The Sunday Fairfax papers (see here and here) carry a Taverner poll covering mortgage holders only from Sydney and Melbourne, showing a 57-43 lead to Labor. There was apparently a similar poll published during the 2004 campaign which had the Coalition leading 54-46 among this group, but I can’t find any record of it. Seats in which this looks like bad news for the Coalition include La Trobe, McMillan, Corangamite, Deakin and McEwen in and around Melbourne, and Lindsay, Parramatta, Dobell, Robertson and Macarthur in the Sydney area.
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Taverner: Labor leads among mortgage holders
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617 Comments
Is this reflected in WA’s recent Wespoll?
Coming from Melbourne I think there is definitely a swing to Labor but I’d be surprised if it meant more than 2 seats changing hands in Victoria. Still any gain in Victoria would be a bonus for Labor.
TO THOMAS BOWIE: the Galaxy Poll of 4,000 voters (800 per 4 seat State) was conducted per your attachment on the evenings of the 10th to the 15th November
ie last Saturday night to last Thursday night. In between both Party’s made their Launchs. WOULD GALAXY’s POLLING PER SEAT OVER EACH OF THE 5 NIGHTS BEEN 40 VOTERS PER SEAT EVERY SINGLE NIGHT (TO MAKE UP THE 200 per seat per state ie 800 per state) ?????? if not the polling would be affected by when during the launchs the phone calls were made
Yes it makes you wonder about order effects.
No surprise here
Who the hell is Thomas Bowie?
William, 57 43 sits well with the last 12 months national polling and possum’s playthings; a striking turnaround from 04. The deadly diamond at the coalface methinks. Would like to see more detail but I think this may play outside Vic & NSW equally well.
CONFUSED !!! Galaxy’s Poll mathematically equals a 2 PP of 50.8% Labor & 49.2% for Liberals. Each state had 800 polled & the results FOR LABOR 2 PP PER STATE were :
WA 50%
NSW 53%
Vic 49%
Q’ld 51%
SA 51%
This works out at 2032 actual 2 PP votes to labor out of the 4,000
which equals 50.8% 2 PP
WHERE is Labor’s 2PP of 54% per Nielsen and 54% per Newspoll
In safe Labor seats ?????
Aah, 6.5 sleeps to go!
Goodbye Peter Costello!!!!
I can’t wait!
if the swing is 8% in Vic, then you’d throw in Gippsland to the 5 you mention. 8.8% is the magic number that sends Peter Costello into consultancy.
Game on baby!
@9
I’m in Higgins and haven’t heard a word from ALP candidate or received anything in the post.
William
The question posed @ 1 was trying to work out if WA’s mortgage belt was reflecting any semblance of the same swing that is going on in Sydney and Melbourne. If so did the recent Wespoll account for it?
Up very early in Sydney to listen to a sporting event in the USA (Saturday daytime in their location) and reading the political news here. The Age is my homepage and boy was that article a sight to see first thing this morning
Kind of makes it silly the other poll yesterday that was predicting no seats changing hands in VIC at all
Bring it on, we’ve been waiting for this moment since 1996
“Six sleeps until a new dawn” [by Julia Gillard]
http://www.theage.com.au/news/federal-election-2007-news/six-sleeps-until-a-new-dawn/2007/11/17/1194767024670.html
Morning Julie
It’s going to get better me thinks.
10 – Gecko.
I’m not a big believer in the impact of big marginal seats campaigns. Have you got much liberal stuff either?
When you run a big coordinated presidential campaign, local issues take on decreasing relevance.
The demographics of Melbourne are changing. I reckon the swing in Higgins (& Kooyong and Goldstein) will be more than the state average. When the state average is 7%, that makes all 3 of these seats very vulnerable.
OldTmeHack @14
Yep I’ve got lots from Costello. I even get letters from him throughout the year. But nothing from Labor (maybe they know how I vote!). I tried to offer my services to hand out stuff but didn’t get a reply. (??)
8.3 is a big ask in this seat… but I remain as optimistic as I can.
The Sunday Age – “The Sunday Age does not see enough differences between the Coalition and Labor to urge readers to vote for one over the other”
Deserve it or not, Howard faces a losing battle with Me Too
Sunday Telegraph – “The Sunday Telegraph advocates a vote for Labor” –
Why Kevin deserves a chance
The Sunday Mail (SA) – “The Sunday Mail believes the Coalition is best placed to govern Australia for the next three years.”
Coalition best placed to govern
The Sunday Times – “The Sunday Times believes change for change sake is simply not an adequate trigger to throw out a Coalition Government”
No valid reason to throw out Coalition
The others don’t seem to have their editorials up yet.
“TWO words sum up the Coalition’s election campaign: bloody awful. A complete and utter shambles from start to finish.”
http://www.theage.com.au/news/opinion/jason-koutsoukis/2007/11/17/1194767017299.html?page=fullpage#contentSwap1
OMG …… I was right last evening
Sunday DT has endorsed Kevin
http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/opinion/story/0,22049,22774600-5001031,00.html
Adelaide Sunday paper endorsed Coalition. Can’t find any endorsements in Brisbane nor with the Herald Sun in Melbourne.
James @ 16,
It really says heaps that out of those endorsements, that the one which seems to speak loudest with the “Vote Rudd” voice is the DT. Seeing that, you can be assured that Bennelong will GO and that endorsement, alone, is probably worth a % point or two to Mike Bailey’s chances.
Surprised to see the Sunday Age endorsed no one
Wouldn’t get too excited by this poll, Taverner don’t have a good track record based on their 2004 results
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2004/10/03/1212021.htm
#19, found them on factivia:
Sunday Mail (QLD) – Time to consider new leadership
“There is undoubtedly a mood for national renewal and there is a need for national renewal. Mr Rudd has demonstrated he has the potential to undertake that task effectively.”
Sunday Herald Sun – It’s time, but not for Labor
“IT IS time. Not to change governments, but to resist temptation. It is time to acknowledge that the Coalition is the safe bet in a political contest in which the new, despite its superficial allure, offers less than the familiar.”
No 17
Jason Koutsoukis is a bumbling fool. Labor through and through.
So of the News Ltd “published” papers we have 2 for (NSW & Qld) and 2 against (Vic & Adelaide). Typical of you damn mexicans
24,
Probablly reflecting the local readers which tells me that while the swing is ON nationwide that it is REALLY on in QLD and NSW. Watch those two states deliver most of the seats Rudd needs
…….
Good news for this poll, which would have been taken after BOTH campaign launches; this wasn’t the case with either the Newspoll or Galaxy marginal seats polling. Also good that both the Tele and the Courier Mail are endorsing Rudd. Can’t imagine why the stupid Age isn’t.
On the Galaxy results, for Qld they once again include Longman, where Mal Brough is the local member, and probably has a strong following. All other polling in Qld, both statewide and in Newspoll’s marginal seats, is showing a 9% or so swing to Labor. Longman probably won’t fall, but plenty of other seats will, including some very safe looking ones.
My God! With all the near-daily poll excitement I’d forgotten about Taverner!
Let It End is probably right about its reliability, but that considered it still confirms the general trend. The marginals are heavily Labor’s way. There ain’t gonna be no desperation comeback in the marginals.
I wouldn’t hold my breath on Costello losing, since it’s doubtful the swing is uniform. But taking into account Mega George’s Newspoll demographic analysis, Uncle Buck is in big trouble in North Sydney, as is Johnson in Ryan, because of the high proportion of under 34 voters. And Maxine’s looking pretty good in Bennelong.
For Glen’s sake, I’m keeping the hubris in check. But it’s getting harder by the day. Joy, oh joy!
Check these lead stories at the Courier Mail. Had to chuckle.
http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,22775765-952,00.html
http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,22775928-953,00.html
This might be why the odds blew out to 5.10 yesterday for the coalition
“A SYDNEY punter has placed a massive $160,000 bet on Labor to win the election.”
http://www.smh.com.au/news/federal-election-2007-news/huge-plunge-on-rudd-win/2007/11/17/1194767020951.html
That is one massive bet. This individual is pretty confident. Wouldn’t it be great if we knew who it was (ie. an insider).
“Next Sunday, the Liberals’ highest office holder will be the Brisbane mayor.”
Comment by Koutsoukis in “The Age”…love it!
Generic Person is right. The Libs never get a fair go because all the media is prejudiced against them. This trend of journalists stating the facts and arguing a well thought out opinion is typical of what will happen under Rudd’s “Education Revolution”.
Well informed opinion is the anithesis of what the Libs stand for and must be stamped out as soon as possible.
Not surprised Yodelaide Sunday Mail not endorsing Kevin.You only have to check out there phone polls to work out who they bat for.Pricks
Sunday Mail (SA) editorial spouted some desperate tripe about how Labor’s Education Revolution should have happened in the Keating years. At a glance, most other stories were pro Labor which made the endorsement seem out of step.
Not to worry Growler – fo uninformed opinion there’s always going to be Dennis and the Malignant Dwarf. Not to mention the entire editorial cabal over at the GG.
Sorry for off topic but what the heck!
These people are our allies??????
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/7098480.stm
My final seat count prediction is here:
http://fairnews.com.au/content/view/58/1/
ALP 93
Coalition 55
Independents 2
good morning everyone, Prissy Pyne’s missus is sending out a begging letter to the women in Sturt, things must be tight there for her to copy Turnbull’s wife.
http://www.news.com.au/adelaidenow/story/0,22606,22776520-5006301,00.html
Julie i sent you an email did you get it? i’m not sure what my computer has been doing i’ve had a bit of strife with it and a couple of emails iv’e sent hav’nt arrived.
yes, Judy, I did, but we have 2 computers in this house and at the moment, I can only read mail on one of them. [Problem reading mail from Yahoo on the computer I use most often and Thunderbird on that computer is set to my husband's mail]. Might be awhile before I can get back to you, time share with the kids and husband on the computers
…….
38 judy- I suspect Pyne’s wife will receive plenty of advice of a personal nature about her devotion to her husband being misplaced. It really is pathetic and smacks of panic. The voters don’t like panic.
Just watching now on Sky’s election channel Rudd’s presser from yesterday and a journo asked if Insiders Brarry Cassidy was just being a sook about Rudd not appearing. Wonder if that bit of film will appear on the insiders today ?
If Insiders spends a lot of time about Rudd not appearing on there last show before the election and not the election itself they will have jumped the shark.
Rudd just said he is going to spend the next week trying to reach those Australians who don’t watch Insiders HA
‘Rudd just said he is going to spend the next week trying to reach those Australians who don’t watch Insiders HA’
That is too funny.
Guess that leaves us out!
n/p Julie, i’m not worried about a reply– just i’m not sure what of my emails have reached their destination, i’ve got the computor tech coming tomorrow, my machine has to be in perfect condition for sat. night lol.
heres a copy of the letter sent by Pyne’s wife.
http://www.news.com.au/adelaidenow/pdf/pyne.pdf
Intersting bit from The Age
http://www.theage.com.au/news/federal-election-2007-news/press-ganged-into-that-sinking-feeling/2007/11/17/1194767024685.html
“WHEN things aren’t going your way … seems everyone knows it. Prime Minister John Howard and Kevin Rudd are both booked in to address the National Press Club — Rudd on Wednesday and Howard on Thursday. While tickets for the Rudd address are in huge demand from press club members and corporate partners, word out of the press club is that there is far less interest in going to see Howard. Another bad omen for the Libs.”
Jason Koutsoukis is alright. He just needs guidance.
Remember, he was the official mouthpiece of the Liberal Insiders & Master Strategists at the beginning of the year. It was through him we saw the Libs’ true heart of darkness: Rudd on a slab, Gillard scandals exposed… a blow by blow of what the Libs were going to do to Labor and when they were going to do it.
Lately he’s gone the other way, towards Labor. Now he’s openly antagonistic to his former “Lib Insider” pals, thoroughly rubbishing them in his “Gillard Dirt File” column a month or two ago.
Hey, let’s face it, being on Labor’s side is not only reasonable on the facts, and what’s expected of a Greek boy from Melbourne, but it doesn’t hurt to be on the winning side if you ever want to get out of day to day journalism, either.
Jason’s a bit of a cork on the water. Rest assured, if Labor was losing he’d be a lot less partisan sounding than he is now. He wears his big Greek heart on his sleeve. It’s the way he’s made. He can’t help that.
That is too funny Julie – my sister rang me yesterday and told me about the letter (she lives in Sturt). Said it solidified her vote for Mia Handshin.
I wish Hyacinth would write a letter to women in Bennelong re subject of housing and employment.
I can’t believe the Sunday Telegraph is advocating a change of Government to Labor. I don’t believe my eyes.
William,
maybe Thomas Bowie is a Ziggy Stardust sort of thing. Ground control to Major Tom. Take your protein polls and put your helmet on …
Looks like Barry is going to have a big sook on Insiders about Rudd not coming on his show.
Re the Mrs Pyne letter…
From the story this morning… “The names and ages of the women – with a target age of around 40 – were sourced through the electoral rolls.”
This is an extract from the AEC:
“Under provisions of the CEA, Members of Parliament, political parties, approved medical researchers and public health screening programs may also be supplied with confidential roll information. For medical health researchers, this may, include electors’ gender and age range information.”
“A Member of the House of Representatives is entitled to receive elector information for the division for which they were elected and any other division, following a redistribution, which contains a part of their elected division;…”
“The use of this data is restricted to…any purpose in connection with an election or referendum”
And also…
“In the past mailing houses were able to purchase the electoral roll and use the information for non-electoral purposes. The roll is no longer available for sale in any format.”
The use of the electoral rolls, including access to the age of voters, by Mrs Pyne could just be illegal.
Is Mrs Pyne acting like a “Mail House” or is she acting “in connection with an election or referendum”?
She is not the candidate – she has no more right to personal information contained in the rolls than any one else. She has, as a private person, used age on the rolls to target voters – and has gained access to this information from her husband’s position as an MHR.
Highly dubious at best. Illegal at worst.
Did anyone see Julia to Barry Cassidy just then on insiders? “Stop acting like a jilted lover.”
Hilarious!
RGee, you beat me to it on the “jilted lover” theme but let me be the first to say she looks GORGEOUS!
Barry has taken his grumpy pills.
Barrie Cassidy is a winger!!! He needs to get over the fact that no punter watches a political program like insiders! And now he is acting like a Coalition lover. Julia is killing him!
Julia looks good but it’s a boring interview. Cassidy is just nit picking to try to find something he can trip her up on. No wonder not many people watch the show.
Cassidy needs to get some perspective. The reality is 80% of his viewers are dyed in the wool ALP voters, so harassing Julia isn’t going to go down too well.
Too be honest I’m finding this interview very irritating, he’s behaving like a petulant child, trying desperately to make her look bad about SOMETHING.
^ To, not too.
Just heard that the Sunday Tele has advocated a vote for Labor.
Julia put Cassidy down nicely “jilted lover” lol
Maybe Insiders can be renamed Outsiders!
‘Your shout’ segment is a pearler this week…love the lady in pink!
Bolt is sounding very sensible .. amazing!
If the Galaxy poll is to be believed and the swing in the marginals is less than all electorates average, say around 4%, it then follows that the swing in the non marginals while be greater than the average say aroud 10 to 12 %. Look out Smirk and Lord Downer we’re comin to get ya.
Bryce at #52
I believe Mr. Turnbull’s wife sent a similar letter to the voters of Wentworth.
Same AEC scenario apply?
SA Seat Predictions Part 1: Kingston
You only need to look at the last dozen or so election results in this seat to see that it swings back and forth all the time, and I expect this election to be no different. The mix of candidates here is interesting, particularly with the lateish arrival of the former state liberal minister, Robert Brokenshire standing as the family first candidate. Because of this, I have revised down my expectation of the swing to labor in Kingston. No offence to Bill Weller, a regular contributor to this site, but I think the green vote will drop below the 7% they polled in 2004, with some green voters returning to Rudd labor. I expect the booths around Hallett Cove to swing most heavily towards labor, as they did at the state election in 2006.
So, a labor gain, with predicted 2PP swing of 6%.
I watched Oakes vs Tip on Sunday. Laurie was clearly fed up with Smirk and openly bagged him. He asked how a Costello Govt would differ from a Rodent one and Cossie clearly had given the matter no thought. Could only come up with being a Republican.
That should have read green vote 5% in post #66, my apologies !
I watched a little of Insiders earlier. Julia wiped the floor with Cassidy.
Barry is behaving like a petulant 5 year old, all because Kevin Rudd refused to go on his pathetic, low rating, pro Howard show: what a cry baby!
SA Seat Predictions Part 1: Makin
This is a seat that labor people in south australia will enjoy watching out for on election night, hoping that the liberal candidate Bob Day doesn’t win. Bob Day, as William points out in his analysis is a veteran of the industrial relations wars, and is closely associated with the HR Nicholls Society, and has written some controversial papers on minmum wage (or lack thereof) policy.
The Labor candidate Tony Zappia, stood at the 2004 election, and is the mayor of the city of Salisbury, and thus has a strong recognition factor, particularly with the retirement of the sitting member, Trish Draper. This gives Zappia an added edge in this seat. Labor has been stressing Zappia’s efforts with water recycling programs as Mayor.
I think the anti-workchoices feeling in Makin, coupled with the recognition factor of Zappia, and his environmental credentials point to a hefty swing to labor.
So, a labor gain, with a predicted swing of 8%.
Odds still diving since I last saw them yesterday. Labor 1.18 on centrebet, Libs 4.95.
Maxine in to 2.30 from 2.60
Judy 38
My wife also received the letter from Carolyn Pyne in Sturt on Friday. She felt it had a rather condescending tone and wasn’t impressed. It focused almost totally on women as homemakers and there was barely one line on issues for working women. In an electorate with a very high education level and a lot of working women, it really missed the mark.
The letter almost had a begging aspect (don’t put poor hard-working Chris out of a job; he has 3 kids!) which was rather pathetic. It isn’t meant to be a job for life. Plus, after ten years on a salary package 3 times the average wage, its hard to imagine Chris Pyne is struggling.
Rudd to use a cricket term used a nightwatchman on insiders today but Julia a very good batsman in any case only had to face naked off spinner who could not turn a bottle top.
I am watching in Brizzy so on delay but the first question why was the launch delayed. God what a powderpuff didnt even hit the pitch.
Really annoying on Insiders that they pursued the line of a “willful” Rudd not answering questions of reporters, ignoring the fact that Howard’s record on this is simply appalling, obfuscation being his middle name, and “small target” in 1996 his overall strategy.
In case it hasn’t been posted:
My 5 steps as PM by Rudd
http://www.smh.com.au/news/federal-election-2007-news/my-first-5-steps-as-pm/2007/11/17/1194767020799.html?page=fullpage#contentSwap1
SA Seat Predictions Part 3: Wakefield
I first have to admit, I don’t feel as comfortable predicting this one, as the nature of the seat is much more heterogeneous than most of the other adelaide seats, taking in areas such as elizabeth, to rural areas around gawler and angle vale.
There is also evidence to suggest the local member David Fawcett is quite hard-working, which might well save him from the sort of swings that are likely to be seen elsewhere in Adelaide. Also, in parts of the seat, I don’t see workchoices being the issue it may well be elsewhere.
For the reasons above, I think Wakefield will move less to labor than the state average, but when you are on a margin of 4/5 of bugger all, you’re still dead.
So, a labor gain, with a 2PP swing of 5%.
Fair to assume, I think, that the various newspapers will give a separate voter recommendation for their weekday editions.
So while The Sunday Age has urged voters one way or another, The Age itself might well – and probably will – make a recommmendation for Labor.
On Insiders, I think Barrie Cassidy is entitled to query Kevin Rudd’s decision not to appear on any of its shows since the election campaign started. This is a programme devoted solely to politics. It is in the interests of the democratic process that the alternative PM submit himself to this sort of interview at least once during an election campaign.
We can talk about margins of error all we want
But there is a poll coming out that has a MOE of 0%
It comes out next Saturday night, and the sample size is 13,645,073
Actually, what is the formula for working out MOE?
SA Seat Predictions Part 4: Boothby
Now, I chose the easiest 3 SA electorates first, and I don’t think too many people would argue with my assessment of those being picked up by labor.
Boothby is one of those that everybody will be looking out for on election night. Was Nicole Cornes the right choice ? Is she a disaster ? Will her grass-roots campaign style be effective ? All questions that remain unanswered until next Saturday night, or maybe later if it’s close.
