so I don’t see how that could happen).
I think he likes the cut and thrust. This comment is the only one I’ve seen on the subject, and I only write it to point out that Piers seems to have had some kind of breakdown. He’s even more rabid now than just a couple of weeks ago. He must be feeling the strain.
BB, Piers is just peeved that bloggers (or anyone else for that matter) pay no attention to him.And quite frankly, why would they… he’s an old hack singularly lacking in importance.
It’s all a bit sad really when old journos with relevance deprivation syndrome start baiting bloggers just to get a bit of recognition and attention.
He has no place in the new order of things, and he knows it.
No time to check if this has already been posted. The Oz has resurrected this poll and you can still vote, about Wayne Swan as Treasurer.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,22073824-5013404,00.html
Possum,
I don’t know about you, but I’m taking some comfort in watching grumpy old never-was’s like Piers begin to fade away. I know that a new crop of similar types will spring up before long, but it is very encouraging to watch the growing irrelevance of the old men of Australian journalism and to watch the new crop of driven, intelligent, articulate web commentators who put those old men to shame. It can only be good for our country and our democracy. Bravo, I say!
Optimist, it’s not a completely un-entertaining spectacle
Possum, it’s not that I don’t completely misunderstand you when you seem to say “it’s not a completely un-entertaining spectacle”. It might be that you’re not completely un Hibernian as to ancestory.
Oh, the number of times I’ve been berated for using double, triple, and even quadruple negatives during impassioned debate. You can see if anyone’s actually listening by the pause as they try to work out what you said, or not, as the case may be.
However, to be sure, to be sure, it adds to the poetry.
As does the thought of old Piers sitting by an extinct fire, mumbling to himself as he hands out unequal laws unto a savage race that knows him not!
Gipps, I find that when it doubt, just make up a word.It might test the brains of the readers… but hey, just think of it as a public contribution to the fight against dementia.
Doin’ our bit for preventative health care !
As an aside- if anyone wants a really good read, I think the Financial Review today comes with the Fin Review Magazine – Power Edition.
Well worth the purchase.Especially the top ten covert political power section.
Oooh, I made up a word recently – it was inspired by Alexander Downer.
“Ignarrogance” – I’ll leave it to you guys to figure out the definition.
looks like next morgan will be a doozy
just got title
“ALP Primary Vote (54%) At Highest Level Under Rudd”
:O