• Glenn Milne reports in the Sunday News Limited papers that “definitive” Labor polling “shows voter reaction to Mr Howard’s retirement plans has become a ‘blocker’ to the Coalition’s other campaign messages, devaluing the Government’s promises and policies in all key areas”.
• In the wake of Wednesday’s interest rate rise, much was said of marginal seats suffering high levels of mortgage stress. Nassim Khadem of The Age pointed to a concentration of such seats in the 5 per cent to 10 per cent range in Victoria, including La Trobe, McMillan, Corangamite, Deakin and McEwen. The Sydney Morning Herald noted that affected seats in and around Sydney included Lindsay and Parramatta, now all but written off for the Liberals, along with Dobell, Robertson and Macarthur.
• Michelle Cazzulino of the Daily Telegraph wrote on Wednesday that “confident Labor strategists are predicting an upset victory in Danna Vale’s electorate” of Hughes, held with a margin of 8.5 per cent. Joe Hildebrand of the Daily Telegraph named it with Macarthur and Paterson among seats Labor was targeting “in a strategy to spook the Government and draw precious resources away from a handful of must-win seats” – namely Lindsay, Dobell, Macquarie and Eden-Monaro.
• Dennis Shanahan of The Australian is always good for a dose of cold water. On Wednesday he related suggestions from state front-bencher John Aquilina that “NSW Labor Party polling in marginal seats is not as strong as published polling”. Aquilina would only say that Labor “would win the western suburbs seat of Lindsay and had a chance in Macarthur, Dobell and Eden-Monaro, but he doubted they could pick up more”. Labor’s chances in Bennelong and Wentworth were not rated, and talk of Robertson was dismissed as “a lot of hype”.
• The Coalition has nonetheless targeted Robertson with a promise to repair a section of the Old Pacific Highway at Somersby, which has been closed since a family of five was killed following a road collapse in June. The Newcastle Herald reports that “no dollar figure has been attached to the promise”, but it is expected to be around $10 million.
• In Eden-Monaro, Labor has promised to spend $23 million from Defence Department funds upgrading the road from Queanbeyan to the Joint Operations Command headquarters, which the government stationed in Bungendore in an especially shameless act of marginal seat pork-barrelling. Andrew Fraser of the Canberra Times notes Labor has failed to provide funding for the more dangerous section of the road from Braidwood to Batemans Bay, the business end of which has been redistributed to the almost-safe Liberal seat of Gilmore.
• Tim Colebatch of The Age detects good news for Labor in an enrolment boom in McEwen, La Trobe, Corangamite and McMillan. This is because the increases have been concentrated in the urban areas of these mixed electorates, which are the stronger for Labor. Even bigger increases have been recorded in Bennelong and Wentworth, though the impact here is harder to read. Jenna Price of the Canberra Times also notes a sharp increase in enrolment in the Australian Capital Territory, suggesting this increases the chances of a Greens Senate win at the expense of Liberal incumbent Gary Humphries.
• Andrew Burrell of the Australian Financial Review reports that “the Labor Party has launched a prime-time television advertising blitz aimed at saving the highly marginal Western Australian seat of Cowan, amid mounting fears that the retirement of popular MP Graham Edwards could deliver it to the Coalition”. With further Labor advertising focusing on Stirling, Burrell discerns “a sign that Labor is behind in those seats”, and is conversely confident of gaining Hasluck and retaining Swan and Brand (the latter of which has been the subject of some slightly surprising recent chatter). The report also says “ALP figures privately doubt the veracity” of the recent Westpoll survey showing them trailing in Cowan, Stirling and Hasluck. Those three electorates plus Swan have been the targets of the Perth variations on Liberal marginal seat television ads.
• Michael Bachelard of The Age reports that the Greens decided on Friday to direct preferences to Labor in every Victorian seat, which it has never done before. The decision was apparently made after Lindsay Tanner succeeded in embarrassing the Greens over split-ticket how-to-vote cards being distributed at a pre-poll booth in Menzies, held by bete-noir of the left Kevin Andrews.
• Sam Strutt of the Courier-Mail reports of “polling indicating a huge swing” in the Sunshine Coast seat of Fisher, which Peter Slipper holds for the Liberals on a margin of 11.4 per cent.
