As you’re all no doubt aware, the Prime Minister has just held a press conference announcing the election will be held on November 24. Didn’t hear the whole thing, but after all the justified outrage about the government’s changes to electoral laws, I am surprised to learn that the legal formalities will be conducted on a timetable that will leave the rolls open until October 22.
UPDATE: Those who have had time to think about this point out that the writs will be issued on Wednesday, so the deadline for new enrolments is 8pm that evening. The October 22 date invoked by the Prime Minister is the closing date for amendment to existing enrolments.
UPDATE 2: An AEC press release announces: “If you’re not on the electoral roll and you’re entitled to enrol, you must fill in an enrolment form immediately and return it to an AEC office by 8pm, Wednesday 17 October. If you’re already on the roll but still need to update your address details, to ensure your vote you must complete an enrolment form and return it to an AEC office by 8pm Tuesday 23 October”.
726 Comments
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Glen governments should not give money to private operations.. such as in health and education. And Howard has been doing this massively over the last eleven years.. and our hospitals, universities and schools are in terrible state because of it…
The States haven’t been doing this…
Re vertical fiscal imbalance, NSW provides $45 billion in services each year, receives about $13 billion from the GST via the grants commission and less than $2 in $10 of expenditure in specific purpose grants, and this is declining. For example, in 2001 under the disability agreement the Feds provided about 20.2 per cent per year for services. Now, because of they provide less than 16 per cent. How does this equate to the states rolling in cash? Pure fiction.
#164 Snakeboy, my eight year old daughter asked, ‘Why is John Howard retiring?”
Chris B,
I am merely making the point that what ever the ABC does one side or the other accuses them of bias. No doubt for every complaint about bias they get from the Labor side they’ll get another one from the Liberal side. They’re in a no win situation.
To suggest as people on this site are that the ABC is being biased and trying to give Howard an advantage is just plain silly. How many people would have even watched either Rudd or Howard’s entire press conference? As if it would make any difference to the election at all if people didn’t see the entire press conference. The conspiracy theorists are alive and well on this site.
Glen 155 “Richard why arent you attributing any blame to the States why is it always the Howard Government who is to blame for State issues?”
Glen, are you actualy employed by the Liberal Party? Surely nobody with a 3 digit IQ would repeat your nonsense unless they were paid to do so.
We all know that the States are responsible for service delivery (hence North Sydney hospital is a NSW govt scandal) but the Commonwealth raises the tax revenue and sets the spending levels. Federal health policy, with public funds supporting private health insurers to “take the load” off the public system, has been a disaster, since there has been hardly any diversion of high cost patients away, despite billions spent. Education is no better, with Federal funds sunk inot wealthy private schools, while state schools simply keep sinking. Or what about the $10 billion plan to fix the Murray, that turned out not to have been even costed or approved by Treasury? Is that NSW’ fault too? Howard is not a great economic manager, he is just lucky. If you want great economic management study BHPB and Rio Tinto. They are the ones creating the wealth.
As for the “experience” nonsense, by that score William McMahon should have been our greatest PM, having been in Cabinet 21 years before he made the top job, at age 63. I think even fans would say he was not our best.
Well if the States werent all in debt they wouldnt have anything to worry about…
Glen you are wrong, I am sure the 30 years low payments to the States as a proportion of GDP, includes the GST. The idea of States rolling in money, in the context of the full vertical fiscal imbalance issue is a bit difficult to comprehend, even before I get to mention absurd and a bit uninformed.
Getting back to psephology if I may:
http://psephos.adam-carr.net/countries/a/australia/national2.shtml
My new threat assessment map.
BMW,
So you reckon Cossie is keeping out of Higgins because that is the best way to improve his vote there?
Poor Petro.
Yes Paul, but as I said it was a tongue in cheek dig at the so called Labor bias.
Rudd says: ” … Mr Howard’s vision for the future is to win the election, retire, and hand over to Peter Costello …”
Neat. Cutting. Lot’s of meat in there. I suspect it might cut through.
Glen: All evidence suggests that Kevin Rudd is biased.
# 38:
20 seats only, a majority of 6 or 4 whoever you look at the independents. He will retain bennelong but then resign losing it in the bi-election.
Tassie2, Victoria2, SA 3-4, WA2, NT1, NSW5, Q5.
The bookies would agree too.
thats an ALP win of course
Centaur, my thoughts:
Tas 2, Vic 1 (maybe 2), SA 3, WA 2, NT 1, NSW 3 (maybe 4), Qld 4
I could see up to 5 in NSW and 4 in SA, but can’t see a 5th in Qld. What would it be? Longman?
“Glen Says:
October 14th, 2007 at 3:20 pm
Well if the States werent all in debt they wouldnt have anything to worry about…”
Glen, you are the “expert” so correct me if I’m wrong, but doesnt’t Queensland Treasury have over $20 billion in assetts in its investment fund? Not quite broke. Then again, having clarified the point about who actually funds the States in previous posts, if they were “all in debt” wouldn’t that just prove that whoever sets the overall funding had erred?
