• Hot on the heels of yesterday’s Galaxy poll of Queensland marginals, Michael McKenna in The Australian tells us the Liberals feel they might even be able to save Moreton, thus limiting the damage to Bonner. Intriguingly, Labor is said to have ‘virtually “written off”’ Mal Brough’s seat of Longman. Dickson is also said to be a bridge too far. Longman was one of the four seats surveyed in the Galaxy poll, suggesting it may have added Liberal ballast to the overall 51-49 result.
• George Megalogenis of The Australian discusses the electoral strategy behind the Coalition’s “three piece” tax cut, which consists of a low-income tax offset, a “fiddle to the threshold for the 30 per cent marginal tax rate” and cuts to the two top tax rates. The first is rated the most significant, being targeted at “the politically sensitive spot on the income ladder where the part-time working mother is most likely to be found” through a measure “not shared by higher income earners”. Megalogenis says no fewer than 18 Liberal-held marginals contain above-average numbers of the policy’s target market.
• Misha Schubert of The Age reports that Corio MP Gavan O’Connor, who has been dumped by Labor in favour of former ACTU assistant secretary Richard Marles, will announce on Thursday whether he plans to run as an independent. He is “tipped” to do so.
• Running through the Tasmanian seats, Matthew Denholm of The Australian reckons the Gunns pulp mill approval might benefit the Liberals not in Bass but in neighbouring Braddon, “Tasmania’s least green seat where many businesses will benefit from the project”.
• Typically bold predictions from Malcolm MacKerras in The Australian (not available online as far as I can see), who tips 89 seats for Labor, 59 for the Coalition and two independents. Bennelong and Wentworth are both on the casualty list.
648 Comments
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Apparently Labor has collared Access Economics to do the fine tuning of their policy work for them. Don’t think they’ll be mixing fire and fuel the way Costello did yesterday.
http://petermartin.blogspot.com/2007/10/see-fire-add-some-petrol-economic.html
Just saw where to read re multiple votes – Scorpio @ 88..thanks
AllyB — you mean you have a life? That just won’t do. All of your political credibility is now lost.
Andrew Landeryou reports that Tony Smith is “gravely worried” about losing Casey (margin 11.4%). Landeryou may or may not be a ratbag, but he’s a well-informed ratbag, and this seems to be a credible report.
http://andrewlanderyou.blogspot.com/
If so it confirms the view that the big swings are happening in the Volvo suburbs and not the Kingswood suburbs (or maybe both).
{Poor old John doesn’t really smile very much anymore. He just looks grumpy.}
He doesn’t have very much to smile about these days does he.
Twelve months of polls further south than Tasmania and after the Gaffe on ACA last night as well as the petulant interview with “Red Kerrie”, when he got home he had to face a quite upset Janette, waiting at the door with the wooden spoon in her hand.
I bet Johnnie’s backside was still red when he woke up this morning.
AllyB you can keep on voting if you delete your cookies every time.
Sean it’s the Perth Now site, the only good thibg they had for the coalition was that business lauded the tax cuts, knowing their usual anti labor bias i was stunned.
Yep, small business alone won’t win a seat, Scorpio, that’s true. But small business people are the ‘connectors’ in a community. They do all the chattng with the locals – ppl ask them their opinions. Get small business on side and you get a fair number of others in their orbit – it would do a modicum of good. Plus, a real fault line in todays capitalism is the rift between small business and the big corporates. Doing something for small business wedges the ‘business lobby’ nicely.
David Charles 9:24am
It’s the attitude that you say some people possess that is the reason Howard even bothers with bribery in the first place. I’m sure everyone would agree that some extra cash is nice but OTOH I think many people would agree that sometimes enough is enough.
Here is the sentiment that I think is shared by sufficient voters to lose the election for Howard:
Howard is sitting on a huge stash of dosh. He rakes it in but won’t spend any of it on anyone other than himself. He reduces spending on things that matter like health. He increases revenue by allowing bracket creep to go largely uncorrected. He has a revenue windfall from the global boom. He refuses to share it with the states (although fair enough that any sharing should be safeguarded against squandering). The country is falling into disrepair. He’s fuelling interest rates. He’s sold off all the revenue raisers like Telstra which means he has to replace that lost revenue with extra taxes. And when an election comes around, he magnanimously hands out a few crumbs crumbs to the plebs. And loaves to voters that his market research tells him will vote for him. That’s a plan for Howard but no plan for a nation.