• The verdict from the wind chimes merchants of Dobell is in: “Everyone knows when Labor is in unions run the country”. Ken Ticehurst remains remarkably media-shy.
• Samantha Maiden of The Australian peruses a Poll Bludger comments thread. All good fun in my view, but the folk at Club Bloggery are not taking it lying down.
1,127 Comments
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KR,
i heard Gerard Daffy, the boss at centrebet, say that the last 2 mondays a $10,000 bet has been placed on Rattus by the same punter.
option 1) a punter who thinks he will win
option 2) a rusted on hoping he will win
option 3) someone trying to give the impression he will win.
$20,000 into that single market will keep Rattus in the red.
765
Glen Says:
November 11th, 2007 at 9:18 pm
Well it’s a disgrace for any side of politics to engage in this cheap underhanded and disgraceful acts. Well Julie the AEC will get a big serve from me about this, its wrong to allow campaign items into a polling booth!
….
a serve from you? from crosby/textor? tsk, tsk. they will for them hills.
This may have already been discussed but has anyone followed this position of the ALP to it’s logical conclusion.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,22733609-5014046,00.html
The ALP is basically saying that if the minor parties try block the IR legislation then they will go to a double dissolution. If a double dissolution is called the minor parties will want to party like it’s 1987 (the last double dissolution) because they will all pick up more senate seats. Who knows if there’s a double dissolution, god forbid, the Dems might even get a seat.
George @792, Im tipping Capn Smirk will suffer 2 to 3 pc above the state swing.
Ruddock on Agenda with Spears …….. <no poll leaks as of yet.
I’m pleased about the t-shirt ruling. I had t-shirt made up today with “I voted for John Howard” on the front and “May the Lord have mercy on my sinning soul” on the back, based on a suggestion from a few days ago. I plan to wear it to the booths and hang around for a while.
On the Betfair “plunge”, a single very large bet would have been made with Betfair. They would increase their odds until they were able to “lay” the bet, ie re-bet at the same odds with another bigger agency. Sorry to be a killjoy.
Grog – I guess he’s being even handed …
Centre, if that’s correct, then how are the polls for Bennelong in any way consistent with the price on Maxine, except that big money is being put on the PM.
It all seems a tad illogical, at least to me!
mad cow Says: “George @792, Im tipping Capn Smirk will suffer 2 to 3 pc above the state swing.”
At 8.8% currently, that would definately eat close to the mark.
Apropos matters of a testicular/electorate nature, it also appears that those of the Member for Bennelong are kept under lock and key, in a very attractive harbourfront mansion situated in the Federal electorate of North Sydney. The keeper of the key is a three-headed ogre called Hyacinth, and legend has it that she will only return the spherical objects to their former owner so long as he can guarantee that she (Hyacinth) can remain in the mansion until the end of time.
According to mythology, the Gates of Hell will be opened if Hyacinth has to move, and she will consume the bollocks in a fit of rage and fury not seen since the last Lateline appearance of that other mythical figure Dollydowner.
Bennelong will shift tomorrow. Get on now! Is it not said that tomorrow’s poll will confound the established wisdom? Max is great value at $2.60-$2.75. Even at $2.50 she’s a great bet.
And Isabella, if you’re still lurking – I don’t know why you’d bother to hang arounf this blog if you hate us all so much. Or do you have that Tory sado-masochism thing?
Just asking.
Someone mentioned Albert Langer before. Utterly different. The AEC had a supreme court injunction ordering him not to advocate duplicate preferences. He breached the order and so was in contempt of court. Judges always get antsy when their orders are breached.
I guess if the Liberal party have tucked away in a dark room somewhere in a corner in a drawer a policy for Concscription, we can’t complain about it if they then implement it after an election? They have a mandate of course, and policy was there, so there.
OR if they had a policy tucked away and didn’t speak to during an election campaign that re-establishes the White Austarlia policy..then ditto.. or re-introduction of the death penalty or, canceling medicare etc… they don’t have to mention it or inform the public.
Any policy that makes a fundamental change has to be put out front and talked to. If Howard ran with WorkChoices as a policy in 2004 he would have got thrashed at the Polls. AND we know from his biography that he did not have any such policy until after when they all ran around and developed one, one they knew was wrong and was going to hurt the Australian worker.