I finally understand! Glen is working for Labor! His job is to energise the party faithful to be active and outrage the neutrals until they switch to Rudd. I don’t even like Rudd and its working already Glen. Very clever.
It has been a very awkward start the campaign proper.
Howard did not start out sounding like he wants to wipe the floor with Rudd, whom he’d be apt to call a pretender and a pale shadow for all the agreement and imitation across the political divide. Surely, if you want the real thing, your voting option is self-evident.
Instead, we get “The Right Way†nonsense. The instinctive counter is surely that the slogan concedes an acknowledgment that they’ve been about the wrong way until now. That’s not the kind of ammunition you want to give wordsmiths. Anyhow, Howard does not sound like he believes it.
Howard sounded like he was not addressing Keating’s criticism in a censure motion from 1995, resurrected for all to see on YouTube. Howard must sound convincingly that he knows more than the electorate on whatever issue thrown up during the campaign. It doesn’t matter if he actually does know more, and it certainly doesn’t matter if it’s true or not. Say it with certainty of conviction and an implied care for the welfare of the nation, and it will not matter if it also sounds arrogant. Every time Howard was in a bind he used that technique: statesmanlike, rock solid in posture, clipped sentences in delivery, no detail beyond key message and an expression of grave knowledge on his face and in his voice.
It will work again if used with conviction. But for that Howard must want to decimate the Opposition. But for now, he sounds like he is spooked.
And then momentum can only be regained with a statesmanlike response to a serendipitous act of violence.
Where was Rudd for over two hours after Howard’s announcement? He couldn’t possibly have been barricaded in writing the waffle he came out with in his statement. It was all presidential, it was all “Iâ€. I don’t think there was a ‘together’ referring to the community and himself, or to the Labor party and himself, or to the shadow cabinet and himself in the entire pre-amble. Rudd’s spiel, full of motherhoods statements completely washed over. Nice place to live, Australia? Well, yes. I think we more or less settled on that one. ‘I had a fortunate life’. Good. Reference to Facey duly noted. And then what? A slogan? No. A battle-cry? No. Something punchy and quotable? No. Just an ‘intention to make the case over the course of the campaign’: may be a 5-10 year plan. (In one respect, Rudd’s right: it will probably take that long to swing the cultural pendulum)
Was the likelihood of the election being called news to him? Then why did it sound like it did?
Rudd’s apparently insurmountable challenge is caution born of imbuing every issue with a moral dimension and over-reacting in self-conscious piety, in trepidation before any imagined public judgment. That’s windmill stuff.
Sometimes such self-flagellation comes across better than other times. Last week, his intervention on the death penalty non-issue, the soufflé imploded. Rudd’s first campaign had caution washed all over it. He warmed up with the questions and remained the hammering points required, but fluffed the main point: that re-electing Howard will mean more of the same. It could be that in his lucid moments he confesses it may very well be more of the same, but then, what’s the point of the exercise?
It’s only worth changing the government, if you want to change the country. Poll spinners (pace Fairfax’ Walsh, talking to SkyNews, as replayed on Newsradio, just before the carried Rudd’s press-conference) reckon that those who claim in polls that they intend to vote Labor, do so not necessarily because they have been presented with any alternative, but because they “feel like giving Howard the birdâ€. And what is that if not a petulant bit of juvenilia?
And for as long as such a perception of the electorate persists of the electorate as herd, it’s voting intentions are all too easily manipulated. Bang.
Chris B,
To be honest I can’t remember what you said on the day. I just remember the subject came up. But I still think my point is correct and that is that the ABC are in an no win situation and no matter what they do they are going to be accused of bias.
Anyway I’ve go to go. Getting a little tired of this whole: Howard is the Saviour of Mankind or Howard is the Anti-Christ debate.
I have a suggestion… which the others on the site might find usefull
maybe people can identify the seats that they are certain will be retained
by the current party….. eg Blaxland (alp), Mallee(NP) Bradfield (lib)
that way we have a starting point to see what are the possible changes
depending on the size and distribution of swing at this election
WHO DO YOU TRUST TO KEEP INTEREST RATES LOW??
What happened to this claim?? Ahahahahaha
Well, here’s the ones I see as going to Labor, at the current state of play, for them to gain the 16:
Solomon (NT)
Bass (Tas)
Braddon (Tas)
Kingston (SA)
Makin (SA)
Wakefield (SA)
Hasluck (WA)
Stirling (WA)
Blair (Qld)
Bonner (Qld)
Herbert (Qld)
Moreton (Qld)
La Trobe (Vic)
Eden-Monaro (NSW)
Lindsay (NSW)
Parramatta (NSW)
and maybe
Deakin (Vic)
Dobell (NSW)
Off topic – but the 30 – 54 and 55+ two party preferred figures (51/49 and 59/41 respectively) quoted in The Sunday Age for the Taverner poll just don’t look right.
All other polls have the figures for these two demographics pretty much the other way around. Does anyone know if they have been inadvertently reversed? Otherwise this poll is very suss.