# 155 – Scorpio, I think you’ll find that it was a silver spoon. And it wasn’t in her hand.
Yeah, I think that Rudd will offer substantial tax cuts targeted to the middle and lower end, but less than what the libs are offering because there are different rules for the Labor and liberal parties on budget matters. Ideally, as Ashley says, they’d use any additional money (up to what the govt is p..ing against the wall in tax cuts) on health, education, infrastructure. This would be a solid response and very difficult (even for the GG) to argue with.
Apparently the govt have quarantined another 4 billion for unspecified (election pork) spending innitiatives. They may make an attempt to throw these dollars at health/education etc, though its clearly against their neo-lib principles which dictate user pay. Brace yourself because the media has clearly given the libs a license to spray money everywhere without being held to account.
I posted this on the other thread but I’m posting it again in response to Max.
Labor has two options I think.
Option A is if Labor wanted to stake its chances on the intelligence and foresight of the electorate (a risky move) they could ask them to forego the tax cuts in exchange for 34 billion worth of improved health and education services and public infrastructure.
Alternative they could take the cautious Option B in the knowledge that an extra 40-odd bucks a week instead of improved services and infrastructure (not to mention IR laws) will impress enough people to swing the election.
Under Option B they could match the bracket changes in the lower 3 brackets and keep the rates as they are – just as the government is proposing. Keep the limit between the two brackets above that at 150,000 (or at least not raise it by so much), and keep the rates in the upper 2 brackets as they are now instead of reducing them.
For most people the tax cut would be the same – for those earning between 80,000 and 150,000 it would be a slighly smaller cut. The big difference would be for those earning more than 150,000 but they probably wouldn’t vote Labor anyway.
There will be less money available for public projects still more than under Howard’s plan and at least the money won’t be going into new Volvos for Madison’s eighteenth birthday.
The independent in Corio is of course the deselected sitting member Gavan O’Connor (known in Canberra as Ronocco Navag because he’s so backward – geddit?). He’s a bitter old loser and I doubt he will make much impact against an excellent candidate in Richard Marles. Dumped sitting members who think they’re indispensible and run as independents usually do badly.
Yeti – I think you will find Labor is well represented amongst the top 50 wealthiest electorates.
110 Max That maybe the case, but there will be no movement in the polls.
Scorpio 155
Very perceptive comment. I suspect there’s been some dramatic and highly disturbing scenes at Kirribilli and beyond of late. Lots of sleepless nights and rantings and ravings about 2006, and retirement and if only…..Jannette must be in a real state
John Rocket, are you channelling JWH? Do you mean ‘aborigines’?
I love how the libs are referring to their proposed tax cuts as a “plan” for the future. These clowns do not deserve to be in charge of the country. Any dunce can come up with tax cuts. They also seem to think that the bigger the dollar value of any announcement they make, the better it must be. I cannot believe how friggin stupid these guys are, or how stupid they think the Australian public is. They don’t have plans, ideas, or leadership.
Why not just install my wife as PM if all it takes is the ability to spend billions of dollars?
Oh Bugger……………….
Even in the pre-election campaign climate, Tasmania’s health system got more than its fair share of political attention. Now it is set for some more.
A Freedom of Information (FOI) search conducted by the ABC has learned that the Federal Government did not seek advice from its own Health Department before announcing the controversial takeover of the state’s Mersey Hospital in August.
Now doctors in the state have issued an ultimatum to the Federal Government. Take over all of Tasmania’s public hospitals, or none at all.
The doctors are angry that the Government did not receive independent clinical advice before making the announcement on the $45 million takeover.
“Edward StJohn Says:
October 16th, 2007 at 11:57 am
I have two “departees†so far
passthepopcorn
Adam
Anyone else?”
Yeah, Eddy, but rather than a “departee”, I’ll be a renditionee.
Gitmo; water ‘n’ board courtesy of El Rodente’s bestest sleepover buddy, Crawford George.
On the upside, people say I look terrific in orange and maybe public outrage will get me sprung back to Oz before the fed. election following 24/11/07. Geez I’ll miss blogging.
If Labor *really* wanted to grab some headlines with tax, they could index the scales to inflation. Then they could effectively say they would be giving you a tax cut for the rest of your life.
