The Australian today brings us a second round of figures from the weekend Newspoll survey. It shows that in spite of everything, the Prime Minister is rated the leader “more capable of handling Australia’s economy” by 48 per cent to Kevin Rudd’s 33 per cent, while Peter Costello leads Wayne Swan as “most capable of managing Australia’s economy as federal treasurer” by 53 per cent to 21 per cent. The Prime Minister is also rated the leader “most capable of keeping interest rates lower”, although his lead over Rudd has narrowed since last month.
Reflections on the Miracle of Democracy at Work in the Greatest Nation on Earth
Newspoll part two
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693 Comments
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While I am on a roll, I would like to discuss the “Latham effect”. It seems many commenters discount 2004 figures because of a so-called Latham effect.
IMHO Latham is wrongly much maligned in the ALP. After all the Bomber himself admitted the ALP were heading into the 2004 election facing a loss of 50 seats. Perhaps the ALP will recognise one day that Latham for his flaws was speaking the truth on many things about the ALP.?
Secondly will he make an appearance before polling day? I reckon he’s got to be a chance for an appearance.
ESJ – who is this Mark Latham of whom you speak?
350
Edward StJohn Says:
October 2nd, 2007 at 7:57 pm
While I am on a roll, I would like to discuss the “Latham effectâ€. It seems many commenters discount 2004 figures because of a so-called Latham effect…will he make an appearance before polling day?
Will he campaign? I believe so – for Joe Hockey and Chris Pyne.
Does anybody think its a bit redundant the way Kerry O’Brien says the 7.30 report ‘will be back the same time tomorrow…’
Hmm… that time would be… let me guess … um… 7.30?
Edward St John is a pillock of the community who believes he is God’s gift to…….. (choose your noun). He is long remembered as the only Member to ever be sledged by his own PM during his maiden speech. He has always been adored by PM’s wives, especially John Gorton.
Need I continue.
Hockey’s response to the research is irrelevant, the people who know they have lost wages, their parents, their grandparents maybe even their uncles aunts, sons and daughters all know the truth.
Then there are Vampires.
‘VAMPIRE’ may kill off QLD Libs
http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/news/queensland/vampire-may-kill-off-qld-libs/2007/10/02/1191091070382.html
At any rate, I’m pleased that people have stopped banging on about AFL transfers. Surely sporting references should only be allowed if they have some sort of tangential relationship to politics?
Like this – both the NRL and AFL Grand Finals were won easily by the teams that have dominated the competition all year. Hopefully this will also be the final wash-up of the election result.
Poor Jolly Joe! So out of his depth…now he’s trying to apologise and claim that the other kids do it too in an attempt to stay out of trouble.
http://abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/10/02/2049286.htm?section=justin ["WorkChoices researchers mull legal action over accusations"]
Methinks the big fella has just let this one run on for a little while longer than it was already going to.
Heffernan never ceases to make me smile…
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,22520997-29277,00.html
He does deserve a reward for acknowledging climate change, then linking it to Asian Invasion though.
Joe Hockey: will he lose his seat as well? The wishlist grows ever longer.
WTF is Hockey going on about on 7:30 Report!?
He seems to be thinking of other things, like the AWA he wants to work under, you know, the one where he gets hourly penalty rates, and is paid $410,000 a year! LOL!
http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,22493525-952,00.html?from=mostpop
Don’t you love the Doctor’s Union
http://www.news.com.au/perthnow/story/0,21598,22520681-5005361,00.html
The fact he is still in the senate after smearing a high court judge demonstrates how weak our politicians are.
Yeah blindoptimist, where is weatherman Mike? I haven’t heard peep from him since he quit the ABC. Has North Syd just been considered a writeoff? Do they think the big guy can do himself in?
I’d like to see the look on Glen’s, WRML’s, ESJ’s, Steven Kaye’s, Nostradamus’s and A-C’s faces in around 2 month’s time when the Rodent (with a distraught Hyacinth by his side) has to give a concession speech as it becomes clear that not only have the Libs been unceremoniously dumped by the voters but that his Bennelong fiefdom of over 30 years has been snatched from him by McKew! That will more than make up for the disappointment of the swing against the Libs not being enough to get rid of Dolly Downer, the Mad Monk and the Smirk as well.
Heffernan never ceases to make me smile…
I like the thinking behind a theory that has refugees pouring into a country that is already the driest inhabited continent on Earth and getting drier (Antarctica is a bit too cold for most…)
Kiwipundit,
I suspect that Howard will finally, graciously acknowledge the contribution of his loyal and long suffering Treasurer and say “It was all Costello’s fault”.