I work at Flinders University, in the heart of Boothby, and have many friends and colleagues that live within this seat. I can honestly say, I have found little evidence of people wanting to vote directly for Nicole Cornes, in spite of my words of biased labor wisdom. However, I distinctly detect an equal unwillingness to vote for Southcott. A number of people have indicated they will be voting greens and sending their preference to Cornes. So it is for this reason I think a high greens vote will be essential for Cornes to win here. And if she wins, it will be a close-run thing.
The green vote last time was 7%, which is fairly decent. I suspect it will be much higher this time, easily getting over 10%. In fact, I’m going to go out on a limb here and predict 12% !
So, I’m caught in 2 minds, but I don’t think Cornes has done enough, and will just miss out. Liberal retain. (2PP swing to labor of 4%)
What about Barry having a sook to Gillard about Rudd not coming on Insiders?
Let’s see, who watches more: Insiders or Rove?
So who will you turn gay for? LOL
Ahh, nice figures 57/43. Gives you great confidence in your fellow Australians. It has come to the point where swinging or small L voters should certainly feel guilty voting for the Coconut.
Bolt on insiders this morning reckons Rudd is going to have difficulty and must prove that he can conservatively manage the books. How long did it take Costello to deliver his first budget surplus? 5 weeks you CLOWN.
The journalists have had their back sides kicked in this election. At least Bolt is entertaining. Hacks like Ackerman, Farr and Milne should move on. As for Australian, nobody reads it anyway.
I don’t think anyone minds Barry saying he was disappointed, etc but he went overboard. He mentioned it in his intro which was OK but then he kept on about in the interview and wouldn’t drop it until Julia G hit back with the “gilted lover” comment. Bringing it up was OK but to keep on going and make it the main point of the interview was very unprofessional.
‘it is in the interests of the democratic process that the alternative PM submit himself to this sort of interview at least once during an election campaign’
why? exactly what would it achieve?
looks a bit of a desperate smear to me … if that is how you pick pm the democratic process lets you. just seems awefully hollow and lacking in substance to me. Remember Rudd wanted two more debates you must have a very very very short term memory if you are trying to make a case for Rudd avoiding scrutiny. Pathetic.
It is just one Sunday morning show while most of us are at church praying for JHW’s defeat.
I collected the mail from the PO Box this morning -a very trick and dubious looking pamphlet. At first glance it looks like it might be from Labor on the topic of small business. It headlines “10 Things You need to know about Labor’s plan for your small business”. Open it up the line is “10 Things Labor will do to your small business” goes into a lot of union bashing.
This is in Warringah, and possibly a response to The Mad Monk’s stuff up on SerfChoices (And as an aside, I almost cant believe that on Insiders they still persisted with the ‘edited tape’ bull, every time they say it I will say that I was there and The Mad Monk definitely uttered those words).
One of the paragraphs in this pamphlet is:
1.Return of Unfair Dismissal laws.
Labor will re-introduce unfair dismissal laws for all small businesses, making it easier for disgruntled employees to make frivolous caims for ‘go-away money’. Once again, small business operators will hesitate before taking on new staff. (Source:Labor workplace plan p19, 28/04/07)
I like the ‘go-away money’ – says it all really. This is not only how the Liberal Party sees the average worker, it how the Liberal Party sees the majority of Australians. This was also the point stressed by The Mad Monk – that as an Australian your worth is as a commodity to business.
I’d be interested if any one else has seen this pamphlet.
It was printed locally by a company “Snap Printing Dee Why, Suite 6/11-13 Oaks Avenue, Dee Why NSW 2099″. I think Snap won’t be getting any business via me. It was authorised by our good mate Brian Loughnane of the ACT, I might have expected it to be authorised in NSW?
Not many people may read the oZ but it competes with AM to influence the agenda of the day. Of course Janet A is a pretty poor Maureen Dowd
SA Seat Predictions Part 5: Sturt
This is my favourite seat to watch in SA on election night. Mia Handshin has had terrific press in Adelaide, and seems to have performed well against the struggling incumbent, Chris Pyne. The more and more I analyse this seat, the more I am convinced that Pyne is toast. The Advertsier polls have certainly offered hope to labor, with a victory well within the margin of error of the polling. I ignore the Adelaide Uni poll, as they have no reputation on which to fall-back on.
Handshin is the right sort of candidate to appeal to the well-to-do voters , who inhabit approximately 70% or so of Sturt. Additionally, I think workchoices will swing the northern more working class booths of Sturt in droves to labor. Small “l’ liberal values are well entrenched in much of Sturt, and this is going to cost Pyne votes, in my opinion.
So, I’m predicting a labor gain in Sturt, with a 2PP swing of 8%.
Don’t get me wrong: I think it is politically smart for Kevin Rudd to sidestep Insiders for the duration of the campaign.
However, surely, here we have a publicly-funded weekly TV show, devoted solely to politics. And here we have the alternative PM. Surely, as a matter of principle, if he is truly say: “Here I am, scrutinise my credentials to lead the nation” it is reasonable for him to appear just once on the show during the campaign.
I have no barrow to push for Barrie Cassidy. In fact I would prefer there was a sufficiently deep pool of talent that we did not have to have a former high profile political press secretary fronting a politics TV show.
Has the rodent appeared on Insiders during the election? I can’t remember him being on…
Speaking of Insiders, missed it this morning – how long does the website take to get the clips up, anyone know?
The Sundy Age ‘Editorial’ is insipid. No wonder they don’t know their *ssholes from their elbows. I mean really, one would expect a little more bang for your buck, so Howard has done nothing wrong? OH REALLY? F*ckwits. As for the other sunday papers well you’d expect no more or less from the ill mannered and ill bred.
Yes Howard has been on Insiders during the campaign.
The Sun Herald web site dosen’t have it but the Sydney Sun-Herald has endorsed labor. Adam can tell us I am sure but i think this is the first Fairfax paper endorsement of the ALP since 1961.
The Insiders was another love in this morning, pretty boring, I liked Paul Kelly most of all Malcome Farr is a moron, Misch was ok, and Bolty was far too accomodating (if right in tacitly supporting the change of gov.).
Barry Cassidy was bitch slapped by Gillard a beauty. Poor Bazza went the sulks.
88 Flash. Unless your name is Missy H., you can’t have it both ways in.
Like Bazza Cassidy is the top political “g(o)riller” going around.
There’s an audio version on ABC News Radio at 11am. The clips may not be on the web site until late tonight or tomorrow.
Matthew, keep ‘em coming. Perhaps we could request the indulgence of Mr Bludger for a separate thread for individual seat predictions? (separate from the seat du jour threads for marginals?)
btw Socrates, did Mrs Pyne mention anything about a ‘beard’?
88
Flash Says:
November 18th
‘In fact I would prefer there was a sufficiently deep pool of talent that we did not have to have a former high profile political press secretary fronting a politics TV show.’
Press Secretary/chief of staffs have an inside runs. Look at Meet the Press USA and This week on ABC US both are fronted by former staffers one was for a NY senator the other to Bill Clinton.
Have to agree, Flash.
Asking Cassidy to go quietly on this is just like wanting the Auditor-General to keep shtum about matters that are his legitimate purview. It’s his show, it’s one of the few shows that treats politics in real depth, I think he had a right to say what he did.
On the other hand, if I were Rudd’s minders, I’d certainly be advising Rudd to not appear. It provides absolutely no political gain — minimal audience of Canberrans and ALP tragics, after all — and there’s always a risk Cassidy could throw him a curve ball and freak up his final week. We’ve had 11 years of Unca H, their policy has to be, what will win us the election?
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/11/18/2093975.htm
This, from the ABC news website, will help to shape the agenda in terms of economic management as this final week gets under way. A very bad look for Costello..
“Federal Treasurer Peter Costello has brushed aside questions about whether the Coalition has included pay for members of its proposed hospital boards in its policies submitted to the Finance Department for costing.
I don’t know about the Sun-Herald. I think Oakeshott is right is saying that the SMH has not endorsed federal Labor since 1961, when Sir Warwick Fairfax was feuding with Menzies. (A SMH journalist was seconded to Calwell’s staff and wrote his policy speech for him.)
And just a quick aside on some of the topics this morning.
Terror graph – now apparently supporting the RuddStar
Insiders – attacking RuddStar and Gillard.
I think it is becoming obvious that the Liberals have lost Liberal voters, this is much more threatening than the late swingers. The approach from the media will be to get back some of those (ex) Liberals, and that will be done making them hesitant of a landslide to Labor. The Liberals have lost people who in the past have been silent core-supporters.
Cassidy had every right to expect Rudd and Rudd had every right not to appear. But he should have.
But then again this game is for keeps and so why give a sucker an even break? You wouldn’t unless you were behind and had nothign to lose.
On Rudds “no show’ on Insiders. Rudds media strategy has been to minimise risk, avoid negatives and accentuate positives so the decision not to appear was consistent with the strategy (there was nothing in it for him) up to the point when the decision not to appear became story in itself and there has been a bit of negative press.
Would he have received more negative press from a more intense one on one interview by Cassidy ? We’ll never know.
I’ve seen two disappointing performances from balanced political correspondants in the last few days. The first was Mark Reilly’s inability to pick a winner of week 5 when it was clear for all to see the it was Rudd. The second was Barry Cassidy’s hardline attack on Gillard and indirectly on Rudd, when he let Howard get away with murder a few weeks ago.
I think it is safe to assume that Barrie Cassidy would have gone in hard on the question of the delay in the Labor launch. It is not so much the fact of the delay (trivia at best) as Rudd’s curious statement that he was unaware things were running late. This from a man who is clearly very much in control of all that he surveys. I wouldn’t be surprised if that was part of Rudd’s thinking in avoiding Insiders, aside from the broader, well made point that there was no political upside, only potential downside.
So what was the delay about? Last minute scratching of some spending maybe?
RE Pyne’s wife’s letter to female voters
I really do think this may backfire – the language has really been dumbed down & gives the distinct impression that she is inferior to her husband who is off “interstate” doing important stuff she doesn’t really understand but supports.
As I mentioned in my posts last night, my wife received this letter, as did my sister-in-law. Speaking with both of them who generally don’t have a great interest in politics, they find it quite offensive & degrading.
I was also interested to read an earlier post suggesting the use of the electoral roll in this way may be illegal.
Would love to see the press puruse this further.
If people know anyone who is insulted by this letter, I’d be encouraging them to write letters to the editor of the Advertiser.
This smorgasbord of polls today carries a few contradictions. It’s quite unclear what the real swing is in NSW, Vic and Qld. However, it’s clear that there’s enough of a swing, in all polls, to get Labor over the line.
I find the Taverver mortgage belt poll intriguing, and am not certain what it means. As the pollster states, the economy was an important issue for those polled, but interest rates themselves weren’t as big an issue. And people with mortgages above $200,000 are more likely to vote Liberal than those with lower mortgages.
The message could be that interest rates, per se, are not the issue in the mortgage belt. It could, instead, be the LIES about keeping interest rates down, and the uncertainty of what a re-elected coalition government could do, that’s pushing people back to Labor. Smaller mortgages suggest older people, who’ve paid off parts of their mortgage, or bought houses when they are cheaper. So they’re probably more concerned for their children, and very interested in education.
I’d be interested in an age breakdown of the Taverner poll.
Also, housing affordability is a big issue for renters, and they weren’t polled. Renters tend to be younger and earn less, and more likely to vote Labor. So the swing may be even bigger than Taverner suggests.
However, the Galaxy and Newspoll polls don’t support that. All good fun – and we’ll find out the truth in less than a week. I’m off to the supermarket to spend my tax cut in advance.
I agree that Barrie Cassidy is perfectly correct to question Rudd’s no-show. However, I also agree that there’s no gain for Rudd in appearing, as those who watch Insiders will already be committed voters. Uncommitted voters are the ones that need to now be won over to make for an absolute slaughter.
Flash
Looks like the Coalition will be back peddling for the early part of the week, economic management in question that together with the Vaile Rorts Affair and the drunken sailor inflationary spending promises. The nail in the coffin could well be Climate Change following the release of the almost armagetton seriousness nature of the UN report http://abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/11/18/2093907.htm amazing that this issue has had such little impact on the elctoate to date, one only has to look at the at the Liberal Peacock brochure vision/policy for climate change brochure released in 1990 to show what a backflip Howard the Sceptic has made during his term in office. Look like more of those dull union bashing adds is the last straw the the Coalition have in this campaign.
So, endorsements so far:
for the Coalition – Adelaide Sunday Mail, Perth Sunday Times, Melbourne’s Sunday Herald
for Labor – Sydney Sun Herald, Sydney Sunday Telegraph
neutral – Melbourne Sunday Age.
Cool.
And about Taverner – they are the worst of the pollsters (okay, maybe not as bad as Morgan, but pretty damn shocking). Utterly unprofessional and sloppy.
Rudd not appearing on Insiders? Good.
It’s payback for giving that desperate biased loony lazy old hack Ackerman so much more oxygen than anyone else.
Ackerman, Milne, Farr, move on.
Sunday Telegraph endorsing Rudd?
They stick their endorsment up their ars*.
SK, the Brisbane Sunday Mail is also endorsing Rudd.
On the polls today, Galaxy and Newspoll were taken last week, so their survey period didn’t include complete reaction to Rudd’s launch. There’s no dates for the Taverner poll, but I’d say it’d be taken late last week, ie after Rudd’s launch. That could explain the difference. The rush to Labor in the betting markets could also be partly due to good Labor internal polling.
SA Seat predictions part 6: The rest
The remaining SA seats have no serious chance of changing hands, in my opinion. Thus I have junked them into this post.
Hindmarsh: A huge labor swing is on the cards here, in no small part due to my superb letterboxing skills (please laugh loudly). Anyone visiting Henley Primary School booth on election day around lunchtime, come and say hi ! Rita Bouras has been a poor liberal candidate, and a large labor swing of 10% is achievable.
Adelaide: As above, liberals don’t seem interested, and a swing of approx 10% is likely.
Port Adelaide: Will be great to see Mark Butler as the labor member, he will be a future minister. Smaller swing here though, too much meat already ! (4% to labor)
Grey: Lots of whispers about this one, but sounds pretty unlikely to me. I can imagine the iron triangle towns swinging hard to labor, but other than that not much joy here for labor. Im guessing a 6% swing to labor, to cut the margin down to single figures.
Mayo: As much as I’d like to see this one go down, it ain’t gonna happen. A solid swing to labor of 4% will be a good effort.
Barker: Patrick Secker has been given a hard time in the media, and will struggle to get over the line here. The nationals candidate has been campaigning well, and may provide an upset here if labor can get boost its primary vote slightly, and leak preferences to the nationals. So, I think the liberals will sneak home , with a bloody nose from the nationals.
re #114. insert “can” between They stick.
Just finished watching Insiders (Qld), lol to ‘jilted lover’ by Jules, Barry really should get over himself. At least we didn’t have to endure the Piers Toad this morning. As always Talking Pictures was the highlight, perhaps we should have an hour on the cartoonists instead.
Mischa gets my vote for the cutest panellist on there, omg she is hot!
Ah well, off to look at the betting sites to see if I can find some value.
Actually with Barker, what I meant to say is that the key is if the nationals can boost their primary vote to above Labor’s, and thus get labor preferences.
Where’s the DAMN Melbounre Sundya Herald sun endorsement, Has it just gone up? Wasted ages looking for it b4….
I think we all know the real reason Pyne is having his wife send out letters. He is hoping that voters will say: “Oh, there is a Mrs Pyne, so it can’t be true what we hear…”.
Patrick Secker would be about the most invisible Liberal backbencher. I wouldn’t be surprised if he was told to retire next year so that Minchin could move to the Reps in a by-election.
I missed your assessment of Sturt. What do you think is going to happen there?
We’re in Sydney, a stone’s throw from the Bourke Street Pubic School booth.
After almost no action from any party we are now surrounded by Greens posters and have, at long last received material from Tanya Plibersek.
There is a gut feeling that the seat is not a lay-down misere and could be a surprise.
With the redistibution the Libs have lost their best booths in the North and Labour Rosebery in the South; these were also not the stongest Greens areas. The demogaphic key is in the new residents in the area, principally younger apartment dwellers and moneyed terrace-dwelling boomers with a lefty bias.
The Libs are preferencing Greens ahead of Labour and a 3-4% drift is needed from the majors to Green to cause an upset.
I’m putting my $30 on Maxine and my “free” $100 on Jenny Leong (Greens) at 12 to 1!
Adam 121
A trading in smear is beneath you. Give it up its petty.
The Taverner poll is a great headline number and positive copy for the ALP.
Without a well established baseline reading it not it does not shed much light.
Still the coalition needs to get a clear message going in the next couple of days and news like this makes it hard.
151 hours until polls close (EST)
Dr Adam Carr
What is your tip for the election?
Show’s On: See posts 66, 70, 77, 80, 87 (Sturt), 116 for my SA seat predictions.
Oh Kontrare (says Downer) I think that the tighter it seems the better for the Alp.
Any news on the Morgan Poll that is supposed to be out today? The Friday press release stated that there would be a big telephone National poll out…
How about this to relieve the nervous tedium into the final week: Which network will call the result first, and what time will that be? With Channel 10 stepping up its ‘entertainment’ version of election night, pressure will be strong to call a result – coupled with a strong mindfulness of the US network blunders over the 2000 US presidential “result”.
I say Sky News will be anxious to enhance its brand with an early call (other networks might have to quote them as a way to hedge their bets). So my call is:
Sky News 7.43pm Eastern Daylight Savings Time
Barry Cassidy got his revenge for Rudd’s “jilt” of “Insiders” by having two rabid anti-Labor pundits (rather than his usual one only) to bleat how Rudd was totally gifted the election when the Liberals did not replace Howard with Costello.
Bolt, Farr and Cassidy took up a lot of time with their chagrin that supposedly the media went totally soft on Rudd who has spun his way to victory. Bolt went so far as to state that if Rudd had come on “Insiders” he wouldn’t have got away with doing that there. In other words, this program was going to be a pathetic attempt to ambush Rudd with loaded “gotcha” questions and cheap shots so that these three paragons of journalism could show-off to the whole world how brilliant they are and how unworthy Rudd is to be PM.
Paul Kelly was more more sensible in his report via tv link. On the panel, a woman from “The Age” tried to offer a bit of balance, so Barry restricted her to half the time than each of the blokes.
At least no one tried to pretend that Howard was likely to pull a last week miracle, but if he does, the next “Insiders” panel will be drunk with jubilation and self-congratulations.
If Rudd wins, next Sunday’s program will be another wake like today, and later on his first appearance on “Insiders” will be an all-out attack on his personal credibility and Labor’s mandate to govern the country.
Thanks!
It was hilarious to watch the poor bruised egos on the Insiders bewailing Rudd’s non-appearance. Aren’t journalists important any more? The injustice!
Hmm… let’s look at it from Rudd’s point of view:
Insiders:
Not in the Top 50 of shows watched in Ratings Week ending 3 November, not in the top 20 of Shows watched on Sunday in Ratings Week 45 (last week). More people watch Compass (good show BTW but never going to be a top rater).
So less than 600,000 viewers. Political tragics and (I assume) an older demographic. Also, the 2005 Morgan poll (the most recent I can find) shows that the Insiders audience is more polarised: a higher proportion of Labor voters than other current affairs programs (just pipped Lateline for that). Preaching to the converted. High risk, low reward.
Rove:
1.2 Million viewers. Key youth demographic. Probably not as attuned to current affairs as the typical Insiders viewer – swinging voters. Lock them in in a reasonably soft interview (like Howard being interviewed by Alan Jones, really: “So Mr Howard, just why are you the best PM Australia’s ever had?”).
Yes, he could have done both, but don’t these people get it: he wants to win the bl**dy election, not win a ‘Journalists Friend’ award. Why risk it now going into the last week. Plenty of time to go him after next Saturday (regardless of the outcome).
Have to say Rudd should have appeared on Insiders at some stage through the campaign. He’s been on Sunday with the Sphere of Influence, and I couldn’t see Baz (former Hawke Pres Secretary) giving him too hard a time tbh.
I’m just being selfish coz I watch it of course.
Most sensible I’ve ever heard Bolt – seems resigned to it all; Farr is too busy thinking of one-liners to be too cogent on that show, but I don’t mind him too much – his Tele blogs are some of the less partisan (from the journo at least); and Misha was great and, frankly delicious as well.
Baz was pouting, but I reckon he wouldn’t have slaughtered Rudd. Really, I dunno why he didn’t go on. He’s stayed on message everywhere else, surely he could have on Insiders as well.