To push the line that Howard has done no wrong because he may have had something tucked away in a corner regarding a fundamental change to the rights of Australian workers, is simply to act as an appologist for the Liberal party, and it can have no other purpose than that.
Howard deceived all Australians with a hiddden policy that revealed that he sees them as nothing more than worhtless scum. A law that was thrown out by the Surpreme Court in Canada.
And we know that Costello thinks the only IR law in Australia should be a minimum wage, but I guess after a while he would get sick of that too. AND Howard in the 1980s said that we should abolish the minimum wage – and had to recant on the ABC.
There has been talk of a Daily Telegraph bennelong poll for days and the ’surprise’ it is suppose to contain.
I just cannot see a murdoch paper sitting on polling that may be damaging to rodent and then turning around and releasing it on the very day of the libs campaign launch.
Release good polling for the libs under such circumstances, yes. But not the other way around.
Unless Rupert has made a call to labor ?
We will all know soon in any case.
In Higgins we had a 2 hour walk through Chapel st and Prahran Market with Barbara Norman and Wayne Swann. It went smashingly.
One thing I have to say is the brand recognition that the libs have given us is amazing. You couldn’t buy that marketing for billions. People were shouting out of cars go Swanny, and people running up in the street. Okay 20% was bad response but they still recognized him.
Cast your mind back to 1996 and tell me anyone new any coalition cabinet. Now Roxon, Gillard, Swan, Garrett etc are household names.
The swings in Labour held seats will be huge 10% plus, as well as the marginals.
Interesting HarryH, but is someone also doing the same at Sportingbet too?
It’s across all the bookies, and it can only mean that the punters are more sure of the Rodent than the pollsters.
Question is: why?
What other information, except perhaps historical precedent, is there to think the Rodent will scrape over the line?
It’s sure got my interest, and more than just for the, ah, pecuniary interest!
I thought I’d give Sam Maiden some hubris to write about, so I thought I’d have a go at picking the first Rudd Ministry. Tell me what you think.
Prime Minister: Kevin Rudd
Treasurer: Wayne Swan
Foreign Affairs: Bob McMullan
Health: Nicola Roxon
Environment and Climate Change: Stephen Smith (sorry Pete, I thought you’d do well but you’re just a little out of your depth)
Education and Training: Greg Combet
Employment, Workplace Relations and Social Inclusion: Julia Gillard
Attorney-General: Bob Debus
Finance: Lindsay Tanner
Defense: Robert McClelland
Trade and Industry: Craig Emerson
Water, Resources and Energy: Chris Evans
Human Services
Transport and Infrastructure: Martin Ferguson
Communications and Information Technology: Anthony Albanese
Primary Industries and Regional Services: Simon Crean
Immigration, Integration and Citizenship: Penny Wong
Special Minister of State and Commonwealth-State Relations: Tony Burke (I think this could well be a new Cabinet position in a Rudd Government)
National Security, Justice and Customs: Joe Ludwig
Ageing, Disabilities and Carers: Maxine McKew (did ya get that, Sam?)
Veteran’s Affairs and Defense Procurement and Personnel: Arch Bevis
Assistant Treasurer, Revenue, Competition and Productivity: Chris Bowen
Small Business and Tourism: Jan McLucas
International Development Assistance: Joel Fitzgibbon
Local Government and Territories: Kate Lundy
Sport, Urban and Multicultural Affairs: Stephen Conroy (a concession to common sense – I just can’t fit this lump into Cabinet)
Superannuation, Banking and Financial Services: Nick Sherry
Arts, Conservation and Heritage: Peter Garrett (let him get the hang of things with the soft side of Environment – saving forests and whales)
Innovation, Science and Research: Bill Shorten
Thoughts?
When there is general agreement that Bennelong is close/too close to call it does seem strange that is is 2.75 – 1.40, but I suppose it would be a bad look for the PM to be anywhere near evens with Maxine. I’ve don’t bet but had to put a ton on her just so I could say to the Grand kids, ‘well sonny when the Rodent lost office and his seat, your gran and I drank Bolinger.