361
Frank Calabrese Says:
October 2nd, 2007 at 8:15 pm
Don’t you love the Doctor’s Union
[DOCTORS have backed the Federal Government’s plan for increased local control of public hospitals, but warn chronic bed shortages and understaffing will only be fixed with a funding injection. The proposal to create 750 new hospital boards has not attracted widespread support, with nursing groups and the state governments slamming it as wasteful duplication of bureaucracy and a return to splintered, inexperienced management. The Federal Government would force the states to hand control of hospital budgets and management to a new local board as a condition of receiving commonwealth funding…..
……
This is really bizarre. Maybe the States should let the Feds have the hospital system. But the concept of having local boards run hospitals is weird: the Libs are saying to the States: you can’t run hospitals and we don’t want to run them either, so we’re going to get a whole new bunch of people to run them instead. We don’t know who these people will be, but they will be “local.” The concept could be taken further… local police, local schools, local roads, local everything…..but of course, you’d have to do what the Feds told you to do or you’d be a local nothing.
….
I am very troubled by this nonsense. It is the stunt of the century.
365 Kiwipundit,
Maybe I should offer you the job instead given that burst of uber enthusiasm instead of GG.!
It’s a real job so I would expect you to be in by 8.30am and leave about 5pm, 45 minutes for lunch and there would be some errand running.
I’d be willing to start either of you on about $30,000 per annum (which is $5000 above minimum wage). Work Hard and I will review your wages at the expiry of your probation period.
Hockey’s performance tonight on 7 30 Report was even worse than Coonan last night and she was the pits!
Personally I thought it was brilliant!
ESJ,
You have forced me to continue.
Were you not the apparatchik that damned John Gorton as being unfit to be leader and PM because he had the same drinking problem as you. Did this not lead to the coronation of Queen Billy McMahon the revered Liberal PM who sucessfully ……………
Your contribution is greatly revered by all within the Party. Your judgement unquenched.
Hockey is apologizing to the academics but won’t retract his comments abut their Union links. I taught Dr. Van Wanrooy at High School and her mother is a fellow teacher at a local Primary School, we both belong to the NSWTF . Definite Union links there Joe!
It was chaos. Cannon balls were flying heavily between both ships and sailors on both sides were suffering casualties.
“Arrrgh, we’re taking hits here, hard, take the wounded below!!!” Bellowed Captain Hamster.
“Ah.. Cap’n, we’ve no beds left for the wounded!” Ventured Bony, looking a little worried, “but I have a plan..”
“Go on, but be quick, we’re dying here, lad!”
“Well we do have some old hammocks and a box of band-aids. They can string them up and look after themselves for a while!”
“Go, man, go! We’ve got no time!!” nodded Hamster in agreement
Meanwhile the black ship was starting to lurch a little and Captain Rudder had problems of his own. Ms Lanyard gave a report of the wounded to him. She always hated this. Having once been in charge of the wounded and miscalculating the number of bandages before a crucial battle and promising older wounded sailors villas in Spain when they clearly couldn’t afford it still made her a laughing stock..
“23, mostly blown livers. Might make it at a pinch I guess, Cap’n!”
“Not to worry, my dear, we’ve got this wrong, in the past, and I’m the first to admit that. Now, we’re determined to get this right. To strike a balance of fairness and a fair go and to let people know that the buck stops with me!” Replied Captain Rudder.
“Err.. yes, lovely, Cap’n. But what do you want me to do?” Responded Ms Lanyard, confused, as a rather large canonball planted itself between them, throwing dust and wood and splinters all over both of them.
“Think, woman! We need action!! There’s hot coffee and donuts in the mess, get a committee together to file a report!!! Hurry, after your lunchbreak!! Oh… and if the wounded are dead by next week, just assure them that I’ll personally take over looking after the wounded!!”
He had barely finished his sentence when another Cannon ball ripped through the deck, taking his big toe with it.
“GGGGGGNNNNNNNNNNUUUUGGHHHHH! Blast.” He grunted in pain
“Damned if I’m going to the emergency room. A bloke could get killed in there!!!”
I’ve just sent this email to Hockey:
I run a small business (70 employees). When WorkChoices was introduced in 2005 we made an appointment with an IR law firm to check whether we were compliant. We spent $420 for 40 minutes of “advice†from a prat in a suit who essentially told us that nirvana had been achieved and that we were now free to screw our staff in whatever way we wanted (and who told us nothing else).
This election, we’ve made our first ever political donation, earmarked to Maxine McKew in Bennelong. We’ve got two further donation tranches that, depending on polling, will be earmarked against Howard ministers. If North Sydney is looking vulnerable, we might spend at least one of these tranches on Mike Bailey’s campaign against you. Watching you just now on the 7.30 Report made my blood boil Hockey. I don’t want to be in a room with people like you or that prat from the law firm or any other manifestation of this frontal attack on Australian community.
I repeat: this is the first time we have ever made any political donations in either a personal or company capacity. I hope we get rid of you and your ilk.