@130
Daivd Reilly of Channel 7 wont call it until at least a week after Howard concedes, citing a few outlying booths that might dramatically give voice to the silent majority and their support for honest john.
What a joke that guy is.
Jenn Leong is very impressive – we’re in Lizzy Bay, just outside Sydney (and in the new Wentworth).
I think Tanya is a very poor performer in terms of representing her constituency, and I hope she loses her seat. She certainly deserves to.
Cleobasset. If the polls have shown anything this year it’s that the Greens won’t win a HoR seat. The major party primaries are just too high IMHO.
Insiders was talking about the big test for Rudd being after he wins balancing IR with economic conservatism. What a joke? Maybe it’s just me, but who gives if Rudd is seen to be economically responsible? He will have 3 years to work out how to spin his performance in a favourble light. The key is to do whatever it takes to boot out Superman, and he has performed beautifully.
Anybody who doesn’t support the rigourous scrutiny of any top political contenter by all media, especially hard-core political TV shows, should go live in Russia. Putin has taken that line of thinking to its logical extension.
Hello punters!
I just got back from a small street corner meeting with Nicole Cornes (Boothby). I went to see what she was made of and came away quite impressed. She will now get my No 1 vote as opposed to a second preference to the Independent.
Mike Rann turned up for it and was quite open and personable.
He said “We win Boothby – we win government”
Flash Says:
November 18th, 2007 at 11:36 am
Anybody who doesn’t support the rigourous scrutiny
The only person who thinks Rudd would have gotten rigourous scrutiny this morning is you and Barry Cassidy.
When was the last time Cassidy got any news except just now for being a winger!!
Flash
There’s a bit of a difference between controlling the media and not appearing on a low rating news program.
130: I think Possum wins doesn’t he, -6 months and with 0.0% of the vote counted
This is the most important week of Rudd’s life thus far. Every campaigning moment is precious. Not only would he be preaching to the converted (or unconvertible) by appearing on Insiders, but he needs every moment available between now and Saturday to campaign where he can make a positive impact on the result. Rove is a must show because that demographic is a large part of the reason for Labor’s standing in the polls.
Forget about the decision to not appear on Insiders. It was absolutely the right choice. Moreover the negative publicity about not appearing will be limited to those who normally watch Insiders, who as mentioned above don’t really matter at this stage anyway.
My last comment on the petulance of Cassidy this morning.
In his five (that’s right 5) years as Bob Hawke’s Press Sec., Cassidy manouvered Bob around a number of interviews and articles which he knew could only have been damaging. He got gazzumped this morning and he know’s it.
Speaking of scrutiny, where’s Costello disappeared to lately……..Gaawwnn.
Agreed Jon. I was being a bit provocative of course. However, you have to wonder, if this is Rudd’s approach during an election campaign, what’s he going to be like in government? Is he planning a re-run of New Labour’s spinning-out-of-control approach under Alistair Campbell in Britain, however discredited that has become now? There is every indication he will.
re:Insiders.
Journalists need to learn that if they provide a consistently biased show, and let’s be frank, anything with both bolt and ackerman on it invariably is, is not worthy of comment. I think it would send a very important message to the likes of Rupert Murdoch, that HE doesn’t define the political agenda in Australia, the politicians do. That’s why we have an opposition.
It’s the way to solve bias in a much better way, instead of things like stacking the ABC board with right-wing hacks, or pulling video feeds because some organization would like to use a different method of analysis.
Don’t like right-wing hacks deliberately mis-representing the truth? Starve them of any direct interviews. Don’t answer any direct question from them. They’ll change their ways, or they might as move into pure gossip.
My Godmother was a primary school headmistress. She used to insist that I improve my handwriting (I never did)! I love her dearly.
Julia Gillard reminds me of her!
Go Kevin07 team..Go the education revolution.. and John Howard. just GO!
Flash
Provocative! Who would dare do that on this site!
I really do think it is a symptom of the ‘low risk’ determination-to-win strategy. A journo’s bruised ego can be fixed with an ‘exclusive’ after the poll is won
It’ll all settle down to normal after the vote.
Edward: I have no knowledge about Pyne’s personal life, but the fact is that people from your side of politics have started these rumours about him for factional reasons. The obvious way to counter such rumours is to put the wife out in public – it’s called the Sonia McMahon defence.
Gerr: I am writing a new article on my view of the election in the final week and will post it this afternoon.
Well said, Pi. Rudd has appeared on every other current affairs program, but Insiders is such obviously partisan rubbish that they should consider themselves lucky to get anyone from Labor to appear and put up with their idea of scrutiny.
Cassidy needs to get over himself.
148 Gippslander,what’s going on in that seat? How come the rolling channel 9 poll has the sear changing hands and the bookies were still offering $4.50 last night?
I’m amazed by this proposition that Insiders is somehow right-leaning. I watch every week and it’s simply not true. Yes, they get one, sometimes two right-wing commentators on the panel of three to liven things up but more often than not they are torn to shreds – quite frequently by Barrie Cassidy himself. It is parallel-universe stuff to suggest Insiders is right-leaning.
The Libs can now forget the marginal seats, they are gone, sewn up, kaput!
The next focus is on previously safe Libs, even in seats such as McPherson where I live. Covering the southern part of the Gold Coast to the NSW border. The area has had a demographic change since last election, heavy mortgage burdens and an appalling local member, Margaret (Invisible) May. Her ALP opposition is Eddie Saroff who has one of the highest profiles of any politician on the Coast (GCCC).
However the major reason can be summed up in two words, Work Choices, the Coast has a heavy preponderance of workers in the hospitality/tourism industries, and employers here are often the reincarnation of the buccaneers of old. Older retireds often have kids and grandkids who are now suffering from the gentle ministrations of the H R Nicholls Society promoted workplace ‘reforms’. May has voted for every one of the so called reforms. There will be more than a few parties here next Saturday if we can get rid of her, let me assure you.
The “who will you turn gay for?” question may well be trickiest Rudd has got all campaign
How do you think he’ll answer that? Cop out and say he’s happily married (whilst respecting an individuals sexuality blah blah)? George Clooney? Amanda Vanstone?
153 Flash great joke but right leaning is not a strong enough term.
Of course Rudd will be all control and spin if he wins. He would be a exception to nearly all other successful pollies if he was not and it would be a complete about face from how he has risen and claimed power.
The sunrise strategy and beyound will be seen as a future template. Just watch the remainig Sydney Leafy Libs copy it.
130
I presume the QLD booths will close an hour later than NSW, VIC & Tas. Unless its a complete bloodbath in VIC & NSW we would have to wait at least an hour to get a sense of what is going on in QLD.
Earliest call 8:02 EST
Lets say the ALP gets 2 in TAS, 4 in NSW, 5 in QLD, 0 in Vic & NT and 3 in SA (best case for the coaliiton IMHO) then we’d be waiting on WA and may not know the result on Sat night.
Flash, if I were Rudd, I would simply refuse to be in any interview that included Piers Ackerman.
Where’s the Morgan marginal seats poll?
If it is released today it’ll be an interesting comparison with the Newspoll and Galaxy marginal seats polls.
My hunch is that the Morgan marginal seats poll will be the most favourable one to Labor making the Galaxy poll the most favourable (or should I say least unfavourable) one to the Coalition with Newspoll somewhere in between.
Has ACN also done a poll of marginal seats for each state like Galaxy and Newspoll have done?
Why should Rudd waste his time on elite media of any kind at this juncture? He’d only be talking to PLU, and we all decided who to vote for years ago. The election depends on people who only watch [insert name of current brainless pap TV show].
Re the Rove gay question: I think Rudd has no choice but to play it safe. His minders will come up with an answer that is: A: funny but B: decidely heterosexual and untroubling to the more conservative elements of middle Australia. They know this clip will arguably get bigger player than the RBA’s rate rise.
Who would you turn gay for? That’s an easy one… Nelson Mandela.
That’s how you win that one.
BK @ 140
That was smart of Rann, emphasise every vote and seat is important.
This should get a laugh:
ROVE: “so who would you turn gay for kevvie?”
RUDD: “At this point in the campaign, DEFINITELY Tony Abbott! “
Adam @ 121.
An interesting thought, but I’m not sure that its really the reason. Most people I know in this electorate have no idea who Pyne is, let alone those rumours.
Even if some know about the rumours, people are generally fairly cynical about that kind of thing being circulated without proof.
Short of someone speaking up with evidence, I dont think many people would take that into account when voting.
I think its more likely an attempt to shore up his female vote, which is polling very well according to the last Advertiser poll. If he loses even a small amount of that vote, he’s likely to lose the seat.
Can you imagine Abbott’s reaction to that. LOL
Who would you turn gay for?
Bronwyn Bishop.
Bill Heffernan
Answer to Abbott gay question – George Pell
Flash @ 153.
Name the Pro-Labor panelists who are in the category of Piers Ackerman, Farr, Bolt and Milne who produce weekly Howard Cheerleader and anti-Labor opinion columns and numerous attack blog pieces . David Marr is the only one within cooee of them from the other side. Mostly, we get “cute” Anabelle Crabb who provide token opposition. Where’s Michellle Gratton, Laura Tingle, Alan Ramsay, Tim Dunlop to name a few who would give the show some balance.
Who would you turn gay for?
Barry Cassidy
That will shut him up and make his name rise up the google charts as 99.98 % of people try to work out who he is.
Or perhaps Hilary Clinton, now there’s a ballbuster!
Sky News is flagging a joint news conference with Howard and Costello in Sydney shortly.
I think the scare campaign is about to get ramped up to another level, and I would expect misinformation of the ilk of the “capital gains tax on the family home” furphy from an earlier campaign.
It’s some measure of the nauseating self-regard of journalists that Rudd no-show on Insiders should become an issue. In the final week of an election campaign that is likely to lead to a historic change of government, Kevin Rudd is going to have a good number of conflicting requests on his time, and it is entirely proper of him to choose some and forego others.
And ESJ, re your comment to Adam @ 124: in the immortal words of Lynda Gibson in ‘The Castle’, “get your hand off it”. There’s only so much duplicitous Tory holier-than-thou bullsh!t that anyone should be expected to tolerate in one lifetime. You’ve already surpassed your quota. Jog on.
Since I’ve already turned gay, do I have to say who I would turn straight for?
Has anyone seen the photo of our fearful leader on the main page of the OZ site?
Says it all I reckon…lol.
As I posted on Possum:
Well Barry, we do know the answer to that question (which dares to speak its name)!
If Rove asks Rudd who he’d turn gay for, the answer will be: “Not Barry Cassidy”.
Are ya miffed now, Bazza?
Who would Rudd turn gay for?
Working families, of course…
Howard going the drugs wedge – announcing quarantining welfare for 12 months for people convicted of drugs offences. Press conference on sky now.
Yes Howard going for law & order, an area largely ignored to date in the campaign. Can’t see it getting him far though a lot of parents worried about drugs in schools.
Still, from his voice it is clear Howard knows it is all over. No intentionality. No self-belief.
#145 -
“Speaking of scrutiny, where’s Costello disappeared to lately……..Gaawwnn.”
Ummm…..he was actually on Sunday this morning talking to Laurie Oakes, you schmuck!
Yeah, he was hilarious.
Julie at 17
That is a great article
Who would you turn gay for?
Missy Higgins
Gotta love the Pinky & the Brain joint press conferences
Need more ads reminding voters that they are voting 1 Le Smirk if they vote 1 Rodent.
Howard is saying right now he will keep the mining boom going and Rudd will not.
Will howard start buying base metal and iron ore futures to prop up the prices if they start to fall ? IR will not keep prices up.
“185
razzmatazz Says:
November 18th, 2007 at 12:12 pm
Who would you turn gay for?
Missy Higgins”
Bad move. This, as I noted elsewhere, is Peter Costello’s drag artiste nom de plume…
What is the press conference about? Hopefully they are promising to spend more money.
So is The Gimp standing behind Howard nodding his head?
van Onselen on The NAtional Interest (ABC RN) saying ALP will win Stirling and one other.
Costello has just flagged a key Coalition theme this week:
That Rudd would spend a lot of time on the international stage leaving Julia Gillard to manage domestic affairs including the economy. Costello notes that none of Rudd’s top 5 priorities as reported in Fairfax papers today involves economic management.
This seems to be page 1 of final week playbook together with law & order theme, an old chestnut if ever there was one.
(Sky News press conference audio, not video)
# 187 K Jin Says: November 18th, 2007 at 12:14 pm
Yes… and when the futures mature, they’ll store it with the wool.
Thanks 4 that Steve Kaye @ 182. Living in the outer reaches of Australia (and an hour and a half behind nearly everybody else) means we get cricket at 8-30 am and no “Sunday ” unfortunately.
Your apology for an aggressive, indeed hostile response is accepted.
They are saying Rudds five points say nothing about the economy.
I thought in the article 2 of the 5 points are Broadband and skills /education. surely that is part economic. Easy comeback for Rudd.
Both PM and treasurer sound shrill and tense. No video just audio, so hard to tell how it would look.
how about Rudd saying he would turn gay for GWB.
OK I have done some caveman maths on my spreadsheet program
I combined the Galaxy and the Newspoll Marginal seats polling. Did not discount for the fact Galaxy runs from 10th Nov and Newspoll from 12th Nov.
Both polls have samples of about 200 from each seat so haven’t bothered toweight for that either.
State by state in the marginals ALP have
NSW- 53%
Vic- 51%
Qld- 52%
WA- 50%
SA- 53.5%
I then punched it into Anthony Greens calculator with no change for Tas or the Territories. This makes the marginals swings uniform across each state. Of course other seats will be in play on the night, but not likely to be Lib gains axcept maybe, just maybe in the West.
Green Calcs
ALP- 85 Seats
Coalition- 63 Seats
Saying that, every poll in Tas has a clean sweep and two seat gain for ALP and Solomon may fall to ALP also.
Make of all that what you like- I read it as ALP 88 to Coalition 60 with others in possible danger for LIb/Nat
More me-tooism. Howard already turned gay for GWB.
Gay Wheat Board?
Smart move taking away money from the junkies, what will they do then? Why of course they will steal it from some old pensioner, it will all be on your head Rattie.
LOL adam
Has Possum ever been wrong with his polls? He predicts a solid Labor win which I just don’t see happening. But I was wondering what was his prediction in 2004?
A repoter just asked ‘are you promising that you can keep the mining boom going forever? Is this like your promise to keep interest rates low ?’
Good question.
The pack is turning it seems in some cases.
btw, if you ever want a reminder of the uselessness of foreign overseas coverage of the election, consider this closing par from today’s London’s Daily Telegraph:
“Mr Howard remains popular with some Asian voters, however, particularly professionals and business owners, who are attracted by his emphasis on family and hard work. He has presided over an unprecedented 17-year run of economic growth.”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/11/17/woz117.xml
Who’d want to listen to a stream of perpetual lies in audio on Sky news? watching WWE on Fox 8 got better acting!
I reckon the fun and games will start after the election.
- Coco to blame Tip for defeat.
- Tip blames Coco in return.
- Coco to say Tip should have shut up about his past economic mismanagement.
- Tip to say Coco should have retired last year.
- And so on and so on.
It’s going to be good.
Samuel @ 200, Gay Wheat Board, ROTFLMAO
Who would you turn gay for?
I think Rudd will play with the other questions but have a very answer for this one
(surprised laugh – ooh wasn’t expecting that) “No one – my wife wouldn’t let me”
Howard the wedgemeister is trying to create the “Rudd soft on Drugs” headline.
Idiot.
Talk about the most desperate policy ever.
Aussieguru01 Says:
November 18th, 2007 at 12:26 pm
I have the cricket in picture in picture SL 3/127 while listening to sky. So I am not that sad
“Howard going the drugs wedge – announcing quarantining welfare for 12 months for people convicted of drugs offences”
Burgey you are being cynical.
This move by Howard could make a difference to people like Cousins and Johns and those youngsters who adore and idolise them and wish to follow in their footsteps.
Now they will stop and think, sure Ben and Andrew may have dabbled in drugs every few hours or so and got all the fame, acclaim, chicks, money cars, houses etc, but now look at what they are facing, bet you they are regretting it now , huh huh, their welfare could be cut off.
Sarcasm rules & the girls on WWE got great jugs!
Betting sites now virtually photo finish in Corangamite.
203 – Luke, Possum uses very good reasoning for predictions but he/she’s not a clairvoyant. Why do you think Possum is a bloke?
That letter from “Mrs Pyne” is a shocker. If I lived in the Sturt electorate and received that I would be highly offended. It is very petty and quite pathetic….seems some type of throwback from the 50’s.
Crikey Whitey if you are on here – I saw Nicole Cornes @ the street corner meeting yesterday but unfortunately I was naughty and did not do my homework and give her the edited version of the blog from a few days ago…I will now go to the naughty corner.
Anyway – I came away feeling very positive about her and am quite happy to vote for her. I am telling as many people I know who didn’t get to go and who have been vascillating about voting for her. She was very genuine, spoke very well in front of people, did not seem nervous and was there for over an hour. After she spoke (for about 15 – 20 mins) she then went around answering peoples questions. I thought she had guts and was quite ballsy. She has held over 60 of these meetings and wants to represent Boothby more actively than Southcott has been doing. He has taken the electorate for granted and sitting in his position raking in his Parliamentary wage not doing anything for us. I reckon she will be a hard worker…and by the way – she has completed her Law degree..I wasn’t sure about that as I knew she was doing one but wasn’t sure if she had finished.
interesting reading everyones thoughts on Rudd’s no show on Insiders.
To me it seems obvious.
Piers Ackerman and Glen Milne inhabit the show. These two have gone Rudd personally and with unfactual stories.
Very clear message to the ABC and other media.
When it was publicly announced that McMahon had finally got engaged Menzies sighed in relief and said “Praise the Lord”. Obviously Menzies was getting nervous about all the rumours about McMahon. Not much has changed in 40 or 50 years.
209 – only problem with that approach is that it implies he’d like to, but his wife wears the pants so he’s not allowed to.
Probably better off just going along with the joke and saying someone silly.
As far as I can tell from Melbourne, it seems the tide has turned for Cornes. After her initial disasters she has learned fast and has been campaigning strongly. I think she will get a sympathy vote after the way she has been mauled by the press.
GWB and Homosexuality:
Actually, the story on the Bush family can be found by Googling “Skull and Bones Society” and a Bush of your favourite variety – loads of entertainment to be found. But not for the paranoid!
It’s called ‘20 questions in 20 seconds’
Have they told Kevvie he’s not the one asking the questions?
I don’t get it. So if you have a $125 on the spot fine for possessing a few grams of dope, AND you are on NewStart or Youth Allowance does that mean they then tell you want you can and can’t spend the money on?
Good luck to Nicole, I for one have had reservations but you guys have met her on the ground, so she has obviously suffered from the media nasties in places like Sky.
Hi all, I am wanting to put a bet on for Maxine to win in bennelong. Do sportingbet ect keep the books open on individual seats right up to the election day? I am unfamiliar with this sort of thing.
Less than one week to go before the election and Melbourne’s Sunday Herald Sun has more space devoted to Ben Cousins than it does to the election.
Pithicus, you’d do much better to save your money and donate it to Maxine’s campaign. All this crass preoccupation with election betting is really pissing me off I must say.
Judging by the sportingbet website, betting on the overall result closes at 7am Nov 24, while betting on individual seats closes at 7.30am Nov 24.
It’s “Un-Australian” not to bet
152
steve Says:
November 18th, 2007 at 11:52 am
148 Gippslander,what’s going on in that seat? How come the rolling channel 9 poll has the sear changing hands and the bookies were still offering $4.50 last night?
First, steve, about the bookies, you’ll find the good folk in Gippsland ( at least the Eastern end) haven’t yet been introduced to the wonders of broadband, so havent had much chance to swamp the books with their (precious little) spare cash! Even so, I thought Jane Rowe had been over $5 recently!
I’ve mentioned several times that I thought Gippsland is more line ball than many people think!
For a bit of ground level dirt, the local Nats are seriously P*ssed off with Julian (Judas Iscariot) McGauran, and though they won’t say so, I think this may be rubbing off on brother Peter. They are certainly having more trouble manning pre poll HTV than in previous elections. How this plays out in the booths I don’t know.
As you know, Libs and Nats are not best buddies in Vic…Smarties like Brumby have been playing on this for years. If the Coalition melts down federally, there’ll be lots of wedges to play in rural Vic.
Two points about Nicole Cornes.
1. Media commentator Amanda Blair mauled her early in the campaign, both in print and on radio. Last week Cornes returned to Blair’s radio programme. Blair later said on Channel 7’s This Day Tonight that Cornes had had given a “flawless performance”.