Hi there VoterBoy. I see you’re up to scratch on your mythology. I wonder of you could fill me in on the contemporary analogue for the golden fleece story – Kevin and the Alponauts … battling fierce one eyed press monsters – hacking through the fields of the dead Ministers Ruddock, Andrews et al – until finally they pinch the prize – by 89 to 59 with a couple of ghosts in the cross benches.
F*#k, i wish it was 13 days hence. It would be all over.
Dazzamack, please calm down a little. Your last comment about Glen has been deleted.
William Bowe
http://www.pollbludger.com
centaur_007 Says “In Higgins we had a 2 hour walk through Chapel st and Prahran Market with Barbara Norman and Wayne Swann. It went smashingly.”
Hey centaur, what time was it? I was up in Orange with the wife at the Windsor end of Chap, having brunch (which ended up becoming brunch after a bottle of Billy)
KR — sorry can’t remember the figures for the amount of money bet, but it was pretty big in Bennelong and obviously very large on the national market.
Agree with Centre that the amount of money bet already is not that important. But it does give you an indication of what is considered to be a “big” bet, and force a change in the price. Certainly, very thin seat markets will move in response to just the odd thousand or two bet, whereas popular markets such as Bennelong require larger bets to move. It’s the relative flow of money (for vs against) within a period of time which will determine whether the price needs to be shifted. At least that’s how I understand it.
# 765 Glen Says: November 11th, 2007 at 9:18 pm
Why don’t you get your daddy to yell at ‘em?
The best bet has surely got to be Bennelong because Howard’s personal wealthy mates, if not his political advisers, will just keep punting a few thousand dollars of their pocket change on their Hero whenever one of these exceptionally small betting markets shifts enough to cast a shadow on Howard’s invincibility. It’s peanuts compared with the megabucks that Team Howard spends on MSM adverts for extremely valuable publicity.
I’ve been a small bet gambler for 20 years, and I’ve never seen anything as badly disconnected with the real life probabilities as McKew’s odds.
Dave, Rupert cares about selling papers and making money. If a story that hurts the Libs will do that, then run with it baby!
Sportingbet has Libs at $3.30, ALP @ 1.32. No change for some time.
Woah! Here’s a photo of Turnbull impersonating Ruddock:
http://www.news.com.au/common/imagedata/0,,5745276,00.jpg
Thanks for the clarification Anthony.
Punter @ 804. What Labor’s doing is putting the Greens in a pincer. There are some unions that want Labor’s policy changed, and if the Greens get the balance of power, will lobby to have ‘helpful’ amendments moved. By Labor saying they won’t accept minor party amendments, they pressure the minor parties to let the bill through as is, or force workers to live under the old industrial relations laws. Labor can say it’s just implementing its mandate, and not going beyond what it promised in the campiagn. It will be a matter of who buckles first, the Greens or the internal cohesion of Labor. They don’t have to have a double dissolution, just turn the howitzers on the minor parties.
Grog Says:”Dave, Rupert cares about selling papers and making money. If a story that hurts the Libs will do that, then run with it baby!”
Exactly Grog. Rup doesn’t mind snuggling up to the Communists in China, as long as their a big wad of money at the end of the hugfest.
George 11 to 2 but we started at Tony Luptons office. Yes Billecart is choice Champas if that’s what you mean.
George are you committed on polling day? If not come and help me for a few hours. I am a booth captain.
First confirmed sighting of Senator Palpatine this campaign.
I thought he must have been being kept in Woomera or something.
Yes, agreed Ashley, but the very odd thing about the odds, (so to speak), is the glaring difference between the polls and the punters.
Something is out of whack, and the poll numbers are way off, or the punters are way off.
Guess we’ll see, huh?
(I’ve been thinking she’d start moving in after the rate rise, but in fact went slightly the other way! Ah, go figure, as they say!)
Doesn’t a double dissolution with its smaller quotas in the senate tend to favour the minors? If so, why would a double dis threat worry them?
“its wrong to allow campaign items into a polling booth!”
Like how-to-vote cards?
It’s going to be tough for Glen to memorise the Liberal how to vote cards, especially the one for the Senate.
Still, that’s what you’re going to have to do, seeing as how you’re not going to being into campaign items into a polling booth.