Paul Hodgson
328 GG
I agree. This – “do over with malice”… such wonderfully pugnacious language – is very likely to happen if status quo persists. A five per cent swing or more and Howard (and everything he stands for) is history. This is why I am forwarding the buying off and/or frightening tactic as two most likely to retain government. It remains a staring down contest: if Howard does not blink and orchestrates a security or financial crisis then he is almost guaranteed a win. However that is a bif if, and requires that he does not blink. And blinking includes pleading on Kerry O’Brien.
326 Paul K
Your point about Victoria is valid. For Victoria and at that time. State elections cannot be won or lost on blatened fear or favour. They seem to be either emotional affaits (appeal of Bracks), or the eventual opposition insists on shooting itself in all feet it has access to for the duration of the campaign.
363 Kiwipundit and others,
I set out the conditions, which I think Howard will use to win. If the reverse happens that half-a-dozen readers of this fine blof will be derided up hill and down dale.
Imagine (and just imagine, nobody’s asking you to believe it ahead of time) the reverse.
GG, the REAL Ted St John, who died in 1994, was a very admirable character, a genuine liberal who opposed apartheid when most of his party were still defending it. He was opposed in Warringah in 1966 by a League of Rights-backed candidate who said he was a commie. Once in Parliament he stood up for the truth about the Voyager disaster which Holt was trying to cover up. THIS ESJ is some North Shore Young Lib prat who isn’t worthy of carrying Ted St John’s drinks tray.
Isn’t that Edward St John dead, GG? I thought he died back in ‘94.
Maybe this is Edward St John, the Younger.
314
Why Rudd Must Lose Says:
October 2nd, 2007 at 6:58 pm
Polling from now (or before) is not of itself predictive of what the election day will bring. All that it shows is that the electorate is in the mood to stare Howard down.
Sounds to me like the sort of reasoning that said Keating couldn’t lose in 1996!!!
And nothing I wrote is not true.
Paul
Well Done just remember to keep telling your friends etc-keep up the momentum
BTW ever heard of Getup-they are cordinating strategic ads to target both individuals and the Lib Gvt as well
ps i recently changed jobs -mentioned whether he used awa’s nearly lost it
this guy employs 15 ppl (consultancy) and has spent well over 10k trying to be compliant (so we can advise others as well) and has just given up
the speed dial now reads “city morgue” instead of workplace authority -thats about how useful and relevant DEWR is
Adam,
Despite your petulance in the turmoils of outrageous misfortune for you on this blog know that you have a friend in me.
GG – I dont care about your backchat, if your prepared to work hard and respond to discipline I will raise my starting salary $32,500 its my final offer.
With great respect WRML, your scenario is being played out while we blog.
The libs have $17b + to spend and they will not go down without spraying as much of that about as they can during the campaign.
No child will be without an Ipod. No living room will be without a Plasma TV. The spendathon has not even begun.
“Frightening”, read constant references to unions, inexperience , women in power, Kevin Rudd’s glasses are “Bi” focal.
I recommend Possum as an antidote for all the buldust.
GG, you may be right that St John had a drinking problem, I have never heard that suggested. But he wasn’t an “aparatchik”, which presumably means someone who comes from a party organisation. St John was a barrister and legal academic who had no connection with the Liberal party “aparat.” (Source: Rydon, 206). So not everything you wrote was true.
WRML, what is blatened? I think you are making up the language as you are going along. Your logic approximates your knowledge of English.
WRT your apparent point. The Australian electorate, at large, does not believe JWH any more. He lied about interest rates, he lied about ‘Work’no’Choices’, he lied about the reasons for going to war, he lied about children overboard, he lied to Peter Costello about handing over. There is very little he has not lied about.
The electorate has made up its collective mind, and deluded souls like you, and Glen, and Christopher Pearson, and Terry McCrann should just accept the fact. You are wasting our time, and your energy. You should work on a basic understanding of the English language. It will do you a lot more good.
cheers,
Alan H
Showson 324 says
This was delivered as tax cuts, savings (superannuation), and importantly, Medicare.
Possibly the most significant and fundamental economic reform of the Hawke/Keating era (there were quite a few others of similar impact) was the introduction of universal and transportable superannuation (previously this was largely a perk of the Public Service or the upper echelons of private industry). The principal advantage of this reform was to wean the public from the great government mammary in the form of an unfunded old age pension. This reform was to have its fully effect in the LAW increase in the superannuation contribution from the employee salary/wage packet from 9% to 15% over the triennial period 1996-1998 ( with 1% a year coming from the employees(reduced wage increases) and 1% a year coming from the employers) this would have taken the total superannuation contribution to 15% of earnings (the level at which most actuaries consider that a sufficient sum will accrue over a normal working lifetime to produce a reasonably livable income stream in retirement, for the majority of people.