2. Initially there was some resentment towards Cornes because of the way that she,a former Howard voter and alleged bimbo, had been shoe-horned in as candidate. When candidates were introduced by Kevin Rudd at yesterday’s SA campaign launch, the loudest cheers were for Nicole Cornes.
Have you told Kevin Andrews yet? He may need to get ASIO on to anyone who doesn’t bet.
I remember the 1993 election night very well, and then as now, there were a range of commentators saying we”ll all have to wait up very late to find out the result as WA will be a graveyard for the ALP – 5 seats I think was the safe prediction from none other than Michael Kroger. So it doesn’t matter what happens in the eastern states it will all be decided in WA.
Well, we all knew the result before polling even closed in NSW and VIC, because due to perculiarities of daylight saving, TAS closed one hour earlier than the big states and the count within 30 mins was that there a swing of at least 5% to the ALP. It was all over there and then. By 7pm EST Bob Hawke, through gritted teeth, called it for the ALP.
Kroger insisted that there was still five seats to fall in WA, to which Hawke said, the ALP would lose two seats at worst, and Kroger scoffed.
And the result – the ALP lost 2 seats In WA, but won the election.
While we are talking about betting (sorry Dr Carr) it has been interesting to note the big shift in Fadden.
National Party candidate Dr Alex Douglas has moved in from $34 to just $8 in a few days.
Dr Douglas’ strong local profile (as the former State MP) compared to the disappointing performance of the rather inept local Liberal candidate is biting hard. Labor is running virtually dead but preferencing Dr Douglas. If Dr Douglas can grab enough traditional Liberal voters and get ahead of Labor then Fadden could well be one of the most surprising results of the night.
Alex Douglas would be a useful addition to the Federal National Party.
Basil @ 225
Dont forget the mauling she recieved on ” Matt and Dave ” on 891.
HarryH,
I think Rudd no show on Insiders was the right choice. No upside and some (albeit not large) risk.
Barrie had one question – why didn’t you wedge yourself on [inset issue]?
For example, asking why the ALP did not make a firmer stand on basic legal and human rights over the Haneef affair. Everyone knows the real answer is that the coalition is quite prepared to trash human rights to mount a scare campain – so not giving them the chance is the most humane respone. …. but you can’t say that … so the whole interview was a repeat of the wedge avoiding lines the ALP has been running all year.
I thought Julia did very well in what was set up to be a wooden interview.
And I agree with other bloggers here – she looked great, relaxed and friendly.
I put the front page of PollBludger on to the blog readability test…
Poll Bludger
Have a read…
http://www.criticsrant.com/bb/reading_level.aspx
The Ting Fart ads must stop. They have done their work.
Please someone with some clout, make them stop!!
155
Jon Says:
November 18th, 2007 at 11:54 am
The “who will you turn gay for?” question may well be trickiest Rudd has got all campaign
How do you think he’ll answer that? Cop out and say he’s happily married (whilst respecting an individuals sexuality blah blah)? George Clooney? Amanda Vanstone?
I’d been asking the same question. I’d answer
“me being gay or not wouldn’t affect my admiration for [eg] Nelson Mandela, or [eg] Al Gore, or [eg] Diver Dan in Seachange”
alternatively
” if being gay would protect me from Helen Coonan or Bronwyn Bishop, I’d certainly consider it”
Pi, you got in (well) ahead of me with Nelson Mandela!
Or an alternative question:
Who could make you turn Gay?
Amanda Vanstone
Insiders & Sky News’s Election Agenda – I’m sick of these self congratulating journo wankers who think they know it all and they know sweet F.A. I used to watch both shows but got fed up with the “aren’t we all in the know” smug attitude. Journos of Australia – you’re not funny, you’re not smart. Shut up and write professional articles.
Aw, Pi, you also trumped me on Bronwyn Bishop.. we must be two halves of the same wit, but you’ve got quicker fingers!
On Insiders…
Why should Rudd go on a program that includes Ackerman and Henderson as regulars?
Further, why should he go on a show where he knows the only tactic used by Barry Cassidy will be “Gotcha!!!”.
The first journalist who gives Rudd a serious interview, without cheap wedges and trivial gaffe-hunting trick questions will score his presence as PM.
I think Kerry can do that. So can Paul Bongiorno, perhaps Oakes, but few others.
Regarding election markets on the betting sites
I hope people are not gauging these prices as related to chances for winning.
The prices are affected by how much money has been bet on each candidate, not how bigger chance they have of winning.
Hypothetically, say if I wanted to put a million bucks on the Greens winning Greenway. If I put it on, the Greens price will come in dramatically, maybe even into favouritism with that much money. Everyone knows the Greens won’t win Greenway, but their price will come in.
I prefer looking at polls than betting prices. I know sometimes they’re off a bit, but they are not affected by the hip pocket. I know I may be in the minority with this view.
Adam ,
Since you’ve said what the nauseating Isabella hinted at a few threads ago,can you ship the dirt on her? Was she the Madam who recruited the “Belles de Nuit” who were handing out in the last (state?) election? handing out HTVs that is.
And, by the way who would you staighten youself for?
John Button @ 21 – I reckon Howard’s whistling in the wind if he thinks people will pay him a million bucks a year to give speeches and attend board meetings in retirement. His only expertise is in politics, and the politics of the coming years won’t bear much resemblance to the world he’s familiar with. I may just be being Pollyanna-ish, but I hope not. Once he loses power and news gets out of just how corrupt and uncaring and short-sighted this government has been, he’ll be on the nose everywhere. Not for nothing was he nominated as the man Australians would least like to sit next to on a plane.
Get over the betting sites, at least people there are putting their money where their mouth is, in a free and unfettered market!
SirEggo, but assuming gamblers are rational, won’t they try and win money by betting on who they think will win?
I certainly agree that betting markets are less than efficient, but they must say something about relative chances.
SirEggo.. This argument has been played out a couple of times, but the reason why the betting markets are so very accurate – more accurate than polls usually – is that people with inside knowledge (such as internal polling) use that knowledge to place bets, so the betting market becomes a magnet for highly-informed judgements by people who are so confident about the information as to put their money where their mouth is – as compared with people on the end of a telephone who may or may not accurately state their voting intention.
The fact that the greens are no chance in Greenway is exactly the reason why no one would put a million bucks on them. The amount of money bet *is* a reflection of probabilities, because most of the money is bet based upon individual judgements of probability of winning or losing money. Yes, the market can be ‘tampered with’ by someone who doesn’t mind losing money to make their odds look better. But these people are few and far between, and in most cases are swamped by the genuine betting money.
I’m in McMillan. Last time around Russell Broadbent posted out 1 spiffy little card exhorting me to vote Liberal. This time around he’s sent out 2 cards and a leaflet. Although he has trebled his workload I don’t get the feeling he’s running scared.
well spoken Ashley
re house mortgages – WA could be a problem for ALP because the housing boom in WA lags behind the boom in the eastern states. Perth voters are still under an illusion that they’re wealthy due to inflated house prices. They’re probably still in a type of 2004 mindset that killed Latham in 04.
If you want a really scary scenario where ALP gets 52% of the 2pp yet only gets 72 seats, with 17 seats left over as marginals of under 2%, plug these figures into Antony Green’s calculator. NSW 52, vic 53.9, qld 48.5, wa 50.7, sa 50.9, act 56.5, tas 62.0, nt 54.0
If you don’t think those state figures are realistic, look at the elect commissions table of 2pp figures for all elections ever. Only Whitlam (52.7) and Hawke (53.23) have exceeded 52 since WW2. Talk of 85+ seats for labor is dream stuff. This will be a nail biter. What gives me some confidence is not the polls but the switch in tone in the mainstream media and the betting markets.
All due respect, I don’t want to go over old ground, but that’s disputed.
216
bronnie Says:
November 18th, 2007 at 12:37 pm
203 – Luke, Possum uses very good reasoning for predictions but he/she’s not a clairvoyant. Why do you think Possum is a bloke?
i think Possum published a self portait some time back. Certainly looked like a bloke ( although ,sadly, not my candidate as a reply for the Rove query)
oops sorry Adam didn’t mean to sidetrack the forum with betting banter. I am however a little confused as to why the punters are still favoring howard in bennelong? Maybe they know summit I dont?
No 244
I wonder if your crass objection to Sky & Insiders journalists has more to do with the fact they don’t act as Rudd mouthpieces.
Yes, exactly how accurate the markets are (vs polls) is open to debate. But they are certainly another valid form of assessing probabilities of seats falling.
But as paul k says, we’ve had this discussion quite a few times already
Samuel K 250 & Flash 251
Apologies if this has been covered before
I can see your point, they would money on the “smart bet”.
The thing that casts doubt in my mind is this
The odds last time I heard were $1.17 ALP, $5.10 LIB
However, seat-by-seat, the ALP is favourite to win 80(?) seats. A 80-68 win is quite close, closer than a $1.17/$5.10 two horse race would suggest.
I know that insiders would put bets on. I also see that it gives a general overview as to how the election goes i.e. ALP well in front. But wouldn’t the above anomaly suggest that actual prices are dictated by the volume of wagers?
However I understand why people look a trends in betting to see how an election goes.
new aussie
Why would the vote in Qld only be 48.5% ?
Its probably more due to the fact that patriotic libs are putting their money on Johnnie in Bennelong, thus reducing his odds.
We just had a Green Dodo ad. Didn’t catch who it was for, but it said be sure who your voting for. Probably the oil companies, coal industries and religious nuts.
If you go to: http://pulse.ninemsn.com.au/forecast/
and click on ‘Howard’s Front Bench’
you’ll see that Channel Nine is predicting that Howard, Turnbull and Brough will all lose their seats. That would be a real blow to the future hopes of the Libs. One current leader and two potential leaders gone.
OK, I’ve opened my mouth, and I’ve sounded like a git
And I’ve gone over territory already covered, not to my knowledge
And I’m annoying people with betting talk
As someone who likes this site, and tries not get comfrontational (I think politically I am on the same side as 90% of users on this site), I will now apologise to all, and pull my head in.
But I hope people can see the point I’m trying to make.
While we’re on the subject, when did the grand term “the markets” come to used to describe the activities of a bunch of crooked bookies (now there’s a tautology) and greedy mug punters?
The interesting thing for me about Insiders was the general tone which was more about what life will be like under Rudd than whether he will win.
There’s been plenty of discussion of this too.
Some people think that because perception of Bennelong is so important that the Libs have been placing bets in order to achieve exactly what you were suggesting.
But I think it’s just a reflection of majority opinion — people don’t think Howard will lose. Listen to most so-called experts on TV and they say Howard will hang on to his seat, despite the polling.
But Howard’s odds have lengthened in the past few days, courtesy of the recent marginal seat polling showing a large swing in NSW. Howard has moved out to 1.55 now.
Maxine is still very good value. The polls and the betting markets are certainly in disagreement on this one, and it will be interesting to see who’s right. My money is on the polls.
Sir Eggo, my take on the odds for the overall is that most punters seem to be of the view that the ALP will win, and the question is only by how much. To whit, the odds for the ALP win are as short as all get out, but the individual seats (the how much question) are more tight.
But apparently the last week is when the real money comes in for the individual seats, so they’ll probabyl be pretty volatile this week.
ALP at $1.20 is a reflection of the wagers placed just on that bet. All electorate wagers affect just that electorate’s prices.
GP,
I think most people would expect a professional journalist like Barry to raise the subject of Rudd not appearing once and maybe scream at Labor in private off camera but not to go on and on about like a “jilted lover” on camera the way Barry did. I’m sure he told them how he felt privately but to carry on like a love sick teenager in front of a national audience was hardly professional.
If the result of the polls holds in McEwen as expected we can rid ourselves of Fran Bailey,not only has she taken credit for every event that has happened in this electorate including my dog having pups, but also she is one of the Rodent’s most ardent supporters.
The Libs are not worried about McMillan, Mcewen, Gippsland and Corangamite. Whether it’s good local liberal MP in the case of Fran or Russell, or rubbish labor candidate as in Corangamite, they will be ok. The only action in Victoria is in Deakin and La Trobe.
I thnk we’re paying a bit too much attension to day to day moves on the betting markets. These are too heavily influence by which way the cash happens to be flowing and inclined to over-react to news.
Individual seats are not overly meaningful as they are thinly traded and subject of a lot of inside info (like who is nexted to get porked). I think they become more meaningful in the last week of the campain.
But the overall level and general trends of the markets do provide a quick and fairly reliable measure of the overall state of play.
To take a non-policital example – football tipping. If you were to always use the team favoured by bookies in a tipping compitition you’d end up beating more than half of the “experts”.
I thnk Adam might have said something along the lines of – why look at betting market instead of listening expert opinion?
You could phrase that the other way and ask is there any evidence that experts can add anything over what the betting markets are telling you?
I remember Keating in 1993 in an interview on 3lo on the friday before the sat poll, it was really really effective. People were listening to him. Rudd’s got to fight this via media until sat morning. People are listening to him, whereas they are just turned off by Howards petulism and spin. Remember the Political ads stop on Wednesday.
Oh the waiting is killing me! I wish I had a time machine so I could see Saturday’s election result now. Put me out of my misery, the waiting is giving me an ulcer.
Stephen Smith on 10 (presumably Meet the Press) with a good line for Labor ads for the next 4 days:
Mr Smith rejected suggestions the Labor team was too inexperienced to govern.
Despite the Howard Government’s experience, it had brought Australia successive interest rate increases, involvement in the Iraq war, a lack of action on climate change and water security, and neglect of education and the skills shortage, he said.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,22778504-12377,00.html
So that press conference. Anyone listen to the whole thing? Correct me if I’m wrong, but withholding welfare from drug offenders was the only initiative announced?
Were there any other policies? I was expecting something further to the right and even more tabloid. Hardly the secret weapon they need, methinks.
I’m just waiting for the Ruddster to go on Rove tonight, make himself look human and willing to take the mickey out of himself, and finish the job.
Wonder if he will mention that JWH has steadfastly refused to go on the show?
Where is JWH today/
“We are the zero-tolerance Coalition…” Mr Howard said.
Ooops I did an Abbott. “…when it comes to drugs”
SirEggo:
I did some bollocky Monte Carlo simulations this morning using the marginal seat polls and other polls (i.e I roughly worked out what swings would be required in non-marginals to produce the overall state swings given the marginal swings). These, together with the state polling figures, provided a means to allow for rough individual state and ‘marginality’ adjustments to an overall national swing for each seat.
I then ran a series of 10,000 elections at a national swing level from 3% to 8% at 0.5% increments and counted the number of times Labor won, the Coalition won and hung parliaments. I did this on a seat-by-seat basis using a random, normally distributed swing centred around the national swing and adjusted as per above for local factors . I could then work out the probability of a win for each party based on a particular swing.
The overall betting markets predict a 21% chance of a Coalition victory. Running the simulations showed that the Coalition has such a chance if there was a 5% swing against them nationally (because sometimes, that swing will be in the wrong places for Labor to win). This equates to 79/80 seats. So maybe the market just assumes there will be a 5% swing to Labor: the most likely result is 79 or 80 seats to Labor but the Coalition still has a 20% chance of victory.
This is completely non-rigorous and no doubt very flawed, but I did get a similar match up when I ran them before (when Labor were favoured to win 74 seats).
I think the real thing that this shows is that I probably need to get a life, rather than run Monte Carlo simulations on a beautiful Sunday morning.
Another state issue – what next? Is he going to go further and announce he’s going to lower council rates?
#21, not the point: in 04 it was minus 8 for this heavy demographic; in 07 it is plus 14. Big trend shift there. Julia & the Bishop-loved it.
Didn’t Julia just make Cassidy look like a petulant schoolboy – ‘jilted lover’ jibe was just wonderful. And why not send Julia on to preach to the converted?
Kevvie was clearly unwell towards the end of this week, so it’s no wonder he pulled out of the Insiders, especially if he had to do it live on Sunday morning.
Much better to be on FM radio and Rove, not wasting your time with Labor supporters on Insiders. At times Cassidy lets the Right wing hacks on his show get away with murder.
BC isn’t getting any younger and the show hardly rates. Strictly for political junkies like the bloggers here! Not surprising BC was upset when he couldn’t get Kevvie on his show, as his own job may have depended upon it. Would be ironic if only Kevvie could save BC’s arse by becoming PM and stacking the ABC Board.
Julia has clearly read ‘Beyond Left and Right’, in answer to Cassidy’s jibe about the ALP no longer being a ‘Left’ Party. Ask Adam, our resident ‘Scion’ of the Victorian ALP Right, if he thinks the ALP is a ‘Left’ Party – make sure he is sitting down at the time, as he will otherwise fall about laughing and perhaps do himself an injury in the process! She looked really great and didn’t miss a beat as far as I could see, but I think she’s great anyway, so yes I am biased!
Anyway, my prediction Labor 76 to 84 seats and therefore majority between 2 and 18 seats if maths is correct, based mainly on Portland Bet seat by seat betting (Labor favourites in 19 Coalition-held seats).
If Labor loses any marginals unexpectedly, in places like Victoria or WA, or don’t do so well in NSW due to NSW Govt being on the nose, then they will pick up an equal number in other safer Coalition seats, especially in Queensland and maybe Victoria, as the Queensland ’swing’ looks pretty substantial at 8%, with the Vic swing thereabouts or greater.
Reason for lower end prediction is Preferred PM, with Howard lifting to 43% to Rudd’s 49. Some swingers will clearly be gripped by a combination of inertia and Rodent-induced fear into voting Coalition, but Labor at 45%+ primary vote spells the Rodent’s end. Even if one in ten of those is a bit soft for Labor, their primary won’t fall enough in the last week to get Rodent home. Time to get a bottle or three of “Howard’s End” from the CFMEU!
# 258 Generic Person Says: November 18th, 2007 at 1:31 pm
Any show that gives oxygen to Piers Ackerman deserves to be spurned. Don’t employ people like him, and you might find you’re not treated with the contempt you deserve.
277
JWH is nowhere. He’s lost the plot.
Hi all. First time in today, so sorry if I’m going over old ground but did anyone see Julia Gillard accussing Barry of being a ‘jilted lover’ this morning, just because Rudd hsan’t been on a sunday morning show that 80 people watch. It was hilarious!
The journos at his Sky news press conference hammered Howard a bit about lack of media events today as well.
For those interested Piers has an opinion (and also some lies)
“Every state government is in deficit, everywhere Labor rules is in the red, except the ACT. Wall-to-wall red ink.”
http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/opinion/story/0,22049,22774703-5001031,00.html
Guess Queensland isn’t ruled by Labor…
http://www.budget.qld.gov.au/at-a-glance/queensland-state-budget-at-a-glance-2007-08.pdf
I watched both the Oakes v Costello and Cassidy v Gillard interviews. I am relatively unbiased, apart from a visceral hatred of the Rodent’s lowest common denominator ethics. I don’t mind Cossie and I’ve been a bit worried about Gillard’s possible extremism. But based on their performances in this campaign, Gillard is an absolute star and Costello is unelectable as PM. Oakes clearly detests Cossie and he is a fairly good judge. Gillard is much too clever and sharp to be outdebated on any point. Every journalist I’ve seen interview her gets this look of inevitable defeat in their glazed over eyes and ends up trying not to end with their reputation in tatters. And to BB, I’ve got to admit she looked the part too.
Bazthespaz. Spot on! Then whole discussion about Rudd not facing real scrutiny was such a beat up. Maybe they should be questioning the media’s failure to do their job properly. They lost their ability to scrutinise in about 2000, and have given the Howard govt a free since…. It’s not Rudds fault if the media are happy regurgitate each others work.
On that there is a funny cartoon on Mumble, with one journo saying “I’m going to call this the me-too election”, and his work mate declares “me-too”.
Sums up their inability to get past their group think perfectly.
279 Jon
You are talking to someone (me) who has memorised the periodic table, all 147 Melbourne Cup winners and all of the Rugby League premiership winners
Trust me, I don’t think any less of you LOL. Thanks for the analysis
Question without notice to all: How likely is it that we will have a double dissolution in Rudd’s first term (assuming he wins)?
Also, anyone heard of any Libs going to jump ship if the Coalition lose, or in otherr words, are we going to have a plethora of by-elections?
Who takes any notice of “The Sloth from the Trough”?
SirEggo the double d is very unlikely.