Ebenezer 10:23am
Good point Eb. Since Howard reckons there are two leaders, Rudd has every right to demand to debate both of them. Hard to demand your 2 and 1 but certainly 1 each, or possibly debate them together and let Howard and Costello take turns answering
After you, old chap. Oh no old boy, after you
Channeling JWH?… JWH never apologises, not for anything – at anytime – ever! and certainly not to the aborigines! (He’s an artefact and an artefact get certain exemptions… really, it’s much better than having a seniors card! You get ethical discounts as well!)
The $34b figure is as meaningful as ’street values’ quoted for drug seizures. Lazy journalism, the gap between expected tax revenue with and without this policy would be a lot less as bracket creep and economic growth will pay for most. On tax does labor appeal to the middle-strata or target low income workers?
Rudd should demand three debates:
- one with Howard
- one with Costello
- one with a panel of other leadership contenders (Turnbull, Abbott etc)
This would also make it impossible for the Liberals to hold on to bracket creep for 2 years, then cut the tax rates and / or adjust the scales in election years, which they call a “tax cut”, when it is really just handing back some of the bracket creep.
Thanks Judy – now I understand..of course. I was wondering how others seem to be able to vote more than once and I wasn’t able to….now I can see why its a load of sh%T….still nice to dream of such results……..
Apparently, there is a group in the 30-70k range who are worse off under the new tax regime if loss of family tax benefits is taken in to account. Jon Faine interviewed a women professor from Sydney this morning. So it must be true.
The nett effect more most is $10-15 per week. Hardly much to excite anyone at all. If the effect is increased interest rates ,then no one is any better off.
The real purpose of these changes is to encourage a higher participation rate at the bottom end.
Labor might be best advised to wait until November 7 and see what the Reserve Bank does, fix any anomalies that appear, endorse the package and move on.
The only thing more annoying than listening to another 39 days of Rudd asking and answering his own questions, is another 39 days of listening to the Emperor in Waiting Costello. I thought Rudd was annoying until I heard Costello this morning. If the Libs want a chance to win they need to take Costello, Downer and Andrews and hide them in a box until after the election. Wayne Swan may be boring and makes you fall asleep in front of the telly but Costello makes you want to throw the telly out the window.
Well if they wait till the middle of next week we’ll have a pretty good idea what the Reserve is going to do because of the inflation data coming out.
I generally agree that Gavan O’Connor probably won’t be a huge threat in Corangamite, although Adam’s comments at 163 are utter piffle.
O’Connor is a well-known, popular local member, and Marles, the guy who replaced him, is widely viewed as an interloping union hack. The Geelong Advertiser hates Marles’ guts, and it isn’t an uncommon sentiment in the area.
This said, I think O’Connor has left his run too late. He should have quit the party soon after he lost preselection, at the height of the anti-Marles fervour, and tried to go the local independent route. It would have given him the necessary extra publicity and time to organise a strong election campaign, and acted as a heads-up to the Liberals to run dead. Members who wait until the eve of the election to quit after losing preselection rarely do well – I’m not sure I can think of a single example of someone being re-elected in that situation at either federal or state level. It’s exceptionally hard in this day and age for any deselected MP, regardless of popularity, to actually survive as an independent, and I’m afraid that O’Connor’s going to be no different.
It will be interesting to see how he goes, and if he can actually get people out on booths, he could well surpass the Liberal candidate (who has some profile from running for Lara at the 2006 state election, but is otherwise a bit of a dropkick). I think Marles will ultimately win, but expect O’Connor to poll a healthy slice of the vote.
“Thanks Judy – now I understand..of course. I was wondering how others seem to be able to vote more than once and I wasn’t able to….now I can see why its a load of sh%T….still nice to dream of such results……..”
I know I said I wouldn’t, but I checked out Coredata again. Currently it looks like Alex Hawke will be the sole Liberal holding the fort in Sydney… no, hang on… in all of New South Wales. Such a nice young man too.
It is Reaganomics revisited. The government is hoping that cutting taxes will get more people into work, which will increase demand, which will expand the economy so that even more people get into work.
I don’t think they should endorse the entire thing. They should focus on giving bigger tax cuts sooner to people below say $70,000.