RE Adam @191…… thank you for the effort in making up this map
I pray it is true
Peter Costello is very popular in Higgins, regardless of the polls he should hold easily
States to blame – I thought it was funny when Abbott was told that the Commonwealth was now paying less as a proportion of the total health care budget than it use to that he blamed the States for paying more than they used to. Strangely he didn’t refer to them as State Labor governments like they usually do.
Great map adam. How did you determine the difference between seats at significan risk and seats at a possible risk?
*yawn* is it over yet?
inituition
Will, your friend who is moving will vote at his old address. Technically you have to re-enrol within 21 days of moving; but you also are meant only to enrol at an address that you’ve lived at for a month. (Hmm, well drafted that…)
Once the rolls close (Wed 8pm for new enrollees, 22nd for change of enrolments) your friend’s entitlement to vote will fix at his/her old address. Even if they do their ‘duty’ and lodge the form for the new address after that, it won’t be acted upon by the AEC.
On the caretaker convention, well it’s just a convention, but a journo from the AFR just asked my opinion and from first principles and the seat of my pants, I said it sensibly begins from the proroguing of the House in the election context. After all, it is only by being able to prove his support on the floor of the House that, by convention, the PM and ministgry can prove their ongoing right to a commission from the GG.
Adam – that’s a big claim on your website!!!
I want to see better graphics and fonts for me to believe you.
WA prediction; The ALP lose no seats but pick up Hasluck, Stirling and Canning.
Bewdy
Darn,
I think you are reading it wrong, it is 60-40 for the 30-54s and 51-49 for the 55+
Glen, you raise a good point. It’s time we gave Labor a chance to put an end to the bickering and work cooperatively with the states, since Howard’s long since proved unable to do it. Imagine the progress that will happen once it’s all done and dusted!
Why is Gillard a liability Glen? Because conservatives don’t like her. Because News Ltd journalists say so?
She makes mincemeat out of Tony Abbot everytime he opens his mouth. She has overwhelming support from women. She will make a damn fine deputy prime minister of Australia in 6 weeks time and just maybe Australia’s first woman PM one day.
So fire away at her. It only makes her more popular.
BMW,
Libs holding safe seats easily?????
Not in this election.
He might win, but he will sweat!
The map is not a prediction. It is an assessment of seats at risk.
What time is costello doing his campaign launch?
Thanks for that Timbo (212). I re-read The Age and it does seem to present the figures the way I gave them on page 5. Where did you get the figures in your post?
I agree about Costello. I don’t regard Higgins as being at risk.
#213 – I agree, nostradoofus. Gillard has been the most polished political performer of the last three months. She is a genuine asset to Labor.
Darn the figures you require can be found at
http://www.smh.com.au/news/federalelection2007news/the-young-and-the-restless/2007/10/13/1191696235752.html
What time is Costello doing his campaign-launch speech?
Bahahahhahaahahhahahahahahaha!!!!
Adam,
Is that more of that “sceintific intuition” you seem to have patented?
Me, I’ll stick with the crystall ball and my dreams.
This is the AEC federal election 2007 FAQ page
http://www.aec.gov.au/FAQs/federal_election2007.htm
A lot of routine questions are answered there, or will be soon.
re 209… I suggest the chap concerned contact the AEC ….. I’m not
sure but I suspect he would be able to change his enrollment to his
residence and vote for that address
When the SMH website first announced the election date, it showed a photo of Howard and Costello on one side of the frame and a photo of Rudd on the other. Within two hours, it has become just a frame showing Howard v Rudd. Interesting.
#211 – I don’t think Canning would fall personally, but it would be the next most likely to.
Any idea on how big the sample size was for the Taverner poll?
If it was small the the overall result may be useful but the demographic breakdowns would be misleading.
About a 1000 Albert
When parliament is prorogued can the coalition still call themselves the Government?
Would some of you stop bagging the ABC please? As Richard Jones pointed out, it’s ABC policy to give the major parties equal time. That will happen over the course of the campaign, within every individual ABC radio and TV program.
Unfortunately, as parthetic a policy as it may be, there is no other way to eliminate accusations of bias from either side, than to give them equal time. I noted that Howard himself brought his press conference to an end today, by saying “one last question”. That meant that, on the ABC at least, only a certain amount of Rudd’s reply would be shown.
These kind of time counts, line counts etc are also carried out by commercial media, to varying degrees. It’s the media’s way of insuring itself against accusations that it gave one party more air time/print space than another.
Ask Richard Alston what he thinks of the ABC’s pro-Liberal bias. Ask Neville Wran whether he thinks the ABC has a pro-Labor bias.
Albert F (226)
The Taverner sampled “about 1000 voters” according to the Sunday Age
Adam, all in all I think your assessment of the seats in play, and their relative risk of falling, is hard to fault. The only minor quibble I have is Menzies – if Goldstein, Casey and Kooyong are all at ‘possible’ risk, why wouldn’t Menzies be so as well? Perhaps no local member is more likely to suffer a Doctor’s Wives backlash than Kevin Andrews, and I would expect interest rates and, to a lesser extent, WorkChoices would be biting there as well. It’s also got a slightly smaller margin than Casey.
It’s certainly on my list of seats to keep an eye on.
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