From memory, once legislation has been defeated in the senate there is a 3 month wait before it can be tried again, so let’s say they reject the anti-workchoices Bill in February. 3 moth later is May, and the Lib senators holding power will bugger off at the end of June, which would be when the DD election would be. So no point really.
Feel free to corerect me if my constitutional knowledge is way off.
Has there been any recent polling on North Sydney? This article from the local online rag last week http://www.villagevoice.com.au/article/20071114/NWS10/711130328/-1/nws/ suggests it is a much closer contest (even split on a straw vote) despite Joe Hockey holding a (comfortable?) 10% lead. If a swing is on then it could go down to the wire especially with Labors star recruit and former ABC weather presenter Mike Bailey capitalising the “Work Choices” issue. This could be the third cabinet scalp if there is a landslide next Saturday. Anyone have local knowledge on the mood in this electorate?
The Exclusive Brethren, KKK and maybe One Nation do.
I like ‘CM’ headline,”Howard closes the gap”.It’s a joke surely.
New ALP advert should take the ding buzz theme further
Rudd “I will do X,Y,Z” Ding
Howard “I wont” Buzz
Costello “I’ll make it worse” Sirens
maybe add Abott and some whacky circus music too
The Death of Insiders
Dear me Kevin would not appear on Insiders. Julia took his place and was extremely competent. I must say my respect for Julia has grown and grown to the point where, given the opportunity, she could be our first female prime Minister. If not we now know how capable she is. She has developed into a first class intellect sexism and all, watch out fellas. The discipline that Rudd and Gillard demonstrate is commendable. Read between the lines. There is a certain amount of payout coming for those journalists who have been unrepresentative swill. Kevin’s message is clear and unequivocal when he sees Rove as more important than Insiders. There are no true left wing main stream journo’s out there so the weighting automatically shifts to the right. Barry looked hurt however if you make your bed then lay in it. Akerman and Bolt should have no part in an intelligent debate when they cannot even accept empirical evidence. These people are really dangerous. Paul Kelly either got on the piss last night or he too is worried that didums Rodent is going down. Looked a bit pale to me. There is no doubt about it in a route these guys are going too look very stupid. Watch them try to bluff their way out. Too late. God I am so happy to have my country back. Thank you all the true believers from the bottom of my heart.
“Correct me if I’m wrong, but withholding welfare from drug offenders was the only initiative announced?”
Howard is obviously searching for yet another wedge. He really is a one-trick pony. It is so pathetic.
All year long, Howard has been seeking the king hit, either a smear on Rudd or a wedge for Labor, anything that might create a quick turnaround in the polls. But even though neither has worked, he still bangs the same old drum. And now we are in the last week to the election, and what a surprise, Howard is still at it.
The problem for Howard all year is that he has repeatedly gone for the quick fix. He panicked. And he therefore left himself without a proper strategy and without a long-term plan, which has become clear throughout this campaign. How many times now has the government changed their core messages? I’ve lost count. It has become confusing with all the mixed up and contradictory messages.
It is a BIG mistake to keep using the same tactics and tricks when you know that your opponent has wised up to them.
Meanwhile, the MSM and some core Liberal supporters have been cheering Howard on, hoping also that one of his smears or wedges will work without ever considering what is genuinely in the national interest. They have treated politics like a sport. Simply align yourself with a team and then barrack for them and hope they win for no other reason than the fact that they are the team you support.
But at no point this year has Howard looked Prime Ministerial. He just looks like a desperate man who is trying to fool the public. And at no point has he looked as if he has had the national interest at heart, only ever his own.
It’s just the same old tricks, same old lies, same old Howard right up to election day. The man is incapable of change.
There won’t be a DD. It’s unlikely the Libs can maintain control of the Senate and even if they can would a battle scarred and new Liberal Leader want to take on Rudd in his honeymoon period. It is most likely that the BOP will be with the Greens or others and if Rudd calls a DD it will be what the smaller parties would like to see happen. Even Hanson would probably run again in a DD and have a chance of getting in. A DD would be a mistake. If they can’t get their bills passed they’ll negotiate a compromise and everyone will say they won a great victory.
So when is Howard’s announcement that cartel crooks WILL go to jail?
I agree Pi. The program seems to be trapped inside the vacuum of its assembled egos. There is a serious credibility problem when a program promotes itself as having some sort of higher insight into Australian politics then allows the likes of Bolt and Hack to trot out their tired prejudices week after week without any attempt to be objective. As compere Cassidy has to shoulder much of the blame for not managing the discourse better. I gave up on the show months ago.
Adam-re Cornes. I think the media here have attacked her too often. They thought they were on to a good thing but they wouldt let it go. When you hear for the tenth time that she didnt talk to them, you start getting sick of them and wonder if its a shallow, cheap vendetta. This view is now very widespread in Boothby that her many local appearances combined with some very good press coverage is turning her into a viable candidate. I think the “tipping point” has been reached.
Costello done by Oakes:
http://sunday.ninemsn.com.au/sunday/political_transcripts/article_2359.asp
This at the end is gold:
LAURIE OAKES: You have been a hard-liner on this, I mean, just to illustrate that is Council for the Australian Federation of Employers, in the 1987 National Wage case, you argued the minimum wage for a tradesman should be reduced from $305.10 to $171.30 a week so negotiations could then proceed flexibly on a company by company basis. Now, that’s very radical, much more radical than anything in WorkChoices.
PETER COSTELLO: Well, I was a counsel for an employer body.
LAURIE OAKES: Julia Gillard was a counsel for union body and you said that should be taken in to account when people are considering what she’ll do.
PETER COSTELLO: No, no, no, no.
LAURIE OAKES: You’re a boss’s lawyer.
PETER COSTELLO: No, no, what I was saying is that Julia Gillard was a member of the Socialist Forum.
LAURIE OAKES: No, no, she’s a Labor lawyer in your ads. Are you saying you put that to the Industrial Relations Commission and (?) didn’t believe it?
PETER COSTELLO: No, no, let me go back two points…. (yes go back very fast Peter).
The SMH has the spewings of Rattus Rattus and his zero-tolerance drug laws
“It’s not right that people should have control of taxpayer money when they have been convicted of such offences.”
Crikey Almighty!!!
Who’s money is it?? I hope none of you work for the Federal Government! What about his education rebate – it can effectively be spent on anything! What about tax cheats do they get the education rebate? And people who don’t pay parking fines? Anyone who’s spoken to Brian Burke in the last twenty years?
The rat is insane.
Pick of the Latest polling- combined
a) Combined Newspoll and Galaxy marginal seats polls (polled at almost same time in mostly same seats) Then apply the swings for each state as uniform in that state.
Result is 88 seats to 60 seats
b) Four national poll average applied uniformly across the nation
Result is 91 seats to 57 seats
c) State by state polling Newspoll combined with NineMSN (Anthony seems to think it can be considered)
Result is 90 seats to 58 seats
If you want to drop the NineMSN it would be 99 seats to 49 seats
308 Grog- I saw it. It was brutal. The rest was not much better.
Gippslander,
I think it’s very early for making predictions post the federal election in Victoria. One of the big issues that any incoming federal government will face is water and the distribution of water rights. Due to what’s at stake for Victoria there isn’t any room for Victoria to back down so I fully expect this issue to go to the High Court in either ‘08 or ‘09 for one of the bigger consitutional battles. I think this High Court case will be messy and it’s not clear cut who will win.
Nevertheless, the wash up of this case and who best manages the aftermath will be pivotal to determining polical ascendancy in Victoria and its already making very strange bedfellows with the ALP, Nats and VFF all on the one side. So let’s see.
Otherwise, I suspect the no change camp are right for the Federal election, as Victoria seems to be sleepwalking to the ballot box (eap compared to Perth and Sydney where I was on business last week). Maybe La Trobe on the back of the swing next door in Holt is a possibility. But Victoria has been doing it’s own thing since 1993 without much impact on the federal result, so don’t expect it to change now.
Who on earth is seriously advocating a DD? Why? Supply blocking?
Get back to earth.
@308
Gold Grog, Gold.
Loved Julia Gillard’s comment to Barry: “You can go on looking like a jilted lover, or we can get on with the interview.” Beautiful. Had a good laugh, enjoyed Julia’s performance, listened to a couple of panel comments, then switched back to the cricket. It must be so galling for Howard that Bellerive Oval isn’t in a marginal seat. I’ve no doubt he’d have loved to be there, with the chance of a bit of a stint at commentary on ‘his’ ABC. Love to hear him talking about how well the young lefty from Queensland is swinging it so much.
Bingo! Back. All these unused dial up accounts left lying around.
All well, I see, in my absence.
Observer – Its also not right that people should have control of taxpayers money when they have rorted federal regional funding programs worth over $300M. How many ministerial resignations does that add up to?
@317
A visit to the GG to sack the government that’s what it adds up to. There is a saying in the US that applies here given that the rodent also looks like a monkey…
Chimpeach!
howard and cassidy both go mad
pass around the prozac
Does the Rodent’s new rule mean that if Piers gets the sack, his dole will be quarantined because of his cocaine habit mentioned by Latham? We shoud ask him what he thinks of the policy.
In regards to the DD I thnk Rudd will follow Brack’s example when he first won the lower house but not the upper house in Victoria. Bracks excelled in two areas.
1) Did not screw up
2) Was not Kennett
Next election around he cleaned up the upper house.
Remember every year Insiders has it’s politician of the year award. 2005 was Barnaby Joyce and 2006 was John Howard. Win or lose the election, 2007 must go to Kevin Rudd simply for turning things around so drastically for Labor in just a few months.
320
bahahahahahahahaha
Just trying to think, has an issue (or announcement) on Insiders or Sunday, or Meet the Press had an impact during this campaign?
Closest I can think is Howard on Insiders trying to prove that an interest rate rise meant that Labor was a risk…
My memeory might be getting foggy, but didn’t in the past these shows have a lot more say on the week’s agenda during a campaign.
Now the news cycle moves too fast, at best they can set ther agenda for Sunday night news.
What’s Piers Akerman going to do if Labor wins the election on Saturday? Is he going to dispute the election result and claim that the result was rigged by evil union bosses? Maybe Piers will go on a hunger strike until a Rudd Labor government is removed from office. If he does it’s going to be one long hunger strike … as all those lunches and dinners with the PM and Hyacinth have given him formidable reserves of body fat to help him survive without food for at least one term of a Labor government.
No kiwi Piers and co are in a win-win position. If Howard wins, they’ll gloat to high heaven. If Rudd wins, they’ll spend the next 3 years happily trying to find any measure (or lie) they can to show how much better Howard was.
Rudd is right to have avoided Insiders. The show has a small audience, little direct impact on the masses, and is a haven for mentally unbalanced right wingers. In short, it is a waste of Rudd’s time and he only has 6 days left before the big day.
New policy from Mark Vaille. AEC not allowed to report the voting count in seats where the Rodent loses as this would be prejudicial to the Government and would demonstrate the AEC is not independent. Actually, he is such a moron he would almost that, if it was explained to him very slowly and with lots of pictures.
Kiwi – I always thought he was a dead ringer for M Creosote in ‘the meaning of life’. Maybe they could use him in a remake?
“LAURIE OAKES: … in the 1987 National Wage case, you argued the minimum wage for a tradesman should be reduced from $305.10 to $171.30 a week .. Now, that’s very radical…”
Wonderful quote, Grog. If only people outside this blog could read it.
The quote made me realise how important the political discourse of industrial relations — the semiotics used to frame the debate — really is.
Most Australians now have a very clear idea of what a Union is, and the Union has been successfully loaded with a whole lot of negative baggage: “anti-business”, “bullyboy”, “thugs”.
The problem for us on the left is that the chief engine of power on the right is so hazy that is doesn’t even have a name. The fact is, big corporations and company unions like the AIG, employer groups, business council, and so on exert a powerful influence on government for lower wages, poorer conditions, less workplace safety. But we don’t even have a word to talk about these groups with. So it’s difficult for us to get this issue of corporate influence onto the agenda in a way that sticks.
I believe the power and influence of big business is real, and pretty scary, and I think that if it was framed for ordinary people to think about, they would be pretty disgusted. Although you can understand why Labor can’t do this; if we bag big business, it’s “class warfare”, but of course, when they bag unions it’s just “facts, not fear”.
Gecko @ 10
I don’t know which Higgins you’re living in, but I’ve seen quite a bit from both sides, and a personal visit from Barbara. Somehow I don’t think Peter will show up at my door, though. There’s too much garlic in the garden.
Now I know writing this comment will see a torrent of people calling me stupid…. but I thought it would be a good conversation starter. Let me preface all of this by saying i think Labor will win….
On average the national polls look like we are headed for a 54-46 vote in favour of Labor nationally, which is a 6.7% swing.
However, the Libs are running dead in Labor marginals, so swing there will likely be higher, say 8%. Likewise in Labor safe seats it should be higher… but given there are less voters to switch there by definition, let’s just assume the 6.7%.
Now the Lib safe seats…. again, not the focus of ‘firewalling’ so possibly larger swing… say 7%…. plug all this in and it implies that a 6.7% national swing could well be only a 5.0 – 5.3% swing in the Coalition marginals….
If that swing was uniform in the Coalition marginals it would be enough…. but of course it won’t be…. the Libs have basically run dead in Kingston, Makin, Bonner and a couple of others…. so the swings here will likely be in the 8-10% range…. this implies lower swings elsewhere….say less than 5%… and of course this will vary across seats.
In fact, I went seat by seat this morning and i looked at the Coalition’s 35 most marginal seats, and I made judgments based on the combined knowledge from the Newspoll marginal poll, the Galaxy marginal poll and individual seat polls…. and i came up with the following scenario:
14 ALP definites
6 too close to calls
15 Coalition holds
…the swings I imputed to these seats translated to an average swing in these marginals of 5.4%…..
… incredibly, this suggests that Labor could get 54% of the vote, a 6.7% national swing, but a 5-5.3% swing in Government marginals…. and the election could be line ball.
Now lots has to go right for this to be the case…. but i found the math of it very interesting…
that said, I think Labor will prevail narrowly – no landslide though.
now… over to you guys to tear that apart?
came up
Now go seats by seat through the Coalition marginals, and
325
“If he does it’s going to be one long hunger strike …”
Gold
Here’s a possible reason why the punters are all over the ALP to win but not so much in seat by seat betting. Talking to my neighbour this morning and this beauty pops out.
me- So, I reckon Rudd will win easy, probably be over 80 seats to ALP
him= Yeah, I think its all over for Howard too,
“whats a seat?”
Crikey Whitey.
Did you manage to get to see Nicloe Cornes at all?
Who would you turn gay for?
Kevin could say ‘Therese wouldn’t let me, but treating it purely as a hypothetical, it would be Al Gore. I admire greatly what he has achieved and who he is as a person’.
And Adam we haven’t got your answer yet (Gippsland @249). You’re a celebrity you know, with your great website and comments, so you owe us an answer.
ruawake 264 – I don’t mean alp in qld will get 48.5, but merely that it’s possible. Their best recent result was in 90 with 50.19. My point is that if the figures fall queerly we might get a queer result. Diogenes 293 – I agree with you on Julia Gillard. She is by a street the best 1 on 1 debater in the parliament. She cannot make a mistake.
On The National Interest today, Peter Tinley sounded like a terrific bloke. Michael Keenan sounded like … well, a Liberal politician. Unfortunately, Peter van Onselen tips a narrow Liberal win in Stirling. Let’s hope he’s wrong.
The control of drug offenders ‘taxpayers’ money etc. is obviously a response to the 300 mill of taxpayers money in the regional rorts program.
I doubt there are too many people in this situation and it is a policy that is preaching to the converted.
lol lartybardfast.
10pse – I won’t rip into you, you could be right.
But I’ll just say that if it IS an overall 54%2PP, all the variences in the world won’t make a lick of difference.
I cannot concieve of a situation where a party could get a national vote that high and still lose.
(And if it did, geez, would a lot of people be p*ssed off!)
Betamax. Wasn’t it once referred to as the “establishment”?
or is it too 60’s to use a term such as that? I reckon it would be heaps of fun getting round saying “we’re fighting against the establishment man”
Sorry to disappoint you everyone but the Coalition is a dead cert to be returned. Peter Costello will be PM before the end of the next parliament’s term.
Who ever heard of the government losing when the economy is in such a strong position, thanks to the good work by Mr Costello.
John Howard has provided top leadership for Australia and it would be silly for the voters to throw him out in favour of the untested Ruddster.
Now I know why the Libs love AWA’s………the trolls are on a flat rate 24/7
Thanks Caroline, you are spot on.
Been thinking about Howard’s drug announcement. He has given up on Labor and is trying to Wedge the Greens.
He knows he has lost and is trying to firewall the Senate?
oh sorry Caroline I was having an acid flashback… thought it was 2004…
They’re screwed.
Oh the irony.
Kevin Rudd won’t talk to the ‘Insiders’.
Guess that makes the ABC and the News Ltd. hacks that dominate that show a bunch of ‘Outsiders’ come the 25th?
Jon Faine in Melbourne is already getting a sense of what that is like.
A note to all journalists, you are not performers, political interviews are not performance art.
On Rove tonight, when asked who he would turn gay for, Rudd should respond, “Well I was going to be boring and say George Clooney, but I bumped into Peter Hellier out the back, and I have to say, up close he is a very attractive man.”
Thanks for that Caroline, I’ll just rip off a quicky email to all the pollsters, pundits and of course those several hundred thousand ppl that have got it wrong all year. Might give heavy Kev a quick call to telling him its all over, he can pack up his tee-shirts and go home. He’ll probably have to go to Centrelink in the morning and then ask Therese to sign him up for a Job network diary!…
Caroline has a point. Clearly it is baseless, but she has a point.
Caroline-Perceptive analysis backed up with impeccable logic like that has made Australia the great country it is today. If only the other 19 999 999 Australians outside of this blog were able to read such insight, the world would be a better place. Keep up the good work.
Caroline, when did you change your last name from Overington to Church?
Howard will win with 150 seats.
342 – Caroline: Church as in Hillsong, or Catch the Fire?
nice contribution GP. Did you and Caroline just get back fron Sunday School?
Maybe we should all get together to send Piers a nice big wreath and a sympathy card.
No 355
Did you just pull your head out of your arse?
GP. Stop trying to fit in.
Actually middle man, I did just get back from Sunday School (or sort of) and it appears main stream Christianity finds Howar on the nose too. Workchoices was a big issue over a cuppa after the service- even more so for those not directly affected!
No, that’s how he normally acts.
Generic Person Says:
November 18th, 2007 at 3:18 pm
Howard will win with 150 seats.
Big Bad Bob Katter is not happy GP – Look out.
What polls are in the works at the moment. We’re still yet to see a post ALP launch poll. The regular Newspoll, Morgan and ACN Marginal should all be out in the next 36 hours or so – anyone know exactly when?
No 358
I didn’t know supporting the Coalition constituted an act of “fitting in” around here. But horses for courses.
346 Carolyn
Be careful, if Howard is returned you’ll lose your welfare payments under the policy he announced today.
BBD. That’s great to hear. Whilst I did poke some fun at sunday school, I am the product of 12 years of Catholic school.
I think Australians have worked out that Workchoices is insidiuous and doesn’t discriminate.
and i am not the mad monk hiding behind middle man. even though our initials are the same.
Albert F @ 321
Fully agree, that’s how I think it will play out as well (credit markets notwithstanding).
The other thing I would add is that I would expect that the ‘uglies’ in NSW will move assert their influence. The Libs have pushed out the moderates to the point that their memdership base has contracted to the ultra right…..so it’s going to be the dries vs the uglies fighting for control. Shades of Denham in NSW.
This end of the wedge:
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,22775071-5012863,00.html
While I am sure Howard likes the thought of makine $1m on the “speaking ciruit”, the more there are stories about what Howard will do in retirement the better the chances of an ALP landslide.
The first thing Howard and Co have to do this week is turn around the general perception that they’re going to lose.
So if it’s a bad newspoll on Mon-Tues (i.e 54-55) then that will be impossible, and so in order to grab some headlines, the papers will start doing “Howard to Lose His Seat” stories.
Grog,
as I said I tend to agree… that is why I think Labor will win. But what is interesting is that if you take the marginal seat polling on face value, the election could well be 54-46 yet see Labor only win by a few seats… which itself is remarkable. I have thought for some time that the real battle ground is 52 percent. If Labor only gets 52-52.5…. i think they will probably lose…. but at the moment does not look like the Libs will get the national vote that close
cheers
Grog (at 297) – the Coalition will be very unlikely to lose control of the Senate. They need only 19 of the 40 Senate places up for grabs this time, as they have 19 plus Fielding from FF, who is not up for re-election. Labor or the Greens would have to win the sixth seat in Vic and Tasmania and the Green win the second seat in ACT for the Government to lose control of the Senate.