They should spend the rest on health, education, and child care
No one at the top except suckers pay more than 30% which is the business tax rate. Only an idiot would give himself such a high salary and not take it as company dividends.
The exception of course is heads of corps and boards of PLC’s who have to disclose all this, but there are more loop holes than there are people in this group.
How does cutting taxes get more people into work? People will think to themselves… ‘gee I’ll be getting a good deal now!’ and decide to get off their lazy bums? People’s knowledge of tax rates etc. are pretty low so I find that hard to believe.
Perhaps Labor can look at cutting tax rates on overtime and public holiday pay. I’ve heard my Dad complain about the lack of incentive to work these days due to the huge tax slugs on numerous occasions.
Exactly, Ashley and we will have days and days of speculation, intrigue, comment on rising interest rates. The constant chatter will certainly resonate with home buyers and they will know who to blame.
Will not play well for Howard.
LETP @ 185
The aim is to get mums, pensioners and others that work say 1 day a week for an annual salary less than $10k to consider working another day or two per week.
A query for the punters out there who know their way around a trade union, which I don’t.
What does a ‘poltical officer’ do in a trade union? and what types of roles fall into the category of poltical officer.
The reason I ask is that Mike Symon, the ALP candidate for Deakin, describes himself as an OH & S officer for the ETU on his ALP website (and is described as such on Antony Greens ABC site), but on Adam Carr’s web site and the ETU site, he is political officer, and does not come up as OH+S officer.
I can understand that OH+S officer is much more ‘warm and fuzzy’ for the punters out there.
I think we should all settle down talking about interest rate. The key determining factor in this whole thing will be the September CPI figures – 0.9%+ rise will probably lead to an interest rate rise, assuming that Stevens has the guts to pull the trigger 3 weeks before an election (and there’s nothing to suggest that he won’t).
One thing I note is how quickly both the death penalty debate and the reconciliation referendum have fallen off the agenda – it shows that in a week’s time, we almost certainly won’t be talking about tax cut (and neither will ordinary voters) unless Labor decides to release their plan around then. I’m beginning to think JWH has mistimed the release of his tax policy – since most polls are taken over the weekend, surely it would have been better to release it on Thursday, to ensure it would have the maximum impact on the polls…
adl 12:27pm
great post!
There is no way there will be an interest rate rise before the election. Whoever gets elected will get a lovely present in December.
Won’t it be hilarious to see the Punters flip out if the ALP is elected and there’s an interest rate rise within a week of their election?
Well, for what it’s worth, the article on Howard’s interest rates senior moment is #4 on the popular stories list on the Age website vs. #10 for the piece about the tax cuts. As far as I know, these are ordered by number of views.
I don’t think he had a choice. He had to basically go with his biggest policy announcement straight away just to get some attention.
Why are you so sure of this? Why did Glen Stevens say he would shift rates whenever he thought necessary if he didn’t mean it?
This in itself could be construed as a political intervention opposing the ALP. Why would it be OK to intervene then, but not during the campaign?
Looks like the National Identity Card is set to be scrapped by Labor – another Billion Dollars saved. It has been plagued by problems and cost over runs and scrapping it can only be a good result.
http://www.australianit.news.com.au/story/0,24897,22592265-15306,00.html
Yo ho ho @ 191,
I agree with ShowsOn @ 193 – if Stevens doesn’t raise interest rates in November, he’ll probably have to wait until the December quarter CPI figures come out in January to be able to raise interest rates without being open to accusations of political impropriety.
Funny how after two days so many people are talking about Labor losing the election.
An OHS officer is an elected representative and his actions and appointment ismandatory and covered by the OHS act which can be looked under http://www.worksafe.vic.gov.au .It is quite a big role if there are a lot of employees.
193 yes he had to play the right bower to see if Rudd is holding the jocker
One thing I noticed about that “Perth Now” website is that a lot of their stories are up to 4 days old or more.
Copyright must run out after a couple of days and it is then OK to plagiarize stories from Eastern state publications?
Howard said “Australia’s economy not ‘all about China’”
well, lets be more precised: it’s all about resource boom.
And for this I don’t see Australia different from oil-rich countries in
Middle East, they just pump up and sell their oil.
We virtually live off our resource.
I beleive Australia can do better than that, with creativity and innovations.
My vote is for a change of governent. Anyone but Howard!
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