By the by, back in ‘72, some Labor voters wearing It’s Time T shirts weren’t allowed into the polling booth by over zealous polling officials (probably relatives of Glen’s). The law was clarified after that.
Betting on candidates is a bit of a disappointment really. If the punters realy believed in their candidates they would give that $20′000 to the candidate! That money would go a long way to making sure their candidate has the best chance.
Antony, while your there, do you have an e-mail address that I can reach you at?
I think it Charlie,
I’d love to see Lindsay Tanner in something really high proifle though, Maybe like Foreign Affairs.
CL de F, this is like watching Geelong win the Grand Final, Its three quarter time and the Reds are Winning 55-45, which in Footy speak is ‘Flogging” the other rabble, Enjoy, its going to be a long time before such an absolute hammering takes place.
K Removals,
Big money may not necessarily have been bet on the Dessicated Coconut. It could well be that the bookies, or their staff, or their connections, actually believe that the Rodent has a greater probability of holding his seat than what the polls idicate.
Antony, thanks for the comment on the double dissolution posturing – it’s good to have you around to translate Shanahan’s articles into English. At this point, the Greens have indicated that they would rather pass Labor’s IR policy than leave WorkChoices intact, so it would seem to be much ado about nothing.
Centre at 800
The amount wagered is pretty relevent in one respect, because you can’t actually put a decent slab of money on some of the thinner seats (actually most of the seats) without not only being forced to accept a lower price, but moving the price to *some* extent on those thinner markets as a result.
But that aside, the betting market accuracy theory is premised on the wisdom of crowds with the emphasis on “crowds” because:
(a) a crowd prevents any individual bet (ceteris paribus) from making much of a difference to the odds regardless of the knowledge or money behind it. So it prevents gaming (which is what I think a couple of Lib branches did in week 1 of the campaign)
(b) Bookies cannot always decipher the difference between punters with good knowledge and punters with bad, so having a “crowd” allows for at least a semi-strong “efficient market hypothesis” to play out, rather than bookies to attempt to judge the outcomes of an industry that have far more knowledgeable players in it than themselves.
The main game market too seems to suffer from the affliction that at any given moment it knows what its doing, but any given *movement* in that market over any necessarily short period is not necessarily accurate.
It pretty similar to the herd behaviour (moooo!) that faddish stocks on the stock market seem to suffer from.
Antony, Bob Brown has already said he will vote with labor so that workers are not forced to remain under work choices.
Not bad Charlie.
You don’t think Ludwig will keep Attorney General?
Weren’t there whispers about Albanese getting environment?
I like McClelland, but Defence looks a good bet.
792 George Says: November 11th, 2007 at 9:26 pm
I live in Higgins (go to the Prahran markets every Saturday), and I didn’t live here at the last election. I’ll be voting ALP.
I’ve been saying it for a while now. Peter Costello should be very worried.
Rowan, the difference with the Bennelong market is that its symbolic for the whole country. They don’t want people to have the impression that Howard is losing his own seat because that will force people to think about Costello. Hence 10 grand or so now and then is good marketing.
centaur_007 Says:”George 11 to 2 but we started at Tony Luptons office. Yes Billecart is choice Champas if that’s what you mean.
George are you committed on polling day? If not come and help me for a few hours. I am a booth captain.”
Bugger, missed you guys. Oh well, sounds like you had some fun on the walk
Yep, Billecart, but we don’t often do it, as it’s pricey. Have you tried the Bouvet Ladubay Saphir Brut Vintage? Not as good as the Billy, but French and only $19.99 a bottle!
I’m not committed on polling day. Would love to help out in any way possible – let me know how to contact you.
Grog & George – hope you are right.
I want Maxine to thrash rodent as well
I just smell a rat……
According to a poll taken immediately after the 2004 election by Newspoll on how the undecideds broke, the best I can work out was something like a net 59/41 flow to Latham’s Labor, after allowing for 60% preferences [45% of the people who made up their mind in the last week voted for 'Other'].
You can find the poll on the Newspoll website – maybe one of the maths people here can work it out.
One other thing that has to be said about betting markets is, it still remains the case that very wealthy people (the kind who consider 10K pocket change) overwhelmingly are rusted on Tories. I can’t prove this bias, but I think its there.
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