If there is a recession next year ALP will be loathe to call a double dissolution, but watch out for another ‘consitutional crisis’ if a Coalition-dominated Senate tries to block supply to try to force a double dissolution in the midst of a recession. Kevvie may be tempted to call a DD election only if there is serious disarray in the Coalition over leadership, with Malcolm trying to push Costello out of the way.
I think Krudd was right to avoid Insiders, given his propensity for looking like an absiolute goose when interviewed. WA’s Sunday Times ran a piece about him today in which he actually suggested that Western Australians should forget about the mining boom and instead – get this – help the Chinese invest in Latin American real estate.
WTF??!! What a moron.
Well, Howard is getting VERY desperate now. Apparently, he thinks God prefers the Liberal Party:
http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,20797,22778780-953,00.html
“If there is a recession next year ”
woah!!! Talk about your big calls!!!
Grog and Betamax
Yes I saw Costello and Oakes this morning as well. Finally some of the high profile journalists are staretign to earn their keep and question people. Howard, Abbott and Costello were all extremely conservative by the standards of their peers.
This suggestion that WorkChoices somehow protects us from inflation is also nonsense that should be challenged. Look at wage outcomes and inflation since WorkChoices has been in force. Industries which are vulnerable to wage pressures, like mining and construction, have seen large real wage increases. In other words, inflationary pressure has not been stopped. Conversely, low paid jobs where workers’ position is weak have seen falls. The point is that WorkChoices can be inflationary as well as unjust. By taking away the umpire, it means that the most powerful group holds sway. If the industry is one where labor is in short supply there is little to stop a wages breakout. WorkChoices is not only unfair, it is dumb.
Of course there is a second reason why WorkChoices is dumb. By encouraging employers to seek to lower wages to reduce costs, it removes the incentive to make employers invest in better trained, more productive workers. It locks the economy into a downward spiral of low pay leading to low productivity. That does not create economic growth. Much like Howard’s education policy. If he wants to turn us into the next Mexico, its a good start.
372- Noocat
I can categorically state that god does not vote liberal (ok maybe just his reps wont)
watch the part from 1min 50 sec to 3min 30secs to save time.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GHsbhHzpFTU
Is anyone else as disgusted at the policy Howard and Smirk announced today? I mean from a social point of view it’s kicking someone when they’re down. From a pragmatic point of view the last thing we need is drug addicts with less money. So either way you look at it it’s terrible policy, designed purely as a desperate attempt to wedge Labor.
Comments?
I don’t normally respond to the uninformed here, but Caroline, thank you, I needed that laugh.
No 374
Wage rises in and of themselves aren’t the problem, it’s wage rises from profitable industries transferred to unprofitable or less profitable industries that gets inflation out of control. That’s really the legacy of the unions.
agreed NB. Why take money from those most desperate? I just pushes them one step closer to doing something they might be avoiding. I can Grand Master Flash singing now… “Don’t push me, I’m close to the edge…”
No 376
I have no sympathy for dole bludging drug addicts.
380 GP
How about responding to the other part of my comment?
Troll alert
380 GP
I dont either, but i wouldn’t encourage them to commit more crimes by taking away the few bucks they get from the Govt.
Institutionalise them i reckon- safer for the community
What an astonishing miss-reading of his words Stephen Kaye (did John Howard give you that analysis?)
Here’s his actual words:
“Mr Rudd said WA had to diversify and look beyond the boom.
“You have retirement incomes growing very rapidly in China and Korea and the rest of East Asia, but not a lot of sophistication in the management of those funds,” he said. “If you look at a new platform for growth – it’s there.
“It’s using the expertise in Perth to manage retirement funds coming out of, say China, for third-country investments in, say, real estate in Latin America. It’s do-able because of the time zone.”
Mr Rudd said another area of growth for WA was as an exporter of mining expertise.
“It’s turning WA into the mining industry services centre of the world,” he said.
“WA would be the go-to place. If someone wanted to mine (anywhere in the world) they could come to WA to find out how to do it.
“It’s quite different to just being the miner. It’s about service industries, which is everything from geological services through to rig maintenance, through to the provision of housing and human services in remote locations and medical services, so that when people think of mining services in the future they think of Perth.
“(It could be) something out of the University of Western Australia and the industry – conjoint operations that bring together that mining services centre of excellence.”
So in short he wants WA to be a financial centre of Asia, and to make great use of the knowledge and contacts it has made from the boom.
http://www.news.com.au/perthnow/story/0,21598,22778760-2761,00.html
GP. The wages accord of the 80’s decoupled that nexus. A Labor government initiative. Its called collective bargaining. What it was replaced with is called enterprise bargaining. A distinction worth learning.
379 MM
Thanks for that – another song to add to my election night mix!
Caroline and GP,
You know you really can get excellent odds on the coalition winning now. If you sincerely believe what you say, (if you have stayed “brave adn true”) why not just take out a quick second mortgage, and put the money down on a Coalition win? At these odds, you could make enough to buy a house, even at the prices our leader the economic genius has caused! Hurry, I’d hate to see you miss out
NB, the song that keeps going through my head is…
Queen – Another One Bites the Dust
“I can categorically state that god does not vote liberal (ok maybe just his reps wont)”
BBD, well it seems that Howard now has divine access. Next he will be saying that a vote for Labor is a vote for the devil.
No 383
They are not taking away money, they are quarantining the payments to ensure they’re spent on survival rather than drug purchases.
In any event, I’d rather addicts be placed in gaol.
and North Sydney gone and Higgins gone… another one bites the dust..
388
Keep em coming Mad Cow, my favorite at the moment is U2 Its a Beautiful Day.
390 GP
would certainly be safer the Howards plan to make them desperate and leave them out in the community.
Stop hating democracy.
off for some lunch. i’ll leave the rest of you to suffer GP’s black humour.
I’m also fond of Genesis – Land of Confusion
“my generation will put it right”
No 393
Actually I would advocate that all welfare payments be quarantined.
No 394
It is not hatred of democracy to want criminals in gaol.
397
Now you are talking like a real socialist
# 380 Generic Person Says: November 18th, 2007 at 3:37 pm
I have no sympathy for hate-filled bigots. But if you think that’s a policy, I’d also assume you’re on drugs too.
Being addicted to drugs isn’t a crime.
# 398 Generic Person Says: November 18th, 2007 at 3:45 pm
But it is hatred of democracy to include justice outcomes into social policy.
“They are not taking away money, they are quarantining the payments to ensure they’re spent on survival rather than drug purchases.”
But there is a big danger that if these people are not adequately helped to overcome their addiction, then they will resort to crime in order to get by. Howard is good at punishing people, but I wouldn’t trust him when it comes to rehabilitation. Like ND said, this policy could end up being a disaster, but I also suspect that Howard hasn’t thought through the implications because he is only doing it as political wedge for the sake of his re-election.
348 – Grog that’s spot on. It’s what we’ve been looking for all day. Right balance between ensuring it’s kept very jocular and not sounding nerdy.
Yawn… Kevin Rudd has two options here.
He can ignore it (I’d prefer developing policies for the future of Australia), or he could copy it (it’s a good policy, we’ll copy it).
Either way, it’s yet another wedge issue of the libs that will only make them look like the desperate try-hards that they are.
403
A political wedge?
surely you are not suggesting after 11 and a half years of Government, that with one week before the election, that being miles behind in the polls. that Howard would introduce this policy for political purposes?
So GP you would like to see the Baby Bonus, Child Care Rebate, Old Age Pension, Disability Support Pension, Carers Pension and allowance, War Widows pension, etc. quaranteened?
Or is it just welfare for the unwashed?
Pity those drug addicts aren’t into price collusion.
Or paying bribes to dictators.
Or rorting.
GP
By “all welfare payments” do you also include payments to farmers, tax incentives to business, diesel rebates to miners, several billion in the car industry package… or do you only define “welfare” as giving tax-payers money to poor people?
ta Samuel K, it made my wife laugh (which is about as good as I can do)
GP ,
you are starting to sound like Glen et al.(read desperate), and your social policy stands reflect that of other 18th century thinkers, such as our soon to be ex-PM.
Can anyone please explain why so many are raving on like lunatics and perpetuating this absurd 55% 2pp and 30 seats changing hands bullshit based on polls? Get real. History and common sense should show you that polls only are indicators – but of what? Forget 55. Man, 53 is HUGE. Anyway, where are all the coalition lunatics to put some balance into this farce?
It is another policy to try to secure the Liberal base. It works on two prejudices:
All dole bludgers are drug addicts.
All drug addicts are dole bludgers.
If they are trying to secure their base at this stage, it demonstrates how far behind they actually are.
Regarding Generic Moron’s take on it, he is just depressed because his mob are going to get cleaned up in 120 hours time.
410
Rudds response is to point it out as policy made in desperation and on the run. He believes the drugs problem needs addressing, but would want to make sure a plan that doesn’t put elderly at risk of increased crime as a result of increasingly desperate drug users having to turn to other means to supprt thier habbit.
Generic Person clearly doesn’t understand the difference between the 1903 industrial relations system and the system that Keating introduced. Maybe he should go and have a little read and learn about Enterprise Bargaining.
Does he sit there transcribing Liberal Party pamphlets onto this blog or what??
Gary Morgan said in Friday’s poll release
Still don’t have these polls, which should be the first after Labor’s campaign launch. Maybe Morgan’s checking because the result’s too good for Labor to be easily believable.
He’s doesn’t have the time, he is still trying to get his law degree so he is eligible for Liberal pre-selection. He was going to go for the House of Reps, but it was too hard, so he has settled on a seat in the loser’s lounge.
It’s the last desperate act of a dying administration! Rudd ain’t gonna fall into that trap! Only 6 more days and we are hopefully rid of the Rodent/Smirky
Just email that one off to Rudd’s office can you BB Dave? (oh don’t bother, if they’re worth their salt, they’d already be reading)
lol
Does anyone know of a forum where coalition voters go to whip each other?
Count down the hours, it’s more fun!
There is a whisper doing the rounds of a sad journo known for his “white line fever’ who stays up late at night writing favourable replies to his blog because he only gets negative attacks. Now lobs onto other blogs for company , instantly recongisable by empty one line reponses which he think are pithy and amusing. Uses some sort of “common” handle as his nome de plume.
Think that Rudd will let this one go through to the keeper. Its just Rattus sounding shrill and desperate, blabbing out something he hasn’t really thought about.
His only hope is that Rudd will fluff some response to this and how many times has Rudd mishandled something in this campaign?
415 Samuel
good question, lets find out by linking ecconomics to IR since that is a fair fight.
pop quiz GP
1. has productivity grown or decreased since the introduction of Libs IR reforms?
2. increased or decreased by how much?
3. pre Lib IR reforms we were over 40% above the OECD average for productivity growth- where do we stand now?
Forget Insiders, comment of the day goes to Gideon Haigh on Offsiders:
“An Official Newspaper of the AFL, that’s ridiculous. It’s like having an Official Newspaper of the Liberal Party. Oh wait, we have one of those.”
Cue polite chuckles from panellists. Methinks they’re getting a bit frisky in Gore Hill
Suggested headline for tomorrow’s papers:
“HOWARD TRIES DRUGS”
actual answers to 424
Productivity groth down 50% since intro of Lib IR reforms, we are now 16% below OECD average.
IR reform is a big reason since wage reduction is favoured over productivity groth in the Lib system- undermining our economic future competativeness
Caroline’s comment reminds me of the sayings of Chance the Gardener, played by Peter Sellers in “Being There”
{President “Bobby”: Mr. Gardner, do you agree with Ben, or do you think that we can stimulate growth through temporary incentives?
Chance the Gardener: As long as the roots are not severed, all is well. And all will be well in the garden.
President “Bobby”: In the garden.
Chance the Gardener: Yes. In the garden, growth has it seasons. First comes spring and summer, but then we have fall and winter. And then we get spring and summer again.
President “Bobby”: Spring and summer.
Chance the Gardener: Yes.
President “Bobby”: Then fall and winter.
Chance the Gardener: Yes.
Benjamin Rand: I think what our insightful young friend is saying is that we welcome the inevitable seasons of nature, but we’re upset by the seasons of our economy.
Chance the Gardener: Yes! There will be growth in the spring!
Benjamin Rand: Hmm!
Chance the Gardener: Hmm!
President “Bobby”:
George,
Thanks so very much for the tip and heads up on The Monthly magazine. I was finally able to track one down today while we were in the city. Stopped into a big newsagency in Kings Cross. I am enjoying it so far and am thinking about subscribing but will wait until I have read the whole magazine first. Cheers
Something to ponder on climate change that I wrote up for a media press release today:
Everyone MUST read this synthesis report. It is science policy at its most compelling, with our very future at stake.
http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar4/syr/ar4_syr_spm.pdf
The IPCC Synthesis Report (summary for policy makers) is basically a precis of the previous three 4th Assessment Working Group reports, released in 2007, on the science of climate change (WGI), likely impacts and adaptation (WGII), and paths to mitigation (WGIII). As such, you could be forgiven for thinking that there would be little or nothing new here. Yet I sense that there is. The language used to describe the looming risks seems less clinical – more emotive, than that in the previous summary for policy makers (SPM). The generally conservative assumptions are laid bare, rather than hidden away.
A good example of what I mean is the description of sea level rise. A number of scientific papers have, during just this last year (so too late to be included in the AR4 main report), seriously raised the prospect of metres, rather than centimetres, of sea level rise by 2100 (and much more beyond). In this synthesis report – perhaps in response to this growing recognition – it is made abundantly clear that the predictions of 18-59cm rise is patently a lower bound, because rapid future ice flow dynamics are not included. In essence, what they mean by this is “…because we can’t adequately model the unexpectedly rapid loss of Arctic sea ice and accelerating disintegration of Greenland and West Antarctica and put a number on how fast this will proceed, we have no choice but to leave it out of our projections…” (and thus risk conveying a gross underestimate of the true possibility). At least now they say it in the SPM.
Figure SPM.7 is a simply stunning summary. Unlike the previous version in WGII, this explicitly links impacts to mitigation scenarios. In doing so, it clearly shows that under the most stringent mitigation scenario proposed (scenario I, in which CO2 equivalent is limited to 445-490 ppm, global cuts of 50-85% in emissions are achieved, and warming of 2-2.4C is realised), there is a high confidence that a slew of what can only be described as catastrophic impacts (30% species loss, major coastal flooding, most corals bleached, significant global water stress), will unfold! The fossil-fuel intensive business-as-usual scenario runs off the chart, with a disturbingly plausible risk of up to 6.8-8.6C warming – truly “game over” for humanity and most other life on this planet.
Indeed, it is a damning indictment on our collective vacillation, inaction and deliberate stalling to date, in facing up to this problem (Australia and the US as two prominent curmudgeons), that we are now facing the stark choice between a bad situation, a catastrophic situation, or a civilization-terminating situation. The EU has defined “dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system” (what we were supposed to avoid, according to the 1992 UN Framework Convention on Climate Change) as being anything over 2C warming – and many claim this is already too much for comfort, given the changes we are witnessing now at 0.8C warming. There is some dark humour to be had in contemplating Table SPM.6 then – because only 6 of 177 mitigation scenarios reported therein actually allow for the possibility of avoiding 2C!
There is one bit of good news, if policy makers will just take heed. Table SPM.7 shows, quite clearly, that the costs involved in moving fast to address the emissions problem are incredibly small, or perhaps even beneficial overall (and that’s before we count the social and environmental cost of not taking action). To achieve the most stringent mitigation of 445-535 ppm CO2e, the reduction in GDP by 2050 is 3-5.5%. This means, roughly, that we become twice as rich (in real dollar terms – equivalent to the average yearly Australian wage now being over $120K instead of $60K), in July 2050 instead of January 2050. So the catch is, in making this choice, that you have to be willing to wait 6 months, to save the planet.
427 BBD – Don’t use facts and logic – you’ll confuse poor generic person.
It smells like an attempt to shore up the Liberal base, or the redneck Liberal base(to be more precise).
Rudd will agree with it, so Howard can’t run the line Labor is soft on drug users.
This is all the Rodent has left to offer? LMAO
Oh great, quarantine welfare payments to drug addicts will only increase petty crime. In my last place I was burgled 3 times in 8 months and the police said it was most definitely drug addicts. So now, the little money they get on welfare will be locked up, so they will only just find other ways to get the money.
Is anyone still listening to Howard? Hmmmmmm……..I don’t think so.
In reality this is Howards means testing for drug crime punishment.
430 – You’re never going to convince anyone here with a long post like that.
There are many addictions that have overcome people.
What policies is Howard proposing to deal with people who are addicated to power and addicted to lying?
“It’s not right that people should have control of taxpayer money when they have been convicted of such offences.”
From Rattus Pistus?
Unbelievable!
Is this the sort of policy announcement that can magically swing an election?
I doubt it. Methinks the Rodent has used up everything in his bag of tricks.
I think a lot of people will sense the desperation and pure cynicism behind this sort of crap.
GP-if we should lock up drug addicts, doesnt that mean we should lock up Piers Ackerman for his cocaine habit? He’d be a popular boy in the slammer with his new friends.
That’s very close to spam, Amaranthus.
Arvo all, are we expecting a poll tomorrow? Newspoll/Galaxy/? Roy’s being awfully slow with his promised sunday polls.
Nobody feeds and houses themselves and supports a drug addiction on $320 a fortnight.
In fact, the only people likely to be injured by this, is someone trying to go straight.
Yes, dole payments are spent on the pokies, bookmakers, cigarettes and alcohol … but I thought the libs were the pro personal choice party?
Wasn’t last week’s national Newspoll released on Monday, rather than Tuesday?
420 new aussie:
Try opusdei.org/dclarke/ahawke
They must be somewhere, surely. Coalition bloggers.
“Maybe Morgan’s checking because the result’s too good for Labor to be easily believable.”
Yup their last effort of 62-38 risked their welfare payments
438
Howard Hater Says:
November 18th, 2007 at 4:13 pm
Is this the sort of policy announcement that can magically swing an election?
Actually I’ll be surprised if it’s the sort of policy announcement that’ll make the morning papers tomorrow (it’ll probably get a mention in the 6 o’clock news – all part of the “what the leaders got up to today story”)
Maybe no polls until Newspoll on Tuesday?
What happened to the Morgan marginal seats poll due out today?
444- I just did. Jeez, home page looks like its been done by some primary school kid on one of those school laptops we’ve been hearing about.
The headline in tomorrow’s papers will probably be Rudd’s answer to Rove’s question: “Who would you turn gay for?” LOL
444 Cleobassett- there’s a link from opus to the vatican. Actually, they’ve got a really nice website. Perhaps for those just back from Sunday School.
http://www.vatican.va/phome_en.htm
yeah it was. Its what im basing my assumption on
Rudd responds to the IPCC Report.
http://www.theage.com.au/news/federalelection2007economy/rudd-pledge-on-emissions/2007/11/18/1195321594035.html
No new announcement, but methinks more people will be worried about climate change than welfare for addicts.
Rack up another lie for Howard:
This election has become Lyathon for Howard.
PM mining promise:
Prime Minister John Howard says Western Australia’s mining boom will continue under a Coalition government.
Mr Howard stresses if Labor is elected it will mean the end of the prosperity currently experienced within the mining industry.
http://www2.skynews.com.au/news/article.aspx?id=201382
412@new aussie Ask why are people thinking the ALP can score 55% TPP when 53% is huge
Yes 53% would be a convincing win, but all the long term polling is pointing to a clear 55-45 result, the ALP have maintained a primary vote lead of around 10% all year.
The poll numbers have looked similar to the numbers seen at State level for 10 years, while the idea of a 7-8 percent swing may sound out there when you consider history it isn’t that far fetched.
Lets look back over the past few elections and I will use a Cricket anagly
In the 2001 and 2004 test the wicket favored the batman, with Howard able to score easily on a flat track with the ALP bowling short and wide of off-stump, come 2007 the pitch has a nice green covering with several cracks its been overcast and Rudd has bowled a nice spell, bowling with good line and length forcing Howard to play from the crease, Rudd now has the field up around the bat, Howards partners have been throwing their wickets away with poor shot selection and poor running between the wicket.
World won’t end tomorrow-Howard
Evidently, it won’t end until he quits mid-term so it really doesn’t matter. Let’s just ignore it and hope it goes away.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,22778836-12377,00.html
Coalition bloggers are few and far between, and most of them seem to be trolling with no real input to the debate. Not that they have anything real to contribute anyway, their man is acting like an octogenerian on acid.