My recollection is that JWH promised to continue with this reform during the election campaign and then found it to be a discard-able ‘non-core’ promise as soon as he was elected.
IMHO this was the single most important act of economic vandalism perpetrated during the coalition’s most recent hegemony over the Australian economy
There are so many ways Labor can use WorkChoices during the election campaign. It threatens just about everyone and especially people with debt and or kids. AND there is the worry that Govt wants WC to cover 100% of the work force and, also of WC2.
“It also found that more than half of the 177,000 people who signed up to AWAs this year said there was no negotiation about wages and conditions with their employers.”
Therein lays the fundamental problem with WC and, what it is all about for Howard. Get unions out, reduce their power and membership and thus dry up funds and talent for the Labor party. Doesn’t matter to them who and how many are sacrifice in the process.
http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/news/queensland/awas-disadvantage-qlds-retail-hospitality-workers/2007/10/02/1191091086203.html
Hockey will need to back down quickly, the academics are serious in their legal action, Hockey has basically accused them of fudging their research.
This is the most serious charge you can level against an acdemic, it destroys careers and reputations and I don’t think Hockey can claim any sort of legal or parliamentary privalege. Besides substantial damages to pay Hockey could also be looking at future garnishes on his parliamentary super pension.
From a workers point of view you are to be admired Mr Hodgson.My young son was screwed over by one of the large Multinational fast food chains the day the WorkChoices became law.The Liberal and Nationals by introducing this legislation have guaranteed that no person affected adversley by these laws will ever vote for them in the future.Stupidity really.There was no reason to introduce them.The economy is supposedly doing fine.I have written to our local member (Lib)several times and asked why.Never had an answer.I can’t wait to vote them out.
Don’t you just love the way that the Libs attempt to trash any facts put forward which fly in the face of their claims made on behalf of their failed policies, only to bring more attention to the disastrous effects those very same policies are having on people.
People affected by policies such as “workchoices”, are definitely NOT sleepwalking or imagining the situation they now find themselves and their families in.
Reminding them of this is invaluable political value for Labor and the stupid fools can’t see it. Priceless!
“(Mr Hockey) has made some very serious allegations about me and my team being union bosses in disguise masquerading as academics,” he said.”
http://www.theage.com.au/news/National/Academics-lash-out-at-Hockey-criticism/2007/10/02/1191091068685.html
Arbie
Maybe Hockey doesnt/cant understand what defamation means
Ministers only have parliamentary privilege when they speak in Parliament. They sometimes forget that they can’t slag everyone as they please when they are not in the House.
Hockey is a desperate man – he knows it is his job to defend WC at all costs or he will be blamed for the government’s defeat, although it was really Howard and Andrews who mixed up the toxic brew which is now poisoning their chances.
Seeing as how we’re all waaay off topic I thought I’d post this link. http://www.ozelection2007.info/forums/viewtopic.php?id=767 You can bang on all you like about comebacks and soft votes, but the polls are indicating doom for Howard, and they are the best, most realistic guide we have to what is going to happen in a few weeks’ time.
To clear up Glen from 302.
Automated messages were used by the Libs during the 2004 marginal seat campaign. this was at the same time that the Libs tried spamming emails using Howard’s sons company at the time. The technology has been anoying Australian households since 2001 through outgoing call centres (they leave a personal message while their staff catch up with the automated dialing system). -reference is my own industry knowledge.
The Libs did use it first you see.
What Hockey has done is similar to accusing a scientist of fudging results to get a research grant, it will be interesting to see what happens next.
I’ll donate $10 to the ALP if Hockey gets sued over his comments. Truly you dont know what you are talking about comrades.
It’s amazing that WorkChoices is still the centrepiece of this campaign, and is looking like being the cause of perhaps the greatest landslide in Australian Federal political history.
Has there ever been a more disastrous public policy in our nation’s history?
Conscription, maybe?
Paul Hodgson,
Come out and enunciate it, man! Exactly what is it that you are trying to say? There appears to be a subtext that you don’t appreciate the Armenian Armtwister. He is a friend of John Howard and, if august journals such The Australian and any other Murdoch tabloid hate sheet say that is a good thing, then who are we to disbelieve it?
I reckon you are really a Union Boss and you’re just looking for another defenceless business to ruin so that Uncle Joe can spray “Shut down by union bosses!!!” over its windows. I am really getting sick of seeing “Shut down by union bosses!!!” all over my non-swinging electorate.
Maybe Hockey doesn’t/cant understand what defamation means
Probably thought they said “Deification” and didn’t feel like it. lol
Hockey will have to do a big grovel, gravely damaging his reputation and drawing even more attention to the damning findings of the research – that WorkAllWeekend really does what it was designed to do – lower the wages of unprotected and unskilled workers.
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