That’s spam? Fair enough,I’ll just send a link next time.
I had thought it had relevance to the last week of the campaign, as being discussed here, given that one of the main lines of media emphasis is already on this issue and it has elicited statements from both Howard:
http://www.news.com.au/adelaidenow/story/0,22606,22778836-5005962,00.html
and Garrett:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/11/18/2093982.htm
But I guess, in the end, it’s the economy, stupid, so I’ll pipe down about relative trivialities.
Bit of perspective……….
Howard’s own words “6000 people”
So 6000 x $200 (dole amount?) x 52 weeks = $62.4 mill
Druggies $62 mill
AWB $300 mill
Rural Rorts $300
Visy $400 – $700 mill
Ponting has not enforced the follow on. Cleary Ponting is trying to help Rudd by making sure the test goes the full distance and soaks up people’s attention span.
BTW I have not seen a political ad whilst watching the Cricket – is there some wisdom that suggests it bad to interupt people while that are watching sport?
BMW, glad to see you’ve got the cricket on in the background as well!
John Howard: “God prefers Liberal Party policies!”.
And the Rodent expects to win, he says he’ll be spending next Sunday planning for his 5th term in office.
What a deluded old man! He ain’t going to take defeat well:
http://www.ozelection2007.info/forums/viewtopic.php?id=1912
On that oz report dio, Howard has fatally misread the alarm among the public for action on the issue. In this election, people appear to be voting for their kids: WorkChoices, Climate change, education, health. Howard’s attempts to connect everything to economic management doesnt seem to have worked. Heres hoping it doesnt!
The drugs wedge is not so much about Labor, but the Greens.
The Liberal Party bombarded ACT letter boxes with an Exclusive Brethren-style smear against the Greens this weekend, in a desperate attempt to save Garry Humphries now clearly perilous Senate seat.
They are going down the whole “Greens-want-to-legalise-every-drug” angle, to stop the doctors’ wives voting Green (and believe me, many are intending to do so, much of the Green vote this election will come from disaffected Liberals who can’t bring themselves to vote Labor 1).
It wont work in the ACT, but it may work elsewhere.
Re the drug wedge, if it was applied to alcohol abuse and criminality, the states would suffer revenue loss and lawyers doing legal aid would be out of a job.
In any case, how does little Johnny define criminality with drugs, a conviction for possession of one gram of pot? What about differing drug laws state to state? What about section 10 of the NSW Criminal Procedure Act, (and equivalents elsewhere) found guilty but no conviction recorded, will that trigger his nanny law?
Is he going to issue food stamps, rent certificates, petrol coupons from Centrelink? Employ an army of bureaucrats to oversee how the “convictees” buy anything?
It has to be the most hair brained idea he’s come up with since the NT intervention. Perhaps he should extend it to prostitution, another “social evil” which could trigger a repeat of this parliamentary line:
(Howard stays on as a backbencher and moves a private members Bill):
Howard: “What about my Prostitution Bill.”
Rudd: “Pay it!”
455 Diogenes. What an utterly stupid thing of Howard to say. It just reinforces in everyone’s minds that he is a sceptic on climate change.
Would you like to see political bull during the cricket, Albert?
Caroline
Maybe you’ve been lurking for weeks. If not it helps to have some background:
Economy…..SerfChoices…….Job…….Insecurity……..Poverty…… Quarantining …….VOTE LABOR.
Rattus Rattus….. USA USA USA
$weetie ….. Accounts clerk
The Mad Monk ….. Garbage Collector (Sorry guys, make sure he gets the worst job)
i’m gonna use my $100 free bet on a upset that d.blumel (alp) beats the useless A.somalay (lib) in fairfax.A huge margin to overcome but i sense a mood that the electorate have had enough of our do nothing member. That as well as the swing to lab & ruddy being a local as well it might just be time. If she wins i will have the biggest hangover since my bucks night (was only 3 weeks ago) took me a week to get over it.
378
Generic Person Says:
November 18th, 2007 at 3:37 pm
“Wage rises in and of themselves aren’t the problem, it’s wage rises from profitable industries transferred to unprofitable or less profitable industries that gets inflation out of control. That’s really the legacy of the unions.”
….
inflation is caused by excess aggregate demand. It is not caused by wages growth or union demands or businesses seeking higher prices. These things are consequences of inflation, not causes. Inflation – a rise in the general price level – can only occur if demand exceeds supply beyind the very short run.
What causes excess aggregate demand? Loose monetary policy, loose fiscal policy, external shocks….but not unions, who do have the ability to influence any of these macro factors.
BBD
‘Rudds response is to point it out as policy made in desperation and on the run. He believes the drugs problem needs addressing, but would want to make sure a plan that doesn’t put elderly at risk of increased crime as a result of increasingly desperate drug users having to turn to other means to supprt thier habbit.’
Or their hobbit.
Cricket should be an ideological free zone. Odd they didnt get sent in for another caning though
A couple of days ago on a now discontinued thread on this blog, someone raised a question as to how Bob Debus was going in his campaign in Macquarie.
I was at my local Katoomba ALP Branch meeting earlier this afternoon. The feedback there was that the vibes are very strong for Bob throughout the electorate, in the Mountains, in Lithgow, in Bathurst and even in the nominally unfriendly area around Oberon. One sour note was that around about 4 am this morning 100 or so Rudd/Debus signs between Springwood and Mt Victoria were torn down by persons unknown. Fell free to guess who were responsible.
The wicket is a flat track best to bowl last.
I see Rudd front’s up to the Press Club on Wednesday, and Howard get the incumbent’s advantage by going on Thursday.
From memory I can’t remember these from past elecitons. Any chance either of them will say anything interesting?
HH @ 461,
If Howard has said, “God prefers Liberal Party policies!”, then Elvis has left the building.
465 Grog-I think Ruddski can keep the momentum going using that “We won’t die tomorrow” gaffe for the rest of the week. Turnbull must be ready to throttle the Rodent. Combine climate change, which hasnt had much of a run, with the ongoing complaints about rorting the RPP and a clever answer to “Who would you turn gay for?” and Team Rodent wheels will keep spinning with no traction.
Re 49,
Nostradoofus Says:
Read ‘em and weep
……. the DT is making a very wise decision to reflect the views of their readership with all polls clearly stating that NSW is going to fall like a house of cards. Wouldn’t you rather have that then an editor that put his feelings above his journalisitc ethos and thus didn’t do his job ethically? I mean, I know that you probably don’t like the decision (seem to recall you are of the Liberal persuasion) but just to be fair to you, in the paper version of the DT (in case you couldn’t discern this from the website version), they give a big spread to Piers A. a few pages after the editorial and Piers is scathing of Labor as he always is and his article was bigger in length and breadth than the editorial. I think that they (if you saw the various parts of the paper for real today) are quite clearly still torn about endorsing Rudd in many parts of the hierarchy.
Has Howard announce how the Quaranteen will work? Food vouchers? Direct Payment of Rent? Has he consulted with Woolies?
Will the privacy act need to be amended? Or will Centrelink staff be increased to scan court reports?
Will compulsory Police Checks be put in place?
Or did he just lose a few more thousand votes?
Make no mistake readers!!
The drugs wedge is not about Labor, but the Greens! Looks like a lot of the respondents here have been wedged themselves, trotting out lines to “help” Rudd not get wedged on this.
It’s nothing to do with Rudd. This is firewall now, they’ve lost the House, they now just want to try and “save” the Senate from the Greens.
Don’t be fooled.
86 Observer,
Could this company – Snap Printing Dee Why – be a front for the EB?
GP – General Prickhead
Enterprise Bagining QUARANTINES wage rises from indutry to industry, sector to sector, even company to company – so you’re stupid.
Also, deflation is much more significant than inflation, in fact most people alive today on this planet have not experienced a depression. This can happen if a Government were to introduce a policy that cut actual wages, as in total take home pay – errr errr errr derrrr.
Lucky SerfChoices increases wages by 94% after all – that’s the evidence.
Grog at 308: Loved the Tip transcript. Talk about done like a kipper.
It’s easy Evan when you’ve got such great material to work with.
To quote John H*ward: “Hello!”
Wake up people! The EB and Liberals are going to run anti-drug smears against the Greens all this week. It’s their last disparate attempt to try and stop the Greens from getting the balance of power in the Senate.
I repeat this has nothing to do with ‘wedging’ Rudd or Labor. People here should know better than this!
WTF is Howard going on about now?
Apparently God likes Liberals
http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,20797,22778780-953,00.html
“I’m not suggesting that God is either Liberal or Labor,” Mr Howard said.
“He is neither.
“But I am suggesting that the influence of Christianity in such policies as families, individual responsibility … personal choice and free enterprise sit very comfortably with the values of my party.”
Sadly he didn’t consider that God could be female, or that it is more likely that God doesn’t exist than that God does exist. But anyway…
Spot on John Ryan. He’s also trying to drag a few FF voters with the religous angle.
Given up on the reps as I’d read it and trying to save the arse of what’s left of their Senate ticket chances. Out of the Reps and no influence in the Senate. Can “it” get any more desperate.
ALP Ahead 55.5% – 44.5% With One Week To Go – But Marginals Are Too Mixed To Call
http://www.roymorgan.com/news/polls/2007/4246/
John, sounds about right. Especially if theyve letterboxed the ACT with an anti-greens drugs flyer. Humphries has to go down, or they can block everything for over 6 months! And dont think they wont, the neocons are vindictive little children.
A person of genius above, can’t remember where, said Rudd should answer the Rove gay question tonight with Al Gore. This would be brilliant. It would clearly define him from the Rodent (Not going to die tomorrow) and this would be the main talking point for a few days. I hope one of his minders is listening in, perhaps Adam (who still hasn’t answered the reverse gay question).
They tried to run anti drug smears against the Greens in previous elections and I think people have gotten a bit wiser. In a large part thanks to the net and thanks to the fact that the Greens have gotten a lot of free advertising in the last year now that the climate change issue has gotten traction.
As for appealing to God, please, bring it on. It’ll be nice to see the religious nutters humiliated and shamed and written out of the public debate.
Blindoptimist 469
Dead right, and lets forget other causes of inflation: supply constraints causeed by a lazy government that had budget surpluses but still failed to invest adequately in technical training and infrastructure. There are lots of things Team Rodent has done to jack up inflation well beyond where it should have been.
In Wednesday’s speech Rudd will, amongst other things, speak about honesty in public administration and how, under Howard, standards have fallen to the level you’d expect in a third world back water. He’ll speak about eliminating tax payer funded advertising for party political purposes. He’ll raise a number of issues that are always there in the back ground irritating the average Joe Blow who now believes government business will never again be lifted to the fair and decent standards of the past.
To top it off Rudd will promise that the PMs principle home will be The Lodge in Canberra. He should go one step further and state that the the PMs residence on Sydney harbour will be opened to the public for 3 days per week (free admission) as an historic building and can then serve as a holiday camp for children in remote schools over the remainder of the week. Those schools can nominate for a three day stay (all expenses paid) for year 11 students who can use the building as a base camp for day excursions to historic Sydney locations.
On election ditties.
One for the liberals: Gun In Mouth Blues by Rollins Band
Here is dear old Henry’s thoughts on John Howard from a while ago.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8qSWbySu-ZY
Sorry William, more jocularity.
Well spotted furry one
Possum – I notice the date on that link is 19 November. Talk about polling that can predict the future!
Just a headline?
I’ve seen one political ad during the cricket – for Family First. A bit surprised neither major party has touched it – I imagine quite a bit of the cricket audience would consist of people who wouldn’t normally watch commercial television for anything other than sport.
I think you’re right John Ryan – good thing the Greens have a handy report to use:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/11/18/2094068.htm
And also, pity that FF have run such a fantastic campaign that has brought credit to all their supporters.
ShowsOn, it’s not a good idea to wedge your own party with religious/non-religious beliefs. No one has ever been able to put odds on God’s existence. You are also talking about a religion that’s based on the Bible, a text which clearly names God as a male. Anyhow, that’s just a red herring.
Still, Howard’s got me curious: what relationship does he find between free enterprise and Christianity?
The Austrlian National Council on Drugs states the bleeding obvious:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/11/18/2094097.htm?section=justin
GGrowler – you been quiet for a while. I’ve missed yourr posts.
500 Daniel B
votes in the senate election
Howard in Bennelong today – at a Korean church! He is rattled silly.
Possum @ 488,
With those figures, the Liberal hierarchy must be considering ……..
http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=4P_5EWjVNr4
I love the Liberal policy of “self reliance”. Still sounds like “I’m alright, bugger you” to my ears. And don’t ask me where in the bible it says that, but I’m sure there’s a passage that can be bent to fit.
vote 1: Atheism
Mad Cow 506
Spot on!!!
I look forward to the election being over and settling in to watch the post election blood baths. Its always more enjoyable to watch the internal bloodletting. And no doubt it will be Labor crowing and Liberal crying but really some of the posts are just pathetic, name calling etc by people like Observer and gay baiting from A and others this morning.
Sounds like we’ll have to bring religious banners as well as cricket bats next Saturday. It is not just insulting that JWH invokes God in the final week of the campaign, it is dangerous. It doesn’t matter what spin is put, he has tried to make it a campaign issue for conservative religious (generally Christian) voters. I’m so sick of these tactics of trying to turn people against eachother.
The only portent I see is one of a lightning bolt of realisation heading straight for one JWH, only diverting at the last milisecond to zap Hyancinth as well. Likely to be delivered next Saturday at around 8.15 pm ADST.
On centrebet the LNP has come in to $4.35 – I’m guessing a few found the $4.50-$5.00 too big to resist.
6 more sleeps until JWH “shocks” the life out of every ALP supporter.
“but really some of the posts are just pathetic”
ESJ – May I remind you, woof woof.
Thommo I wouldn’t be that shocked. Devastated, but not shocked.
ROTFL on todays wedges, which I can suggest many replies:
Drugs wedge:
Reply 1: how come a government that cares so much about our security has allowed a drugs problem to develop? Is Howard saying we should be tougher on all drug addicts as teh solution? Would he say that about the Bali nine?
Reply 2: Maybe better policy and spending on social programs and health/education in the first place would have meant a smaller problem.
Reply 3: Then again, we have had drugs and drug crime since the 60s. Does anyone actually have any evidence that it is worse now than 20 years ago?
God wedge:
Reply 1: its bad enough for Howard to think he can decide who and what is Australian and un-Australian, now he can decide who believes in God, or who God likes? A tad arrogant perhaps?
Is he switching teams?
Julie – who knows? I guess in the long run they just printed the junk, probably just some ’sucker’ trying to make a buck as a small business because his real job was axed. The pamphlet is probably not widespread, as it is blatant union bashing. Via PO Boxes in a wealthy suburb, obviously targetted at small business. The Liberals were only game to put Loony Luffs name on it, and a Canberra address for him, but selected a local printing company.
ruawake,
Whilst I havent engaged in personal abuse on this site I have reserved the right to respond to attacks on moi.
Just picking-up on something tht was said earlier on post eletion prospects for the Libs: “I would expect that the ‘uglies’ in NSW will move assert their influence. The Libs have pushed out the moderates to the point that their membership base has contracted to the ultra right…..so it’s going to be the dries vs the uglies fighting for control. Shades of Debnam in NSW.”
Too right. At State level the Libs have moved further to the right after each successive defeat. Rather than reaching out for the Petro Georgious of the world, it’s been a case of grabbing for the nearest David Clark.
They seem to be under the impression that filling the party with every nut-job extremist in sight will somehow improve their electoral chances.
This sort of stuff, if repeated Federally after the 24th, will probably keep them in opposition for a generation, particularly if Rudd is halfway competent.
As for New Aussie’s question at post 420: “Does anyone know……where coalition voters go to whip each other?”
Absolutely.
I would recommend Opus Dei: A choice hang-out for those keen on the gentle art of self-flagellation.
Knock three times and tell ‘em David sent ya.
SMH:
{Mr Howard said the policy would mean such offenders would not be able to spend their welfare money on hard drugs or indeed on drugs like tobacco and alcohol.}
Mmm, it’s gonna be a cashless and eftpos free society of druggies. Somehow I doubt they’d be cash free for long, seeing as a significant proportion of the convicted would work in the sex industry and others will soon become expert at the Break and Enter.
I agree BTW it’s aimed at the Greens, but it also has value as a wedge against Labor. (well, a piss-weak wedge at that).
Actually they’d have to legislate that the druggies couldn’t have a bank account nor credit cards. Alternatively have the banks set up with a welfare officer and a list of the druggies:?
“OK Mr X, we will now accompany you for your Attorney General sanctioned shopping day at Woolies, the Centrelink staff have refused to do this any more.”
Unworkable, to say the least.
Tim Costello might have something to say about that.
Yes you can. It more likely isn’t true because complex things come from simpler things, not the other way around.
I don’t think The Bible can be used as an resource for accurate data.
No idea.
Eddy
Yes “but really some of the posts are just pathetic”. Yours included.
SirEggo.. if you’re still about: to hark back to an earlier discussion (around the 250 mark on this thread) as to why the bookies give Labor overwhelming odds overall, but make Labor favorite only in a slight majority of individual seats.. the following may be of interest:
http://johnquiggin.com/index.php/archives/2007/11/17/guest-post-from-don-harding/
414
Big Blind Dave Says:
November 18th, 2007 at 3:54 pm
410
Rudds response is to point it out as policy made in desperation and on the run. He believes the drugs problem needs addressing, but would want to make sure a plan that doesn’t put elderly at risk of increased crime as a result of increasingly desperate drug users having to turn to other means to supprt thier habbit.
Yes,BBD, policy panic on the run!..Designed? to let deperate druggies Demonise pensioners.
Better to ignore it as the vapid posturings of a wing nut.
Libs move to the right on state level is crap in NSW.
There is nothing wrong with the State Libs that a thorough clean out of logs cant fix. The question is whether the state libs have the brains and nous to do it. They have an awfully large number of logs like Federal Labor. IMO the fat guy should have used the last six months to at least orchestrate one or two bi-elections by getting some of those logs out via jobs from the federal govt whilst he had the chance.
If I was Rudd and was asked who would I turn Gay for?
My answer would be!
That’s a tough one, but I think I have the best partner in the world so there is no one!
I’ve lived in the United States and it looks like Howard wants to take us in their direction. In the US they punish dysfunctional people with drug problems instead of helping them and then they wonder why their crime rates are so high.
TofK @ 464 bullseye; thanks Grog for Tip truncated link; Possum you are simply feral.
So if we ignore for a moment the Second Law of Thermodynamics and assume that what you’ve said is true, how does this disprove the existence of God?
That’s not what I said. Either Christianity is true or it isn’t. If it’s true, then God exists and is male. If it isn’t, God may or may not exist and may or may not be male. John Howard is taking the former view, so that’s the one we need to deal with. If Christianity is true, it needn’t point to the need for a Coalition government!
ESJ [Its always more enjoyable to watch the internal bloodletting. ]
LOL, very true, the post election fall outs are always the most interesting and humorous part of normally serious politics.
Sweet Caroline is just takin’ care of beardness, Adam.
Didn’t Tim Costello say that there was a moral choice to make on the basis of who would increase foreign aid to 0.5% (from memory)?
And that party is the Labor party?
hmmm, I ain’t sure about god (who/what/gender or flying spaghetti monster), but I’m sure many christians around Australia would take Tim’s word over the rodent’s any day.
Of course the party that felt comfortable leaking a story about Kelly Hoare’s sexual proclivities to get her to shut up and accept her knifing in Charlton would feel very comfortable trading in gay smears too!
Morgans up
http://www.roymorgan.com/news/polls/2007/4246/
Howard at a Korean church????
Oh yeah, explaining how he deported an Aussie born kid to Korea and changed his name, and then tried to repatriate him again subsequently to a Korean orphanage all the while his father was illegally imprisoned.
I hope it didn’t lose too much feeling in the translation!
ESJ
If you would care to check the facts it was Gary Nairn who publicised Kelly’s indiscretion with a ComCar driver.
Further on Howard and God, this is his quote from SMH:
“I’m not suggesting that God is either Liberal or Labor,” Mr Howard said.
“He is neither.
“But I am suggesting that the influence of Christianity in such policies as families, individual responsibility … personal choice and free enterprise sit very comfortably with the values of my party.”
So two lines of questions:
- Is Howard suggesting Liberal policies sit comfortably with Christianity, but not other religeons? Does Howard hate atheists?
- Does Christianity promote free enterprise? What about charity to the poor? Does a rich man no longer have trouble entering heaven? And does that mean that Howard will never embrace policies of equal rights for gays? Aren’t they damned by god?
Yes of course ruawake he had an enormous interest in doing so! What tosh ruawake.
Labor clearly does a great line in personal attacks.
You mean against the member for Sturt?
Thommo @ 511,
Here’s a special song for you to play on high rotation next Friday night.
Enjoy!
http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=39ESOKkU1ho
I cannot see where Howard thinks he’s going invoking God’s name in the campaign. I know that in the parish I was bought up in was much more good Samaritan than free enterprise.
Costello on the other hand could repent and try to emulate Zacchaeus.
Some where near the bottom of a barrel.
Scrapping at the last few atoms in fact.
ESJ
Read Hansard.
A check of the Sydney TV guide for next Saturday night reveals all the major free to air stations other than Ten plan a continuous coverage of the Federal election. If (as most of us suspect) Mr. Rudd becomes Australia’s twenty sixth prime minister, it will be a case of life imitating art. Ten are running the fifth episode of the Star Wars franchise which is very appropriately titled ‘The Empire Strikes Back’.
I put the Morgan Statet results into Antony’s calculator
I’m scratching my head to work out how they are saying the election can’t be called:
http://www.abc.net.au/elections/federal/2007/calculator/?swing=national&national=0&nsw=8.8&vic=4.8&qld=13.9&wa=-3.1&sa=6.6&tas=9.9&act=5&nt=5&retiringfactor=1
Help me out people, I’m confused. I know that Morgan hasn’t got the same rep, but I’m trying to work out how they are saying it is close…..
Man, The libs campaign is really disintegrating. In the last two weeks we have seen the campaign range from:
- Rights for Orang Utans
- Stick it up the druggies
- God loves the libs
- Global warming aint gonna kill ya
Howard just doesn’t get that vision thing now does he.
BMW 456 – Polls change from election to election (changing demographics, methodology etc), and can be all over the place, but history shows that they tend to settle to a 48-52 split at booth time. So 55 would be fairly extraordinary. You have to come at this by saying that the polls only indicate a basic intention either side of the 50% line – after that you have to look for empirical indicators separate from polls.
As usual its stuff like the politicians’ body language, the shift in editorials, rudd replacing latham, and special factors like candidate stuff-ups, betting markets, etc.
In 07, these certainly are agreeing with the ALP trend in the polls. So I’m thinking maybe 53%. That would be quite big enough by historical standards. But 55% no way.
Anyway, whatever the outcome, my advice is not to slash your wrists or go dancing up the street naked on Sunday.
Queensland: 13.9% swing to the ALP in the four key marginal seats surveyed. The swing required to lose each is Bonner 0.6%, Moreton 2.8%, Blair 5.7% and Longman 6.5%.
He He He.
Danny of catch the fire blamed the drought on Australia’s sinfulness and gods punishment for this. He was urging a national day of prayer for rain and a vote for the party that would please god so that rain would fall.
Funny enough, he was talking about voting for Howard and Costello, but another way of looking at it is the actions of Howard and co, who have been in as long as the drought. Remember drought broke last time when Hawkie was elected.
RE post 525
with the extreme right takeover of the libs there is indeed a problem
people in the liberal party have said the same thing
eg Mr Brogden….. if nsw politicians retire they will be replaced by those
owing loyalty to Mr Clarke….. witness the Mitchell preselection
These people are just too extreme !!!
Do you have a reference to Hansard?
I would v.surprised if Gary Nairn backgrounded the Tele on a story days after Combet was enthroned as the Lord of Charlton and Hoare was making noises about running as an independent. I think Sheahan summed up the facts nicely in the SMH last week.
Gee, that Morgan marginal seat polling seems to be horribly under polled.
“This latest telephone Morgan Poll on Federal voting intention was conducted on November 15-17, 2007, with an Australia-wide cross-section of 1,670 electors, including 1,025 electors in 22 key L-NP marginal seats.”
Would that mean that
(a) his overall Australia-wide sample was not random, and introduced bias into the results, and
(b) that the 95% confidence interval on state polling (assuming ~50 responses per electorate) is 6-8%, making almost all the marginal figures meaningless?
ShowsOn 521
Sorry I missed your post before posting mine (slow typist with cricket on in the background) but I agree with every word.
Really, if Howard goes down the US Republican religeous wedge path, he should be challenged by every journalist in the land. Just look where it leads. You can’t be for one exclusive religeous beleif and say you are also inclusive of all the rest. Its a lie.
There has been a long standing tradition of not pursuing the personal and religeous beliefs of individuals in Australian politics, but if Howard goes down this road he is fair game. If he supports Christianity, who does he oppose? Does he intend to enshrine Christian beliefs in legislation? Does that mean an end to legal abortion, contraception and legal homosexuality?
I trust, a la Bill Heffernan’s tactics, that it is still Ok to bear false witness against your neighbor, High Court judge or not. Or are we ppractising selective Christianity? Not suggesting Howard is a hypocrite.
One more question, if Howard is a Christian, and thinks that is part of his politics, does that mean he obeys the commandments? What about thou shalt not lie? Are non-core promises OK with Howard’s Christian god?
Australia 1/85, leading by 381
I hope next Saturday is a stinking hot 40 + degree day as a reminder to all voters that global warming MUST be taken seriously.
“Western Australia: 3.1% swing away from the ALP in the two key marginal seats surveyed. The swing required to lose each is Hasluck 1.9% and Stirling 2.1%.
In WA, the two key marginals of Hasluck and Stirling look set to be retained by the Liberal Party. While the ALP marginal seats of Swan and Cowan were not surveyed, if the swing is uniform, these seats could be lost to the Liberal Party.”
Honestly, I know most of the people of Perth are not that bright (I should know I live here) but are they really that stupid?
The fact he is rabbiting on about religion 120 hours from an election suggests he is just trying to appeal to the conservative part of the Liberal base.
He has completely given up trying to appeal to swinging voters.
537 – I’m sure Jesus Christ would have been impressed with Howard’s boat people policy – presumably rodent misread the key passage and thought it said the meek shall inherit the detention centres.
Morgan says that there is a 6.6% swing to Labor in SA, giving it Kingston & Makin, but it might not give them Wakefield.
Wakefield needs 0.7%.
What are they on!
To use a Biblical term: The good people of Australia are gonna smite Team Rodent on the 24th.
Forget about baseball and cricket bats. I predict there’ll be run on asses’ jawbones on ebay before the week is out.
Luckily, I already have mine.
Oh well, it worked for George, so Howard figures he’s now got nothing to lose, and he’s right, because he’s already lost it, in all senses.
(Howard and his imaginary friend will turn the tide on those evil socialists! Ha!)
ShowsOn 556
“He has completely given up trying to appeal to swinging voters.”
I’m sure you are right but even so, to me this path is so dangerous that it really ought to be stamped out hard. One of the big differences between Australia and the US was that traditionally Australia was not that religeous. Does Howard want to change that, making this an overtlly religeous land? He should be asked.
ShowsON,
I’ll bet you a $100 contribution to William and the upkeep of this blog if Newspoll is better than 53-47 for Labor on Tuesday? What do you say, should be easy pickings if you are that confident?
Any other takers?
Yes New Aussie 55-45 does seem out there and all year I have been expecting them to come in to 53-47 but just when this appears to happen something has happened sending the polls back to which they come.
Greetings all,
Have been up the bush for a week, sans broadband (or any other internet connection, for that matter – save the odd SMS when i climb a mountain …). Have had access to treeware but that is like looking at an inceberg … all tip, you know (although from what I gather there won’t be any left shortly …)
Anyway, would any fellow PB be kind enough to give me a dot point summary of the week since Monday last?
Ta muchly!
Re Howards’ “War on Drugs” ( a bit like that other roaring sucess, the War on Error!): so he’s going to have the government running its own football team?
CL:
Dot point: Game over (fiscal conservatism card played at Labor launching by spending a quarter of Howard’s pledges at his launch two days earlier).
Watching Channel 10 news here in Adelaide (for want of anything better to do) and the stupid interest rates under Labor ad showing Whitlam, Keating and Hawke just played twice in a row, back to back. So, is the new Liberal tactic to annoy people into voting for them on Saturday?! Sheesh.
There may be some sort of narrowing, after all Keating got within 3points of Howard in 1996. Didn’t mean much on the day.
552
Well spotted. Roy Morgan, hang your head in shame.
Making any comment on individual electorates is ridiculous as the MOE on each is 14%!!!!
After choosing 50 from each of the 22 marginal electorates, they must have chosen an average of 5(!!) from the other 127. Even averaged out the MOE on this additional 600 is 4%
The whole 1670 sample must be a very biassed sample skewed towards the heavily targetted marginals, making the 2% overall MOE meaningless.
NB: all Maths Stats teachers and lecturers: save the comments accompaying this survey. What a great exam question or assignment!
@565 well the AFL will seek a 17th licence should the Kangas stay put, the Libs could apply through the Regional Partnerships Program for a grant.
They might have enough MPs left to field a team – should be able to scrape together an AFL list of 40 players.
Ryano at 555, the MoE on the WA state results is at least 10%
554,
Long range forcast for Liverpool, NSW has 27-29 and no precip in sight ….. I am going straight away after breakfast and just get it out of the way.
Feeding Morgan into Antony’s machine I get 87 ALP to 61 LNP seats. Thats with the addition of 3.1% NT and status quo ACT. (and max 10% Qld instead of Morgan’s 13 something %)
Re 560,
Kirribilli Removals Says:
Maybe that is why his campaign has been so horrid, he borrowed best mate GB campaign strategists.
ESJ – your in fine form today!
Here in Forrest the signs are great, the poles are standing up well. (in my yard anyway) Had ‘em 4 weeks now – they don’t usually last more than a few nights.
No animus, just plenty of apathy me thinks. Thanks to Brian Mc @ 474. More
signage poll input anyone? It’s certainly different this time – go kevvviii !!!
i,ll take you on esj. as long as william agrees to confirm the money was paid and the bet is 53 or higher for lab. and 47 or lower for libs.
@540
Greeensborough Growler Says:
November 18th, 2007 at 5:32 pm
Thommo @ 511,
Here’s a special song for you to play on high rotation next Friday night.
Enjoy!
http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=39ESOKkU1ho
and for saturday night
http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=N-WGfrEj0pE
hopefully dan kelly will do a happier result one.
564 CL de Footscray ,
Libs campaign launch on Monday. Lands like a lead balloon, and an expensive one at that. Labor campaign launch on Wednesday. Goes over like a treat, spends less at his launch by 25% compared to Howard. Hawke, Whitlam and Keating there in unison to cheer him on. Abbott has another case of foot in mouth disease mid week regarding Work Choices. Gov. Auditor General department releases scathing report on government handling of a major grants funds type program. Re. last item – a real scandal brewing there. Potential problems with Newhouse in Wentworth (legal nomination?) put to rest when NSW govt. official said his resignation was in order. Don’t think I forgot anything.
ESJ
I hope that is a core-promise of yours to pay on Labour having 54+ 2PP. You can understand why I would ask. For William’s sake.
576 Libsrok
I said better than 53-47 for Labor on Newspoll and I’l stand by that. With respect 53 or better for Labor and 47 or better for Liberal doesnt make sense.
I am happy for William to confirm and validate if its acceptable to him.
Given 8 months of solid polls surely its an easy way of bleeding me of $100 and contributing to the Poll Bludger community service, surely?
What say you comrade?
All the marginal seat polls are going in different directions. Really, we can only rely on the nation-wide polls, which are all very consistent and looking good for Labor.
The message probably is that election night is going to be very exciting. There’s no expectation that, because one state swings, the next will, or because one marginal seat swings, the next will. And because the Qld, NT and WA results will come in later, no-one will be claiming victory or conceding defeat till very late at night.
Speaking of TV advertising tonight, there have been a few Labor ads on Channel 9 this evening during the cricket and the news. I think the “I won’t” Labor ad is pretty good.
And a bit of subliminal advertising on the cricket – they interviewed Brett Lee, who said he always put family first!
The following list are seats which if as I suspect may happen and that is next Saturday follows the past decade of state results, now this list includes some very safe seats which may explain why the marginal seat polling isn’t as impressive as the national TPP polling looks to be, and no I don’t expect the ALP to win all these seats
I will point out I have put no research into it so it should be seen as a rough overlay of federal and state results at the height of ALP’s state domominat, which means Carr 99, Bracks 02 etc.
Braddon, Bass, Deakin, McMillan, Corrangamitte, Lt Trobe, McEwen, Higgins, Dunkley, Goldstein, Casey, Parramatta, Lindsay, Edan Monaro, Bennenlong, Dobell, Paterson, Roberton, Hughes, Gilmore, Macarthur, Kingston, Wakefield, Makin, Stuart, Hasluck, Striling, Kalgoorlie, Canning, Pearce, Bonner, Moreton, Blair, Herbert, Longman, Petrie, Hinkler, Bowman, Dickson, Dawson, Leichhart, Wide Bay, Fairfax, McPherson, Moncrief
giving the ALP 105, extremely unlikely but the ALP only need half of them.
Howard now attempting to use God, this tells me that the cupboard is empty and wont work for Kevin Rudd is a committed Christan, I think those who see this as about the Senate are right for Australians don’t like their Polly’s inciting God.
sorry esj you are right . i meant to say 47 or less . my mistake
OK subject to William’s approval lock it in Libsrok.
Socrates are you game? Any other takers? I’ll check back in at 730 to finalise.
I think naming and shaming is sufficient for those who welch, subject to William’s OK of course?
ESJ
Do your own research, or get one of your slaves to do it. Nairn was the one who released ComCar info.
How else does a Deptmental enquiry become public.
Oh how surprising no Hansard reference after all ruawake.
Working on the premise that most about these parts are Kevin07 types, when it comes to election night would you prefer:
A: Early indications from the tally room that the Coalition, against all odds, is going to be returned to government. Followed by a virtual concession by one of the Labor commentators. Followed by shocks results from WA which seal a narrow Labor victory.
or
B: A clear victory by Labor by 15 seats, called early and clean by Anthony Green about 8.10pm, without any roller-coaster ride to add excitement and “memorability” to the night.
Can’t see God intervening to save the Liberal Party when he was apparently less than interested in responding to Howard’ prayers for rain (which was a much more worthwhile cause).
Kirribillii Removals
thankyou for your sanity. trust you will be outside el hacienda hyacynthe and rodent, sunday am 25 november and we shall play bad tracks like YOu’re moving out today” and “eve of destruction” AND “Bye,bye baby, baby bye bye”…..
and my favourite:
“turn on the lights” by coleen hewitt
and Psephos
well spotted…time roy got a new press release writer…same our journos aren’t so acute
and can anyone tell me what el rodente was doing baning on about “banan republics” today…something about latin american funds…ie, david murray of Future Fund fame is probably investing in them Peter
and by the way, didn’t Peter sell $3 billion of gold a few years ago when selling gold was in fashion
that should help us when the tsunami strikes
And did Paul Kelly, Barry Cassidy, Laurie Oakes, Mark Reilly, et al ask any questions about this issue…
me thinks the “economic credibility” question is for our august press gallery to answer….
The Channel 9, 6pm news had howard and Constello attacking Rudd for not mentioning the economy in his first five things.
The drugs policy got a mention, Rudd dissmissed it for the cr*p it is. (no mention of the Greens for those looking for a wedge…)
Second story was on the climate change report – unfortunately didn’t have Howard saying the world won’t end tomorrow.
The driver lodged an official complaint with the Department of Finance and Administration.
Keep looking ESJ
i’m up for it of course depending on william if he is not comfy with it i’ll happily agree to swap emails and be prepared to post them and have a private bet. it goes to a worthy cause anyway.
Sorry for the typo in 591. It’s “Costello”, though I do like the sound of Constello…
re post 583
would take out…… Higgins, Moncrief, Hinkler, Wide bay, pearce, Fairfax
add : Ryan, Flynn,Fisher, North Sydney , Solomon
ADD: calare & forrest …… INDEPENDENT
But basically you are talking about approx 40 extra seats that are possible
@ 510 Grog Says:
@ 126 Hr 42 Min Sportsbet offer ALP $1.20 Coalition $4.50
OK, I’m as much of a Kevvie cheerleader as the next one here, but something really puzzles me.
As far as I can work out, Rudd has matched the Howard-Abbott line on junk food advertising.
Surely to GOD — the Labor one — this would have been a fantastic election campaign policy. Howard and Abbott are clearly in the pocket of the big food companies, their pro-business policy is playing a role in giving tens of thousands of kids obesity, diabetes, and down the track, heart disease.
Why is it not Labor policy to ban junk food advertising, or at least restrict it more heavily? Is it a campaign donation thing, or what? Surely this would be hugely popular with anyone who has kids (it might put off that important demographic of multinational fast food company board directors, but hey…)
Bob Brown responds to the drug “wedge”
Greens leader Bob Brown says the Coalition’s plan targets users instead of drug traffickers.
“This seems to be [going to] cut them off, leave them isolated, leave them more desperate,” he said.
But Senator Brown has backed another part of the Coalition’s proposed drug crackdown, which would see extra employment assistance for those with substance abuse problems and a federal push for nationally consistent penalties for drug offences.
Had my $100 free bet at sportingbet on Maxine @ $2.40 and got $1.28 for $30.00 on Rudd.
Should be a good night Saturday and if the result is known early, I will enjoy the rest of the night watching the lead increase.
I won’t feel that it is an anti-climax waiting for WA to see just how big the win is.
El Rodente: Neoconservative Neo-Cartesian.
He wins, therefore God exists.
is the next newspoll Monday or Tuesday – or will it hold off till the end of the week?
http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,20797,22778780-953,00.html
“I’m not suggesting that God is either Liberal or Labor,” Mr Howard said.”
Yes you very clearly are.
597 – it’s the non-wedge thing I think – “Labor tries to tell people what to do by legislating against choice” – dross of course.
ESJ #562:
I’ll take you on for a $100 donation to PB so long as you promise to shut up until William confirms you’ve paid the $100. 53.00-47.00 ALP TPP = draw (and we both give William $20. ALP 53.01% TPP and you pay William $100.
604 – not the terms I offered. declined.
esj. are you declining my bet?
anyone keeping an eye on the ads tonight?
So now Rattus Rattus has tried to wedge God ……. remember Nietzsche !
Gott ist tot, and so’s the rodent.
Or maybe Nietzsche’s lovely aphorism is more appropriate:
When you stare into the abyss, the abyss also stares into you.
…one for the rodent, don’t you think?
ooooohhhhh – yeeeehhhhh!
Channel 10 Melb. showing many amny lib ads……..interest rates, unemployment of the young under Labor etc.
Where the hell are the ALP ads?
Channel 10 Melb. showing many many lib ads……..interest rates, unemployment of the young under Labor etc.
Where the hell are the ALP ads?
Kev 07 missed a good opportunity on Rove.When asked who he would turn gay for he should have said:
If something bad happened with global warming and there were three people left,
myself-Amanda Vanstone and Avuncular Joe then i would have to shag Joe.
Next election, Peter will offer him a tax cut.
588
Flash Says:
November 18th, 2007 at 6:36 pm
Working on the premise that most about these parts are Kevin07 types, when it comes to election night would you prefer:
A: Early indications from the tally room that the Coalition, against all odds, is going to be returned to government. Followed by a virtual concession by one of the Labor commentators. Followed by shocks results from WA which seal a narrow Labor victory.
or
B: A clear victory by Labor by 15 seats, called early and clean by Anthony Green about 8.10pm, without any roller-coaster ride to add excitement and “memorability” to the night.
A would be fun as the govt supporters would be out of control and then when the w.a results roll in, they would shit a brick.
However B would be even funner as there would not be any need for the w.a results and the conservative commentators may shut up (finally).
Re: comment 23:
Jason Koutsoukis is a gutsy journalist prepared to give credit where it’s due, even when it’s not a fashionable subject, and he fairly acknowledge poor performance – two examples;
1. Feature article which exposed poor performing Labor Party MPs during the 2006 ALP preselections.
2. Recent feature detailing the merits of the Democrats, in comparison with other Senators, notably the Greens.
Also, Jason acknowledges his (rare) mistakes and changed perspectives – an unusual phenonenon in Australian journalism.
Along with the excellent George Meglogenis and the outstanding Nick Xenophon, Greek-Australians are becoming prominant in Oz politiics, and that’s a good thing !
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